The most important skill you can acquire in Brazilian jiu-jitsu is a skill any white belt can master — and it’s important that you do so early. In order to tell you about this pre-eminent skill, I want to tell you about the time a white belt almost choked me unconscious.
This was about five years ago. We had been working a guillotine choke with the arm inside. Even while drilling with no resistance, he wasn’t able to make the choke work. I offered some advice, and he’d get closer, but it just wasn’t getting there. This happens — it’s why drilling is important, so we can work out the kinks.
Class ended and sparring began. I was sparring with the same white belt, and as his partner, I kept trying to feed him the choke we’d been trying to get during class. Each time, he’d get a few details … but then make a mistake and lose it. This happened maybe three times until he finally grabbed the lock and adjusted it properly. I waited, and when he definitely had it, I tapped him proudly on the shoulder.
He didn’t let go.
I tapped him again, more urgently this time. This is one reason I always tap early, in case the guy doesn’t feel the tap or the choke comes on sooner than I expect. You always want to leave yourself a little wiggle room, especially in training. Still, he didn’t let go, and I felt my field of vision start to narrow and my mind grey out. My taps became ever quicker, like I was trying to drum along with Robo on an early Black Flag album. But no sign of him releasing the choke.
It’s pretty rare that I flat-out beast out of something — partially because I strongly prefer to use technique to escape moves, and partially because I just am not very beastly — but at that point the survival response kicked in and every ounce of strength I had left went into wrenching myself out of the choke. I got out and the blood rushed back into my head, and the first use I could find for my brain was to say: “I was tapping. Why didn’t you let go?”
The guy paused for a second. Then he looked mortified. “Oh my God,” he said. “You were tapping.” He was replaying the events in his head. “Uh, yeah,” I said. “So what gives with the not letting go?” He was pretty embarrassed, and said he wasn’t used to me tapping, so he hadn’t noticed.
The most important skill you can acquire early in BJJ is knowing how to tap and how to respect the tap. This is the most important responsibility you have to yourself and to your training partners. We’re here to help each other, which means we want to train safely. Everyone taps. Everyone should be prepared to tap, and to let go immediately when their opponent taps.
You might be thinking “OK, I can see why that’s important. But how complex can a tap be? It’s a tap.” And yet, I still see risky behavior all the time. I see people tapping the mat, which isn’t always obvious to your partner; I see people snapping their fingers; and I see people waiting until the last possible second to tap. These are all problematic. Let’s go over some do’s and don’ts for both partners to get proper tappening happening.
Do: tap early. One time I saw a guy get his elbow popped because he — this is a direct quote — “was trying to test [his] limits.” Don’t do that. That’s silly. If you know the choke is on and you can’t defend, tap. If your arm or leg is extended and in danger, tap. It’s not a big deal. Everyone does it. And if you tap, you start again in two seconds. If you don’t tap, you may not start again for weeks or months.
Do: tap the person’s body. Yes, Ken Shamrock tapped the mat when Royce Gracie choked him in UFC 1 and yes, Ken Shamrock is a badass. But if you’re grappling and you hear a random noise, do you always let go? If the answer is “no,” then you understand why this is sub-optimal behavior. Tap your partner to maximize the likelihood they’ll acknowledge your signal to stop.
Do: tap in multiple ways. When I tap, I try to tap both tap the person’s body and say “tap” audibly, so that even if they think the tap is just another body part accidentally touching them, they hear me signal to stop. It doubles your chances of effectively stopping the roll, which — if the goal is safety — is super-important.
Do: let go immediately when your partner taps. Remember, it’s both training partners’ responsibility to have a safe roll. That means you’ve got to be paying attention all the time, but especially if your partner is in a vulnerable position. There’s no reason to hold any move longer than necessary, and to do so is dangerous. There are few unforgivable sins in jiu-jitsu (we all make mistakes), but knowingly holding on after your partner taps is on the list.
Something I’ve done a lot more as an upper belt is letting go of a joint lock if I think my partner is at risk, even if they don’t tap. It’s a risk-reward scenario. If I think I have a move finished and someone is being stubborn, I would way rather let the move go and continue to train than keep going in a position that could get my partner hurt. It’s important to learn to finish moves technically; it’s even more important to learn to take care of your partner. Start early. If that arm bar isn’t getting the tap, switch off to something else, like the triangle or the omoplata. It’ll do you good to work transitions anyway.
Don’t: react to a move not resulting in a tap by forcing it. One of the things that makes jiu-jitsu safe is that it’s an art of control that leads to submission, not an art where I grab your arm and yank it as hard as I can. Jerky movements are dangerous. If you have an armbar locked and want to finish, move your hips a centimeter at a time to give your partner plenty of time to tap. If you just try to tear your partner’s arm off, you’re not practicing the proper technique to isolate the limb, and your partner might get hurt. Both of these are bad outcomes.
Don’t: tap in a way that your partner cannot reasonably expect to have observed it. This is the whole “I tapped the mat” or “I snapped my fingers” business. It’s in everyone’s best interests to know that the submission is on, whether you’re applying it or having it done to you. As training partners, we have to trust each other, which means we assume that the person we’re sparring with wants to let go when we tap. So let them know we’re tapping, in as clear a way as possible.
Don’t: think of taps as bad thing, or as a loss. I’ve tapped many people who are much, much better at jiu-jitsu than I am. I have been tapped by many people with belts way less dark than mine. This is training: training is to teach us things. How am I going to learn that my armbar escapes are ineffective if I’m never caught in armbars? Conversely, how is the black belt that I could never mount in a thousand years going to work their collar choke escapes unless they let me get to the mounted position? A tap doesn’t mean you lost. It means you’re being a good partner.
Finally:
Do: tap when you feel in danger. Especially early on, you may not be sure when you’re caught. That’s fine: it’s not reasonable to expect less experienced people to know for sure when it’s time to tap. So do this: try to get out in the way you’ve been taught to escape, without exploding using athleticism. If you can’t get out, and you’re being choked or joint locked, just tap. You can ask your partner for feedback later about how deep the waters you were in had gotten. Again, this is what training is for: it’s not for proving how tough you are. And it’s definitely not for getting yourself or others hurt. It’s for learning and improving.
Tap early. Tap often. Ask how you can avoid tapping next time. This is the single most important process you can engage in early in your jiu-jitsu journey.