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Many years ago, I trained with a grappler whose plan seemed to be stalling in every position (and I mean every position), turtling up at all costs. He kept his arms glued to his side and his head tucked down at all times and worked hard to squash every movement, though not to any great success. Even when he slowly grinded his way to a good position, he wouldn’t take advantage of it, instead remaining defensive, almost paranoid of what could happen if he dared try.

If his goal was to tap fewer times per round, I suppose he accomplished that by making everything as slow as molasses, but he wasn’t racking up many points on the invisible scoreboard in the sky either. Eventually, he would fall behind, and not being willing to risk anything, he’d never catch up and end up tapping despite his efforts.

I asked him why he didn’t try to open up, to flow more, to not worry about things so much. I thought his mind was blank because he couldn’t think fast enough to keep up and just held on to stall the match; but his answer revealed a different problem. He explained: “If I do this, then they’ll counter with that, so I don’t do it. And if I do that, they’ll counter with this, so I don’t try it. And if I….” and so on. He was fighting virtual matches a dozen times more complex than the actual ones he was having! His mind was racing to consider all the outcomes and consequences. But his analysis always ended with him being countered or swept or submitted, and so he never bothered trying.

I asked him if any of his “if this, then that” equations ended with him succeeding. Why not just go for the move anyway? If he knows the potential counters, then just be ready to counter that and keep going until he wins. “If I do this, then they will do that, so I will do this next!”

He didn’t seem too keen on the idea. He preferred to play it safe, or at least what he considered safe, keeping the number of times he tapped to a minimum but never scoring any big wins for himself. That wasn’t the best mindset, but it wasn’t my job to play jiu-jitsu psychologist, so I let him go on his merry turtling way.

Bruce Lee has a famous saying about “analysis paralysis,” and this is the clearest example of it I’ve encountered in BJJ. A popular misconception, often expressed by lower belts, is that black belts think 100 moves ahead, like a computer playing a chess game. But that’s not how any human black belts or chess masters play their games, as far as I know. The mindset is more like this:

I know what I want. I know what you want. I will execute my gameplan and deny yours as much as I can. I will re-evaluate the situation at each critical moment as the match progresses. I will go for whatever gives me the highest odds of winning, but I won’t take stupid risks.

Across many fields, you’ll find the concepts of “playing to win” versus “playing to not lose”. I first learned these ideas playing Magic: The Gathering, but it is common in athletics and even the business world. My turtling friend above is a prime example of “playing to not lose” and where that can go wrong. Let’s get into how these two mindsets can apply to grappling.

Read these lists and see which better describes your grappling style:

Playing to Win

• Willing to take risks
• Excited by the potential for the best outcome
• Don’t mind playing fast and loose
• Eager to attack and go on the offensive
• Characterized by optimism

Playing to Not Lose

• Reluctant to take risks
• Worried about the worst outcome
• Prefer to go slower and be careful
• Focused on defense and reaction
• Tends towards realism

You may see yourself in some of those traits, maybe even split between the two lists.

Picking Your Strategy

When deciding which side of the “win” or “not lose” fence you fall on, consider these factors:

• Your experience level. A white belt will be forced to “play not to lose” simply because that’s all they can do against most people. That’s as it should be, because the foundation is built on survival and defense. But by blue belt or higher, you should have enough tools under your belt to “play to win” against people near your level or below.
• Your opponent’s experience level. It’s overly optimistic for me to say “just get out there and go for it!” in every situation against every opponent. When you’re outclassed, you do what you’ve got to do, but I will say that the lower belts who give me the most trouble are the ones who don’t care about my rank and go for their techniques with confidence.
• What does “winning” really mean to you right now? Context matters. How you measure success when you’re up for gold at Worlds or just rolling with a friend on another Tuesday night is very different. You see this philosophy expressed in the “keep it playful / keep it real” movement. Sometimes just not getting injured so you can train again tomorrow is the real “win” at the end of a tough night.
• Realize that neither strategy is “better” than the other all the time. My opening story may have biased you against playing to not lose, but that was an extreme case. Play it safe if that’s your nature, but still have a plan for winning in there somewhere. A grappler with a slow, deliberate style can build their game around wearing their opponent down, running them out of options, and draining their energy until a win is inevitable. Ricardo Arona is a classic example of a successful “play not to lose” grappler. On the flip side, Marcelo Garcia is likely the greatest “play to win” competitor in history. After losing to Drysdale in ADCC by getting caught in a brabo choke as he went for a single leg takedown, he was asked if he would still go for that takedown if he had another chance. His answer was “Yes, but faster.”

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As a student or teacher of jiu-jitsu, it can help to break the martial art into four main contexts: gi, no-gi, self defense, and MMA. These categories let you to analyze the effectiveness of your training methods and inform how you select techniques. It can also help you understand conflicting opinions between people who may not realize they are training for different reasons.

Let’s breakdown the four contexts to their specifics:

At its core, jiu-jitsu is a system of techniques that enables a human to defend against an attack from another human and come out victorious in hand-to-hand combat. On top of this we add further requirements and expectations, such as sport rules and real life applications.

An instructor who loves to teach sport BJJ techniques but doesn’t recognize that his students believe they are learning self defense techniques is setting those students up for a rude awakening. I believe one of the biggest confidence boosters you can give a student is to remove the fear of someone just shoving them around and swinging at their head.

The “sports” aspects of jiu-jitsu builds many skills and attributes that will be useful in a hand-to-hand fight: sparring against a resisting opponent (even without strikes), learning through constant trial-and-error, dealing with adrenaline dump, physical conditioning, etc.

