How to Pick One Submission to Focus On This Month

TL;DR. Picking one BJJ submission to focus on each month beats chasing every new technique you see online. Choose a submission that fits your current top position, your body type, and the people you actually roll with. Commit to it for 30 days — drill the entries, study two to three instructional sources, and track taps and near-finishes. By the end of the month, you'll either have a reliable finish or clear evidence it isn't your weapon yet.

Most hobbyists have the same problem: a camera roll full of saved instructionals, a notebook with twenty half-written techniques, and no finish they truly trust when a roll gets hard. The fix isn't more content — it's narrower focus. Picking one submission to drill, study, and hunt for an entire month changes how you train. You stop context-switching. You start recognizing entries. Your reps compound. This guide gives you a decision framework for how to pick that one submission, a simple monthly system to actually develop it, and the common mistakes that keep grapplers stuck in the "collect, forget, repeat" cycle.

Key takeaways

Pick one submission tied to a position you already spend time in — not one from a highlight reel.
Choose based on three filters: body type, dominant position, and training partner pool.
Commit for 30 days before judging — most submissions need weeks of reps before they feel natural.
Study two or three sources on the same submission instead of jumping between ten.
Track entries attempted, near-finishes, and completions — not just taps.
Common mistakes include picking a flashy move, switching mid-month, and skipping the setup work.
If it doesn't start clicking in 30 focused days, swap positions before swapping submissions.

Why this happens: the "spread-thin" problem

Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu is deeper than any single practitioner can master in a lifetime. That depth is a trap for hobbyists who train two or three times a week. Every class introduces a new technique. Every scroll surfaces a new instructional. Every roll exposes a new hole. The default response is to try to patch everything at once — a bit of triangle work, a bit of darce study, a bit of mount escape, a bit of leg lock entries.

The result is predictable: much of it fades before your next session. You half-remember the setup for three submissions instead of really owning one. When a roll gets hot, your body falls back on what it knows — which is often not much. There's a reason brown belts tend to have two or three go-to finishes they chase from every angle, not thirty they half-know. Depth beats breadth, especially early.

Remember. The question isn't "what's the best submission?" It's "what submission, drilled and hunted for a month, will give me the biggest return given who I am and who I roll with?"

A simple system to pick and develop one submission

Use the five steps below. Treat them as a monthly cycle, not a one-time exercise.

1. Audit your dominant positions

Before you can pick a submission, pick a position. Look at your last five to ten rolls honestly. Where do you spend the most time offensively? Common answers for hobbyists: closed guard, mount, back control, half guard top, side control. The right submission grows out of a position you already reach — not one you dream about.

If you're a closed guard player, candidates include the cross collar choke, the loop choke, armbar, triangle, omoplata, or guillotine. If you take the back a lot, lean toward the rear naked choke or bow and arrow. Position first, submission second.

2. Filter by body type and attribute reality

Some submissions pair better with specific bodies. Long-limbed grapplers often finish triangles and armbars more easily. Shorter, denser grapplers often do well with chokes that depend on connection and pressure (cross collar, darce, guillotine). This isn't a hard rule — tall people choke, short people armbar — but your attributes shift the learning curve. Pick the submission where your physical profile tilts the odds in your favor during the first thirty days, not against you.

3. Filter by training partner reality

The people you roll with matter. If your academy is full of strong, upright passers who never let you get a wrist, maybe a wrist-lock-dependent setup is a rough first month. If most of your partners defend their neck well but leave arms exposed, that's a signal. Picking a submission that at least occasionally shows up against the actual humans in your gym is the difference between frustrated reps and encouraging ones.

4. Use the decision matrix

Score each candidate submission from 1 to 5 across four dimensions, add the columns, and pick the highest total.

Submission	Fits dominant position	Fits body/attributes	Fits partner pool	Interest / motivation	Total
Example: Cross collar from mount	5	4	4	4	17
Example: Flying triangle	2	2	1	5	10
Example: Rear naked choke	4	5	4	5	18

Motivation matters — if you hate the move, you won't drill it — but weight it last. A move that fits your game and your partners will become motivating once you start catching it.

5. Commit for 30 days, with a protocol

Once you've picked, lock it in. For the next month:

Study two or three sources on the submission (one short YouTube breakdown, one longer instructional segment, your coach's version). Not ten. Compare them, pick the version that fits your body.
Drill the entry every open mat or warm-up window you get. Entries, not finishes, are where most submissions fail.
Hunt it in live rolling. Give yourself permission to miss everything else to chase this one. You'll lose some rolls. That's part of the cost.
Log reps. For each session, note: entries attempted, near-finishes, finishes, what the defense looked like.
Review weekly. Watch your own match footage or notes; identify one adjustment for the next week.

