The elusive BJJ basics

“I need to work on my basics”. “Basics win matches”. “BJJ is all about the basics”. It’s common to hear statements like these when discussing BJJ. So what are the basics? It’s a simple enough question but it’s hard to get a precise answer to it. You’ll get different answers depending on whom you ask. […]

BJJ is the art of a million moves. At least it can feel like that to a beginner. If your gym follows the common “3 techniques a class” philosophy, you’ll be exposed to several hundred techniques a year. How can you simplify and make sense of all this information? An easy approach is to simply […]

The goal of BJJ is to make your opponent give up, to submit. Each of us will be forced to submit many times while training. It’s a humbling experience. Those of us without any ego problems tap, learn and keep training. Those who can’t manage their ego either quit or become self destructive. The longer […]

You can’t learn BJJ by yourself, you need training partners. The better your training partners, the faster you will improve. The fastest way to improve is to have a club full of good training partners. So, how do you become a good training partner? If you look at any BJJ instructional (or most BJJ classes) […]

You’ve been telling your friends how much you love BJJ and how awesome it is. There’s a competition coming up so you invite them to come watch. Afterwards, you ask them what they think and they give you that look. The one that says this is the stupidest thing they’ve ever seen and that you […]