E185 | Pressure, Dilemmas, and the Art of the "Cook" in BJJ

Episode Transcript

0:00 Welcome to Tapped In. My name is David Figuero-Martinez of DFM Coaching and today we're going to be discussing clinical submission hunting. Uh one of the things that I sometimes get asked is how do you set up submissions? How do you hunt them? How do you pursue them? What is your mindset? Uh what what kind of things are you considering? And really I looking back, for the most part, I currently submit from top. And that wasn't always the case. Uh there were times when I would try to submit from bottom, especially with like bottom half Kimuras and stuff like that.

0:33 At 45, I don't know if this is because of age or a shift in my mindset to be just be more more strategic, I do not try to submit from bottom. I just don't. And some people will argue, "Well, that's what the guard is for," and whatnot. Completely agree. I do have some submissions from bottom that I will pursue from time to time. They're not high on my list. When I'm on bottom, I'm looking to threaten you with submissions that will cause you to pause or give me space that I need, but I'm—it's not really my focus. I I use the guard and I use the bottom to reverse the position or sweep.

1:12 And that's my focal point now and, again, I don't know if that's because I'm now 45 and I'm maybe I'm trying to be more effective or efficient. I'm not quite sure. I haven't really thought it out. But with that being said, the majority, vast majority of my submissions come from top. Vast majority of my submissions come from uh probably mount, if I'm going to say anything. Some mount, then followed with the back, and then side control.

1:46 I I approach submissions with that whole cadence or that whole saying of position over submission, that didn't make any fucking sense to me when I was younger. Didn't make any sense to me at one point considering we were submitting from the bottom, or trying to. And it's something that I now kind of understand more. And I will sometimes say to people, and it feels like a full circle moment for me, I used to hear that all the time and I'd be like, "Yeah, but I can submit from bottom." And now being my age, trying to be more efficient, trying to push—punish people with weight and body pressure and whatnot, I wholeheartedly subscribe to the position to the—the saying of position over submission.

2:30 I don't want to give up the position. I don't want to be reversed. I don't want to go from mount to the guard. I don't want to— I don't want to lose the position at all. I don't even want to lose a segment of the position. I want everything in place before I even start attacking. I want you to be uncomfortable. I want you to carry my weight. I want you to have been gassed by the time I get to the submission. So if we're talking like right now, I'm a big kick of um I'm really focused on getting armbars from mount. It's been what I've been teaching, it's what I'm kind of focused on again. Mount or the back, really, is my two favorite positions.

3:14 And I will set you up with weight. I will tire you out with trying to isolate an arm. I may have been able to isolate it minutes early, but I will cook you and forcing you to fight in protecting the arm that I could have had. Because getting to the position for the submission doesn't matter as much to me if you're if you're fresh. I want to cook you. I want to make you hate the experience of having to defend over and over, or having to defend for long periods of time.

3:57 So let's say I isolate an arm and maybe I isolate both, but I'm in mount. You're going to feel my weight the entire time. You're going to feel me isolating that arm for a bit. I don't isolate it right away. I want you to just burn yourself out. I also want you to not breathe evenly, so I'm applying a lot of pressure. When I get to S-mount, one of my favorite positions, I'm going to murder you with weight. You're going to hate that position. And I'm going to sit there for a bit, forcing you to get cooked and to use your gas tank, and to have the mental pressure and the mental exhaustion of having to sit there knowing what's coming next and not being able to to defend it. That's really what I'm going for.

4:42 So we can talk about, "Yeah, I I like the submission, I like setting up and finishing," and we could talk about finishing or trying to finish a submission within the first minute or two that you're in that position. Or we can talk about let's see how you do with my weight on you for two minutes. Let's see. Yeah, I could have broken this armbar defense grip that you have a minute and a half ago. But let's see how you do if I sit here and I give you honest feedback that that that that shows that I want to break the grip so you have to defend it, you have to respond to it. Really, I'm just letting you work. That's a—that's a level to the game that I picked up later in my Jiu-Jitsu career.

5:28 Because for me, when I was coming up, it was like if I get the sub, I get the sub. I don't care how much energy or or effort I got to get into it. If I can get that sub within right away, I'm happy because I got the sub. But there's a cherry on top or an extra kudos or style points when you could get the sub and they practically give it to you because they're exhausted. So start considering that.

5:51 I'm also playing a dilemma game when I'm setting up submissions. I have a submission, let's say I'm doing, again, I'm in mount, I'm S-mount, for example. I can take the back, choke you from there. I have a few chokes from S-mount. I have the armbar, I have a switch where I can go to the opposite arm and armbar you there, I have various responses to things where I can slide into an omoplata, I could—you know what I mean? Where the submissions that I'm hunting are together.

