Making Sense of your BJJ journey as a White Belt

I remember when I started Brazilian jiu-jitsu (BJJ), I came in with some idea of what the sport was. As a huge fan of MMA, I was familiar with BJJ and the BJJ terminology — I could recognize some positions and the most common submissions. So I thought to myself — I’ll be fine. But it looked like anyone, regardless of size, strength, and skill level could beat me up. It felt like drowning. Every session was ending with a bruised body, bruised ego, and a racing heart. While the body (and the ego) gradually adapted, it took a while for the skills to catch up. 

In the beginning, I just blindly followed classes, but almost no move that coaches would show me I could repeat in sparring. Sparring felt like torture. With the lack of positional understanding and no techniques, I had to use strength, which quickly sapped my energy to the point of exhaustion. 

I was keen to make progress, so I thought the learning principles that I had applied to learning languages, playing piano, other sports would help me with BJJ as well. So the initial concept had two elements: 

•  Learning plan — formulate the overall vision of where I wanted to improve — for this, I would ask my coach for advice and do my research online; 
•  Training sessions — maximize the impact of training — do deliberate practice; 

Let’s go through these in a bit more detail. 

1. Learning Plan

I figured I needed to concentrate on a limited number of things. So I came up with a formula for getting to the blue belt (or at least close to that). Now that I am a blue belt, I still think this approach makes sense. You will work on these things usually in this order, though not always. Just don’t lose sight of the overall plan. In the beginning, make sure anything you add to your game falls under these things. If you know how to do an armbar, but never even get into your guard because the opponent passes too quickly, that is not helpful. If you learn the omoplata but spend almost all of the time in sparring pinned and trying to survive, you are focusing on the wrong thing. 

•  Safety
•  Escapes
•  Bottom guard game
•  Top game
•  Back attacks 

The first step was, most obviously, learning how to be safe. When you don’t know anything else, this is a great place to start. Keeping elbows close to the body, not stretching the limbs too far, protecting the neck, are the kind of advice that can make your sparring sessions far more pleasant. Don’t lay flat on the floor when pinned, if you want to be able to breathe. Keep your legs — your strongest weapon — between you and your opponent. Protect your torso, to the extent possible, keep your elbows and knees connected. That will make the opponent’s task of getting into any of the dominant positions all the more difficult. Think about it, side control, mount, knee on belly, even back control are the positions where your opponent has achieved a position where your elbows and knees are apart. Try to be as small and compact as possible. 

Most importantly, learn to tap. This, by the way, is not always straightforward. You need to learn to tap not only with your hand but also with your feet if both your hands are trapped. You also need to develop the instinct to tap verbally, not something we naturally do when we start.
 

The second step is learning escapes. If you are in a position where the opponent can attack and you cannot, that is not the place where you want to remain for the entire sparring round. Escapes are essential not only because you don’t just want to fight for your life, but because without escapes you cannot develop an effective guard game and offense. 

I believe escapes from side control are the key. This is where you will end up most often, but also a position that is the most connected to your guard game. Escapes from mount and back are also important. You need at least two strategies for escaping from each one of these positions. If you only have one, you will quickly discover that the opponents know how to shut it down. You need an alternative, to give your opponent more to think about. Positions such as North-South or knee on belly happen more rarely, but for starters, you also need at least one escape from those positions. 

As you learn to stay safe and escape bad positions, you will discover that you will become more of a challenge for your more experienced opponents. Not yet a threat, but certainly a challenge. 

The third step is to develop a guard game. You need to choose a guard and develop a range of moves and tactics that keep you safe and also allow you to create threats. What you will discover is that the better your escapes are, the more quickly you will develop an effective guard. Because a failed guard means that your guard is passed and that your opponent gets a side control or mount, which is where you need to start escaping. If you are comfortable enough with your escapes, you can experiment with your guard, confidently add more techniques, try them and try again, troubleshoot, and continue learning and improving your guard game. 

Please do not try to learn 5 different guards at the same time. You can experiment and learn the fundamentals of a few, sure. But do a concentrated study of one. Do not worry, if you decide to practice another guard later in your jiu-jitsu practice, the body movements and habits you will pick up from focusing on one guard will mostly be transferrable to other guards too. Just don’t spread yourself too thin at the beginning. Closed guard, butterfly guard, de la Riva guard — whatever it is. Focus on one. Learn the movement mechanics from this guard, a couple of sweeps, and a couple of submissions.  

