[TheWaitingOne]

I have been training a little over 4 months (1 stripe white belt) and want to see if what I'm experiencing is the norm.

I rarely submit anyone who has been there longer. It seems that guys, even who have been there just 2 or 3 months longer than me, seem to have the upperhand. I play survival/defense until the timer expires, or until they submit me. I am referring to multi stripe white belts. More than once, I have gotten dominant side control on them, passed their guard etc. But I can only count maybe 1 or 2 times, that I was actually able to pull off a submission.

Blue belts usually submit me quickly.

Against guys who have been there around the same time as me, I usually have a good roll with, with neither getting a submission most of the time.

Against new guys who are there for a tryout class or in the first few weeks, are the only ones I can consistenly submit . But even then, some of then i just can't submit because they either have a little wrestling experience, or they are strong.

thank you in advance

[Passenger]

Is it Normal for fresh white belts to get beat up? No Never .

The first 6 months of BJJ is usually you're a punching bag unless you train every day or have previous wrestling/judo experience.

[mofo]

Around the four month mark I realized that I was looking for submissions all the time when I started to roll. I was, like you, getting frustrated.

It was a new day when a purple belt told me that I needed to start rolling for position and just forget about going for submissions for awhile. Next time you roll, ask your training partner if they wouldn't mind just flow rolling, or rolling for position, no subs. If they look at you funny, punch them in the throat. I kid. Don't do that. Tell them you are focusing in on working on securing the positions and not too focused on subs yet. You have a few decades to get those down.

Once you stop rolling and stop constantly looking for the subs and instead focusing in on the positions, you will be amazed how much better your rolling will get. You will find yourself in positions where you WANT to apply the sub because it’s just right there in front of you. But you won’t pull the sub (because you told your partner that you are not rolling for subs, remember?). So you will learn to transition to another position where a different submission would be available. You will learn much more this way, in my humble opinion.

Remember, you are training and not competing when you spar.

Good luck.

[Ybot]

[B-eras]

+1 Mofo.

When I was white belt all the way to maybe around 3-4 stripes my goals where first, how long can i survive against higher belts, can I get position, how long can I hold position, can I transition to other position without loosing dominance, then I started worrying about the submissions. At that point I could basically search youtube or ask a partner for a good sub from a particular position and implement it and sub guys with it. Off course it wasn't 100% of the time but fairly reliably against same or lower belt.

This is because once you get confident you can reach a dominant position or favorite position and hold it , the angles for subs start showing up in your mind almost automatically.

[Forca77]

You seem to be focused on subs too much.

Show up, work on the fundamentals, surviving and posture.


I am about where you are in months and every time I get submitted I analyze why I got submitted and what I can do to clean up my defense.

The ability to survive and include those techniques in which you are able to do so is very important.

I look forward to be submitted because with it comes more knowledge of how and why it happened.

I dont keep tabs on how many people I sub, sweep, pass nor do I keep tabs on what color belt does the same to me.


I think centralizing your 4 months into who you can or cannot submit is wasteful.

Good luck with your journey.

[Rincewind]

People with more experience should be tapping you left right and center, otherwise there wouldn't be much point getting better would they?

I also wanna echo mofo's statements, it wasn't until I focused on getting the most dominant position I can before even looking for a sub that I started getting them.

[billykid]

I'm just over a year in. My game really started to improve when a higher belt told me that my plan should look something like this:

1: Learn how to survive in bad positions (back mount, mount, side control)
2: Learn how to escape from these positions.
3: Learn how to get into and maintain good positions.
4: Learn how to submit from these positions.

He also told me that Steps 1 and 2 are ALL I should focus on for at least the first year. This is not to say that I'm not learning guard passes, subs, etc, but rather, when rolling, steps 1 and 2 are my FOCUS. If I'm doing these, I'm progressing. A lot of the younger (I'm almost 40) white belts I train with know many submissions, but have no defensive skills. I find that my good defense and escapes give me the confidence to survive their attack and to begin working on my subs. Worst case scenario, I don't get the sub, but I can go back into survival and escape mode, and then work my way back from there.

My instructor has mentioned that I'm getting close to promotion, and our Academy doesn't do stripes, so that means my blue belt. This tells me that steps 1 and 2 are the solid foundation to build my future game on. Don't worry about who is subbing who. Become difficult to submit first.