Back when I was still a white belt, no-time-limit rolls were a pretty regular part of my training. This was partly to do with the places I trained – none of them had a nice LED round timer, and often I’d just be training with friends, so we’d often go for 20 or 30 minutes at a time, until one of us either tapped or got tired enough to ‘suggest’ a break. It didn’t really matter that you weren’t rotating partners, because sometimes there were only two people sparring anyway.

These days, many classes that I go to do competition-focused rolling, and six-minute rounds are the standard – but no-time-limit rolling is still something I believe that everyone should do. For one thing, sub-only competitions are making a comeback – both at the highest levels of competition (Metamoris, sort of) and the most local. But more importantly, going no-time-limit changes your perceptions of rolling.

In six-minute rounds, it’s easy to defend. If you can’t defend the guard pass, you can defend the mount from side control. If you give up the mount, you can defend the choke and wait for the timer to run out. Conversely, you don’t really have to attack – you can just get to a dominant position and hang out there. Neither approach gives you much incentive to move. But if the roll isn’t going to end until you tap or get tapped, you think differently. In a way, it makes your jiu-jitsu more ‘pure’ – you can hang out underneath side control for ten minutes, if that’s what it takes for your opponent to open up enough for you to escape without bench-pressing him away. You can wear the guy down from the top instead of leaping on submissions.

It isn’t the only style of rolling you should do. It definitely isn’t the most ‘realistic’ form of training – it’s got more in common with a 1980s vale tudo match than a street fight. But you should roll no time-limit when you can – it’ll add a new dimension to the way you think about attacking and defending.