To tap early or not to tap early?

'Tap early' seems like a phrase that would be in jiu jitsu's holy text if one existed, and it's something I've been told many times before.
I understand the need to remind people to control their egos and not take rolling personally, and I also get the logic of playing it safe to avoid injuries but how do you practise fighting through adversity and surviving really tough spots if you tap early? I'm thinking of something like Tonon escaping Kron's armbar:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RD8Wck3GmkM

Do you drill these kinda things in situational sparring?
Is this something I'm gonna have a better feel for with more experience?
Do you always tap early?

Thanks for your input.

i find it kind of depends on the situation and partner you are rolling with

i think it is important to have a good sense of how deep you can let a sub attempt can get before you can no longer escape.

i would also mention that tapping too early denies training partners a change to really fine tune their control and ability to finish someone who is fully resisting.

while sometimes it is annoying to get an inexperienced grappler who doesn't know when to tap, when you do get them you know the sub was 100% legit (or that they are willing to get them arm broken before admitting defeat)

Tap early when you're just rolling and tap early when you're a white belt. Tap early when you're a white belt in competition too. No disrespect to anyone who's won worlds at white belt, but the world doesn't remember your white belt competition victory or loss. The white belt gold is not worth the injury.

But when you're a black belt on the biggest BJJ stage of the world, you can choose not to tap. Sometimes it works out for you. Vinny Mag escaped Werdum's armbar and won. Tonon escaped and lost. Jacare let Roger break his arm.

But when you're a higher belt, you're so used to being in those bad positions that you know your limits. You know if it's worth tapping early. Kevin Casey tapped to a heel hook from Keenan even though it wasn't 100% locked. He had a fight coming up. But when you're a black belt, you're in these situations enough to know if it's worth it.


Tap early is a good coach's advice for his students. Especially when you're just rolling and not competing. I've tapped a couple purple belts in my time. Not because I was better, but because they were wiser. They knew that it was smarter to tap to a little pressure than to maybe get injured. Especially since right after their tap, they could turn around and tap me 100000 times. Haha.

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Originally Posted by David Rosado

Tap early when you're just rolling and tap early when you're a white belt. Tap early when you're a white belt in competition too. No disrespect to anyone who's won worlds at white belt, but the world doesn't remember your white belt competition victory or loss. The white belt gold is not worth the injury.

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Hey Hey I resemble that remark

I agree with you, once I heard how Garry trains, I'm starting to mess with how deep I'll let subs go. Obviously my extremeties are in my partners hands, but I trust everyone at the gym to not break my arm too quickly :) However I'll still tap if I can't get out

It's not about whether or not the tournament "matters". Whether it's a white belt comp or black.

The difference is the amount of time you've put in feeling the intricacies and the small details that all need to be in place for you to know it's over. It's the same as anything else, as you get more and more used to being put in an arm bar, you go longer and longer without tapping. Not because you are allowing yourself to get closer and closer to the point of tapping, but because you are getting better and better at relieving the pressure your opponent is trying to increase. You slowly start learning if you turn your hand this way it relieves pressure, if you raise your shoulder of the mat, if you roll with him etc etc. You constantly are getting a better feel of the small details of escaping and relieving pressure. Just as your opponent is learning the small details of finishing and creating pressure, you're learning the small details of not just escaping, but relieving pressure while still caught in the hold. You will increasingly get better at buying yourself time and understanding when your time is up and you have to tap.

So it's not about "tapping early" or waiting to the last second. You can argue gary tonon still taps early to armbars. He just has exponentially increased the difficulty in getting him to that point and he knows when there is a chance to recover and when there isn't.

Always tap early. Just start learning how to recognize when you're caught and when you can still relieve pressure.

I tap early to purples, browns, and black belts. I tap late to blues and white belts. LOL ...but seriously, who doesn't do that sometimes...

Or be like Vinny around 1:18 secs. YIKES.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lk0G3NV9xaA#t=75

I tap early to things that can break me and I hold out on things that make me sleep. I PAY to train Jiu Jitsu, I get PAID to work. I need healthy limbs to get paid. My babies depend on me to tap early damnit!

I think it also depends on who you are rolling with and what submission it is. For example there is a guy at the gym I sometimes train at, mma fighter, and pretty much a trained sprawl and brawler. and he only knows retard strength, and any time you let him get anything he will crank ti right away, which is why I dont roll with him anymore. Anyway when i did roll with him , I knew to tap quickly. On the other hand one of the guys i train with now, I have never tapped to him. he gets me in some tight tight chokes but I trust him to not go crazy and the same time he gets me in chokes which I feel super super comfortable defending.

While there are defninitely other facets of tapping at the right time, I think the opponent and type of submission are two of the main things that guide me to when I will tap.

I think ben hit it the nail on the head though. When you train the defense, you might be caught in a submission but the safe zone is a lot bigger. once the person is put in their danger zone, thats when the whole tapping early and tapping late occurs I think. and its subjective and people make mistakes all the time.

you could take a view of you can only tap on time or tap late. tapping is to stop injury so any tap that stopped you from getting injured is a good tap. if you think you could have gone for longer then why did you tap?

I just wait for you to hurry up and pop it so have the flexibility to get out of your pussy ass arm lock and continue beating yo bitch ass like I was clearly doing before you interrupted me with that weak ass shit. Sukka.

I can't compare myself to Garry Tonon...or anyone near that level. To me it's just being in those positions 1000 times versus 100 times and really knowing your body.

