Winning Is Winning

I get that many of us want to win in the cleanest way possible.
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You want to dominate your opponent…
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…to reach a perfect end game position like their back.
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…and to finish your opponent with a well-controlled submission technique.
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It’s not up to the refereers to decide if you finish your opponent this way.
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We all should strive to win by submission, but sometimes that doesn’t happen. Some people don’t even care so much about winning by submission either.
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You should keep in mind that this is a valid way of playing the game as long as the rules allow such a way of playing it.
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And you should also know how elite players (often the ones from Brazil) play this game.
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I was watching this match between Cobrinha and Leonardo Saggioro. It’s the final match of World Championship for the black belt male adult feather weight division in 2007.
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Both of them are legendary competitors, but the match itself is absolutely boring.
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Conbrinha won this match, and you can tell that he’s playing his game in a very strategic way… namely, he waits till the last few minutes of the match before sweeping Saggioro. To be fair, probably Saggioro has similar ideas here as well, except Cobrinha executed his plan better.
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What’s also notable is around 9:42. The ref asks Cobrinha to fix his gi/belt.
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If I’m not mistaken, there’s a certain amount of time allocated to fixing your gi in the IBJJF rules when you’re instructed to fix your gi.
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Cobrinha is not trying to fix his gi as quickly as possible, but using this time to rest a bit, though within that set amount of time.
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How you approach competitions is totally up to you, and you don’t have to play a game like Cobrinha and other famous players do, but if that’s what you want, be prepared to improve your BJJ skills and win your matches via submission 🙂