Brazilian Jiu Jitsu - General Thread

Not sure what was going on with my typing there.

But what I was wondering was if the OP meant the kid one belt up was a yellow belt. Or if they meant grey belt vrs their kid with grey/white stripe.

Point being that grouping the different grey belts is normal and not really different ranks.

From experience, there is much in BJJ that isn't intuitive or natural to a beginner. Hip movement is a good example. It's a combination of following instruction from people more advanced than you and also just repeating the movement until you figure out what works and what doesn't work. It can of course be taught with granular detail, spending an hour purely going over the mechanics of a specific position is entirely possible, if not overkill for a beginner.

The idiot feeling, as you've called it, still persists throughout the belts, though it happens less frequently as you get higher up the ladder. Every day is a school day.

Patience is quite important in learning BJJ, and isn't something I've seen discussed very much. If you've got new people who have previously done skill based sports then they may very well know what it takes to learn, but rank amateurs who never did a day of exercise in their lives have a steep slope to climb, as they not only need to learn BJJ but they also need to learn how to learn.

Regarding people who know quite a lot after a handful of classes, it's often the case that they know just a little bit more than the person with less experience. If I've done an arm bar 20 times and you've only done it once I have an advantage. A person who has a handful of classes, or even a few months of training might have a solid grasp on certain moves & positions but if their opponent uses a technique they don't know, or simply defends successfully then the beginner has hit the limit of their understanding of BJJ. The difference between someone with a few months experience and someone with a few years experience is that the more experienced person will try something, fail, and then try another move, if that fails they'll try another move (or even return to the first move). for example, you're in their closed guard (you're on top) and they go for a kimura, but you defend, then they may well go for a guillotine, if you defend that they may try the kimura, or try a sweep etc.

Don't worry about how much or how little people know, there'll always be someone better or worse than you. At times in the past I used to equate success with having high percentage of success with submissions (true to a certain extent; if you're submitting people then you're "winning"). The problem occurs when you meet someone who is better at defending a submission than you are at apply them; what's your plan B? You'd better have one!

Focus on enjoying BJJ and enjoying the training. Unlike a video game, we will never complete BJJ, we'll all be dead and gone before we've figured out all the moves, all the variations on positions etc.

You'll find the endurance can really be your best friend. It's a specific kind of endurance.

A guy started in our place last week. Semi-pro rugby player, absolute unit and everything is power and strength. Trying to keep the guy in place is a nightmare and, because he's new, I didn't want to be putting myself at risk of injury.

But I knew that there was only so far into a round he could go before he starts gassing (we do 6 min rounds in my place). it's true what they say, fatigue makes cowards of us all. 3 mins in or so and he couldn't muscle out of things any more and it was a more level playing field.

Now, what do I do when he gains that endurance and has some skill........ i'll cross that bridge when I come to it 😂

Yeah but I think this is just a case of getting back on the horse. Once you get some of your fitness back, those submissions and chains will come with much less effort as yo won't have to force them.

We currently have a situation whereby our coach (black belt) didn't see eye to eye with the guy running the gym (purple belt...... it's a weird situation), so he left. Our gym is an affiliate of a bigger gym (not the one you're thinking of) and this rift lead to our coach falling out with the leader of the parent gym, which strenghtened his resolve, leading him to open his own gym only a few KMs away from the old place. It's been an absolute mess. He left months ago, and since then we've been coached by the purple belt.

Our coach's new gym opens next week and I and most of the coloured belts are going with him, but in the preceeding months of limbo the old club has felt like pergutory. No coloured belts turning up, new white belts coming in every week...... it's been weird!

Looking forward to getting back with the old coach, the old group of lads and getting back to "normal".

For me, I don't do any specific supplemental exercise, I just try to fit exercise in where I can get it. If I need to go 5km to pick something up for example, I'll jump on the bike. I'd say swimming is ideal if you're looking to supplement but the correct answer is do another BJJ session if that's an option.

With regard to yoga, I've actually been meaning to start giving BJJ specific yoga a go for a while. Before lockdown I was doing a routine from a YouTube video 3-4 times a week and I really noticed a difference in my flexibility. In fact, others were even mentioning my improved flexibility. I really need to get back to it.

Also, yes I keep a notebook. Well, I actually keep a spreadsheet that I take notes on. It's very handy. Not only to take notes but to set goals.

For example, at the start of Jan I will figure out how many hours of BJJ I want to do over the next 3 months. I'll do the same for rounds sparred and I've started one now for "rounds with coloured belts". After each session, I fill in a box with how many hours I did, how many rounds I did and how many of them were with coloured belts.

I know it might sound silly, but you'd be surprised how many times I've almost missed training and thought "but I'm falling behind on the sheet, I have to go". Same with rounds. "I better go to this Open Mat, I need the rounds.". The coloured belt one is good too because it defeats that demon in my head who knows you're tired and says "go on, grab the new guy. That purple belt looking to make eye contact with you will give you a tough round. Forget that......"

