About This Episode

In this episode of Tapped In, Coach David Figuero-Martinez breaks down the concept of defensive asymmetry and explains why the most effective defense isn't always the most explosive. Discover how stacking subtle micro-adjustments can completely stall an opponent's passing game, exhaust their resources, and create effortless escape routes without draining your own cardio.

3 Key Takeaways

• The Power of Micro-Adjustments: You don't need massive, explosive movements to escape bad positions. Grouping small shifts—like turning your hip, changing a knee angle, or hiding an underhook—can build a highly effective defense.
• Defensive Asymmetry & "Annoying" Your Opponent: By chipping away at an opponent's balance and base, you create a frustrating environment that often forces them to abandon their passing attempts and back away, giving you a free escape.
• The "Control Pie" Concept: Grappling control is never entirely zero or 100%. Every small defensive choice you make reclaims a tiny slice of the control pie, systematically shifting the momentum back in your favor.

Chapters & Timestamps

• 00:00 - Introduction to Defensive Asymmetry
• 00:43 - Real-World Testing: Rolling with a Blue Belt
• 01:52 - Breaking Down Specific Micro-Adjustments in Half Guard
• 03:10 - The 1-Inch Rule: Lifting the Hips for Maximum Dexterity
• 03:51 - Teaching the "Slow Down" Method in Class
• 04:54 - Conserving Cardio for When You Are Most Exhausted
• 06:23 - Forcing the Mistake: Why Being "Annoying" Leads to Escapes
• 07:34 - Visualizing the "Control Pie" Chart
• 08:52 - Reclaiming the Pie From the Bottom Positions
• 10:13 - Outro and Patreon Announcements

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Stay tapped in,

David Figueroa-Martinez

Founder, DFM Coaching Bjj

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00:00 - David Figuero-Martinez: Welcome to Tapped In. My name is David Figuero-Martinez of DFM Coaching, and today we're going to be discussing defensive asymmetry or just plain out being ignore— like annoying. This week I'm running more defensive positions in the morning class, and I'm teaching more micro-adjustments in order to assimilate or group together enough of those in order to make escapes. Sometimes when I am maybe a little higher ranking than the other person, or I want to test my defensive against someone who's really good at guard passing and pressure, top position in general, I will employ a tactic where I sit in the position, I sit in that pocket intentionally, and I just quietly defend.

00:43 - David Figuero-Martinez: It can— like I did this on Saturday with a four-strike blue belt. I really like the guy, love rolling with him. He provides enough pressure, but he's not quite there yet where he's a threat, so I can kind of test theories out, I can work on aspects of my game that I don't do very well with or that need to be more fleshed out, or the timing needs to get better. And when I was rolling with him, there was a segment during the roll where I decided that I was gonna play defense. So I played more defense, and we were in half guard for the most of the the that portion of the round.

01:52 - David Figuero-Martinez: And what I started doing was just little micro-adjustments. I turned the hip a little bit, I posted my hand against his knee or thigh, I would slide my inside knee, the one that's caught in half guard, a little closer to me, I would connect my knee and elbow, I would shift him a little bit with maybe a John Wayne sweep—and not the whole thing where you come up on top, but just enough to make him consider, like concerned with something and have to come back and readjust. And every time he would get a little further, and then I'd stop the momentum, and I'd get him back a few paces. And then he would get a little further, and I would do it all over again. And I would do it sometimes with something slightly different, or a different micro-adjustment, or a different angle, or a different slight, a different approach, but nothing was super explosive.

02:44 - David Figuero-Martinez: Nothing— I try to play the positions with the idea that I'm exhausted, I don't have the strength to do the things that I really need to do, and I do not want to create so much movement that it allows me to cheat. And I'm hoping this makes sense. So I'm in bottom of half, and sometimes I'll post on the on their outside knee, the one closest to my head, and I'll widen their base, or I'll when I do that, maybe I don't widen but I halt the knee from getting to my chest so they can't bring it to my chest/armpit. So then they're they're positioned where their belt knot isn't facing my chest or belt knot, it's facing my head. So it's a little wider, it's harder to to pass from there, and then that allows me to bring my inside knee a little further out. Sometimes I use the top-side knee to then hook with a butterfly hook, and then we end up in like butterfly half.

03:10 - David Figuero-Martinez: And this isn't meant to be super technical, but I'll start doing these things, I'll start framing with my elbows or the the portion two to three inches of the elbow/forearm, I'll maybe bridge, like a baby bridge, and just create a little bit of space and hip escape. The number one thing that I do is instead of being flat, I put weight on my outside leg, and I lift my hip about an inch or two off the mat, and then I turn it towards my opponent. It's really hard to stop, it's really hard to stop just that one movement. But that one movement gives me so much dexterity or so much added range of motion that I'm now facing them a little bit easier, and I can get the butterfly hook in, I can John Wayne, I could there's a a host of things that I could do from there.

03:51 - David Figuero-Martinez: But again, not trying to get super technical. The point is these micro-adjustments are everything to me. I don't need to escape in one big movement, and yes, I've taught escapes where we bridge, hip escape, get the knee back in, big explosive movements. Uh, I've had taught things where maybe they're too tight on you and you can roll them one way or the other, big explosive movements. But what I found the most success in is annoying the fuck out of them, and what I do again is the micro-adjustments. I did this during my class on Tuesday, and what I did was I got top player in the position, and then I asked the the students who were watching, "Pay attention to things," and I had the top player, "Go ahead and play 20-30%."

04:54 - David Figuero-Martinez: And then I would do one thing, I'd wait a couple of beats so it wasn't completely obvious, that's what they were supposed to be paying attention to, and then I paused the action and I said, "Okay, so what did I do?" And some people didn't catch it at first. Then I redid it again: "Oh, you shifted your hips." "Yes." And then I, "All right, keep going," and we played a little bit more and I did one more thing. And then I would let a couple of beats go by, so again, it wasn't obvious what I was doing, and then I paused it and I said, "What did I do now?" And then someone would be like, "Oh, you did this," and saw a couple of wrong answers, but then it was like, "Oh, you did this." "Perfect. This is what I want us to focus on."

05:37 - David Figuero-Martinez: We don't have to be super explosive to do the things that we're doing. We don't have to tap into our cardio and our musculature to to to really escape. There are going to be moments when you need to do that, don't get me wrong. But when I'm the most tired is when I can employ a lot of these things with little cardio effect. I play these things when I am fresh, I play these things when I am the more skilled player, intentionally, and I'll like I explained earlier, I'll make them play from top position, and I will intentionally put myself there and not get out. I might get out to a certain position. If we're in half, maybe I get out to almost closed guard, but then I let them trap the leg and go right back to half.

06:23 - David Figuero-Martinez: Some students understand what I'm doing, they'll notice. Some students will think that they're doing really well, and that's just the nature of the beast. I'm I don't correct them, I just let them play because I need to be— I need them to be honest, and I need them to to actually try to to to punish me. And then when we do this, sometimes we fuck up, and sometimes you're going to get tapped, and sometimes they're going to go deeper than you want to go, and they're going to get to mount, or they're going to get to North-South and positions that I don't actually want them in. But I'll also do this for those positions on occasion, but that might not be what I'm focusing on. Currently, I'm focusing on half guard. So then I start adjusting, and I might get the butterfly hook in, and I might be able to push them all the way back, and then I let up and I let them get back into position, and I do it in such a way that again, it feels more natural, feels to them like they're in a genuine battle and that they're they have a say in it. I want them to be confident about it.

07:34 - David Figuero-Martinez: When the student kind of fades in confidence, they stop doing the things they're supposed to be doing, and they kind of think they have to do something different. I want to encourage it because I want that response. So then we start— we keep playing, and what I've noticed over time of playing this style of game is that again, when I'm exhausted or when I'm against someone bigger, it's super effective because it doesn't tap into large segments of my cardio. I don't have to do explosive movements. As long as my frames are correct, as long as I'm patient, as long as I understand that we're going to be playing this game for a bit and that there is no get-out-of-jail-free card, it's going to require me to do a lot of little things.

08:16 - David Figuero-Martinez: Sometimes those little things, just like when I was showing it to the class, sometimes those little things don't get noticed. They they they go by because they're so focused on the thing that they want to do. So then they start to notice after I do one or two things and they keep finding that same pattern, what I said to the blue belt that I was doing this to, I was like, "It's pretty annoying, isn't it?" He's like, "Yes." And that's what I'm going for. I want to annoy you, and I want to annoy you to the point where you almost throw up your hands and you take a step back. Because now when you take the step back, you're conceding, "Hey, my passing isn't going to work here. He keeps getting these micro-adjustments that I'm not completely seeing or aware of, and when he gets so many of them, he then gets the butterfly hook in, he then gets an underhook, he then gets me off-balance." So they get frustrated and they pull back.

08:52 - David Figuero-Martinez: When they pull back, that's the escape for me. I didn't force the escape, I didn't muscle the escape, I didn't use any explosive motion, I just played a asymmetrical warfare game, an annoyance game where I chiseled away at your your attack, and maybe I eroded some of your balance and I eroded some of your base. I eroded some of the things that you wanted to do. Maybe I held your wrist, maybe I held your hand, maybe I didn't allow you to get a really good underhook, and maybe I got the underhook from the beginning and you just can't quite figure out how to get it back. So these little micro-adjustments, whether it's shifting your hips—and I have a series that I'm building on Patreon—or whether it's me pushing your outside knee a little wider so you're no longer facing me, your balance is a little off, or it's me creating enough space between our hips to get my butterfly hook in, all of these are simple yet really effective ways to create the space that you want.

09:47 - David Figuero-Martinez: Again, they're not going to tax your cardio, they're not going to force you to have to do anything explosive. It is— it's like chiseling away at a at a giant wall. Do I want to break the wall? When I was younger, I wanted to just break the wall. I wanted to jump right over the wall or set some dynamite off and completely destroy the wall so I can get through. At 45, I'm looking at it more like, how do I scale this effectively? Let me build a ladder, I got to build it one rung at a time, or let me get this chisel, I'm just going to slowly erode aspects of this wall where it it's the strongest or where foundationally it needs these pieces in order to work right—and that analogy may not actually work, whatever.

10:13 - David Figuero-Martinez: But I go little at a time, a little at a time. And then before they know it, they are in a really bad position, and they have the decision to make. Can they withstand? Can they continue to push forward? If they push forward, is it a risk because I've created these dimensions, these micro-movements that now give me a little bit more control? I want us to look at control in a pie— pie chart. Uh, different positions give you more or less control. If I'm in the bottom of half, I don't have zero control, I have some control, even as a bottom person. My inside leg is controlling whether they can pass or not. I might be framing, which gives me a little bit of control because I'm controlling how much weight they can put down. So let's call it 60-40.

11:05 - David Figuero-Martinez: Top person has 60% of the pie, I have 40. When I turn my hip, my 40 now goes to 43, 44%, 45%, whatever you want to call it. So now I have a little bit more control because I have a little more ease of of motion, and I've taken a little bit of control from him. So then I start pushing off the knee, or maybe I worked an underhook. Maybe it's not a deep underhook, maybe the underhook is just my hand, but it's enough to make him worried. So now I've taken back a little bit more control. He's still on top, so he has 51% of the shares, but it's less than when we started off with. Whatever the number is, it's less than we started off with. So now psychologically, sometimes they start to panic because they understand what the underhook means, they understand what eroding certain aspects of their base means, so they might even pull away.

11:58 - David Figuero-Martinez: When they pull away, they're giving you more shares of that pie. And when that pie gets shared back to you, you then can aggressively chase certain motions and certain movements. So maybe now I sit up to butterfly guard because he gave me so much space. So now we can argue he's still on top, so he may have a decent or a tiny sliver of that control, but we're no longer in a deficit, a huge deficit, that is. So whatever those numbers are, I'm just making it up, but with each choice that I make from bottom, just a little bit goes back to me. A little bit gets taken away from them, a little bit more, and a little bit more, and a little bit more. The same is said the other way.

12:43 - David Figuero-Martinez: Let's say he gets deeper and he clasps both of my legs together from from half, and then he starts to sprawl. That's a hard thing to to negate and really stop sometimes, especially if they know what they're doing from that position. He's getting more of that pie, and then he gets into side control. Now he has a little bit more of the pie, specifically if he knows how to to put downward pressure. He gets the mount, more of the pie. He isolates an arm, even more. So then once we start understanding that it's a pie, it's not an all or nothing. I— the only time I have nothing is when I'm tapped. Like he has an arm extended, I have zero control of the limb, I have zero control in an escape, he has locked down everything, every possible avenue of an escape, that's his win. He he won the game, and has controlled all of the pie.

13:36 - David Figuero-Martinez: But let's say I'm in— he goes for that armbar, but I stood up, and now I have them stacked, and I have my arms kind of figure-four'd or something. The pie might be 10% in my favor, but it's not zero. It's high in his favor, but it's not zero. So then I start making some of those micro-adjustments. I start to yank the arm out, the elbow goes past his his hip line, it goes past past his crotch. Now I gained a little bit more control, and then I throw the leg to the side and now I'm in side control. Now I got most of the pie back. You don't have to gain the pie completely all at once. It's better in a lot of cases not to, it makes more sense not to, because it requires such a heavy cardio load or it requires a heavy gamble.

14:26 - David Figuero-Martinez: And while the gamble might tell you, hey, if I do this right now and I put all my efforts into it, I can get back and I can be like I can be 60-40 over him or her, and you might go for it, and you might be successful sometimes, but then two-thirds of the time you fail, and the position gets even worse. Now you're in mount, and you have an arm tied up, or you're you expose the back, and now they got the back with an arm in the collar—like so those things change. Stop thinking of these escapes as big explosive movements. Start thinking of them is asymmetrical warfare where I just need to be annoying, I need to stop what you're trying to do, and then slowly chisel away at the things that I want.