Ok, so I have had about 5 months of Jits... I'm a 120lbs girl so I have to be very technical when I roll. The classes at my gym are really small, so everyone has to roll with everyone. I've had a lot of difficultly rolling with a (170lbs??) new guy. He uses his size advantage to mount and then, last time, pinned my arms to the mat with his hands. He wasn't trying to work for anything, just sat there resting because his cardio sucks!! Total douchebag move! Anyways, I would love suggestions on what to do when I can't use my arms! (How I usually escape mount is shrimping, digging elbows in, pushing on knee, ect. Or even when I buck up and pull butterfly I am pushing up with my arms as well.)
Ha! Sounds like what happens w/me when I (woman, 5'9", 145lbs, white belt) roll with this one particular white belt guy who probably has at least 35lbs on me. I don't think that he's really more technically skilled than I. I certainly train more than he does and my fitness is much better, but his size is such (and my escapes clearly have some room for improvement) that when he passes my guard, I'm done.
I always try to avoid rolling with him because it's just so, so, so, so
boring. He'll pass my guard, go to mount, he sits on me like a fat-ar$e, and forces an americana. It's boring because it's always the same submission (which, I know begs the question as to why, if I know what's coming, I can't prevent it?) and once he gets mount, he never tries to transition to side control, to the back, or to work different submissions. Don't get me wrong, there are plenty of other people that I train with that when I start out I know I'm about to be arm bar'd or choked or whatever but I'll never know where it's coming from and by the time I see it coming, it'll be too late.
Furthermore, when I roll with people who are better and/or bigger than me, they generally let me work my escapes, at least initially, before sinking into a submission. This guy, tho, has no time to let another fellow white belt (and one who is significantly smaller than them) work their escapes because he's so intent on his americana. It's super annoying.
I've started tapping super early, just because he is so intent on the submission that I don't even want to try to fight it because I may end up getting hurt. Once he's gotten the set-up, I know I'm eff'd so I may as well reset and try to learn just a little more about preventing his passes.
But, give yourself some time & your game will come together. I train more regularly than him and my guard has gotten better so that the last time I rolled with him, yes, he got a tap from me from his americana set-up but after we reset, I was able to arm drag him and transition to his back and then I got to ride his boring ar$e like a pony. (Alto, I didn't get any submissions as I couldn't break his grips for an arm bar and every time I went for a bow&arrow, I couldn't get the choke hand deep enough. But I got to transition between the two sides and those two submission set-ups and make him sweat, so I was pretty happy about it.)
I've complained about how mind-numbingly boring he is before.