How would you define “winning” in these situations?

• You are a woman being followed by a stranger as you walk alone at night.
• You are a police officer intervening to stop domestic violence.
• You are a husband getting carjacked with your wife and kid in the car.
• You are a soldier encountering enemy combatants while clearing a building.
• You are a 16th century feudal warlord charging your horse into foot soldiers.

And how much would jiu-jitsu help in those situations?

My personal opinion is that hand-to-hand combat is one of the least important aspects of most self defense situations that don’t resemble a street fight. A fully realized self defense system would include developing verbal skills, de-escalation, threat assessment, situational awareness, using the environment, practicing escaping rather than engaging in combat, etc.

Let’s talk about street fights for a minute. They are often held up as the best example of how jiu-jitsu is used in self defense. There is some truth to that since it’s two apes jumping on each other in the wild, but I’d argue that it’s closer to a form of “mutual combat.” Most street fights can be avoided if you stay away from 1) groups of aggressive young men, 2) groups of drunk people, and 3) people competing to get laid.

(Interesting aside: Someone did a reddit AMA about being in prison. He had a BJJ blue belt so he was asked if it helped. He said it didn’t because if he clinched and took it to the ground, other inmates would separate them and stand them back up to “fight like real men.”)

The more you specialize in any one of these four areas, the more likely you are to practice techniques and tactics that aren’t practical in the other areas. This is how we get double guard pulls and winning by advantages after 10 minutes stuck in 50/50 in the sport, but self defense can get just as weird. What starts as blocking haymakers and escaping bear hugs can evolve into LARPing and 5-on-1 taser knive fights (but to be honest that sounds pretty sweet).

A useful definition of “the basics” is to look for the techniques and positions that have the greatest crossover between all four areas. This gives you the list of common fundamentals: mount, rear mount, side control, closed guard, bridging, shrimping, armbar, guillotine, rear naked choke, etc.



We can also understand the conflicting opinions between jiu-jiteiros by where they place themselves across these four corners. Someone whose primary reason for learning jiu-jitsu is self defense won’t be concerned with learning modern sports techniques or keeping track of points while rolling. Their sports-oriented training partners will wonder why they don’t seem concerned to learn berimbolo defenses or check out cool techniques from YouTube. But why would they?

Likewise, if you don’t care about self defense, but enjoy sports and competition, you’ll get bored drilling headlock escapes and wish you were repping out the hot new tech you liked on Instagram. Given how many of the classic “self defense” techniques are taught, without any resistance or sparring, I can see why. These techniques need to be trained like real skills with live drills, not just dusted off when the instructor feels guilty he hasn’t shown Helio’s “defense against arm’s length overhand karate chop” since the 90’s.

In last year’s US BJJ Globetrotters camp, Chris Haueter entertainingly rants about the struggle between the old school and new, street versus sport, and his golden rules for jiu-jitsu. Watch it now if you missed it:

Back in 2014, Philly-based Josh Vogel ran a 30 Day Punch Challenge with these Cato-vs-Clouseau rules:

Grab a friend. Tell them to throw 10 punches or slaps at you every day. Avoid, block, parry or clinch when those punches are thrown. You can have them hit you hard, or light, slow or fast. I suggest doing this from standing, but you can do this from ground positions. You can ask your friend to do this all in one shot, or randomly throughout the day (I’m going to ask my wife to randomly attack me throughout the day, for example).

On the Show the ART podcast, another Philly grappler, the kettlebell juggling Jason C. Brown talked about putting on boxing gloves and doing takedowns versus punches in the old school days training with Steve Maxwell. This was a common practice when I was a white belt, but I haven’t seen it in a long time (and I’m partly to blame). To borrow from Philly one more time, I’m going to be copying the Migliarese brother’s practice of having a monthly “street week”.

A martial art only consists of the things its practitioners regularly do. Judo may supposedly have strikes in its kata, but that’s like karate claiming it has grappling hidden in its katas too. Your training is only what you actually do, not what some Gracie did 70 years ago.

Ask yourself these questions:

• Which of the four contexts do you want to train for? You can pick more than one, but think about how important each one is to you.
• Does your school’s curriculum and training actually prepare you for that?
• If it doesn’t, how can you change your own training to align with your real goals?
• Would you benefit from exploring a neglected context?

My purpose for this article was not to spark yet another tiresome street versus sport debate (it will do that no matter what), but to help you see the bigger picture and place yourself and your training on the greater map of jiu-jitsu. I don’t believe training for self defense is better or worse than training for sport, but that you should be truthful with yourself and your students about what you’re really training for.

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We all want to spend more time on the mats, but inconvenient distractions like our jobs and families and so-called social lives get in the way. These 10 tips will give you ways to improve your BJJ even when you can’t get on the tatami.

1. Practice visualization.

Your mind is your most powerful asset. Harness the power of visualization to “practice” even when you can’t get to practice. You can do this in your free moments, like when you’re standing in the shower, laying in bed before you go to sleep, or when you’re doing that thing people call a job where you sit in front of a computer and look at Reddit 8 hours a day.

Try these guided visualizations:

• Try to recall the details of your last particularly tough round of sparring — how it started, how it progressed, what problems you encountered, etc.
• What techniques did you learn last class? Pull up a mental image of the instructor. What did they say and how did they demonstrate it? Recall it word for word. How well did you perform it in drilling? What could you improve next time?
• Pick a technique you want to work on. Close your eyes and mentally put yourself into the situation to perform it. How do you move your limbs, where do you put your hands, when do you change grips? Imagine this from a first-person perspective. Do it again from third person.

