I talked the other day about how getting out of your comfort zone and competing could be good, but what if you already compete? What are things that will further your growth? The most logical is learning another martial art. Judo, wrestling, and Sambo are most directly linked to improving grappling. Boxing, kickboxing, and Muay Thai are complimentary to a solid grappling base. Then you have outliers that have less direct connections aikido, capoeira, and weapon work all bring different things you can bring in for a better martial practice. Outside of martial arts, yoga, rock climbing, and water sports are all very popular in our community. I think it’s good to use other things to reinvigorate your Jiu Jitsu, sometimes the grind, burns you out, changing the pace and being a beginner again might be what you need.
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Do you need to compete? Probably... competition exposes holes in your jiu-jitsu, and gives you real feedback on what’s working and what’s not. Do you need to train like you’re chasing a world championship? Probably not, but you should experience it. Go through a real training camp at least once, commit to competition practices for a quarter. If you’re a BJJ hobbyist, always try to expand your scope of knowledge and understanding. Maybe you’ll like it, and maybe you won’t, but you’ll never have anyone say you didn’t try.
This is somewhat counterintuitive to grappling martial arts because there are rules that penalize passivity, but it’s a concept that helps both in competition and self defense. In competition it’s okay to reset, take your two steps back, pull your grips, change your approach. Oftentimes it will significantly annoy or frustrate your opponent. For self defense, look to disengage. You are not in a controlled environment, the quicker you can leave, the less risk you take. Even the most confident grappler shouldn’t stay on the ground in a street fight, the variables are too numerous and that singular focus can be damaging. While you are working on your ability to grapple, also work on your ability to leave.
Controversial opinion: Getting up is a neglected skill in BJJ. As much confidence as jiu-jitsu practitioners rightly have in their skills on the ground, getting up should become a focus of training. This really applies to all aspects of Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu. From both a self-defense and competition perspective the top is where the advantage is. All points in BJJ are based in achieving a better than neutral top position, and extended periods of time spent on the ground in a street fight is an unrealistic strategy. It’s very easy to get comfortable playing guard and I’m guilty of complacency in this regard as well, but if you put a concentrated effort in to making people work hard to keep you down, and make it hard for people to leave when you achieve dominate positions then you can pretty much fire at will with your submissions.
I was listening to the Matburn podcast and they said something interesting that I wanted to elaborate on. They talked about how motivation is not enough to be successful in BJJ. Motivation fades, every new year people are motivated for their resolutions. The amount of people who see those resolutions through is low enough that it has become a cliche. In order to succeed at a difficult or long term goal, you need discipline. Discipline comes in when you’re sore and tired, when you hit the inevitable plateau, when you’d rather do something else, when the desire to accomplish what you set out to do is lost, that’s what separates those who follow through from those who don’t. Even if at first all the discipline you have is showing up, getting mauled, and coming back tomorrow, you’re building a life skill. You don’t have to be great to try, but if you don’t try you’ll never be great.
When you’re playing guard establishing points of contact is important in not getting passed. Unless you have a locking control it is important to not isolate yourself to one side of your opponents body with your points of contact. It is also important that you place those contact points at different levels, so a hook on the knee, a foot on the hip, and a collar and sleeve grip is a good example of this idea. There are exceptions to this rule, however if you are struggling with getting your guard passed, utilizing these concepts can be very beneficial.
Controlling your opponent’s posture is something all instructors harp on when talking about playing guard. There are a lot of reasons for that. Posture controls balance, and if you can disrupt balance, you are creating multiple focuses for the person you’re training with. Similarly, breaking posture in a self defense situation lessens the power of strikes. Both by taking away the distance and not allowing your adversary to set themselves in the ground, their ability to hit hard is greatly reduced. Work on breaking posture whenever you play guard, and your success rate will improve immensely.
When playing off your back in BJJ, I find it helpful to think of keeping one shoulder blade off the mat at all times. Being on bottom in theory should be an active game, where you use movement to set up attacks and lessen the chances of being attacked yourself. Being flat on your back increases the surface area and friction you will need to combat in order to move effectively. By keeping one shoulder blade up as a rule of thumb, you instinctively allow yourself more movement and more chances to attack and defend successfully.
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AuthorThis is the blog page of Chuva BJJ. It's where you will find information that seems pertinent to the academy. Archives
February 2025
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