If you could only train one submission for a year, what would it be and why?

Mine is the kimura.  You use it for submissions, passing, or control.  You can use it from so many different types of guards, side, mount.  You can do them with your arms or legs.  Super versatile!

What is your favorite mount attack? Mine is probably the S-mount arm bar from on top your partner. We will be doing that on top a whole lot of submissions in the next upcoming weeks of Advanced No Gi. Hope to see you there!

What is your method to build a game for BJJ when you start going to open mats?

For me, I picked a starting position in guard, passing, and attacking. Personally I picked bottom half guard, top half for passing, and side control. I picked one technique from each and tried to get to 1 of those 3 spots as much as I could during each roll and tried to hit that technique. When the technique failed, I tried to figure out why and kept working till I had some success with people my level and muscle memory started kicking in. Then I added a second technique that directly works off the first. Example, in bottom half, I stated with underhook to dogfight knee tap, then added limp arm, then the roll through, etc. Slowly over time, I built a game 1 item at a time.

Don’t be afraid to backtrack and pick small items to get better at. I spent weeks just framing from bottom half with the biggest guys I could find. Not even trying to sweep, just seeing how long I could hold them, manage weight and figure out how to move them.