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Originally Posted by Ben Eddy

It's not about whether or not the tournament "matters". Whether it's a white belt comp or black.

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I get your point and I made that point too. But Jacare knew he wasn't getting out of that armbar and let Roger break his arm. He was not gonna tap. Vinny Mag pretty much said he wasn't gonna tap. The importance of the competition plays a role in these guys decision to tap or hold out a bit longer....or just let it break.

In my opinion it's all about knowing the moves and knowing your body. If I am caught in a submission that i'm very familiar with it'll be harder to finish me with it, as I know what it takes to finish that submission and where I should be defending/moving/etc. If I am caught in a completely unfamiliar submission and all I know is that it hurts like fuck and it's getting worse, i'll tap early before I find out how bad it can get.

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Originally Posted by Isaac Atley

I think it also depends on who you are rolling with and what submission it is. For example there is a guy at the gym I sometimes train at, mma fighter, and pretty much a trained sprawl and brawler. and he only knows retard strength, and any time you let him get anything he will crank ti right away, which is why I dont roll with him anymore. Anyway when i did roll with him , I knew to tap quickly. On the other hand one of the guys i train with now, I have never tapped to him. he gets me in some tight tight chokes but I trust him to not go crazy and the same time he gets me in chokes which I feel super super comfortable defending.

While there are defninitely other facets of tapping at the right time, I think the opponent and type of submission are two of the main things that guide me to when I will tap.

I think ben hit it the nail on the head though. When you train the defense, you might be caught in a submission but the safe zone is a lot bigger. once the person is put in their danger zone, thats when the whole tapping early and tapping late occurs I think. and its subjective and people make mistakes all the time.

you could take a view of you can only tap on time or tap late. tapping is to stop injury so any tap that stopped you from getting injured is a good tap. if you think you could have gone for longer then why did you tap?

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Sounds familiar, you're like a younger, less bald, less hairy Brian Ebersole.

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Originally Posted by Chris Ludington

I tap early to things that can break me and I hold out on things that make me sleep. I PAY to train Jiu Jitsu, I get PAID to work. I need healthy limbs to get paid. My babies depend on me to tap early damnit!

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This...

Having damaged a shoulder once I tap early to kimuras on that arm... But I'll wait until the room starts fading to gray before tapping to a choke...

I figure tap early in the laboratory for sure. (When training at your home club)
Tournaments are a different animal because of adrenaline.
Adrenaline can get you through some pretty aggressively bad spots, but it can also result in dislocations etc.
I have a bad left shoulder. The minute a guy sinks a Kimura grip and I know I can't defend it, I verbally tap. But that is because my shoulder is in bad shape. If they catch me in a triangle, I will struggle and resist and try to weasle out of it right up until things are starting to fade to black.

I rolled a guy in the last tournament I competed in, and got him locked up in electric chair twice. He refused to tap, based on adrenaline, and I lost on points.

The guy was all pissed off and shooting me dirty looks after our match because "I hurt his leg". Fuck him. He should have tapped. He robbed me of a legit sub, because of adrenaline and stubbornness, so I have no remorse for his injury BECAUSE once I had the "fit" for the sub (He was locked in), I knew he was not escaping and I put the pressure on slowly and in a controlled fashion giving him LOTS of time to submit. And he wouldn't.

Since that tourney I have been focusing on blood chokes.

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Originally Posted by Kurzy

Since that tourney I have been focusing on blood chokes.

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Chokes? You should be focusing on points, Kurzy! If you catch I guy with a sub, he can say it is a fluke. If you beat him on points, then he can't argue your domination. Therefore, always win on points.

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Originally Posted by Pan

'Tap early' seems like a phrase that would be in jiu jitsu's holy text if one existed, and it's something I've been told many times before.
I understand the need to remind people to control their egos and not take rolling personally, and I also get the logic of playing it safe to avoid injuries but how do you practise fighting through adversity and surviving really tough spots if you tap early? I'm thinking of something like Tonon escaping Kron's armbar:

Do you drill these kinda things in situational sparring?
Is this something I'm gonna have a better feel for with more experience?
Do you always tap early?

Thanks for your input.

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You'll get a better feel with more experience. With joint locks I always tap pretty early. I'd never do what Tonon did there outside of an event like ADCC or a paid MMA fight. With chokes it's a little different, and you can resist a lot of chokes for longer than you think. Some people think tapping early means as soon as you feel any pressure, and that can be frustrating as the person doing to move, because you want to be able to actually put some pressure on a choke or get some extension on an armbar. But then on that armbar example, in a competition it might be smart to tap as soon as your grip breaks, because they're going hard and if you wait until you feel pain your arm might already be getting injured.

I usually try to ride out chokes longer as a rule. And sadly I do probably fight off joint locks when I get caught by lower belts for longer than I should, but I still always tap before I get hurt.

Leglocks are tricky too because heel hooks and even sometimes toe holds don't always hurt very much, and the damage can even happen before you feel any pain. So when I get put in heel hooks I just tap. Catch and release style. I might resist heel hooks a tiny bit against black belts or people that I know won't injure me, but that list of trusted people is very small.

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Originally Posted by Kurzy

Since that tourney I have been focusing on blood chokes.

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Great idea. You'll not have to feel bad for hurting anyone, and if someone is stubborn they'll just go out and the match will stop, Check Jacare letting his arm break against Roger Gracie in 2004. Jacare let his arm break so he could escape and continue the match and he won the gold medal on points. if Roger had a choke on, and Jacare went to sleep, the match would've been over.