What is a submission?

The two families

Chokes cut off blood to the brain or, less commonly, air to the lungs. Blood chokes such as the rear naked choke work in seconds and are the reason a much smaller person can end an exchange decisively.

Joint locks take a joint past its range in a direction it does not travel: armlocks at the elbow, shoulder locks, and leg locks at the knee and ankle. Each one isolates a single limb against the leverage of your whole body.

Why position comes first

A submission attempted from a bad position usually costs you the position. This is the origin of the sport's oldest piece of advice: position before submission. Control someone first, then finish; reaching for a finish before you own the position hands it back.

In practice this is why beginners are taught escapes and positional control long before they are taught anything flashy. Submissions are the consequence of good position, not a shortcut around it.

Tapping is the safety mechanism

You tap when you know the position is lost, ideally before it hurts. Your partner releases immediately, you reset, and nobody is injured. This is what makes it possible to practise chokes and joint locks several times a week for decades.

New people often resist tapping out of pride and get hurt for it. Experienced grapplers tap constantly and think nothing of it. Treat the tap as data about what you need to work on.

You do not learn finishes by rehearsing them

The obvious way to teach an armlock is to show the armlock and have people repeat it. The other way is to build the conditions that make an armlock available, put somebody in them, and tell them to bend the arm the way it does not bend. The second is how it is taught here, and it is the version that still holds up the moment your partner starts defending.

A submission is not really a sequence of steps. It is something that becomes available when a position gets good enough, and the skill is recognising the moment and taking it before it closes. That recognition cannot be rehearsed in isolation, because in isolation the moment is always there.

Coaching through constraints goes at it from the other side. You get a round that starts in a controlling position with the goal of keeping it, and the finish shows up on its own when your partner defends in the way that opens it. You learn the submission and the situation that produces it at the same time, which is the only form in which it is any use.

Common questions