Marcelo Garcia is one of the most successful BJJ competitors of all time and he’s known for perfect mastery of a number of different techniques, including the North South Choke. He is the only person to win an ADCC world championship in the same weightclass on four separate occasions, and was inducted as a member of the inaugural class of the ADCC hall of fame as a result. His career as a competitor at the top spanned longer than most grapplers, dating all the way back to ADCC 2003 when he burst onto the scene and went from a complete unknown to a world champion.
He wasn’t just an incredible competitor at his own weight either, as Garcia was one of only handful of men under 77kg to find success in the absolute division too. While Marcelo Garcia definitely had the perfect North South choke, that was far from the only weapon in his arsenal and he used a variety of different attacks throughout his career. He’s also known for his incredible butterfly guard, and for his impressive use of the crucifix at a time when very few grapplers even really looked for the position at all.
It was his impressive performances in competition and the wide variety of techniques that he was able to execute perfectly that earned Garcia the reputation as one of the most exciting competitors of all time. To many, he’s still considered the greatest grappler of all time and is definitely among them at the very least. In fact, he’s still able to keep up with the top competitors of the current generation as well and still trains hard alongside some of the best grapplers around even though he no longer competes.
The footage of Marcelo Garcia demonstrating how to perfect the North South Choke was uploaded to the official YouTube channel of Bernardo Faria:
