For those of you wondering, my knee is healing up fairly well and I’ve been easing back into training. Not 100% yet but it’s doing as well as I could hope. Leave a comment and let me know how your training has been going!

This is what my July is looking like:

June 27 – Flying to Manchester, England.

Training and teaching with Adam Adshead.

July 5 – Flying to Tallinn, Estonia.

July 6-12 – Teaching and training at the Summer University of Functional Fighting.

Vacationing.

July 20 – Fly back to Manchester.

There’s a week in here that I’m trying to fill with something else to do so let me hear any ideas you’ve got.

July 29 – Fly back to US.

Justin Garcia AKA Chim Chim

Roberto Tozi

This week Caleb of The FightWorks Podcast had me on to go over the first 5 of the 10 Quick Tips for White Belts. More interesting than that is Caique got his red and black belt from Rickson and sat down to talk about his introduction to the Gracie family, jiu-jitsu back in the day in Rio de Janeiro, his arrival in the United States, jiu-jitsu today, and much more. Check it out!

1. How to get good isn’t a big secret. Get on the mats, get good instruction and do conditioning, drilling or sparring. Gameplans, flow charts, notebooks, journals and instructionals are gravy. Training is the meat and potatoes.


2. Spar with everyone you can. Force yourself to go with guys who intimidate you. Experience is what counts, not mental tallies of who tapped who. And always finish the round, no matter how tired you are.


3. Escaping submissions and bad positions isn’t easy. And it’s not supposed to be. That’s kinda the point. But that’s also what makes it good when you’re on the winning side.


4. The best answer to a problem is usually “don’t let it happen in the first place.” That’s always disappointing to hear but it’s unfortunately true. Of course learn the escapes and counters but also become aware of what mistakes got you there in the first place. Boxers don’t ask “How do I get unpunched?”


5. The difference between gi and no-gi is only as big as you make it. Do whichever you enjoy. Try both. And do whichever is appropriate to prepare for competition. Just don’t be that guy who wastes time arguing one over the other.


6. Feeling stupid or uncoordinated when trying a new move is a good thing. It means you’ve got something to learn and your body gets to gain a new skill.


7. Being technical doesn’t mean being lazy. Being aggressive doesn’t mean being a meathead. But it will take a lot of training and mat time to balance the two.


8. You’ll think you’re “getting it” at about 6 months. Then at 12 months you’ll realize how wrong you were before and how now you’re really getting it. Then 6 months later you’ll actually start getting it.


9. Getting your blue belt is good but don’t blow it up too big in your mind or you risk losing motivation when you get promoted. Don’t be one of those guys who races to his blue belt then disappears forever.


10. When you do get your blue, don’t worry too much if you feel like you don’t deserve it yet. That’s normal. Just do what it takes to grow into it.

Download “10 Quick Tips for White Belts” as PDF

The data collected could be sliced and analyzed in more ways than I’m showing below, so I’m offering it in CSV for anyone who wants to crunch the numbers. Here’s an example: The top three favorite brands were Atama, Gameness and Koral. But that’s not a big surprise when they are the three brands most people own and most people only have 1-3 gis. What would be interesting to see is of the people who own these brands and others, are they still their favorite?

BJJ Gi Survey Spreadsheet — Download CSV · View as HTML

(Email addresses have been removed.)

Stephan Kesting of Grapple Arts just launched an awesome new BJJ resource, Beginning Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu (beginningbjj.com).

Signing up for the e-course gets you a free e-book, A Roadmap for Brazilian Jiu-jitsu. After reading it, my first thought was “I wish I’d had this when I started.” It’s a superb starting reference, presenting the right lessons and concepts for a beginner. The e-mails that come with the e-course are the same great quality all of Stephan’s work is.

If you run a gym, this would be a perfect to give to new students. I’m thinking of printing out a copy and bring it into the gym and telling the beginners to check it out. It presents the right mindset for learning and improving as a beginner.

Check out www.beginningbjj.com.