The Guillotine (both the arm-in and armless versions) is a classic technique that has existed in nearly every form of human grappling combat in every culture on earth. There is something very natural about our anatomy that makes this move something which even untrained people will attempt out of instinct.

Knowing how to avoid getting into guillotines, and knowing how to survive and escape one is one of the most important defenses that is taught to all new grapplers.

[For the purposes of this article, lets assume that striking is not allowed. If it is allowed, a knee to the groin followed by a duck under to the back is a very nice way to deal with this, but that is outside the scope of grappling.]

Lets look at when you are vulnerable to the guillotine:

Primarily, its this: Anytime your head is near their sternum or ribs and below their shoulder line, you are at risk for a guillotine.

So that is the first thing: Not putting yourself in positions where the guillotine can happen.

Situations and positions where the guillotine is likely to occur:

Head outside singles if your head is low.

Head outside doubles if your head is not glued tight to their ribs, or high up into the armpit.

Standing in front of your opponent if he has a strong collar tie and can break your posture with it.

The Wrestler's pass / Tozi pass (if you get your head get out of correct position).

Having a low posture in their closed or open guard (usually its the butterfly guard).

If they sit up while in your closed guard for a hip bump, if you react by going low to avoid the sweep, that is a great way to get guillotined.

So, try to stay very aware in those situations where you are always at risk for a potential guillotine. An ounce of prevention is better than a pound of the cure.

Lets look at what the defense structure is for the no-arm-in guillotine (the guillotine with the arm is different):

1. Defense 1 - Relieve the choke pressure: Always reach with your same side hand, get it on their forearm (the closer to their wrist you get, the better your leverage), and pull down as hard as you can to relieve the pressure. This is more important than stopping them from closing guard.

2. Defense 2 - Reach over the far shoulder: No matter if you are standing, or in their guard, you need to reach way over their shoulder with your free arm. When I say way over, I mean you reach over with full intent to reach all the way to their belt in the back. You probably won't get there, but that is what you should be trying for.

3. Defense 3 - Move your body to the opposite side: Once you have the pressure relieved, and you have reached over the shoulder, you can then start to look at getting past the legs and around to the opposide side (usually side control, but as we will see later, going all the way to north-south is also an excellent choice).

That is the basic structure, but lets look at specifics:

Standing guillotine defense: You execute defense 1 and 2 above immediately. If they try to lift you DO NOT wrap your legs around them. If you do, they can slam you down and potentially injure your spine. If they try to lift you, you put your shins on their thighs and use the over the shoulder arm to help hold you up. They cannot slam you to your back in that position. Once they realize they cannot slam you, you go to defense 3, which is to move around to the side (the opposide side your head is on) and take them to the ground in side control. YOUR #1 DEFENSE NEVER EVER STOPS, you execute this whole sequence and the entire time, you are pulling down on the wrist to relieve the pressure. The finish here is either the papercutter choke across the throat (as shown in this video), or going north south as shown in the next video (both work great, going NS probably works better in nogi).

Here is a great video for that:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gARA3_h0oIk

Ok lets look at what happens when they put on a guillotine in a closed guard or open/butterfly guard situation:

Guillotine defense in someone's guard: You still execute defense 1, then you do defense 2, but if they are on their back (closed guard) you will modify this by wrapping your arm around their head, instead of reaching down their back. You will put on a Von Flue choke with your shoulder and tripod your legs up to put immense pressure on their jaw/throat.

This will then allow you to start sitting to the correct side. Their guard will come open once you get far enough to the side, then you backstep and take side control, finishing with the same technique in the first video (papercutter choke to their throat to get them to release). Just like in the standing defense YOUR #1 DEFENSE NEVER EVER STOPS, you execute this whole sequence and the entire time, you are pulling down on the wrist to relieve the pressure.

The Von Flue choke is very dangerous from this tripod position, and if they don't respect it, they can end up with an unscheduled nap. This is so powerful that it can easily put someone out even in a demonstration setting, as Ryan Hall of recent fame on The Ultimate Fighter learned in a rather famous and hilarious video from a seminar he did with black belt Valerie Worthington:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ka-VfDAvQjI

Here is a great video which shows the basics of the guillotine defense from inside the closed guard:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yqo1HXi4q30

The arm-in guillotine from closed guard: This defense is different because you can't reach over their shoulder. You still do Defense 1, but then instead of reaching over the shoulder, you drive the arm that is stuck inside, down towards your knee, which also helps to relieve pressure. Once this is done, you still pressure to the side and backstep pass, but you can use the arm that is trapped in to post on his hip and help the pass (this also relieves pressure). Once you are on the correct side, you use your knee on their arm to help pry the trapped arm free, and from there the defense/escape is identical to a regular guillotine.

Here is a video on that:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KRSyXP6EmrU

Once you know the basics of when a guillotine can happen, and how to defend one, your grappling IQ goes up a lot, and these techniques should be learned and drilled a lot in the beginning of any submission grappler's career.