Many competitors in and outside of BJJ make visualization part of their mental game for calming their nerves and focusing on positive outcomes. I’m no sports psychologist, but you can find many books on the subject if you want to go into the technique in more depth. Check Amazon or your local library.

2. Keep a training journal.

If you struggle with retention, my first piece of advice for that is to keep a training journal. After you train — perhaps later that night or the next day — write down or type up what you did in class. Use the same visualization cues I gave in the last tip, then write down what you “see.” The active recall it demands of you is more important than whatever ends up on the page. In fact, I can’t make much sense of my old notes, but they still helped me solidify the lessons in my mind at the time.

You may want to try taking notes during class too. Read “6 Tips for Taking Notes in Jiu-Jitsu” by Ayanthi Gunawardana for good advice on writing in a BJJ notebook.

3. Flowchart your gameplan.

Developing your grappling gameplan can take make a huge difference, especially if you’ve never done it before. This is practically a must for anyone at blue belt level (or soon to be) — and doubly so for competitors.

I break gameplanning down into two main steps: 1) taking inventory and 2) mapping it out.

Here’s how you take inventory. For each position listed below, write down your best 1-3 techniques for when you’re on top. Then go back through and list 1-3 techniques for when you’re on the bottom

• Standing (takedowns)
• Rear mount
• Mount
• Knee-on-belly
• Side control
• Turtle
• Half guard
• Open guard
• Closed guard

Did you have a solid technique or two for each position? If not, you know what to work on next.

Now that you’ve got your techniques “preloaded” into your mind, let’s map them out. Draw this out with bubbles and arrows.

Your match starts standing. What stance do you take? What grips do you seek? What takedowns do you initiate with? Where does that land you? What do you do there? And so on…

Run through the sequence again, but this time work on the what if’s — what if your move gets countered this way, what if they escape that way, what if you get your guard passed, etc.

Cycle through that process until you’ve built out a comprehensive gameplan. You don’t need to plan for every possibility, but you want to know your “A game” and how to recover to it when things go wrong.

4. Analyze your strengths and weaknesses.

While you’ve got that journal open, why not go introspective. Honestly appraise yourself and look at your strengths and weaknesses. Rate yourself in these categories:

Technique

• Escapes and defenses
• Takedowns and takedown defense
• Guard (closed, open, half, sweeps, pass prevention)
• Pass passing (opening the guard, passing specific open guards)
• Top game
• Back attacks
• Leglocks
• Submissions

Physical

• Strength
• Power
• Endurance
• Flexibility
• Durability

Mental

• Self-discipline
• Focus
• Learning speed and knowledge retention
• Strategic thinking
• Determination, heart, grit
• Confidence
• Composure (overcoming nervousness and performance anxiety)

Your ego may sting after a harsh look at yourself, but it’s all in the name of self-growth. The insights you gain here will help you steer your training and study in the future.

5. Set goals.

Sometimes it can feel like you’re just spinning your wheels but not going anywhere in BJJ. What’s this all leading up to? Just another boring class, just another day showing up and not knowing what you’re really heading towards.

Goal setting can set you on a path where you feel you’re making real progress. Plateaus are easier to break through when you see how each day is getting you closer to your big picture goals.

Write down your answers to this:

• What big goals do you want to accomplish in the next 10 years?
• 5 years?
• 1 year?
• 6 months?
• 3 months?
• 1 month?
• Week?

You can limit that list to just BJJ goals if you want, but if you’ve got big goals outside of BJJ too (like becoming a doctor, moving to a new country, etc.) you’ll probably want them all laid out together for the sake of logistics.

Once you have your big picture goals, work backwards to the medium level goals that will help you get there. Then down to the short term goals. Do they all support each other?

The idea here is to have long term goals that you feel very passionate about, then aligning your lower level goals so they point you in that direction. Achieving your lifetime goals will be the result of doing mundane things again and again over many days until those days add up into years, and those years into decades.

Nelson wrote a good article about his goal setting practice called “Your Jiu-Jitsu Report Card” and gives examples of realistic goals in “Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu goals that do not involve becoming a world champion.” You can read my thoughts on how to reach your goals in “What Drives Success in BJJ.”

6. Study instructionals.

At no time in history has it been easier to learn from the world’s best BJJ teachers. You’ve got your pick of DVDs, membership sites, apps, streaming services, and ol’ faithful YouTube. The trouble is finding the right place to put your attention.

My advice is to narrow your focus. Pick a certain position or technique and research how the top competitors do it. You could also pick a specific competitor and examine their game. (More on this in the next tip.)

Thankfully there has been a trend in the BJJ instructional marketing to focus on specific guards or techniques, so you can focus your research into your particular interests. This is my favorite type of instructional. I just about fall asleep trying to watch “101 moves, BJJ from A-Z” DVDs these days. To shamelessly plug my instructional, Mastering the Crucifix, it is dedicated to a single topic — that’s right, you guessed it — the crucifix. (A birdie told me that Nelson may be releasing an instructional soon too…)

7. Analyze competition footage.

As with instructionals, you can find more competition footage than ever before. Rather than explain it all again, check out Marshal D. Carper’s article “Supplement Your Training with Competition Footage.” Pick your favorite competitors and channel your inner BJJ Scout!

