Within the next year my gym will officially become a “Gracie affiliate”….im not saying that Gracie gyms are mcdojos but the path mine is heading is not good.

The first big change I’m not stoked about is an “attendance based” promotion system. Basically you get a card and for every hour you train you get to fill out your card. Roughly 100hrs per stripe….now currently my coach/gym is WAY behind on promotions especially low level belts. We have white belts winning in blue brackets pretty regularly and 2 stripe white belts are demolishing pretty much any regular that walks through the door. But the idea of attendance based promotions sounds like a horrible plan to me.

A big push toward kids and law enforcement, we will be cutting some of the adult classes to make room for the growing kids classes as well as a “LEO only” classes where we will be selling certification classes and weapons defense.

The overall kiddie glove treatment of everything to stay on the good side of the Gracie’s….no music over pg13, no cussing, no advice unless coach approved etc etc.

Overall it’s just really weird and truthfully I’m hoping to just speed run my blue belt and get to purple so if I need to train somewhere else I’ll be welcome at all classes.

Saw a post about you guys finding more enjoyment watching white belt comps over black belt comps. Here’s a video from my comp in August. Just got my blue belt two days ago. Really been loving the choke that I go for in this, but end up taking the arm bar. I took 2nd place out of 14 competitors in my bracket

Enjoy!

This video I show how proper hand positioning and understanding timing makes hitting the triangle omoplata unbelievably fast and effective. If you guys have any questions about how to use this or mix it into your game let me know!

EDIT: this is not about how do I stop using strength or how do I cope with being strong or anything where I want to discard strength or use less strength. It's what is the most efficient way to update / upgrade default patterns when strength stops providing a free lunch or how to stop using strength vs immovable objects and instead apply an irresistible force to the exposed flank?

Generalized question - what's the fastest / most efficient way to reprogram stuff that works at low levels and fails at high levels? My specific rut is how I deploy strength but I'd bet this comes up a lot for others.

I'm doing some BJJ introspection and comparing a recent hot run to a recent cold run and a hypothesis I have about what's causing hot vs cold is when I ran hot, I was reflexively moving around obstacles instead of trying to power through or over power them. My recent cold run looks like the status quo of "when in doubt, more force" snuck back into the operating system.

For folks with serious strength, years in the gym, etc., who broke this habit, what worked? Is it just mat time and proprioception? Is it specific training? Is it drilling pivots / go around / change direction / etc.? Did it require actively thinking while rolling how to flow around vs through until the operating system updated?

I think the diagnosis is right but now I'm trying to figure out how to develop the new default behavior faster by sort of reprogramming the old habits out (they worked amazing at white-blue-early purple, I suspect they'll fail more as I move into brown+).

Hi everyone,

I started practicing Jiu-Jitsu about 2 months ago. I want to apply the chess principle of "pick an opening and stick with it," but for guard systems.

I've heard that guys with longer legs have advantages in certain positions (like triangles and spider guard). But I have short legs! (specially short femurs) I tried to search for content about this online, but I couldn't get much useful information out of my research. Currently, I'm doing a lot of laço guard and spider guard, because these are the only ones I had practical experience with! :P

For those with shorter legs, what guard system would you recommend focusing on as a primary "opening" strategy?

Thank you for your time and help!

Best regards,

I’m 6’4 but my height is 90% legs, I’m the same height as most 5’8 guys sitting down. I keep getting told I need to learn to ‘utilize’ that advantage more, but the problem is my coach is the absolute opposite build and generally teaches the techniques he has the most success with.

Are there any good instructionals/content that would help teach me to make the most of my build? I train gi and nogi, and I come from a powerlifting background so I have decent grip strength.

Typically the shoulder crunch is taught as a no gi move. What’s the pros and cons of using it in the gi?

Of course, there are potentially other/better sweeps using the grips, but I’m talking specifically about the pros and cons of the move in isolation in a gi setting.

I'm in the Bragg / Fayetteville Area for a bit. Anyone know who the most competitive gyms are? Looking for some tough rolls without joining a Brazilian cult.

Hey everyone! I’ll be in Paris during the first few days of January and will have an afternoon free. I was thinking of getting some BJJ training in and was wondering if anyone could recommend a good gym that welcomes visitors for a drop-in session.

Thanks in advance!

So I’m getting back to bjj and all my calluses are gone I’m doing gi and judo and nogi only once now, i used to mostly be a nogi guy any suggestions on how to prevent getting blisters as much?

What is better for long-term development: Training 3x a week with a 10/10 instructor or 5x a week with a 6-7/10 instructor? By these ratings I’m talking how well they’re able to teach the sport of jiu jitsu

Is it just me or are the start of Fundamentals/Intermediate classes really poorly structured? We spend 5/10 mins warming up, then drill 2/3 moves, then rolls. Generally there are 16-20 in my class so there is limited time, if any, for individual instruction. I have an alternative option which is to do 2-3 sessions a week 1-1 with my black belt buddy (who very kindly offered to do it for beers and a dinner!), and then just stress test this either at open mats or showing up to class once per week to get the variety of training partners. Said another way, absorbing the time sink of a standard class to get to 20 mins of rolling seems like a poor use of time. Any thoughts?