Switches & Dials

At first, most people only have switches.

On or off.

All or nothing.

Pressure is absent or overwhelming. Speed is idle or frantic. Strength is absolute or nonexistent. This is a developmental reality: when coordination, timing, and sensitivity are undeveloped, binary force is the only language available.

A novice doesn’t apply pressure.

They turn it on.

That’s why early submissions feel explosive and brittle. They arrive suddenly, peak instantly, and often collapse just as fast. Movement is fast because it isn’t precise. Everything is muscled because regulation doesn’t exist. There’s no control—only urgency.

With experience, switches begin to turn into dials.

A dial implies range. Choice. Feedback. When you turn one, you feel resistance. You know where you are on the spectrum. You can stop halfway. Advance—or reverse—without panic.

This is technical maturation.

Experienced practitioners don’t decide to finish and then apply maximum force. They enter at a low setting. The dial starts near zero—just enough to establish structure, alignment, and certainty. Pressure increases gradually, not out of kindness, but awareness.

A shoulder tightens.

Breathing shifts.

These signals are invisible to someone who only knows switches. Binary force drowns out information. A slowly turned dial amplifies it.

This is why control precedes damage. Gradual force identifies and closes escape routes before they’re needed. Panic never has time to appear. The submission becomes inevitable, not surprising.

A dial-based approach applies just enough force to demand a response—and just enough more to remove it. The opponent stays one step behind, not because they’re weaker, but because the resolution is finer.

The same principle applies everywhere: passing, pinning, pressure, even movement. A heavy top player isn’t heavy because they’re large, but because they know exactly how much weight to apply, where, and when. Their mass is tuned, not dumped.

The goal isn’t restraint for its own sake.

The goal is optionality.

With dials, you can accelerate or decelerate. Hold safely. Finish decisively. Stop instantly—without losing control. Power becomes something you shape, not something that escapes you.

Jiu-jitsu, at its highest level, isn’t the art of turning things on.

It’s the art of turning them up.