8. Improve your health and strengthen your body.

Until VR gaming makes significant advances, you’re stuck doing BJJ with your flesh and bones body. That’s unfortunate because BJJ will wreck your joints over enough years of training and injuries. The best way to counter-act this is with a smart strength and conditioning routine.

The exact form it takes is up to you and your desired results. Perhaps refer to your physical weaknesses from the earlier self-analysis. You can’t go wrong sticking to the basics though. My main advice is to keep it simple and go for general health and strength to balance out the stresses BJJ puts on your joints.

For ideas on what type of routine to do, check out Jason C. Brown’s “5 Bridges Every Jiu-Jiteiro Should Do” or my “5 Simple Tips for Fixing Your Wrecked Body.”

9. Find fun complementary activities and sports.

This may be blasphemous to admit publicly, but it’s OK to do things other than BJJ. In fact, they can even help.

Many outdoor activities have crossovers to BJJ. They may develop grip strength, balance, coordination, breath control, and what people like to call “functional strength” (AKA being good at doing stuff with your body.) Examples: swimming, surfing, stand-up paddle boarding, kayaking, rock climbing, hiking, trail running, bike riding, and more.

And God forbid you just do something besides BJJ because it’s fun.

10. Plug in to the hivemind.

Thanks to the internet, you can connect with grapplers from all over the world. If you have a problem or question, it’s likely someone else already did too, and you’re only a Google search away from the answer. If not, there are many good forums to ask your questions. For online BJJ discussion and news, the Inverted Gear team spends most of our time on Reddit’s /r/bjj, but many older BJJ/MMA message boards have built up communities.

Those are my 10 best tips for improving your BJJ when you can’t do BJJ. Nothing replaces plain old mat time, but this gives you plenty to do when that’s not available.

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Want to try BJJ but don’t know where to start? New at a BJJ school and struggling to survive the first 6 months? I’m going to lay out a quick and dirty, no frills survival guide for you.

Let’s start by assuming you’re not training yet. You probably like watching MMA and have the idea that training BJJ could be cool. Google BJJ gyms in your area and ask on BJJ forums online for good schools to try out. Fill out whatever “take a free trial class” form the school has on their website or call them to schedule a time to go in.

Stop making excuses like “I want to get in shape first.” Nothing gets you ready for BJJ except doing BJJ. (Watching Youtube videos and trying them on your annoyed girlfriend doesn’t count.)

Should you do gi or no-gi? This is irrelevant at this point. Find the best gym in your area and do whatever they offer. Eventually you should train whichever one you like more (or the best option: doing both) but don’t act like you can’t train under a gi-only instructor when your dream is to be a “em em ay” fighter.

Time to take your first class. Wear athletic shorts with a strong drawstring (and no pockets) and a t-shirt you don’t mind getting stretched out and ruined. You may be given a loaner gi to wear.

You should also bring a change of clothes and a gym towel unless you want to drive home all sweaty. Bring a bottle of water too.

Bring flipflops to wear into the bathroom. Don’t walk barefoot to the toilet. And don’t wear shoes on the mats.

Show up a little early to meet the instructor, sign a waiver, and check out the space.

When class starts, pay attention, follow instructions and just try to do whatever everyone else is doing. You will likely be barely able to follow along and this is normal.

The class will probably go like this:

• Warm-ups like running laps and basic BJJ movements
• Learn and drill 2-3 techniques (you may get your own special first lesson at this point)
• Maybe “live” drilling and sparring (not all gyms let people spar on day one)

If you get paired up with a student you don’t know, don’t worry about “wasting their time” because you’re a clueless white belt. Everyone has to help everyone, and if you’re eager to practice and learn, no matter how awful you are, then you aren’t wasting their time.

Sparring time. Watching MMA might make you feel like you’ve got half a clue but there is an ocean of difference between watching and doing. If you ever saw someone tap to a “lucky” choke or armbar in MMA and thought “Why did he tap!? I wouldn’t have tapped!”, now is your time to find out why yes, he really did need to tap to that.

If you “almost get” a colored belt with a move, they let you and they are just being nice to the new white belt.

How to not make enemies on your first day:

• Don’t pick anyone up and slam them down.
• Don’t try to break anyone’s legs or feet.
• Don’t just squeeze heads and crank on necks.
• Try not to spaz too hard.
• Don’t brag about anything.

You are allowed to spaz a little because you are a white belt and no one expects any better out of you. But you should work to replace spazzing with real technique as you train more.

This class will be a blur and you will likely forget everything you learned. That’s normal. It takes seeing and practicing techniques many times over many years to really get them.

As you roll out of bed the following morning you will likely be aware of muscles that you never knew existed before as they scream at you. That means you did it right.

Repeat this “first class” process for all the good gyms in your area then sign up at your favorite place.

The best way to deal with issues like anxiety, feeling stupid, being out of shape, etc. is to realize that everyone (except genetic freaks) went through this too, so you’re not unique and alone in this, so stop worrying about it. You don’t know this stuff yet and that’s why you are here to learn.

Claustrophobic? Prepare to take confront your fears head on. This phobia will go away as you get exposed to it and learn what to do.

If you smoke, quit now. It’s bad for you, it’s bad for your BJJ, and you smell awful to your training partners who can’t avoid breathing in your musk.

Getting nasty mat burn on your feet? You can try a product called Nu Skin to help out, it’s like a clear nail polish for abrasions, but be warned it stings like a red hot poker. Ultimately, your best answer will be calluses (same goes for playing guitar.) 

