At what point do you tap in a blood choke?

[dunc]

I'm a white belt. Of course I don't have perfect technique.

That doesn't mean I'm panicking. I am making a conscious effort in every technique I do. To the point where most of my coaching has been to stop overthinking.

I did the technique wrong. But I did so remembering advice I'd been given and trying my hardest to follow it.

This is how it goes and to be honest it doesn’t really change as you progress
You learn a technique, get some success with it, but at some point hit a wall where it doesn’t work so you start looking to remove the errors in your technique &/or closing down / anticipating the options for your opponent to counter

Apologies if my advice wasn’t helpful - please feel free to ignore (I’m just some guy on the internet)
The best bet is always to go to your teacher and say “I got arm barred when doing the upa escape you showed the other day, can you help me prevent that”
Although that probably negates the use of this forum

 

[skribs]

This is how it goes and to be honest it doesn’t really change as you progress
You learn a technique, get some success with it, but at some point hit a wall where it doesn’t work so you start looking to remove the errors in your technique &/or closing down / anticipating the options for your opponent to counter

Apologies if my advice wasn’t helpful - please feel free to ignore (I’m just some guy on the internet)
The best bet is always to go to your teacher and say “I got arm barred when doing the upa escape you showed the other day, can you help me prevent that”
Although that probably negates the use of this forum

I was more venting than looking for advice.

Or at the very least, looking for the social/cultural advice instead of technical advice.

 

[drop bear]

I'm a white belt. Of course I don't have perfect technique.

That doesn't mean I'm panicking. I am making a conscious effort in every technique I do. To the point where most of my coaching has been to stop overthinking.

I did the technique wrong. But I did so remembering advice I'd been given and trying my hardest to follow it.

The upa I was taught was to get them off of me. Against white and blue belts it has been good at getting me into top position, albeit in guard.

Not to say that it only works on those belts, but that my ability to execute only on those belts.

Does it work after the first try?

 

[skribs]

Does it work after the first try?

Yes. It's not a super great escape because I'm in their guard, but I at least get them off of me.

 

[Tigerwarrior]

One time I sparred a new black belt. He probably had the belt a few months. It was my first time rolling in a gi. Big mistake, I knew no offense or defense with the gi. So anyways here I am a newb who's wearing a gi because it looks cool. Anyways I get in his guard , first thing he grabs my collar, I feel a little pressure but keep fighting because I didn't think he had anything. Next thing you know I woke up laying on the floor with a warm fuzzy feeling in my head and feeling disoriented. He choked me out but didn't realize it so he kept applying pressure trying to get me to tap. My brother saw this and knew what was going on so when I was out he told the guy I was out and to let go of me, he didn't realize I was out because my face was against his gi material chest height from when I was trying to pass his guard. If my brother wasn't there I probably wouldn't be posting this. Lesson of the story: if you feel the technique tap, only fight it if it's not in, sometimes you might not think it's in but if your opponent is trying to apply max squeeze tap anyway, it's not worth risking over ego. In a self defense situation fight to the death, in sparring or competition do the smart thing. I've also had the opportunity to break someone's arm in competition but I refused to do it. He didn't realize how much danger he was in so I let go. Later in that same match I won by armbar and luckily that one was in deep enough he felt it and tapped and I didn't have to break anything. My story with the gi was a freak accident, but those things can happen. You got to watch out for yourself because you don't want to end up on the floor choked out or worse.

 

[Tony Dismukes]

I've come to realize that this guy is a nice guy, he's good at BJJ, and when he gives me advice on how to do something, it's usually pretty good. Especially because he and I have a similar height and body type.

However, he's not real good at giving criticism, and I filter a lot of it. For example, he'll criticize me for "telegraphing", and while it is true, it's the least of my problems. I need to be able to do the technique well enough in drills to not telegraph in sparring. I'm not there yet, and criticizing me for failing step 2 when I'm not done with step 1 doesn't make much sense to me.

