This is something Allen Manganello (Gracie Louisville) talked about recently. He’s a police officer but this scenario applies to anyone in a fight.

Let’s say you’ve mounted your opponent. You have good positional control and eventually lock up an Americana. He struggles at first. He tries to bump you off, but you have your rear hook inserted, and he fails. You apply more pressure to his shoulder and you tell him to stop resisting. He realizes he doesn’t have a way out, so he settles down.

He’s complying.

If you continue to apply pressure, he will be afraid and instinctually go into defense mode. He is not resisting, he is defending. You won’t know because resistance and defense feel the same.

He went from resistance to compliance to defense.

You can’t let go now. Do you break his arm?