Finishing your first month. Most people don’t even take a second class, so you’re doing better than most people. But most people also don’t finish 6 months or a year, so you’re not better than them by much.

Time to get into a steady rhythm. Keep coming to classes. Be eager to learn and drill and don’t be afraid to ask questions.

How many times a week should you train? Work up to at least 3 times per week as soon as your body can handle it. Here’s a rough guide to classes per week:

1 class: You will be a white belt forever and barely learn anything.

2 classes: This will barely maintain your skill level and progress slowly.

3 classes: You will make headway and still have recovery days.

4 classes: Now you’re getting serious. You are becoming a fixture in the gym.

5 classes: You will see big improvements but get more injuries.

6 classes: You probably don’t have a job.

7+  classes: You are probably single and don’t have a job. But your BJJ is doing great!

Finishing the first 6 months. Your body is probably getting into much better shape than when you started. You should take a look at your diet and sleep habits and try to improve them. This is good for your health and your BJJ and will even help prevent overtraining injuries.

Ready for your first tournament? Of course not. But do one anyway. Everyone should try it at least once. You will probably be very nervous. That is normal. The only way to overcome this anxiety is to compete so much you get over it. Unfortunately that’s not a possible solution for your first competition.

Competing as a white belt is good too because the pressure to perform and “prove your belt” is much worse once your belt has a color. No one expects anything impressive out of a white belt so you are free suck and no one will hold it against you (except Youtube comments on your tournament video.)

I would tell you to not focus too much about getting your blue belt and you will likely say you don’t really care about your belt. But I also know you’re probably secretly coveting it anyway.

What you should be working on as a white belt:

• Regular attendance. This is the most important skill you can have because I could leave the rest of this list empty and you’d still get better by going to the gym.
• Getting in shape. You need to be able to handle a whole class from start to finish and never quit sparring because you’re tired.
• Remembering techniques. Drill a lot and maybe keep a written journal.
• Defense and escapes. As a beginner you will spend most of your time in bad spots so naturally this is the main area to improve your technical performance.

Keep that up and you’ll get better and eventually earn your blue belt.

One last piece of advice: Don’t teach anyone anything as a white belt. Don’t try to coach other white belts.

This is harsh and it will make you sad when you are sure you really know the technique, but as an instructor I have seen too many white belts eagerly teach the wrong thing without knowing it. Just ask the instructor to come and check things out. It is not a problem. That is our job.

Looking for more advice? Check out Advice for Newbie White Belts and Anxious Blue Belts. I’ve also written for blue to purple belts and browns belt on their way to black.

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A gameplan can be one of the greatest tools for a grappler, especially competitors, but there are right and wrong ways to build one. Follow this advice the next time you revise your gameplan:

Build mini gameplans and sub-systems

Your gameplan will be more useful as a collection mini gameplans rather than a single 99 technique long chain. By chunking your techniques and combinations into clusters, you will have an easier time both thinking of how the modules fit together and representing them in your visual flowchart.

Examples:

• Back attack system revolving around acquiring a seat belt grip.
• Open guards that connect to each other to combo sweeps and submissions.
• Standing guard pass system with answers to specific guards if needed.
• Submissions-as-positions strategies for armbars, triangles, kimuras, omoplata, etc.

Stay open to new additions

Your gameplan is not set in stone, not matter how many hours you spend mapping it out in FreeMind. It will always be evolving as you improve, learn more, and run into new problems to solve. You will always be discovering new techniques and positions you’d like to work on. Your gameplan can help you prioritize which to focus on first, and how they will fit into your existing knowledge base. Be willing to return to a technique you didn’t quite like the first time, because (assuming it’s a good technique), your earlier gameplan may not have had a good spot for it yet, or your skill level was not high enough at the time to fully appreciate it.

Trim the fat and cut the fluff

Developing your unique grappling style is not just about addition, but subtraction. Your gameplan can become bloated, especially if it’s mostly a mental exercise or a list of techniques you wish you were good at. Cutting out “nice to have” techniques can be tough but you will benefit from simplifying your decision trees and simplifying what you should work on in your practice time.

Account for Murphy’s law

Gameplans are built on the premise that you are mostly getting to do what you want, only branching as you run into problems and solve them, but always progressing towards you winning. Reality is rarely so kind. You should probably go back to the sub-system step and do that for all your escapes from bad positions. Survival, defenses, and escapes are not sexy, but they will keep you alive until you can get back on track.

Techniques are not all that matters

Techniques are basic building block of a gameplan, but BJJ is not just about knowing a bunch of techniques. The further you progress in BJJ, the less it becomes about collecting techniques and the more it becomes about refining the ones you already know, as well as developing less concrete attributes like intuition, timing, sensitivity, good instincts, and awareness.

Become a generalist with specialties

Early specialization as a beginner or intermediate grappler is tempting because it offers the promise of cheap success. As a competitor, this is especially appealing because it can be easier to “become a black belt” in one technique than it is to become a black belt at everything. Many upsets by lower belts competing against black belts come from hyper-specialized gameplans. How specialized you become is up to you, but I recommend you keep broadening your skills so you do not eventually find yourself becoming a one trick pony. You want a few secret weapons hidden up your sleeve, but you also need to be prepared for whatever the world throws at you.

Work on skills outside your primary gameplan

During your day-to-day training, especially when no big competitions are coming up, you should be open to working on techniques you do not yet consider part of your “A game.” Work on your “B game” and even C, D and even E games. Experiment and explore unfamiliar positions in rolling. You can always tighten up as you ramp up to compete or when you want to cut the fat.

