Making Progress In Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu

12/6/2021

"Keep Treading" by Jody Clark. This hangs in the ICBJJ academy. https://www.jodyclark.com

Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu is often considered the most difficult martial art to become proficient at, let alone develop expertise in. On the one hand, Jiu-Jitsu can be very powerful when applied correctly and a little bit of Jiu-Jitsu can go a long way. People with very little Jiu-Jitsu training can soon best their friends in friendly grappling matches and may even be successful in a small real life self-defense situation. Compared to those who don't train Jiu-Jitsu, the student who has 6 months to a year of training can be quite formidable... sometimes.

The difficulty comes when you begin to measure your abilities and knowledge not just against those who don't train, but when you measure them against fellow Jiu-Jitsu practitioners. What's more important than how you stack up against others is how you stack up against your previous self. This is the metric of personal progress and while it may be difficult to keep this in perspective, your personal progress is the most important metric in all of Jiu-Jitsu.

Making acceptable levels of progress at any new endeavor is both difficult and important for practitioners. Unfortunately, Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu is notoriously difficult for people to make progress in. There are many reasons as to why this is, but there are at least two specific reasons that are absolutely critical and which are both under the direct control of the student.

Factors That Affect Student Progress in BJJ

There are two major categories of factors that determine the degree of difficulty one experiences when training BJJ. Firstly, there are those factors which are intrinsic to the art itself, and are unlikely to change person to person, instructor to instructor, academy to academy. Secondly, there are those factors which are extrinsic to the art and which are likely to vary from one academy to the next, as well as from one student to the next. Below are lists of some of the common intrinsic and extrinsic factors of Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu that can affect the degree of difficulty a student has in making progress.

Rafael Lovato Jr. teaching a seminar at ICBJJ, October 2021.

Factors Intrinsic to BJJ Affecting Student Progress

The standard of what determines proficiency is typically very high. It's possible to achieve a black belt in other martial arts in the time it takes to reach Blue Belt in BJJ.
There is no global consensus within the art as to what the requirements should be at each rank. Therefore, the standard is subjective and can vary greatly from one academy to the next.
The standard often changes as time goes on. This isn't a bad thing. Just that the scale is sliding and not written in stone. Just like a body of knowledge taught at the University level, Jiu-Jitsu grows and can be expounded on. This trait of Jiu-Jitsu constantly sets the bar higher and higher year after year. Jiu-Jitsu is all about progress.
Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu can be difficult to understand initially. The context of Jiu-Jitsu can be foreign even to wrestlers and Judokas. Students are often subjected to an intensive immersive experience for the first several months of enrollment which can be very difficult for many.
The sheer number of techniques available in any one position can be overwhelming to new students and leave them feeling unable to keep up or digest the material. To them, learning Jiu-Jitsu is akin to drinking from a fire hose. Unorganized curriculum worsens this effect.

Factors Extrinsic to BJJ Affecting Student Progress

Student's physical abilities and disabilities
Student's previous experience in other martial arts, grappling systems, military experience, occupation or sports
Student's natural athletic ability
Age of the student
Health of the student
Student's mindset and attitude
Level of self-discipline
Student's level of grit, resiliency, perseverance and toughness
Student's home life and lifestyle
The Instructor
The student's relationship with the Instructor
The student's relationship with their training partners/other students
The culture of the BJJ Academy
The quality of training partners
Policies of the specific Team, Affiliation or Jiu-Jitsu governing entities

The Intrinsic factors of BJJ will be very difficult for the student to change. However, the degree to which they impact a student's progress can vary and be tempered by the particular instructor and culture of the academy.

The factors extrinsic to the art are the ones the student has more control of and making changes to this set of factors can alter their training experience and progress. Some of these factors may not be able to be changed, such as the student's age or any permanent disabilities they may have. Many of the other factors, however, are able to be directly impacted or controlled by the student.

