Advice for newbies in your chosen Martial Art

average hero

I am just back from a my first No-Gi BJJ training session in Rush Fight Academy which I thoroughly enjoyed and would recommend (tough training in relaxed atmosphere for newcomers).

The main thing I lesson I learned was Position before Submission

It made me think, if you had one piece of advice to offer newcomers in your chosen martial art, what would it be?

For Example,

BJJ / No Gi BJJ - Position before Submission

irateghost

Kyokushin - LEARN TO BLOCK A LOW KICK

cowzerp

Boxing, hands up and chin down.

arybvtcw0eolkf

Judo, well the often repeated advice to beginners ~ No stiff arms, relax!.

But if I was to give some advice on strategy I'd say work on your grip fighting. You won't get anything from bad grips.

Dyr

Everything: Stay the f**k off youtube

The Bored One

For MMA ( and most things in life I think) : You're not going to be amazing at everything immediately, so stop trying to be. Focus on doing one thing right consistently, and once you've got that down, move on to the next thing.

Doug Cartel

You have to train regularly. When I started out I was going once a week (often missing a week here and there), and frankly I was wasting my time.

These days I'm only managing two a week at best, with a lot of gaps due to work, and it's not great. For a while when I was getting a solid 4 classes in a week my progress sky-rocketed.

I honestly think it's no exaggeration to say that if you can get 4+ classes a week, every week, you'll progress as much in a few months as you would have in years of patchy training. Even 3 classes is going to make a big difference over 1 or 2.

boxer.fan

Boxing / Kickboxing: Try to relax as much as possible, being rigid & tense only diminishes power / speed and tires you out way too quickly.

Practice the simple stuff like drills etc to infinity & dont pace yourself to just get through the rounds. Give everything to each drill until you are bolloxed, then do some more. This will significantly improve technique.

And most of all - enjoy it, your chosen martial art / sport should bring a lot of good things to your life!

boxer.fan

The Bored One wrote: »

Focus on doing one thing right consistently, and once you've got that down, move on to the next thing.

This is really good advice too.

Dyr

boxer.fan wrote: »

dont pace yourself to just get through the rounds. Give everything to each drill until you are bolloxed, then do some more. This will significantly improve technique.

Honest question here: how will it improve your technique

Jonah42

Sort of a general one but anyway:

Hygiene is soooo important. Rolling/Randori with people who have long nails or wear dirty gi's is disgusting.

boxer.fan

Bambi wrote: »

Honest question here: how will it improve your technique

In my own experience doing drills, i have found that by constantly pushing myself to be faster and more accurate, for example, under the watchful eye of an astute instructor is an excellent way to improve technique. There is nothing more annoying than watching students "going through the motions" just to get to the end of a round. There is nothing to benefit that way I dont think.

Dyr

in my experience, If you're completely bollixed then technique deteriorates noticeably, it might improve mental and physical conditioning but if you're looking to install technique then going until your technique is falling apart is not helpful. The logic being that your brain tends to install whatever you finish with so "Don't finish on a fail" was the phrase I was taught with.

I don't know if there's some awesome science to back that up but it made sense to me.

Doug Cartel

Jonah42 wrote: »

Sort of a general one but anyway:

Hygiene is soooo important. Rolling/Randori with people who have long nails or wear dirty gi's is disgusting.

I'm quoting this one because it's so important. It happens a lot that we get people who won't take hints to wash their gear and cut their nails. Sometimes they won't even listen when they are explicitly told to fix up. These people do not end up having a good time and eventually quit.

Make sure you wash your gear and cut your nails. A few times I've heard people say that they just don't have time to do this. Guess what? Nobody has time to do this (a judo suit takes ages to dry out in our climate) yet they find a way. It takes effort but it has to be done.

Tom BJJ

Just to add to the hygiene thing, wash your belt too.

The Bored One

Another suggestion, though I'm not sure how many people follow it. But I find its something thats very useful for MMA or arts where there's no set grading syllabus.
Keep a logbook of your training sessions.
Write down the details of the techniques you practiced, problems you encountered, and any ideas or details that stuck with you.
There's a few good reasons for this.
First off, writing down what you practiced is a great way of keeping what you learned fresh in your mind.
Second, its a great reference material. It means when you encounter a problem, you can look back through your notes to see if there's any suitable solutions you've practiced in the past.
Third, it helps you track your progress, and show any recurring problems or issues you might need to deal with. And importantly, boost your confidence a little by showing the problems you've already dealt with.

Anyhoo, its just something Ive found personally to be helpful.

p to the e

Doug Cartel wrote: »

I'm quoting this one because it's so important. It happens a lot that we get people who won't take hints to wash their gear and cut their nails. Sometimes they won't even listen when they are explicitly told to fix up. These people do not end up having a good time and eventually quit.

Make sure you wash your gear and cut your nails. A few times I've heard people say that they just don't have time to do this. Guess what? Nobody has time to do this (a judo suit takes ages to dry out in our climate) yet they find a way. It takes effort but it has to be done.

