We live in what some would call the “information age” of Brazilian Jiu Jitsu. For someone just becoming exposed to the wide world of grappling, it can sometimes feel overwhelming — seeing so many techniques both from their instructor and through various online resources.
We open up our Instagram or other social media apps, immediately bombarded with technique videos and tournament highlights or ads for someone competitors’ latest BJJ Fanatics instructional. It might be hard to imagine a time in the mid- to late-1990s when finding any instruction at all in Jiu Jitsu was so scarce, you’d often have to travel a long way to find a gym, school or watch video tapes and practice the moves with your friends in the grass.
Even just 10 years ago when Jiu Jitsu was fully established in the United States, the way students trained and learned looked much different.
[Race Director and Easton Black Belt Reid Delman: Pushing Your Limits + Creating Your Vision]
In the mid- to late-2000s, it started to become common to see both books and DVDs released with Jiu Jitsu content. Even at that time though, most people who trained did it the same way – by learning whatever their instructor felt like showing that day and then training as hard as possible.
Today, one could almost argue you can learn Jiu Jitsu just from watching instructionals and online courses in your garage with some friends and mats. However, this would lack a few key training strategies.
Most instructors – myself included – believe the best way to learn involves a mix of drills to understand new techniques, specific positional training, and then training live from open guard or both people standing. Use instructionals and other online platforms as just another helpful tool to develop your understanding of specific areas and positions in Jiu Jitsu.
At Easton, we like to see new students start the same way – going through our fundamentals curriculum and developing a base knowledge of all the basic positions and techniquesbefore jumping into full live rolling or sparring.
This is mainly for two reasons – the first being to prevent injuries.
Whenever someone new to rolling in BJJ, where there can be a ton of quick transitions scrambling between positions, and they don’t quite know how to move or what is and isn’t dangerous, injuries are extremely common. The second and less obvious reason is it prevents students from both stagnating and developing bad habits whenever they do start training live.
Rolling is generally considered as the “fun” part of class, and it’s not uncommon to see quite a few upper belts develop a reputation for skipping warmups, showing up to class late just to train and then leave. However, while live rolling is essential in pressure-testing and developing a basic BJJ game, it’s not the only way.
The blue and purple belts who train in this fashion eventually start to get caught relying on the same moves over and over, and become predictable. It’s also common to see someone who comes from a background of minimal structure, having only rolled live, have openings and weaknesses that can take quite a bit of time and energy to unlearn.
The best way to look at drilling and live training: drilling helps us learn new techniques and counters to bad positions while live rolling reinfoces those pathways we have created in our brains. It’s where we get feedback which we can use to further improve.
Learning techniques vs learning concepts
At Easton, we like to break the learning we’re doing in our BJJ Fundamentals classes into 2 categories: learning techniques, a series of moves and sequences, and learning the concepts — overarching themes or things we’re trying to accomplish with our techniques.
Whenever someone’s new to BJJ, getting all the details of a given technique correct can feel difficult and confusing. It can seem even more daunting when we think of pulling it off on a live, resisting training partner – especially one who knows the technique and will actively try to shut it down.
While we do need an understanding of Jiu Jitsu’s basic techniques and how they work – it can be equally helpful to understand the overall goal behind them, what we’re trying to accomplish.
[The Student’s Job: Tools to Help You Learn BJJ]
This can also help later, when you do make the transition to live sparring and find yourself struggling to remember what to do in a given situation. Having a thorough understanding of Jiu Jitsu conceptually allows you to usually still accomplish what you’re trying to do even if you miss a couple details.
For example, whenever we’re passing someone’s guard – the goal is to control their feet, keep them off you and eventually place your body in the space between their knees and elbows. Another could be, whenever we’re playing an open guard, remembering that we want to attempt to maintain 2 grips on our opponent with our hands and points of contact with our feet.
Hard rules and soft rules
A concept I often talk about when teaching beginners is the idea that in Jiu Jitsu exist what I like to call “hard rules” and “soft rules.”
Hard rules are rules that can never be broken – like keeping your head and choking arm on opposite sides of your opponent’s head when applying a Rear Naked Choke. Soft rules are more like general guidelines beginners should stick to so things can feel a little more simple for them in the early stages of their journey.
An example of a soft rule could be, telling a new white belt to “only go for single-leg takedowns on someone in a mirrored or open stance facing you.” Of course, an experienced grappler can set up and finish different takedowns no matter what the stance, but in a martial art like Jiu Jitsu that has tons of variables, it can help to provide someone brand new a sense of direction.
When developing your game in this martial art – as with a lot of other skills in life – you must learn the rules first before knowing which ones you can break.
[10 Unspoken Rules of Brazilian Jiu Jitsu]
Bowing Out
Whether you end up getting obsessed with Jiu Jitsu and train 5 days a week, competing every other weekend, or just enjoy the workout and like to get some rolls in a few times a week, the process remains the same.
The more you approach Jiu Jitsu like a language you’re slowly immersing yourself in and less like a stressful sport with endless rules to memorize, the better off you’ll be – even when you do have difficult days on the mat.
Remember that growth in this sport is exponential – not linear – and ultimately the more you show up and put in the time, the more you’ll get out of it. Your goals might even change, the deeper you get!
If you do compete, look at it like just another tool for you to improve yourself. Try not to live and die based on your wins and losses. Some days, you will feel like you’re getting worse — oftentimes when you’re developing and learning new skill sets — but the only way to truly stop progressing in BJJ is to just stop showing up all together.
