Tap before it snaps

It's not possible to injury free all the time, because jiu jitsu is a contact sport and it is a martial art. But there are definitely ways to avoid major injuries and hopefully you get to continue training without down time.

You can always warm up and do stretches to avoid injuries from tight muscles. Do extra strength and conditioning to hold your joints tighter so it won't just twist and break.

However, the simplest ways and the main way to avoid bad injuries is to tap early once you can't escape a submission. Once an arm, a shoulder an ankle is isolated and wrapped up. You need to tap right away.

It's virtually impossible to out muscle anyone once your arm is isolated and at the end motion. You're just waiting for it to break. So just tap and avoid injuries.

There are some submissions like the shoulder from kimura are very dangerous. A lot of white belts thinks they can fight it and some how thinks their shoulders are made of iron. Until it pops out and gets dislocated. Once the shoulder pops out, it will never be the same again and it's more prone to pop out again.

If anything feels funny just tap. There is no shame in tapping early especially when you're still a white belt and in the learning process. Just don't wait for a crunch or cracks because it's going to be too late.

This post can be summarised with four words.

Tap before it snaps.