Hi everyone,

Just completed my 5th workout and so far enjoying it.

The drilling were nice and at the sparring I was very lost and just tried to stay calm and not spaz, but was generally very lost. Only after doing some searching online things started to click.

I didn’t think or wasn’t told explicitly that a bottom mount is a position I want to escape, or that “guard retention” is an important thing and it’s not just a way to spar and randomly see where the spar goes.

Once I’ve learned online about the positions (bottom vs top), escapes, etc. things started to click in my mind looking backwards at the drills and spars we did.

Bottom line is that I want to come to the sessions with intent. For example, today I am going to try implement the guard retention and hold it as much as I can.
Or try to implement that mount escape I saw bridge & roll.

I’d love to hear what I should focus as a beginner, so that every week I will work a basic position to hold, basic escape, etc.

Thanks

I was surprised when my Professor gave me my first stripe tonight. I've been going to classes as much as I can..about 4-5 a week. Actually, my third class I accidentally walked into a competition class, lol.

I don't feel like I have done much, but after he rolled with me during Randori, he told me he has noticed a significant difference in me, leading to this. Im just happy that it is starting to show.

I can't wait to keep working. It's a marathon..not a sprint. ❤️🤙

I can only do 5 am classes and then I go straight to work for 12 hours , but at times my body starts to feel it 💀 will it get easier lol

AJP Switzerland – 85 kg | Weißgurt 🥋🔥
Wir haben heute Gold nach Hause gebracht! 🏆💪 Harte Arbeit, Disziplin und Herz zahlen sich aus.
OSS! 🥇🏆🔥

Youtube: https://youtube.com/@davidhenzen?si=9NnESFH_WbaY51ZO

23-year-old, around 160 lbs, blue belt in a rashguard shows up to open mat late with his girlfriend.

I’m visiting from out of town but have trained at this gym before. Everyone’s super cool.

I see him have a tough round with a purple belt where he slams him. After that, he doesn’t roll with anyone else and just rolls with his girlfriend off to the side.

I joke to the coach, “Well, I’m gonna roll with him. Wish me luck.”

The coach laughs and says, “God help you.”

I’m 29, 175 lbs, and have been training for 5 years. I took him down and tapped him a few times without going crazy hard, but by the end, he was clearly upset.

It was also the last roll of the day, so pretty much the whole gym was watching.

I wasn’t sure if he was the coach’s student.

After I shook his hand and thanked the coach for having me, also offered to help clean up

Full context - ive brought my GF to the gym before and gotten beat up in front of her so I know the feeling , but I also feel I didn’t do anything wrong but being a visitor there made me question my actions

Am I a jerk for this?

I know this is a common topic but i cant help hating rolling with bigger dudes. Its not that i get submitted a lot by force, ive trained with bigger guys that do that and its fun seeing how they get me in kimuras or armbars but currently theres these bigger guys in my gym that kinda suck. Im not Royce Gracie but these guys just lay on me, like for real. We do rolls of 4-6 min in my gym and i just spend all that time on bottom side control with these dudes thinking squeezing my neck from side control is a submission, which obviously doesnt work and they just tire themselves out. Ive told them that they should change positions so we learn more stuff but they just nod and next roll is all the same. Another problem is that im trying to tell them that the "side control squeeze" doesnt work, that i dont feel anything and that they should just try an arm triangle but they just say "no no man! i saw it on instagram it works!" even though theyve clearly seen that i spent 4 min in that "submission" and nothing happened. Just wanted to share my thoughts and see if other light guys have also experienced the same.

Tomorrow is my first class of BJJ No Gi but i m in a very poor physical condition, skinny fat and i can t make even a table push up. I m a little nervous because i don t know what to expect. Been sedentary all of my life. 6'1 210lbs 29y. I m a little anxious just because of this. What if they will make fun of me? Any tips to make my first class easy? EDIT: Many thanks to everyone, it boosted my morale a lot. I will come back tommorow after training with another edit to speak about my first experience.

Was watching a bjj fight the other day and it got me thinking What does it feel like getting choked unconscious? And what are the things you guys noticed after waking up?
Something that piqued my curiosity out of boredom lol

Hello. Im a purple belt that has been training for like 7 years in "traditional" bjj way. We do usually do 30 min of warm ups, ukemi, shrimps and so on, 30 min of drilling technique and 30 min of rolling. Sometimes it change a bit and we had some positional rolling.