It's been my observation that two factors affecting student progress stand out the most when all others are equal. Those are first and foremost BE COACHABLE, and secondly TAKE RESPONSIBILITY FOR YOUR TRAINING. These two main factors are closely or directly linked to the student's mindset, attitude and degree of self-discipline.

Kids Jiu-Jitsu class at ICBJJ learning a technique from Coaches Zach and John.

Be Coachable

A major factor that can keep a student from learning new skill sets is that they are uncoachable, or exhibiting uncoachable traits. There is a difference between what I am referring to as an uncoachable student, versus a student who is struggling to learn but who just needs a better coaching approach. It's not uncommon for poor instructors to blame the student and consider them to be uncoachable when in fact the coach is simply unqualified to be instructing.

Typically, the most uncoachable people won't even attempt to start learning something new like Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu. Truly uncoachable people are interlopers in Jiu-Jitsu and if they do wind up on the mats they rarely stay for long in a well run academy. However, uncoachability has varying degrees, and in one degree or another we can all exhibit some of the below characteristics of being uncoachable. What we want is to understand when we are exhibiting uncoachable traits and address the underlying issues as to why we are doing so. This will allow us to correct our course back to being a better student with a Beginner's Mindset prime for learning.

Characteristics of the Uncoachable

Certain they already have the answers. Also known as a Know-It-All. (Egocentric bias)
Overly confident without merit (Illusory Superiority) (Dunning-Krueger Effect)
Feels previous experience is superior to the present lesson or experience. (Egocentric bias).
Unable to have a "Beginner's Mind" when learning a new skill
Lack of gratitude for the instructor, their training partners, the academy, etc.
Has unrealistic expectations of early perfection/success coupled with an inability to handle failure/set backs in training
Externalizes blame for their lack of progress/success

Take Responsibility for Your Training

More than just being a coachable student or athlete, one should take responsibility for their own training. This means doing more than simply showing up for training day in and day out expecting to be simply spoon fed information from an instructor like an automaton. A person who has chosen to undertake Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu training is taking a step to better themselves in several ways - physical fitness, mental toughness, self-discipline, self-defense skills, etc. Why should their effort and involvement at this process of self betterment stop simply because they pay tuition and step on the mats a few times per month? However, all too often people expect that Jiu-Jitsu Instructors will some how spoon feed them to a better version of themselves. It simply doesn't work that way and what is needed is that students go beyond simply just showing up, and take responsibility for their own personal development.

The Norse god Odin, often shown with only one eye. Mythology says that Odin hung from the tree of knowledge and plucked out his own eye so as to become all knowing. When he did so, he said, "A gift of myself, to myself." Which is to say that in order to gain something great, one must be willing to make a sacrifice.

Students who are spoon fed information and techniques are rarely able to incorporate new things learned in training in a relevant time frame and will be very slow to make progress. It's often these same students who feel as if they're stuck on a training plateau early on in their Jiu-Jitsu training and typically quit at or around Blue Belt. It must be mentioned here that the majority of people who start Jiu-Jitsu won't make it past Blue Belt. There is a myriad of reasons why that is, which is enough to warrant it's own article, however it certainly is suffice to say that a good majority of those people are quitting because of factors related to not taking responsibility for their training.

People learn better and retain more when they have a personal sense of ownership and have taken responsibility for their own personal development. One of the easiest and best first steps to take in this process is to take notes either during or after class of the lessons, drills, sparring and to include their personal thoughts about the training. (Clicking on the link will take you to my previous article on note taking in jiu-jitsu class.)

Note taking and reviewing the notes allows a student to have multiple exposures to a lesson and allows them to think deeply about the concepts and relationships. Being able to see relationships between concepts and techniques is a requirement in order to move beyond the novice levels and develop expertise.

Another tool for ownership is to show up to training with a plan or a goal. These goals will vary as the student gains experience. In the beginning it may be to always go for one particular technique or submission when rolling. As time goes on the student may choose to work exclusively on escapes and defense, working out of bad positions or near submissions, etc. The only limit to this approach is the imagination. However, showing up with a plan or a goal for when rolling will make the training both more interesting and more productive for the student.

