We hope you’ve been enjoying our Jiu Jitsu Times Weekly Challenges thus far; the idea of them is to share some training methods that may be helpful and may be underutilized by the community at this point.
How did you like our most recent challenge? Did you find that it was difficult? Or did it work nicely with your existing game?
This week’s challenge is actually a training method that I’ve been playing with for a while now and have found to be greatly beneficial. The challenge is: Do not apply submissions.
For this week’s challenge, at least three times per training session, rather than applying your submission, simply hold it. By this I mean, acquire the necessary position to hit a submission, but do not force the tap. Allow your training partner to try to wriggle free, and as they do so, try to secure the position further.
This challenge can potentially help your game in ways you cannot even imagine.
For starters, the better you get at holding the submission, the more control you will have over your submissions which means more and better finishes at tournament. This also means that you will be a far better training partner for someone who may be injured, or in some other way at risk when rolling with you (smaller, weaker, etc.) This method will allow you to benefit from every single roll, even against people you normally walk through.
For example: when you go for your arm bar from mount simple get into the arm bar position holding the arm in such a way that you are applying no strain to the elbow. Then as the other person tries to free themselves, experiment with weight distribution, different grip sets, etc. Chances are as your submission position improves, they will simply tap. That’s okay… That means you have been able to be convincing enough with the position that the submission in that instance was unnecessary.
There’s the age old saying “position before submission”. In doing this exercise, you will push the boundaries of that concept. Also work on transitioning to other submissions should your training partner begin to legitimately free themselves of the initial position. The ability to flow to different submissions is what really makes this art beautiful and this is a great way to hone that skill.
What do you think of this week’s challenge? Have you ever tried this training technique? I first started doing this about a year ago, and have really benefitted from it, I hope you will too! Keep us updated about your progress in the comments on this article