6:32 A a really good one that I like is going for the Americana. They defend a certain way and then I lead into the armbar. This is where we create dilemmas, where we're making situations where I don't have just one end route. I have—it's like funneling someone into an alley in which you and your friends are in, and you get to to stack the odds against the the opponent. They don't have any friends in that alley. Maybe they have one or two, hypothetically. But I just brought them into an alley that I'm familiar with, that I'm really good at, and that I have multiple friends, more friends than they have. And my friends understand the layout of this alley better than they do. And my friends understand what's going to happen better than they know how to defend, because I set the traps.

7:25 So when when you're going hunting for these submissions, they cannot be one-offs. You can win that way, but that's blue belt thinking. When you get up to purple, brown, and then black, you're thinking multiple steps with multiple threats. It's the same thing that you do when you play chess. You have the direct attacks. I move my queen to a spot, it checks or it threatens uh the king or another position or another piece from the opponent, and they have the choice of moving.

8:04 Now, the other thing is I threaten with attack, and let's say I fork, if you're a chess player. I fork with my knight, meaning the knight is attacking two positions at once because of the movement that they do. That forces them to have a dilemma where they have to make a decision, and that decision is almost always in my favor because I've set up a dual attack where they now have to decide which of the two positions are you going to give me.

8:39 If I'm going, like today I taught uh double unders from mount, collect both arms. I can submit you far-side arm, and I can submit the near-side arm. I can squeeze both and not care which one you actually gets you to tap. But because I'm attacking both, it'll forces you to kind of choose one or the other. Similarly, let's say you're a triangle player and you get to the triangle, now you have the triangle in play, you have a armbar in play, you have omoplata in play, you have a fist choke in play, like you have different things that are all tied into that one thing, that one position and one attack. That create dilemmas.

9:22 So sometimes the dilemmas that I create funnel them further and further into the alley that doesn't have a—an exit. So then we just get deeper and deeper into the game. We switch from this position to that position, and you gave it to me because you thought it was an escape. Well, now I'm addressing—I'm getting further, I'm like a boa constrictor, I'm getting further into the submission that I want, all because I understood the path that you can take. Uh so, isolate the mechanics, isolate the limbs you want to take, isolate the escape routes that they can potentially take, and then just be very strategic about all of your movements.

10:09 And this isn't an episode that's covering specifics, hey you do this and you do that, but just think of the game in a like you're setting up a kill zone like I mentioned the alley. There are only so many escape routes in an alley. I'm funneling you into the alley that I'm familiar with. And the alley that I'm familiar with is, in my case currently, armbar from mount. I isolated the arm, we're getting further into that alley. I could submit head and arm choke, I can submit Americana, I can do Americana with wrist lock, hope a couple things from there. Maybe you respond, I take the Americana and switch it over to an armbar. Now we're in S-mount. You might clasp your hands, I drop my weight. I'm getting further into this game, I'm getting further into what it is that I want and the end goal.

11:00 You might bridge, I throw the leg over. So whether I maintain top position or you roll me over, I'm still catching this armbar. That's what I want to start thinking of. I want to start thinking of funneling people into positions that they don't like, that you're more familiar with. Applying top pressure, hip pressure, making them breathe hard, making them not breathe fully, and then start attacking those limbs. And attacking those limbs slowly. Don't rush it because if you're top position, you have the weight, you have the gravity, you have the pressure. And the slower you do this, the more control you're going to have, the less windows you're going to have for them to escape.

11:42 And then you get to dominate in a way that, to be honest with you, is kind of fun. It's really fun. You're playing the micro-transitions and then seeing where they go and then apply more pressure, taking away space, taking away options, and then ultimately getting that submission. And the best submissions that you can get, and I get some people will argue a submission is a submission, I get it, the best submissions that I love getting are the ones that I knew were going to happen five and six spaces or five and six choices earlier. When I can get you to especially when you know it's coming. There's a psychological advantage to that that just really wears on people when they know, "Oh fuck, I'm I'm in S-mount. I'm I'm—I need to get out of here because I know the armbar is coming next." And then they defend the position and then they defend the grips and they change the grips, and they just keep funneling themselves deeper and deeper. And there's a mental exhaustion that happens and a concern that happens and a fuck, this is happening, I knew it was going to happen, and he's still here. He's still doing the thing that I knew was going to happen.