Personalize Your Jiu-Jitsu

It's not uncommon for instructors to teach only their favorite set of techniques. Or, if they require a belt test, to make it a set of particular techniques that they personally feel is important at each level. I do support belt testing at the lower ranks, however using a strict set of techniques as the test is more than likely asking people to perform a type of jiu-jitsu that they have very little connection to. They may fail to see the need for such techniques and may never perform them again after the exam because it is not their jiu-jitsu.

Instead of having a list of techniques that you need to be proficient at, it is often a better idea to see if you're covering all the important areas in your jiu-jitsu game at each position. If you look critically at your guard offense, for example, do you have a strangle from the guard that you like to do? If not, then that is an area to direct your training towards. It is highly recommended that a jiujitsuka have a strangle from their guard in their arsenal. Now that you have one, the next question is - how good are you at it? As you cover your bases you can grow your repertoire from every position and amass multiple techniques for any given situation.

Your entire jiu-jitsu game can be hashed out in this way. Laying out exactly what bases you have covered which will then illuminate the ones that you don't have covered. In this way you can choose the techniques that you would like to use in any given situation, and not just the ones a coach prefers you use. After all, it is your jiu-jitsu. Granted, you are bound to make some poor choices with this method, but trying and failing is the only way to any success. This method is also the fastest way to success for most people versus the spoon fed approach. As your experience level increases not only will you become better in each area, but your techniques and their execution will also improve. Because you have a personal investment and connection to the techniques you're choosing, you will understand them better than if you were simply attempting to copy your instructor.

Conclusion

The two most important traits a student can have to make progress in Jiu-Jitsu are:

Be Coachable
Take Responsibility for Your Training

Being Coachable means:

Have a Beginner's Mind
Show up to training
Put in the work
Have respect and gratitude for your instructors and training partners
Have realistic expectations of yourself
Don't blame others for your lack of progress

Taking responsibility for your training means to:

Work towards having a healthy lifestyle
Be self-disciplined
Be mentally tough
Train with goals
Take notes
Personalize your Jiu-Jitsu

-Jason Clarke

ICBJJ Adult Jiu-Jitsu Workbook

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The ICBJJ Adult Student Workbook is designed with the new student in mind. The goal of the book is to help organize a new students training so they know exactly where they stand and where they need focus their efforts.

The Workbook has the intention of allowing the student to personalize their particular jiu-jitsu game, while at the same time helping them take responsibility for jiu-jitsu education and progress.

The Workbook will cover all the areas that we feel are important from White Belt through Blue Belt.

Make the most out of your time on the mats by getting a workbook to stay on track and focus your efforts to improving your jiu-jitsu game.

Limit one (1) download per purchase.

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COPYRIGHT STATEMENT & END USER LICENSING AGREEMENT

This material is copyright of Jason Clarke and Iowa City Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, LLC. No portion of this material may be reproduced, duplicated, transmitted or shared without the express permission of Jason Clarke. Contravention is an infringement of the Copyright Act and its amendments and will be subject to legal action.

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ICBJJ Kids Jiu-Jitsu Workbook

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The ICBJJ Kids Jiu-Jitsu Workbook is to help organize a student's training so they know exactly where they stand and where they need focus their efforts.

The Workbook allows students to personalize their particular jiu-jitsu game, while at the same time helping them take responsibility for jiu-jitsu education and progress.

The Workbook will cover all the areas that we feel are important through all the kids BJJ ranks and will help students prepare themselves for future belt tests. Each section comes notes from Mr. Clarke on what he feels is important for the kids to know.

Make the most out the time your child spends training by getting a workbook to help them stay on track to improvement.

Limit one (1) download per purchase.

This material is copyrighted. By purchasing this material you're agreeing to the following End User Licensing Agreement (EULA).

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