Shameful Saturday

Me: 6 months, 1 stripe WB. 3 hours of classes and 2 hours of rolling a week pretty consistently. Am 6' 2", late forties and 190. Not a small guy, pretty strong and athletic.

This week was rolling with a friend, great guy, same level-ish. He's quite big and strong, 6'3", 230, high level ice hockey player. We started at the same time.

I'm pretty aggressive but think I have some situational awareness now in rolls, am trying techniques, get smashed, but not spazzy. Working on escapes and positional hierarchy and the odd time am able to get position, will try a clumsy sub. My rolling plan doesn't often work, but I'm showing up with a goal and trying it out. Usually roll with blues.

My friend however is not rolling as much so a bit more anxious. Swinging around, going a million percent, not as aware of his body. I always catch an elbow, and the odd scratch. He drives hard, usually gets top initially, but I can often make some space, get to 1/2 or closed guard and tire him out a bit. He used to be all over my head, but now he's not there as much and I wear ear guards lol. I don't mind rolling with him cause he's full on, and I figure that its great practice, as not many guys are bigger than me, plus he's a nice guy.

This week, he's on top 1/2 guard and he rips my arm out and isolates it. He drops his body weight on it, vacant stare, and works a straight arm bar sub. His bottom arm though is above my elbow, on my forearm, so he has no real fulcrum, and he's pushing down harder and harder. Its no arm bar but jeez, I thought he'd break my arm. He gloms on, total lack of focus on anything else and puts his full strength into it. The buzzer goes for the round.

After we catch our breath, I say to him, dude, you didn't have the sub, more strength isn't gonna get it, IMO you need to back off the sub if its not working, not add more strength, especially your 100% strength, you're a really strong guy. He says, why don't you just tap? I tell him that yeah, it was a lot of pressure but not a submission, but that I was afraid that he would hurt me, because if he moved to my elbow, got the straight arm bar properly and put that much force onto it so quick he'd break my arm or really injure me. He said, isn't the #1 goal of it all to submit you? I said, no, the #1 goal is to not hurt your training partner or yourself, its not the world championships and that as big guys, we could really hurt someone if we put full strength into a clumsy crank or choke. I pointed out that at one point in the roll he was top closed guard and working to reef a guillotine, but that without the leverage as he was in guard all that he was doing was cranking on the back of my neck. I joked and pointed out that I'd joked about him watching the elbows at the start when we fist bumped and 2 secs later he elbowed me in the face while leaping on me to get top.

I felt a little sheepish after, I don't know what I'm doing so shouldn't be giving others impromptu tips but want to keep training with this dude, just a bit more safely.

How would you guys have handled this?

/r/bjj Thread