The Roll-Up

One of the most common things you’ll hear in jiu jitsu is, “Don’t use strength.” I’ve even said it. Honestly, good technique should be enough, right? If you’ve been training for a while, you’ve probably had this thought after a round with a bigger, stronger white belt. "If he wasn’t so strong, I would’ve had him." But the more I think about it, the more I think we’re asking the wrong question. We don’t tell flexible people to be less flexible. We don’t tell athletic people to

Does technique always win when compared to strength?

You're not just getting better at jiu jitsu, you're also getting better at seeing how bad you are at jiu jitsu.

We’ve been looking at how you can tell if you’re getting better at jiu jitsu. Can you tell if you’re getting better by comparing yourself to your training partners? Maybe. Is it a plateau, or is it just harder to tell you’re getting better once you’ve been training for a while? Could be both. Does competition tell you how good you are? Sometimes. Does a bad day of training mean you haven’t been making progress? Probably not. So I realize it might feel like I’ve spent the last

Winning and losing in a tournament can feel like the easiest way to measure progress in jiu jitsu, but competition does not always tell the whole story. Sometimes a win can leave you unsure, and sometimes a loss can show you exactly how far you have come.

Lately, I’ve been talking about how to know if you’re getting better at jiu jitsu. Sometimes, progress can be pretty obvious. Like moving from not knowing how to hit a move to knowing how to hit a move. That is clear progress. But after you’ve been training for a while, progress can get harder to see. Not because it stops happening, but because improving a technique can be far less obvious than learning a technique. The improvement that comes from learning something new is so

It’s a tale as old as time. You start jiu jitsu around the same time as someone else. At first, things look pretty similar. You’re both getting the same information. You’re going to the same classes. You’re both trying to figure out where your arms and legs are supposed to go. But after a while, sometimes one of you seems to pull ahead. And sometimes, it’s not you. They’re finding things more often. They’re more comfortable in certain positions. Things seem to be clicking a l

What does one bad day tell you about your training?

If you give a move your attention who knows how far you'll go.

Whether we realize it or not, most of us are keeping score in our heads when we train. How many times did I tap someone? How many times did I get tapped? Did I “win” the round or not? Sometimes progress looks like: Getting tapped one less time than the last round. Lasting a little longer before things start to fall apart. Stopping that one training partner from putting you in that same horrible position over and over again. Those things count. That’s part of learning how to r

If you know where you want to go, can you start getting there from anywhere? When your destination is defined, what determines your path?

You're might be working too hard to get what you're looking for.

You might think certain techniques just aren't for you. It might not be that simple.

Is there a shortcut to getting better at jiu jitsu faster?

Failing at jiu jitsu is a lot like succeeding in baseball.

If you're feeing stuck in your jiu jitsu, first look at whether you're making it to class often enough.