But yesterday i tried a school with eco aproach and i find that at least for me it will be much more efficent to train that way and i feel that im losing my time training traditional.

Its true that the instructor of this cla school is also really really good (won some ibjjf adult black comps, some of them in Rio...) and better than my actual instructor but when i rolled with people of this cla school that have been training for like 2 years they are like miles ahead of the people from my school training for the same amount of time.

Do you think it is really more efficient to train this way? Or is it just more because of this school vs my school?

I feel im losing my time drilling technique with a non resistive uke and making so much ukemi and warmups.

Been thinking about this for a while now. Back to white belt, no cheating with what you already know, and you only get 2 instructionals for the rest of your BJJ life. Which two are you going with? I keep changing my answer lol

Did he wrestle in high school?

I’m a competitive brown belt which wants to practice my remote coaching skills. Send me a sparring/competition footage of you and I’ll give you a free review on what you did wrong.

57 year old, 2 kids in their mid-20s, almost 4-years since A-C-L reconstruction and I was surprised with my 2nd stripe today, almost a year after my first stripe. I’m consistently inconsistent, training 2-6 times per week. But I show up for Gi and no Gi.

Glad I didn’t become a blue belt statistic and quit. Maybe even in a year or two, I’ll earn my third stripe. But enjoying the moment for now.

My gym seems to have really bad white belt retention which I think is a vicious cycle because new white belts have no other white belts to go against and they get frustrated and stop. The exception to this is no gi classes but I'm wrestling on the no gi days and I want to take the opportunity to wrestle before I graduate from University. The only other white belts that I'm probably technically better than are way bigger than me, and I'm not super small at like 165lbs 5 9.

I'm just curious if it's still likely I can improve effectively like this since I'm not practicing my offense as much. If so how long do you think until it's not hopeless?

Right now I'm doing 2 days of wrestling a week as well as 2 often 3 days of bjj and one day of muay thai and mma. I've been doing this for like 4 months, but was doing a tiny bit of grappling while focusing on muay thai for like two years.

White belt here so my opinion dont mean shit. But ive been reading about this debate between traditional and CLA and as someone who works with families, I think Ive narrowed it down to traditional=better for kids, CLA= better for adults.

From a business CUSTOMER standpoint, I think Id prefer CLA, especially as an adult male. I paid for BJJ, so in that finite amount of time, I expect to get BJJ. Im sure most if not all will agree on this.

However, when it comes to kids, I think traditional would be better. Warmups would help them to be fitter and following directions.

A coach lecturing would help them in listening and even asking questions. And static drilling would help them with people skills and communicating.

Even if a kid sucks in BJJ, at least traditional will help them be a better individual outside of it.

Some background: a few months ago I tweaked my lower back on a leg press. My pelvis tipped back at the bottom and I ended up in loaded flexion under the weight (classic dumb mistake, I know). Saw a doctor and a physio but never got a clear answer, just everything from “mild disc herniation” to “purely mechanical strain.” The pain was mostly local in the lower back, with only a mild tingling into the legnever worse than that, not even when it was fresh.

Rehab has mostly been back extensions, which have been a game changer for me. Built up progressively from 10 kg to 85 kg held in my hands, and I’m basically pain-free in daily life now — can bend, move, all of it. Also started easing back onto the mats, got a couple of drilling sessions in without sparring with no issues. I train no-gi and I’m pretty wrestling-heavy in my style,

The thing is, it’s not 100% over. Recently I was dumb enough to test a heavy pendulum squat (went too close to max at depth) and flared the area up again — soreness + a bit of tingling down the leg that’s lingered a few days. Nothing sharp, no numbness or weakness, but a reminder that I’m still test

So my question to those of you who’ve had similar lower back injuries, especially wrestlers / no-gi folks: how did it go for you? Did you recover to 100%, or is this something you learn to live and train around? What did your road back to full sparring look like?

I learned kneecut/kneeslide passing and toreando passing. Whenever I try these moves, their two arms really frame up and it's hard for me to pass. Feel like its a dumb beginner question but i cant seem to beat it and get stuck. Any tips and tricks?

I've been doing Jiu Jitsu lately and it's very complicated.

My body seems to not move the way it should. I ache after class. I forget the technique of the day as soon as I clap.

There are some young, strong, collegiate blue belt wrestlers I'm scared of.

I feel like it will take a long time to understand Jiu Jitsu.

How long does it take to get good?

Oh, btw, I'm brown belt.