Why it's called the gogoplata
“Gogó”, in Brazilian Portuguese, is the Adam's apple. The rest of the word is a piece broken off another word — and it does not mean what everybody thinks.
BJJ Square · Updated on 08/11/2026
The name is descriptive and compound. Gogó is the Adam's apple, the throat: the exact spot the shin arrives at. “-plata” is borrowed from omoplata. Put together they mean “that thing there, but on the throat”.
The suffix that means nothing
In *omoplata* “-plata” is not a word: it is the end of shoulder blade. Somebody detached it and reused it, and in the slang it became a way of saying “a submission from that family”. Hence gogoplata, baratoplata, tarikoplata, marceloplata, locoplata.
Note Anyone translating “-plata” as “arm lock” — and it happens to authoritative sources too — is repeating an error. *Plata* on its own, in Spanish, means silver, and has nothing to do with joint locks.
In judo it existed, with a better name
It is called kakato-jime: “heel choke”. Mikonosuke Kawaishi codified it in his *My Method of Judo*, and a related technique — *hasami-jime* — is demonstrated by Kyuzo Mifune in the film *The Essence of Judo*.
A book and a period film: it is the best documented part of this whole story, and the only one where no guesswork is needed.
The Japanese name points to the heel; in the version you see today the pressure more often comes from the shin. They are two gradations of the same idea — sliding a leg between your own body and the opponent's throat — and the fact that two disciplines got there separately says something about how inevitable it was.
Who claims what
Nino Schembri says he invented the gogoplata and showed it to Renzo Gracie around 2000, then used it in competition in São Paulo. In the same interview he accuses Eddie Bravo of taking his positions in order to put names on them.
It is a direct statement and should be reported as such. But Kawaishi's *kakato-jime*, which belongs to the last century, makes it hard to talk about invention: more likely this is a rediscovery, which in jiu-jitsu has happened dozens of times.
What we do not know
- Who coined the word “gogoplata”. No source says, and nobody claims it.
- Which was the first one in competition. Two dates circulate for MMA — 1997 and 2005 — reported by a single source and not confirmed elsewhere.
The other words you will hear at the gym, explained one by one: BJJ glossary.
Frequently asked questions
- What does gogoplata mean?
- “Gogó” in Brazilian Portuguese is the Adam's apple, the throat. “-plata” is the final part of omoplata, reused as a suffix. The name points to where the hold works.
- Does the gogoplata exist in judo?
- Yes, under the name kakato-jime, “heel choke”, codified by Mikonosuke Kawaishi. A related technique is demonstrated by Kyuzo Mifune in the film The Essence of Judo.
- Who invented the gogoplata?
- Nino Schembri claims he invented it around 2000. The existence of kakato-jime in classical judo suggests a rediscovery rather than an invention, though.
- What has Eddie Bravo got to do with the gogoplata?
- He popularised the position and its locoplata variation in the 10th Planet system. Schembri argues that he did no more than put names on positions that already existed.
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