Submissions Don’t Come First. Control Does.
One of the founding principles of our Fargo Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu Class is control.
Not just control of a position… but control through every phase of a submission.
I always explain to my students that a submission in Jiu-Jitsu shouldn’t feel like you’re just trying to ‘catch’ something. It should feel like the natural end of a process.
By the time you apply the submission, you’ve already removed their ability to escape, defend, or counter in any meaningful way.
That’s very different from a lot of martial arts that also have submissions. In many of them the focus is just on hitting the move, control… and often safety be damned.
In Jiu-Jitsu the focus is on controlling the opponent so completely that the submission becomes the inevitable.
First priority is always control the position.
Then you isolate the limb or the neck.
Then you maintain that control as you apply the finish.
The submission is just the last step of a path you you began walking a mile back.
You can even see this philosophy reflected in the rules of competition. If someone rips a submission and doesn’t give their opponent a reasonable chance to tap, it’s a disqualification. That rule exists for safety, but it also reinforces an important idea: the goal isn’t just to crank a submission willy nilly… The goal is to demonstrate control over your opponent.
Real Jiu-Jitsu isn’t about scrambling for moves.
It’s about systematically controlling another human being until the outcome is unavoidable.
A fun game I like to play in Open Mat is to roll the entire round without submissions, and see how many positions I can transition between without losing control of my training partner.
Your submission success rate is directly connected to your ability to control position.
If you’re having a hard time finishing… instead of drilling the subs more, try working on your positional control… I bet youll see your submission success skyrocket! 
If you are interested in our Adult BJJ program for Beginners or Real Self Defense in Fargo Area, Contact us below and Try a Class for FREE!