When you’re brand new at Brazilian Jiu Jitsu, you’ll often be given a lot of advice. Most of this advice will be great, but some not so much. So, what about the idea of not even trying submissions? This may sound crazy, but it can seriously improve your game, and fast.
The reason for this is fairly simple. As a white belt, you will naturally be a bit obsessed with submissions, so much so that it can actually harm your progress. Therefore, ignoring them can actually work wonders and enhance other areas of your game that may have otherwise been neglected. Here is how.
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The concept of position before submission
This is a commonly used phrase within the BJJ community. In short, the idea is to consolidate a dominant position before rushing into a submission. The reason for this is that if you rush things, you could jeopardize your entire roll’s progress. An example could be grabbing attacking a footlock from a top position. With poor control, you could end up sweeping yourself and getting passed.
Therefore, until you know the intricate details of footlocks, it may be best to learn this before falling back into one. Instead, it may be best to improve your position and work on your passing.
Ultimately, this will improve your entire game, as when you do get good at passing, you can then start to attack submissions from stabilized positions. This is when you have truly learnt about position before submission and can attack without the threat of losing everything.
Focusing too much on submissions can lead to tunnel vision
Imagine only ever going for submissions. This would not really work against skilled opponents as they’d telegraph your moves and defend them. Then you would be left with very few offensive threats. Instead, it’s best to focus on other areas too, such as sweeps and submissions.
A good way of thinking about this is looking at MMA fighters. If they get mount, they’re not too bothered about submissions. Of course, if they arise then they’ll take them. However, they are happy to hold mount and start punching. This is because they have earned the right by securing a dominant position. At this point in an MMA fight, no one really cares about submissions.
Too often with white belts, they will try to attack too quickly before establishing real control. Imagine having mount and quickly trying an ezekiel choke. This would be far less successful than slowly adding pressure to the opponent and closing their space from the top. Then, when they’re fully trapped you could start the ezekiel submission. In other words, it’s sometimes good to quickly attack surprise submissions, but controlled ones with no escape are better.
Why do white belts love submissions so much?
The answer to this is that submissions are fun, and they’re ultimately what BJJ is about. As stated though, most of the time the submission will come from a controlled attack where the hierarchy of positions has increased, rather than a gimmicky attack from anywhere.
For most people that have trained for a few years (and even some advanced white belts), they will get this concept. At some point, you’ll have submitted people so often that the adrenaline doesn’t really come anymore from tapping someone. Around this time, you’ll probably start seeing the bigger picture that there’s more to grappling than submissions.
However, for a white belt, submissions can be very important and a big deal. Imagine going weeks without submitting a single opponent, or hitting your first ever triangle choke. Therefore, you’re naturally going to be more desperate in trying to submit people. It’s only natural and makes sense. Having said this, if you’re able to disconnect from this way of thinking as a white belt then it can be massively beneficial.
So should I even try submissions as a white belt?
This is where the advice becomes less simplistic. Basically, you should still learn submissions as a white belt and go for them when they’re available. Like all parts of BJJ, this is a skill that needs to be developed. Here, you should work on timing, sharpness and an eye for opportunity.
At the same time, perhaps the most important aspect of BJJ is knowing when to attack, and when not to attack. This is something that you will naturally learn over time and as you improve, so will your judgement and decision-making skills.
In conclusion, it’s good to try submitting people and is incredibly fun. Nonetheless, there are also many other areas of BJJ such as defense, retention and passing which all need focusing on just as much and are arguably just as important. The point isn’t to avoid submissions altogether but is instead to realize that they’re not as important as you may originally think.
