Joe Rogan Breaks Down BJJ Choke Details at Onnit HQ
When we first posted this clip back in January 2017, it was a short one: Joe Rogan — a BJJ black belt under Jean Jacques Machado with decades of mat time behind him — walking a training partner…
Words: Jiu Jitsu Style
When we first posted this clip back in January 2017, it was a short one: Joe Rogan — a BJJ black belt under Jean Jacques Machado with decades of mat time behind him — walking a training partner through the fine print of a choke at Onnit HQ in Austin. No long lecture, no fanfare. Just a UFC commentator who happens to be one of Jiu Jitsu's most persistent students, geeking out on the details that separate a choke that's "basically on" from one that actually finishes.
Watch it: Joe Rogan rolling and showing choke details at Onnit HQ.
The details that make or break a BJJ choke
That's the part worth keeping nine years later. Every choke in BJJ lives or dies on inches most people skip past — the exact seam of the collar your fingers bite into, the angle your elbow drops to before you commit your hips, whether your grip kills both sides of the neck or just one. Rogan's appeal as a teacher was never that he invented anything; it was that he'd stop mid-roll and ask why a choke that looked identical to the one two feet away wasn't closing. That habit — chasing the detail instead of the shape — is still the difference between a blue belt who "knows" a rear naked choke and a black belt who finishes it against someone actively fighting to survive.
Why it still matters in 2026
Nothing about that lesson has aged. Watch Gordon Ryan lock a body triangle before he ever touches the collar, or Mikey Musumeci walk through the exact hand-fighting that turns a defended choke into a finished one, and it's the same instinct Rogan was demonstrating at Onnit HQ — details over decoration. The Ruotolo brothers scramble hard enough that it looks chaotic, but the finishing grip, when it lands, is always textbook. Ffion Davies has built a career on exactly this kind of precision under pressure. The tools have changed — BJJ Fanatics instructionals and slow-motion breakdowns on Instagram and YouTube now do a lot of the teaching Rogan used to do in a gym doorway — but the underlying truth hasn't: the choke isn't in the position, it's in the details layered on top of it.
The takeaway
Next time a choke stalls halfway there, don't reset and muscle it — check the details first. Is the grip actually crossing the windpipe or riding past it? Is the angle pulling the chin down or just squeezing the shoulder? Jiu Jitsu rewards the student who asks Rogan's question — why isn't this working yet — over the one who just grips harder. Small adjustments finish fights. That was true at Onnit HQ in 2017, and it's true on every BJJ mat in 2026.
See you on the mats.
Originally published in Jiu Jitsu Style, 12 January 2017. Refreshed for 2026.