Disadvantages to being big and strong

[Themichaelplaster]

What are the disadvantages to being big and strong in submission grappling?
Likewise to being "lanky"?

I've found that some submissions that don't require a dominant position or full control of the other players body work as long as it's by surprise. For instance the estima or sock lock, a flash arm bar, rolling kimura/guillotine, wrist locks etc

Do you have a philosophy regarding players who are disproportionately sized?

In war strategy there are many advantages to having a smaller army or even an infiltrator when confronting a large force however those advantages generally require specific environmental conditions to be successful.

[Jon Watkins]

I don't see many disadvantages except perhaps flexibility if you are not also working on that and perhaps a Dunning-Kruger effect if you are constantly using your size and strength during training and then you go some time without tangling with someone far and away beyond your technical ability or someone bigger and stronger than you. I know a badass wrestler in my area who suffers from the Dunning-Kruger effect and if he would just work on refining his passing and maybe some guard work instead of just muscle fucking his way into every dominant position he attains, he would probably be a world champion. He has gone several years being probably the biggest fish in my area's pond and now that some of the rest of us have caught up, I am not sure if he understands why.

[Arman Fathi]

I've been studying Lucas Leite's half guard game in detail lately and a claim he makes, which I agree with, is that he finds it more effective on bigger players since they pass on their knees versus smaller, more agile players that don't let you get a half guard to begin with. He's even had more success at the Heavyweight level than the Lightweight category where he belongs. I certainly concur based on anecdotal results of my own from everyday rolling. That type of half-guard/dog-fight centric game is money against bigger guys that dive into your half guard thinking they can smash, vs the Rafa-two step passers of small-guy lore.

[vdesire]

I'd say the disadvantage of it, if you could call it that is that you may not recognise that sometimes your technique is poor and you are only getting away with it due to attributes. Can you do the same moves on someone of equal or bigger size and strength is a true test of if your technique is sound. If you can't, you have been relying too much on size and strength.

[nick_b]

The disadvantage is people whining that your to strong lol. But mostly what I see with strong guys is they go 100 percent in one direction so some times it makes it easy to counter since there not always ready to change the direction of a pass or sweep up.