Making up a gameplan does not make it a reality

What you put on paper does not matter until you put it into action. Use your gameplan to direct your drilling and training time. Now that you have it written down, it’s time to go put in the reps and the hours of mat time.

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After my post about how to fully develop your grappling gameplan, people asked for help with the nuts and bolts of how to draw their gameplans. This a follow-up visual guide to explain that.

I’m going to talk about the building blocks of a gameplan, how to think about combos, and how to look at the big picture.

Let’s start with two types of combos.

Linear Combos

A linear combination progresses as you succeed at points along your way towards a goal.

At a beginner level, the progression may be broadly defined, without any special connection existing between each step except that one follows the other.

Example: takedown → pass the guard → side control → mount → armbar

As you get more detailed, an advanced progression can depend on specific grips you already have as you progress and reactions you expect from your opponent.

Examples:

1. Osoto gari with collar and sleeve grip → knee-on-belly → near side armbar (sam grip throughout)
2. X-pass → knee-on-belly → opponent turns away → seat belt & chair sit → back attack system

Lateral Combos

A lateral combination is when you can alternate between several options, usually from the same position (or closely related positions), especially when a path becomes blocked.

Example: scissors sweep to the left reverse scissors sweep right take the back

A lateral combo is about using complementary techniques so your opponent is unsure which one to defend while you are happy to take whatever is most available.

The Real World is Both Linear and Lateral

Thinking of combos as linear or lateral is an (useful) abstraction, but reality is much messier than that. A gameplan is built on both kinds of combos. Sometimes you succeed, sometimes you switch to something else, and sometimes you do a mix of the two and no one but you can tell the difference.

The goal of a gameplan is to be able to know what you want to accomplish and how you deal with the ways your opponent will try to stop you.

Take Inventory

Before jumping into flow charting, I recommend writing down your favorite moves from each major position. This is most useful for beginners to see where they are lacking knowledge. When I get white belts to do this exercise for the first time, it is often a mind blowing experience.

You can also rate your confidence level for each of these positions (top and bottom), either on a 1-5 scale or with smiley/frowny faces like I do below.

With this table filled out, you now have a list of techniques to work into your flowchart.

Creating and Expanding Your Flowchart

Your first pass at drawing out your gameplan will usually progress in a linear fashion: “here’s how I start, and here’s how I get to the finish”. We are not worried about problems yet.

You can apply this process to an entire match (“Starting from standing, I get a grip and do takedown X, then…”) or for one position (“Starting in closed guard, I get a collar and sleeve grip and do sweep X, then…”).

Once you’ve got something on the page, go back to the beginning. Run through your flowchart again, but this time ask yourself questions like:

• What are most common counters to this?
• What if I cannot get what I want?
• What combos well with this?
• Do I need to switch to another move here, or to just do the first move better?

Now you’re getting into lateral combos. Your flowchart is probably starting to branch like this:

Go back to the start again, or to another critical spot (like the start of your guard passing). Here are more questions to ask yourself:

• If my plan goes wrong, what is my back up plan?
• If I get totally off my gameplan, are my escapes, defenses, and recovery skills good enough?
• What areas of this gameplan need more detailed connections so they really gel?
• What areas are too complicated and need to be simplified?
• Does my gameplan reflect my real skills, or is this just a wishlist of techniques?

Now your map is getting fun:

You can find software and apps to create flowcharts like this, or have some fun and get a big piece of butcher page and some markers or a dry erase board.

Zoom Out and Keep It Simple (Stupid)

At the end of your gameplanning, you should be able to zoom out and create a “big picture” gameplan that looks something like this:

Each bubble (and the connections between the bubbles) can contain many “if…then…else” decision trees, but you want to be able to sum it up simply.

Remember that no matter how beautifully you have laid out your gameplan, it is just a nice idea. You have to back it up with many hours of drilling and sparring. Putting it on paper just helps you make sure you are directing those training hours to develop a worthwhile strategy. Many traits that are important to your success can’t be put into this chart: improvisation, reflexes, intuition, determination, grit, cunning, trickery, explosiveness, etc.

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Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu is tough — physically, mentally, emotionally. Most people quit, and those that don’t can still spend years feeling clueless.

If you feel that way, I have good news for you: You’re learning even on those days where nothing seems to go right and you mess up every move you try. We learn a lot from frustrating failures, even when we don’t realize we are. Our brain is chewing on problems, often outside of our awareness, until one day when we have an “a ha!” moment, seemingly out of nowhere.

To explain this, let’s talk about your brain and how it learns new skills.

First, let me introduce you to two terms: procedural learning and implicit learning. Procedural learning is “repeating a complex activity over and over again until all of the relevant neural systems work together to automatically produce the activity.” Similarly, implicit learning is “the learning of complex information in an incidental manner, without awareness of what has been learned.”

The opposite is explicit learning, where each detail is clearly defined and explained to you. In BJJ, this is when teachers demonstrate step-by-step techniques and explain what they are doing. This is a necessary part of learning too, but it’s not the whole picture.

You need to develop traits like timing, awareness, intuition, instinct, and cunning. Those are hard to teach explicitly. They just take time and experience. A teacher can try to share his or her insights into them, or create games and drills that help develop them, but most of the learning is up to how much time you spend getting tossed around on the mats.