Remember. Thirty days of focused work on one submission teaches you more than a year of casually trying everything.

6. Review and decide at day 30

At the end of the month, look at your log. Three outcomes are possible:

It's working. You're hitting entries, getting near-finishes, occasionally finishing. Keep going for another 30 days — real submissions develop over months, not weeks.
It's progressing but not finishing. You're hitting entries but the finish keeps failing against a specific defense. Spend the next month on that defense (e.g. posture breaks for the triangle, chin tuck for the RNC, the hidden arm for the armbar).
Nothing is happening. You're not even getting entries. The problem is almost always the position, not the submission. Audit your position work before you blame the move.

7. Only then — consider a second submission

When your first submission starts landing in rolls, don't drop it. Add a complementary attack that shares entries or defenses. Armbar + triangle. RNC + bow and arrow. Darce + guillotine. This is how a game gets built — one piece at a time.

Common mistakes grapplers make

Picking the move you saw a world champion hit last week. Berimbolos and buggy chokes are impressive. They're also brutal first choices for a hobbyist who trains twice a week.
Switching mid-month. The first two weeks of any new submission feel bad. That's the cost of learning. Switching restarts the clock.
Only studying finishes, never entries. Most submissions miss because the setup never arrives. The grip fight, the angle, and the entry are the submission — the finish is the easy part.
Chasing taps in rolling. Taps are an output, not a measurement. Count entries and near-finishes. Taps come later.
No written record. If you don't write it down after class, much of what you learned is gone within days. A simple technique card or log solves this.
Ignoring the position upstream. You can't finish a submission from a position you never reach. If you want to specialize in a mount submission, your pass game has to earn you mount in the first place.

Remember. A "signature submission" isn't a cool phrase — it's what emerges when you stack a hundred focused reps on a position you already live in.

Where BJJ Memo fits in

The hardest part of this system isn't the drilling — it's the capturing and revising. When you commit to one submission for a month, you need a tidy place to keep the two or three videos you're studying, the details your coach gave you, the common defense you keep hitting, and the adjustment you want to try next session. BJJ Memo turns a YouTube instructional into a structured technique card with tappable timestamps and files it into your personal library, so the night before training you can revise everything about this month's submission in a couple of minutes. That short, consistent review is what moves a technique from "I know it" to "I can hit it live." The app is the retention layer around the mat work — nothing more, nothing less.

Frequently asked questions

How long should I actually spend on one submission?

At least 30 days of real focus if you train two to three times a week. Many hobbyists need two to three months on the same submission before it becomes reliable in live rolling. If it's working after a month, keep going — don't rotate for the sake of rotating.

What if my coach teaches a different submission every class?

That's normal. Learn what's taught in class — you still need the breadth — but outside class, your drilling, study, and open-mat hunting all point at your chosen submission. The class technique becomes general knowledge; the monthly submission becomes your weapon.

Should white belts specialize in a submission at all?

Yes, but gently. A white belt should spend most of their energy on fundamentals: posture, base, shrimping, escapes, and basic positions. Picking one submission to focus on doesn't replace fundamentals — it gives your fundamental positions a destination. Something like the cross collar from mount or RNC from the back pairs naturally with white-belt priorities.

How do I know if my chosen submission is wrong for me?

After a focused month, if you've attempted the entry in rolling and literally never gotten close — not even partial grips, not even a reaction from your partner — the position upstream probably isn't there yet. Fix the position first. The submission itself usually isn't the problem.

Can I pick a leg lock as my focus submission?

You can, with two caveats: follow your gym's rules on which leg attacks are allowed at your belt level, and prioritize safe tapping and controlled application. Leg locks reward focused study well, but they punish sloppiness. If you're new to them, a straight ankle lock or basic entry is a far better monthly focus than anything heel-based.

What if I get obsessed and want to pick two submissions?

Resist for the first month. Once your first submission starts landing, add a complement that shares entries or defenses so your focus still compounds. Two unrelated submissions equal twice the drilling with half the carry-over.

Final word and a quick CTA

Specializing on one Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu submission a month isn't a shortcut — it's the long way around made shorter by subtraction. You drop the ten moves you were half-learning. You focus on the one that fits your position, your body, and your partners. You drill it, study it, hunt it, log it, and review it for 30 days. At the end, you have evidence, not opinions, about whether this submission belongs in your game.

If you want a cleaner way to run the monthly loop — one place for the videos you're studying, the details that matter, and the night-before review — try BJJ Memo. Paste a BJJ YouTube URL, get a structured technique card with tappable timestamps, and keep your focus submission in a library you'll actually open before training.

For real feedback and safety, train the technique at a legit academy with a qualified coach — BJJ Memo helps you remember and revise, it doesn't replace mat time.

Last updated 2026-11-01.