John Danaher Shares Advice On What You Should Do If A Move Fails In BJJ Training/Competition

It goes without saying that you will, as long as you train, keep failing at certain moves. Sometimes more than once.
But what should you do when you fail? Should you keep going for it – or transition to some other technique?

Well, John Danaher has a lot of experience when it comes to this topic. As he’s coached many elite competitors and amateur practitioners through it…
Here is what he had to say:

Most of your attempts a given move against someone your own size and skill level will fail.
The question becomes – what should we do in the case of failure.

Some will abandon that particular move and try some alternatives.
Others will persist with the original move in the belief that the next time may be different and that previous failures are not indicative of failure on the next attempt.

There is wisdom in both responses – there is no right or wrong answer here. I’ve seen both responses win matches and I’ve seen both responses lose matches.
It will come down to your judgement based upon a number of relevant factors in each particular case.

This advice does come with a caveat, though:

I will say however, that many people give up too quickly when they experience failure with a move – remember, it only has to work once to have a big impact on the match.

So don’t stop trying it without a strong reason, especially if it’s one of your best moves.