On the sheet, I try take notes right after class when I can remember all the details. It's handy if you're doing the same technique in successive classes. Night one you might remember 80% of the details. On night two, you can keep your mind on the ones you missed and add them to you r notes the following day

This sounds good. Especially counting rolls. I can definitely see how it encourages you to squeeze in extra sessions. It also highlights how people don’t train as much as they think. If the typical week is 3 days, people assume that’s the average. But you miss sessions far more often that you get extra.

I track training sessions and hours. Have an app to do it, but I’ve been really slack last few months. Should try fix that.

Great post 👆️

Good post, a few things I'd add. I agree that there is no substitute for mat time for improving "rolling cardio". But I think this also misinterpreted a lot (not saying you are to be clear).

There's no such thing sports specific cardio. You don't improve running cardio by running, or bike cardio by cycling. You only have one cardiovascular system, you improves as you train it. The issue for most people with pure cardio in BJJ, is that they are simply moving inefficiently. They are rolling in too high a gear to get the work done. By getting rounds and rounds in, you can get the same work done in a lower gear and stamina goes up.

It's absolutely best to focus on rolling efficiently like that to get better. But I'd also add that if you genuinely have poor cardio (either untrained, or maybe post injury) then it's also worth targeting that with supplementary training.

Agree also. It's a good program, and has some BJJ specific application. But it's not magic, its still just yoga. any other yoga is going to be good. But Injury rehab should be injury specific, not sport specific.

I've also been looking at aggressive stretching programs for splits, pancake etc. Definitely not necessary. But beneficial is you want to improve guard retention and similar positions.

Goes without saying. The "your really strong" backhanded bjj compliment exists for a reasons. Get string and smash things.

The ideas; "Strength does not matter in BJJ", "BJJ uses strength against you", etc are absolute nonsense.

So, I'm back about 2 months, not getting to go as frequently as I used to - hitting 1 or 2 sessions a week.

Funny situation, I am almost back to my old level with the coloured belts, especially the purples, and I'm rolling very comfortably (despite my knee and ankle being absolute ****), but I'm finding some of the whites troublesome.

I'm in complete control but I'm finding them a harder nut to crack than the coloured belts. Perhaps it's just the rolls are more open with the coloured belts. I'm not getting frustrated, I know I just need to get tweak my game and figure them out because they clam up and I'm probably being a bit more conservative subconsciously with the whites because of my knee and ankle, and my experience of white belts spazzing out and causing injury.

Loving being back in a competitive environment anyhow :-)

Hasn't been great recently here. A holiday kept me out of class. Then straight after the holiday a Covid diagnosis kept me out for more time. Then on the first class back I got some strain/sprain in my ankle and that kept me out. So not much progress or gains here really.

Still enjoying it though. Strangely one thing I enjoy is how uncomfortable it makes me. I've always been relatively quiet and in my personal space or off by myself in my own head or whatever. So getting up close and personal and physical with people makes me rather uncomfortable. But making myself endure that and enjoy it seems to benefit me a lot. I still go into every class pretty much dreaded aspects of it. But seem to derive a lot of benefit physically and emotionally from facing that, enduring it, and coming out both enjoying it and having learned something from it.

I am an amateur still to both BJJ and all kinds of training. I have been a computer geek for my entire life and am in early 40s now. So I am not in a position to give out any advice.

But that said... I have certainly noticed the things that feed into my own BJJ. While BJJ can be a full body work out... I certainly notice that my leg strength is everything especially when I have people in my guard and I get good hooks with my feet. I am a short guy with a little extra body weight around the waist. But I have muscle bound he-men struggling to break my legs open when I get them in my guard. So running and cycling and rowing machine have certainly had an effect there. At 73KG myself I find I struggle to make 20 reps on most fixed weight machines when it is set to only 25KG. So very little arms strength here really. But with my Legs I can do 20 or 30 reps on the leg press machine even when it's set to 2 or 2.5 times my body weight.

But everything seems to fit into BJJ. I have been doing a lot of press ups (for me a lot, for most people training probably almost none) and I have had a few people I have rolled with comment on how my strength has gone up when they are battling me. Especially my "frame" which is what I think it is called when you put your hands together, arms at right angle, to hold off an opponent. (Since I am training in German, I get a lot of the BJJ lingo wrong in English!).

Im not a great swimmer but I am assuming swimming, which like BJJ is a full body workout, is also going to feed in well.

But I struggle to think of any work outs or exercises I have done recently which I have failed to find feed positively into my BJJ in some way. Even upping my 10km runs to 16km recently has had an effect because as I wrote in an earlier post ENDURANCE is a big thing. When I roll against someone I have noticed that while they might tap me out 3 times in a row, by the 4th I am popping up ready to go again and they are slowly pulling themselves to their feet panting and sweating with hardly the strength to go on. So I am getting closer and closer to besting them then in that way too.

So I think one secret with training and workouts is to find what keeps you coming back. What is better, something that has a 25% improvement on your BJJ but you hate it so struggle to find motivation and eventually give up or start missing sessions.... or something that while it might only have a 10% effect on your BJJ, you love it, keep coming back to it, keep showing up, and keep making the gains?