Now, this is where you start getting dangerous for your opponents. An effective guard means you can protect yourself, but also control the opponent, control the distance and dictate the game. You are no longer just protecting yourself, but threatening sweeps and submissions. Guess what, from here on, sparring becomes a lot more fun. 

The fourth is learning how to maintain and improve a top position. No matter how good your guard is, at the end of the day, being on top is, all things being equal, better than being in the bottom. BJJ has a hierarchy of positions where you go step by step from guard pass to side control to knee on belly to mount and possibly to back control. It is usually messier than that in sparring, but essentially it is a step-by-step process. At first, the key to top control is developing a sense of balance and weight distribution that allows you to stop the opponent’s attempts to sweep you and reverse the position. You will learn about the mechanics of different pins to help you control your opponent better. Simple advice — focus on controlling the opponent’s head or hips, or both. Limit their options, create opportunities for yourself. 

To advance position, it is useful to learn a submission or two from each top position and to combine those with positional moves that get you to an even better top position. For example, when you are in top half guard, rather than just trying to force getting to mount or side control, accompanying that with a threat of kimura makes things easier. It is hard to defend two things at the same time. 

Finally, back attacks. Being behind the opponent has a clear advantage — all your weapons are directed at the opponent, but all of the opponent’s weapons are directed away from you. The back attacks and particularly the RNC — the Rear Naked Choke are universally recognized as BJJ’s best, most effective, and most high-percentage weapon against any kind of opponent. I, therefore, focused as much as I could on that as my main offensive weapon. You will need to learn how to take the back and also how to finish from that position. 

You will notice I did not mention leglocks. :) No, I did not forget. I just don’t think you need to get into leglocks as a beginner. BJJ is complex as it is and the more you learn, the less you will feel you know. Don’t try to learn everything at once. Once you are reasonably comfortable with all the above, feel free to choose whatever else you want to learn. 

2. Maximize the impact of your training sessions

Do not think that it is enough to just come to training and follow the instructions. You will, for sure, improve. But you can improve much faster if you do the following: 

•  Let’s start with the obvious. Train regularly. That is what allows you to improve. If you take breaks, you will, when you come back, waste the first 2 to 3 sessions to just get your cardio back. Every break is a step back. Injuries and sicknesses are pretty much the only reasons that justify taking a break. Even then, if you are sidelined, you can still think about BJJ, strategize, watch matches, or instructionals.

•  Practice fundamental movements. After a few sessions, we think we have mastered them, but the fundamental movements are worth regularly working on. Do the bridges, shrimping, reverse shrimping, pummeling, scooting, different kinds of rolls, hip heists. Do drills with the opponent, without the opponent, with a resisting opponent. Think about how these movements feature in some of the techniques you practice in sparring and how you can improve your movement.

•  Try to approach every sparring session with an objective. Don’t just do the same stuff every time. Even if you are successful for a while, you will quickly realize your opponents are adjusting and learning, while you are staying where you are. So pick something you will work on at each session. Whether it is trying to apply the moves the coach just showed you or focusing on one particular position, practicing defense, or a particular guard. Don’t waste the sparring time.

•  Learn concepts. You will discover that when coaches focus on concepts, it will help with your sparring and you will be able to incorporate the moves into your game much faster. Specific, complex techniques, will be very difficult to pull off in the beginning.

•  It is Ok to include some unusual moves in your game but focus mainly on high-percentage moves. Fancy things are a bonus, invest in time-tested techniques.

•  Think. Identify problems. Do you get your guard passed the same way all the time? Figure out a solution. Ask your coach for advice. Check a YouTube video. Have trouble with my butterfly hooks? Do you hate being caught in a triangle all the time? Not sure how to deal with an opponent with very long limbs? Zoom in on the problem and try to identify a solution.

•  Be patient, resilient, accept that you will have bad days. The trajectory is not linear, some days you will feel like you are not improving, some days you will not have the energy. That is ok. It is part of the journey.

•  Every once in a while, throw all this advice out of the window and just enjoy rolling. :) 

Perhaps the most important piece of advice is, don’t fixate on getting a belt. Or stripes. Focus on learning and growth, try to enjoy the process. Have fun. The belt will come when it comes. You will do way better if you focus on the journey, rather than the destination. Because guess what — you think what you want is that blue belt, but at some point, the blue belt might just be a stop on a much, much longer road.