Key Takeaways
- Goblin Grappling Dominic Dillon DVD review — a focused, two-part neck-attack instructional that pairs No-Gi ninja chokes, neck scissors and crucifix work with Gi lapel chokes, the twister and triangles.
- The course’s real pitch is chaining: what to attack next when the first choke gets defended, rather than a disconnected list of unusual finishes.
- Every attack is taught from a position you can hold — top half, back control, side control, the crucifix — not from a scramble you have to win first.
- It is a specialised set for intermediate-and-up grapplers, and several chapters (twister, neck scissors, cranks) carry real safety and ruleset questions.
- BJJ World Expert Rating: 8 out of 10.
DOWNLOAD HERE: Goblin Grappling Dominic Dillon DVD
Dominic Dillon has quietly built a reputation for choking people in ways most training partners don’t recognise until it’s too late. A Goblin’s Guide To Neck Attacks, his neck-focused follow-up to the broader Goblin Grappling series, strips away everything that isn’t an attack on the neck and organises the rest around a single promise: a map of where to go next when the first choke gets defended.
The test for any buyer isn’t whether the techniques look inventive — several plainly do — but whether that map holds up once a resisting opponent gets a hand in the way. The course is a digital instructional priced at $79, streamed or downloaded through the BJJ Fanatics app, with a 30-day refund window that closes as soon as the download begins.
It spans 22 chapters across two parts: Part 1 works the ninja choke, the neck scissors family and the crucifix without the Gi, while Part 2 shifts into the Gi for bow-and-arrow and lapel chokes, the IBJJF twister, the Japanese neck tie and a run of triangle variations. Whether that focused scope earns the price is the real question this review works through.
Chokes: When You Want Reliable
Chokes are the fastest finish in the sport, and almost every grappler wants more of them. What most instructionals deliver is a disconnected pile of finishes — a guillotine here, a darce there — with little guidance on what to do when a training partner sees the first attempt coming.
The neck-attack niche is crowded at the front-headlock and back-control level, and related coverage of the hangman noose, the assassin choke, and lapel chokes from everywhere all treat the choke as the destination. Dillon’s pitch is subtly different: the choke is the starting point, and the real lesson is the follow-up.
The positions the course leans on — top half, the back, side control and the crucifix — are all places a grappler can hold and hunt from, rather than scrambles that have to be won first. That framing is the most important thing to understand before buying. If a viewer already controls these positions and wants new, unusual ways to finish from them, this is squarely in their lane. If the gap in their game is getting to those positions in the first place, this course will not close it.
Who Is Dominic Dillon?
Dominic Dillon’s background is broader than the niche he teaches. He started on the mats at age four, introduced to martial arts by a father who taught aikido, and he has kept training ever since.
I have pretty much been on the mats my whole life!
– Dominic Dillon –
He holds black belts in kickboxing, Japanese Jiu-Jitsu, Karate and BJJ, and put those skills on the line in both MMA and K-1, earning high rankings on the UK competition scene. At Elements Martial Arts in Brighton he is listed as a first-degree Jiu-Jitsu black belt and coach, with 19 years of grappling experience, 17 years of teaching experience and a national championship at brown belt.
That blend of striking experience, traditional Jiu-Jitsu and years of coaching explains a lot about the material. Dillon’s whole approach is experimental — he created the Reverse Bulldog Choke in his garage gym during lockdown, tinkering with a scarf-hold neck crank after a training partner kept escaping the conventional finish.
That instinct to keep attacking a defended choke rather than reset is the exact through-line of this instructional, and it is the reason the earlier, broader Goblin Grappling release (a side-control and mount series built around pressure pins and that Reverse Bulldog Choke) should not be confused with this one.
Full Goblin Grappling Dominic Dillon DVD Review
This Goblin Grappling Dominic Dillon DVD is a distinctive, well-taught niche system held back by its own narrowness and a page that does not yet prove the material against live resistance.
Part 1 — Ninja Choke, Neck Scissors And The Crucifix (No-Gi)
The first volume runs through three No-Gi families: the ninja choke, the neck scissors and the crucifix choke. The ninja choke gets three entries — a false-frame setup, one from top half and a switch off a defended guillotine — which immediately establishes the course’s central idea: the ninja choke is not a standalone move but a place to go when a guillotine gets stuffed.
