In Brazilian Jiu Jitsu, occasionally you can tell that something bad is about to happen. For example, look above. The goal is (as far as my pea brain has figured out), to be able to anticipate those bad things, and do stuff to make them not so bad, or anticipate them and avoid them all together. They (the Internets) say that training, and training, and training, makes it easier and easier to see these bad things being set up. As far as I’m concerned, I think I need one of those thingys in the back of my head like on The Matrix, so I can have all the anti-bad stuff techniques uploaded directly in to said pea sized brain.
There’s this guy that seems to be able to armbar and triangle choke me at will. I have no idea how to stop it. lol. I can’t see it coming, but I know it is. It’s quite frustrating. In fact, it’s gotten to the point that I laugh about my in ability to see it, or stop it in any way, shape, or form. Training with him regularly has allowed him to improve his ability to get these positions on me, but has not allowed me to come any steps closer to stopping them. I find it queer and unusual. I tweeted Renzo Gracie and asked him if he’d ever trained anyone, who no matter how bad they wanted to be good and how long they’d been training for, just couldn’t get it… He didn’t reply. lol.
Mountains to Mats 
hehe that’s funny 🙂
One suggestion that might help: when you roll, forget about winning or losing. Devote all your mental energy to just watching and internally recording what happens. Replay the tape in your head afterwards to see if if you can recognize patterns – “every time I try to put my weight on him I get swept, every time I try to control his head I get arm-barred, etc” Don’t even try to stop the bad stuff from happening. Just see if you can get to the point of recognizing when you are about to be in danger. This is hard to do because we all want to “win”, but it’s really valuable training.
Another approach is to ask your training partners for feedback: “You just arm-barred me 3 times in a row. What am I doing that leaves me open for that?”
Yet another useful training practice: when you get tapped out, don’t reset from the beginning. Ask your training partner to go back to the position just before they caught the submission and see if you can work your way out now that you know it’s coming. If you still can’t escape, ask them to go back a little bit earlier in the position. If you still can’t escape, ask for some feedback on what you need to do to reach safety. If your partner can’t help you figure it out, ask your instructor. Do it right away while the position is still fresh in your mind rather than waiting for the end of class or the next training session.