defensive soundness before submission: The great cliche of Jiu jitsu is “position before submission” However, in some situations such as ashi garami, conventional approaches to position don't really apply, since both athletes are in a situation where they can attack each other at the same time. I'm these types of scenarios “position before submission “ gets replaced by “defensive soundness before submission.” The idea is to set your feet, knees and other relevant body parts in locations where they are defensively sound (not open to obvious attacks) prior to launching your own attacks. In this way you avoid the undesirable situation of both athletes attacking simultaneously, in which case victory will go to the faster athlete or the one who is prepared to lose a limb to break his opponents limb. The best way is always that of first making yourself defensively sound so that when you do attack you can do so without the distraction of simultaneous counter attacks. Don't get into submission shoot outs if you can avoid them. Rather, create situations where you can fire at will without return fire. Focus on defensive soundness first, attacks second