Today, I tried an umpa/bridge escape, which had been shown to me by one of the black belts. The purple belt caught my arm and got me in an armbar. He was getting on my case about "panicking" and showed me the proper way to do an elbow escape to try and get a knee in.

I'm not saying I did the bridge escape correctly. I may have screwed it up, or done it at the wrong time, or too slow, or from the wrong specific situation, (or maybe I telegraphed it). I failed at it, so obviously I have plenty to learn. But he was getting on me about "panicking", when I what I did was a very deliberate move, even if it wasn't correct. And then he showed me a totally different move than the one I was trying to do.

It makes it frustrating, because I want to listen to his advice, but I feel I need to filter what he says to find out if it's helpful.

This is why teaching is a separate skill from doing and takes time to develop. A practitioner like your purple belt training partner may be able to tell you something you did wrong and show you an alternative. But if they don't have the same skill in teaching then they won't necessarily know why you did it wrong or what the best advice is that they can give you to avoid making that mistake in the future.

Assuming you were working from bottom of mount, the upa/bridge escape is one of the two most important escapes, along with the knee elbow escape that he showed you. Lots of high-level instructors will tell you that the bridge is the preferable escape route if you can get it. Knowing how to do the knee-elbow escape is also important, but it doesn't fix whatever the problem was with your bridge.

Here's a partial list of errors you might have made in your bridge attempt. (Odds are you made more than one of them.):

• Failed to trap your partner's ankle.
• Failed to trap your partner's arm
• Over extended your own arm. (If he arm-barred you, this is almost certainly on the list of mistakes you made)
• Incorrect body mechanics for the bridge
• Telegraphed your escape attempt
• Not setting up the technique
• Picked the wrong moment to attempt your technique, for example ...
• tried to bridge at a moment when your partner was more exposed for a different escape technique ...
• or failed to observe your partners weight distribution and tried to force the technique rather than picking a moment when they were vulnerable to the side you were trying to bridge towards
• Failed to consider what your partner would do when you attempted to bridge and how you would need to counter that reaction.

If I was rolling with a student and arm-barred them off their bridge attempt, I would first advise them on how to fix their arm position so they don't get submitted. Then I would follow up with whichever other mistake most contributed to the failure of their technique - did they telegraph their attempt? was it the wrong moment for a bridge? did they fail to control my arm and ankle? did they have the wrong body mechanics? Part of being a good teacher is figuring out which piece of advice will give the most bang for the buck, because the student can't absorb the info if you try to correct 6 things at once.

 

[skribs]

This is why teaching is a separate skill from doing and takes time to develop. A practitioner like your purple belt training partner may be able to tell you something you did wrong and show you an alternative. But if they don't have the same skill in teaching then they won't necessarily know why you did it wrong or what the best advice is that they can give you to avoid making that mistake in the future.

I do realize this, and I know that purple belts are the first belts where you're supposed to be taken seriously, so he's probably fairly new to this. I try to cut him some slack.

It was just extra frustrating because he wouldn't let me get a word in, just kept telling me that I was panicking.

Here's a partial list of errors you might have made in your bridge attempt. (Odds are you made more than one of them.):

I'm not betting against you on that.

• Over extended your own arm. (If he arm-barred you, this is almost certainly on the list of mistakes you made)

To be honest, now that I think of it, I think this is one of the least likely from the situation I was in, but a lot of the others played into it. Simple reason I don't think it was: I believe I was bumping with the left arm, and the right arm got caught.

I could be mistaken, I don't remember the specifics very well. I think he had a high mount and was attacking my right arm, when I bumped with the left (aiming to push him to the right).

• Failed to consider what your partner would do when you attempted to bridge and how you would need to counter that reaction.

To be perfectly honest, 99% of the time I'm rolling, I'm thinking one of two things:

• If I know a move to upgrade my position, I try that.
• If I don't know a move to upgrade my position, I just try and find some sort of grip and wait until my opponent changes position, and hope it resembles something I'm more familiar with.

For example, if I'm in top half guard, I'm focused entirely on getting my leg free.

It's only against brand new white belts that I have some sort of a plan that's more than one step ahead.