Motor learning and sports science has what’s called the “model of the desired future” or the “future model.” The future model is your brain’s way of trying to match up what is happening now with what is likely to happen in future. It constantly updates predictions based on where you are in space, the people, objects and obstacles around you, in what directions and how quickly you and everything else are moving, and how you need to act to achieve your goals. This is all automatic.

When you first start learning a new activity or sport, your brain gets to work trying to match your previous experience up to future predictions. Through trial and error, it sees how accurate its predictions were. Successes show it was right, and failures mean it needs to improve its predictions. Those failures are especially important because they show you where you have the most opportunities to improve.

The future model does most of its work below the level of consciousness. It’s about swinging at fast balls, dodging linebackers, and hitting a sweep at just the right moment. It’s about action that happens too fast for reason to justify. Its job is to make you take correct actions without hesitation. When people talk about the “flow state,” where you are acting smoothly without thinking about it, that is when the future model is at work.

All this science-y talk is to say that when you are practicing a complex activity like BJJ, much of the learning happens outside conscious awareness, especially during live training like sparring. We give this process names like “building muscle memory,” but muscles cannot remember anything. It’s all in your brain, but not every part of your brain works in words and autobiographical memories. You may not be able to explain it and you may not even know it’s happening, but as long as you put in focused practice, you are learning on one level or another.

Try imagining this:

You’re a demigod flying around over an expansive ocean. Your power is to pour endless amounts of dirt from the sky. (Awesome power, right?)

You want to create islands, so you start dumping dirt into the water. It just sinks down and you don’t get an island. The water is too deep and dark and you don’t know how far down the ocean floor is.

But you are a patient demigod, so you keep flying around, pouring dirt into the water, confident your efforts will be rewarded.

One fateful day, a little mound of dirt breaks the surface. You’ve got the start of your first island. This one grows quickly and it gives you hope.

Soon more islands pop up elsewhere. They expand into each other and form connections.

Before long, your map has expanded to have large continents and you have even started forming mountain ranges.

You still have more ocean to fill and you always will (did I mention the ocean is infinite in all directions?) but now you have firm land to stand and build on.

This concept of “filling in the ocean” is one I have used for years to view the long commitments that you need to make to improving at BJJ. Each day you go train, you are pouring another bucket of sand into the ocean. You cannot be sure when or how you will receive the fruits of your labors, but persistence and patience will pay off in the end.

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1. Students are free to train wherever they want with whoever they want

All of my students are free to seek out the best instruction and training available to them. I don’t believe in the old school “creonte” culture. I do not rule my school with a cult-like “us vs them” mentality. BJJ schools aren’t rival gangs or warring ninja clans. They don’t need to ask my permission to cross-train or hide the fact they go to other schools.

Yes, it gets complicated when we get into which team gets repped in competition, what patches go on their gi, or if the other school is actively trying to poach students. The solutions to those problem are still not to force students to worship you as their master and ostracize students who dare betray you by dropping in to open mats across town.

When a student leaves to join a different school, I may miss them because I like seeing my students, but I don’t feel possessive over them. They are adults who can make their own decisions and go where they want to go. Instead I have to ask myself if it’s because of a problem at my school, or something mundane like the other gym being closer to their house, cheaper, offering a different vibe, etc.

Just because someone has a black belt and has a following of students does not make them morally superior to others. Adults should be free to associate with whoever they want as long as it does not harm others or the school.

2. You’re not running a strength and conditioning bootcamp so don’t pretend to

Warm-ups should not destroy your students and leave them gassed and exhausted. That’s not a warm up — that’s a poorly designed workout. Old school instructors often believe that tough “warm ups” will make their students more technical because they will have no strength left when they spar. That is true in its own stupid way, but the research on motor learning and athletic training says your technical training and your conditioning are both better when done separately. Tough warm ups may give you tough students through Darwinian survival of the fittest, but it’s not because it’s the smartest way to run classes.

3. Show the whole technique before talking too much

This is a simple rule: when teaching a move, first just show the whole move first, then talk about it.

Many instructors (myself included) are guilty of over-teaching techniques because we want to share every detail. We need to realize those details don’t mean much if the student isn’t even sure where the move is heading. Now I will show the move, then explain its most important points, then go into greater detail only after the students have had a chance to practice it. You don’t need to frontload the drilling time with 15 minutes of small details, possible variations, counters, and re-counters.

4. Don’t forget what it’s like to be a frustrated beginner

BJJ instructors, like experts in every field, take many things for granted. That’s how mastery works: you get good enough to not have to think about every little thing you’re doing. The problem is that when working with students at a lower level, you can forget they are still struggling with those little things.

Here’s how this rule works in practice:

• Explicitly state the names of positions and techniques where possible
• Explain why one position is better than another (this isn’t always obvious to beginners)
• Take a moment to explain the theories and concepts that underly the techniques
• Have regressions a student can do instead if a technique is too hard for now

5. Don’t blame a student for not knowing something you’ve never shown them

This point relates to the last one, but it’s worth discussing in its own right. Instructors are often guilty of blaming a student for not doing a technique or knowing how to handle a strange position only to have the student say, “You never showed me that.” As instructors, we’re walking around with a billion techniques floating around in our head, and we tend to overestimate how often we show any single technique.

6. Don’t apologize for teaching the basics

As an instructor, giving in to the temptation to show the hottest, coolest moves or sneaky, next-level techniques is easy. You want to keep class interesting, maybe as much for yourself as your students, but what is really going to make the biggest difference to the most students? 99% of the time the answer is “the basics.” (The other 1% of the time is when the higher belts are hanging out and geeking out over current competition metagame tactics.)