Have a 3 inch scar on my forearm from a kick from someone who cut a V shape in the top of their nail to relieve it from ingrowing and have been scratched on the forehead several times. And I've gotten impetigo more than once which just isn't nice. Hygiene and "grooming" should be basic.

For Kyokushin my advice is never, EVER drop those hands.

EnjoyChoke

Doug Cartel wrote: »

I'm quoting this one because it's so important. It happens a lot that we get people who won't take hints to wash their gear and cut their nails. Sometimes they won't even listen when they are explicitly told to fix up. These people do not end up having a good time and eventually quit.

Make sure you wash your gear and cut your nails. A few times I've heard people say that they just don't have time to do this. Guess what? Nobody has time to do this (a judo suit takes ages to dry out in our climate) yet they find a way. It takes effort but it has to be done.

I rolled with a beginner once, who had what I thought was a camo gi on. It wasn't, it was mould!

irateghost

For Kyokushin my advice is never, EVER drop those hands.

This is great advice unless you want to end up looking like the elephant man

cowzerp

EnjoyChoke wrote: »

I rolled with a beginner once, who had what I thought was a camo gi on. It wasn't, it was mould!

I think i know this beginner.

Jason McCabe

Train with the best. Look to get tapped out/taken down/out striked. Then ask questions

Train regularly and be consistent.

Jonah42

Leave your ego at the door.

I'm currently trying to recover from ruptured ankle ligaments thanks to an overzealous training partner.

Doug Cartel

EnjoyChoke wrote: »

I rolled with a beginner once, who had what I thought was a camo gi on. It wasn't, it was mould!

Oh. Dear. God.

Doug Cartel

Jonah42 wrote: »

Leave your ego at the door.

I'm currently trying to recover from ruptured ankle ligaments thanks to an overzealous training partner.

And I have a massive plate in my shoulder from being an overzealous training partner.

arybvtcw0eolkf

Doug Cartel wrote: »

Oh. Dear. God.

Want a better one, and you may have met this judoka ~ he blows his nose onto the inside of his Gi, and there the crusty bits remain FOR WEEKS!.

OP another, and in my experience this goes across the styles.. Try train with the higher grade's as they're less likely to injury you (hurt is different ). Don't be intimidated by a belt color darker than yours but beware the white belt!.

RedXIV

Talk to everyone asap, chat away like crazy the first few nights, that way you'll be more comfortable with the people you're training with and far more likely to continue training. Thats a more general tip.

TKD wise? stretch like a mofo before everything.

Stephen_King

Try to pick up on why a technique works as opposed to trying to learn 20 variations of something right of the bat, and concentrate on improving your stance\postures as much as possible at the start.

EnjoyChoke

Honestly, the best piece of advice that I got starting off was "don't use the closed guard for the first 6 months". Really helped me develop a decent open guard, which I was then able to build the rest of my game around.
Funny thing is, one of the lads I started with wasn't listening properly and heard "ONLY use the closed guard for the next 6 months" and took this as gospel for a long time, so maybe " listen to your coach" should be up there too

crosdad

I would say just keep at dont get disheartend. might sound cliche but quite honestly if you train at a good gym, the first 6 months/year of bjj isnt fun. you will be getting tapped out constantly, swept constantly and pritty much mauled constantly. that's why i think so few people last. i've actually heard people say to me '' ah im just not good jiu jitsu'' or '' dont seem to be able to get any good at it''. if you keep training and train correctly at a good gym you will get very good.

Pride Fighter

I think people should always remember KISS. Keep it simple stupid. No need to go for flying kicks in any MA when you have a straight jab or flying armbars in grappling arts.

da mo

Make it your own. Repeat exercises for yourself at home. Even just 10 minutes a day helps you to better understand and remember what's taught in class, increases your practise opportunities, helps you build discipline, enables you to take in more details or new material in the next class, and generally gets you more involved.

crosstrainer1

average hero wrote: »

I am just back from a my first No-Gi BJJ training session in Rush Fight Academy which I thoroughly enjoyed and would recommend (tough training in relaxed atmosphere for newcomers).

The main thing I lesson I learned was Position before Submission

It made me think, if you had one piece of advice to offer newcomers in your chosen martial art, what would it be?

For Example,

BJJ / No Gi BJJ - Position before Submission

asks questions if in diffs

scottie pippen

Kickboxing - when sparring, move your feet & don't forget to breathe

Zen65

Move your body, not just your arms and legs.

cowzerp

scottie pippen wrote: »

Kickboxing - when sparring, move your feet & don't forget to breathe

Or you will die!

cowzerp

Titan Immense Supporter wrote: »

Want a better one, and you may have met this judoka ~ he blows his nose onto the inside of his Gi,

in my boxing class a lad was doing the same into his t shirt, eventually I just said that's sick man, just blow your nose.

In fairness he hasn't done it since-shame works well.