High percentage submission holds: Our approach to jiu jitsu is centered around the idea of control THAT LEADS TO SUBMISSION. Accordingly, a large part of our training time is invested in perfecting the mechanical details of the most high percentage submission holds. People are often surprised to learn that I only teach around 15-20 families of submission holds. These are the most successful types of hold in high level competition in all weight categories and across all belt levels. There are only so many ways the human body can be broken and strangled by another body. Among those we find around fifteen to twenty types of hold are truly effective in competition. There are innumerable other holds, but I don't believe the meager results gained from them justify the amount of training time it would require to perfect their use – instead we focus all our attention of those with a high probability of success. You will notice that I said families” of submission holds – thus the American lock (ude garame) is one such family. Within that single family there are many