I’ve given this advice to wrestling and judo coaches who come into BJJ schools. They often preface lessons with “I know this is basic but…” as an apology. They are so tired of seeing these drills since they have done them since childhood. They expect us to be disappointed too, but it’s honestly what we need most. The truth is that the real fun does not come from seeing fancy or novel techniques, but from a well run class with live games, situational drills, etc. that put those simple skills to use.

Those are the main rules I gave myself that relate to how I run classes. Of course more exist, like ethical codes like “don’t bang your students” (a lesson a lot of instructors seem to have trouble with) but we’ll save those for another day!

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Grappling trends come and go, and new techniques pop up every season. When I started training, everyone was trying to figure out x-guard and arm drags. Now it is leglocks and heel hooks. Eventually, the best elements of these techniques get folded into “standard” jiu-jitsu but not before the initial rush of grapplers scrambling to learn the secrets of the new hotness.

This guide will help you be one of those early adopters. Here are my 10 tips for adding new or unorthodox techniques to your game:

1. Do your homework. Before you launch into learning that cool technique you saw in a GIF on Reddit, let’s make sure it is worth the effort. Gather up the answers to these questions:

• Who is good at this technique or position, and at what level do they compete?
• Do they have instructionals available? If not, does someone else?
• Can you find tournament footage of it in action?
• Has anyone done a competition footage analysis?

We only have so much time and energy, so make sure it’s well spent. By answering these questions, you might discover that the technique is perhaps too new to justify an intense investment of your time and study or that you just don’t have the resources yet to really understand it. This step prepares you for the next steps.

2. Understand its fundamentals. Notice I said “its fundamentals” not “the fundamentals.” We call the basic moves of jiu-jitsu “fundamentals,” but here I’m referring to the key principles, concepts, and building blocks for the new position you are trying to learn. Even strange positions–if they are good–are built on certain basic rules: body mechanics, off balancing, leverage, timing, etc. The ones that don’t have solid fundamentals are often gimmicks–maybe you get a few surprise taps, or it could be a counter to a very specific “flash in the pan” technique that caught on at your gym.  Find the answer to these questions:

• How does it work?
• What makes it fail?
• What key points of control do you need to maintain to be successful with it?
• When is the right or wrong time to go for it?
• If you had to reduce to a few core rules, what would they be?

3. Study your role model. Back in step one (do your homework), you should have picked out one or more competitors/instructors whose competition footage and/or instructional videos to study. With all the YouTube and BJJ video subscription sites available these days, see if you can find even more about them. Watch competition footage in slow mo and take notes. Channel your inner BJJScout. You may spot details or variations they fail to teach. Keep an eye out for seminars where you can go to learn it in person. You may be surprised how different a technique feels when done by your hero compared to what you could cobble together from Instagram clips.
4. Find a partner in crime. Having a training partner who is learning the same material can boost progress for both of you. You gain the benefit of their experiences, and they may spot details you missed (and vice versa). Having a trusty partner who shares your goals greatly increases learning speed.
5. Practice outside group class. Get together with your loyal training partner outside of regular class hours to do the extra work. Teachers often get annoyed when students sit off to the side during regular class hours and do their own thing instead of doing what the rest of the class is doing. Either show up earlier or stay later, and use open mat time to work on your new material.
6. Put in the reps (but mix it up). There is no getting around it: “Repetitio mater studiorum est. Repetition is the mother of all learning.” I quoted Latin so you know it’s true. Put in reps whenever you get a chance. In those extra training sessions with your buddy, mix it up by doing random practice. That means that instead of practices 3 techniques by doing 3 sets of 10 reps, do 30 reps where you mix up which technique you do at random. You can do it where your partner calls out the technique to do, or they just feed you the trigger to do it. Jason C. Brown wrote about block vs random practice on the blog here: Applying the Science of Motor Learning to Your BJJ Practice.
7. Do positional sparring. When you get together with your buddy, set a timer and put in rounds of positional sparring. Take turns attacking and defending. Start where the target technique is most relevant and sometimes feed your partner the trigger they need to go for it. Raise the difficulty as you improve. Work up a good sweat and don’t stop to talk until you’ve put in enough rounds of trial and error.
8. Go for it in free sparring. Try it on a few clueless white belts then work up the food chain as you have success. You will need to put your “A game” on the back burner while you develop this new material. Be mindful that old school teachers may get annoyed if you neglect the techniques they teach you in favor of your “YouTube zhoo-zhitzu,” but as long as you stay inside the agreed upon rules for your school you are probably OK.
9. Find the connection to your existing game. Often when someone (especially intermediate level grapplers) tries to emulate someone else’s style, they run into difficulty because it doesn’t connect to anything else they are doing. Some techniques gel better with others. Your personal style may not suit a certain technique or position, at least not without experimenting.
10. Expect to fail more than you succeed in the beginning. When you bring a new trick to your school, you will often enjoy early success (and the rush of excitement that brings) followed quickly by everyone shutting your crap down hard (and all the salty tears that brings). Do not be discouraged if you have a rough time with the new techniques. Think of yourself as a “white belt” in those moves even if you aren’t a white belt any more.

Putting those 10 steps into action will take months of hard work and mat time, but you will be rewarded for your efforts with exclamations of “What the hell was that?” from your opponents. Do me a favor and share your experiences and technical findings in a video or blog post. I’d love to see what you come up with.

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