The neck scissors section, built around a basic scissor, a reverse scissor and my personal favorite – the spine adjuster, is the most unusual material in the course and the most obviously dangerous if applied with ego. The crucifix block then chains a single-arm rear-naked choke, a switch RNC, a leg choke and the sheartine, treating the crucifix as a control position from which several neck attacks can fire in sequence.
The honest reading is that Part 1 assumes you can already reach these spots. A false frame, top half, a guillotine grip and the crucifix are all entries that have to be earned, and Dillon spends his time on what to do once he is there. That is where the chaining promise lives, but it is also where a newer grappler will stall.
Part 2 — Lapel Chokes, Triangles And The Gi Crucifix (Gi)
Volume 2 adds the Gi and keeps the same structure. The underarm bow-and-arrow is taught from both the back and side control, followed by the hip-side lapel choke, the IBJJF twister and the Japanese neck tie. The back half of the part is a run of triangle-adjacent finishes — a “no arm” entry, a chin-strap option, a pant choke, the cross-collar choke and the assassin choke — that round out the set.
The Gi/No-Gi split is the product’s most under-advertised strength. The two parts mostly share positions rather than techniques, so the course reads as one chaining philosophy expressed in two wardrobes rather than two unrelated menus. Transferability only goes so far, though: the lapel and collar material is meaningless without the Gi, and the ninja choke and neck scissors are No-Gi-native. A grappler who trains one ruleset will use roughly half the course.
Chaining And Mixing Gi & No-Gi Chokes
Bringing this to the mats starts with the positions, not the finishes. The material only pays off for grapplers who can already hold top half, take the back or keep the crucifix, so the realistic first step is to slot two or three of these attacks into positions already in a viewer’s game rather than trying to build a new game around them.
The chaining concept is the piece worth stealing: drilling “attack, get defended, switch” loops — a stuffed guillotine into a ninja choke, a defended crucifix into a leg choke — is the habit the course is really selling.
Two caveats belong here. First, safety: the neck scissors, the twister, and any cranking finish deserve slow, controlled drilling with a partner who knows they are coming, because these are attacks that hurt when applied fast against resistance. Second, ruleset: the IBJJF twister is a brown-and-black-belt-only submission, and neck cranks are illegal in most sport Jiu-Jitsu rulesets. Anyone training for an IBJJF-style competition should treat this as a submission-grappling toolbox, not a points-season curriculum.
A Goblin’s Guide To Neck Attacks DVD LINK
Who Is This For?
This instructional suits intermediate-to-advanced grapplers — blue belt and up, realistically purple and above for the neck scissors and twister — who already win controlling positions and want unusual, aggressive neck finishes plus a coherent idea of how to chain them. It fits No-Gi and Gi players who want a neck-attack system, and especially those who compete under submission-friendly rulesets.
Who should skip it: white belts and anyone still building positional fundamentals; grapplers who need entries, escapes or guard development, because none of that is here; and competitors whose ruleset bans neck cranks or the twister. This is a specialised finishing system, not a general curriculum, and it is a poor first or second instructional.
Pros And Potential Drawbacks
Pros:
- A genuine system rather than a highlight reel — the “what comes next after the choke is defended” logic is threaded through every chapter.
- Genuinely unusual material: the neck scissors family, the sheartine, the Japanese neck tie and the ninja choke entries are not standard RNC-and-guillotine fare.
- A clean Gi/No-Gi split that still reads as one philosophy, with shared positions carrying across both parts.
- Attacks are anchored to holdable positions rather than scrambles, which suits a pressure-and-control game.
- Years of teaching show: entries are kept simple enough to drill, and the follow-up logic is explicit rather than implied.
Potential Drawbacks:
- Narrow scope — no entries, escapes, positional fundamentals or defence, so it assumes the control positions are already won.
- No on-page evidence of live sparring or competition footage, so pressure-testing and failure modes have to be taken on trust.
- Several chapters (neck scissors, twister, cranks) carry real safety risk and are illegal in many rulesets.
- Single-ruleset grapplers effectively pay $79 for half the course.
Strangle Like a Goblin
The Goblin Grappling Dominic Dillon DVD: A Goblin’s Guide To Neck Attacks does the thing it advertises: it treats the neck as a system and answers the “what next” question that most choke collections skip. For an experienced grappler who already holds the relevant positions and wants unusual, aggressive finishes that chain, it is a worthwhile specialist purchase.
Reviewed by: Ognen Dzabirski, BJJ black belt, full-time coach and gym owner. The views expressed by the author do not necessarily reflect the views of the publication
