If it hasn’t yet, this Jiujitsu journey will bring haters. They can come from within the BJJ community; your competition success, rank, or your gi. And haters will appear outside the dojo as well, as it takes time away from others, sometimes distancing you from old friends without BJJ in common as it grows in importance in your life and not their’s. You’re too old for this sport, etc. We’ve all been on the receiving end of “haters”. The act of sending negative energy, silently or openly, in the direction of someone doing something that they themselves are not, whether good or bad. It’s crazy ..read more

Everywhere in life, progress is found through flow, through doing, not stopping doing from being done. There are certainly times to hold the line, park, wait it out and hide. But these are temporary solutions. Real results come with action, if not before the ice freezes or the shitstorm hits, then at the earliest moment after it passes, or even during. When you’re pinned down, and NEED to take cover, turtle up or turn your back, it’s imperative that you immediately start working on your breakout, without even a moment of “oh shit” to sink in. But what if you don’t have enough skill set to know ..read more

One without the other is useless in grappling, and in life. Mat time is the data input and space time is the data analysis. The Mat Time: During your hands-on live training, you’re taking in infinite data, mostly downloaded into the unconscious, but some hanging at the forefront of our consciousness. Either way, data is being entered in an infinite stream, constantly reinforced and corrected with a series of micro punishment and reward, offering instant feedback along it’s gathering. Mat time is your doing, your actual practice in your art, or life. The power of mat time? Your conscious c ..read more

We know injuries are inevitable, and are usually perceived as a huge bummer when time is needed off from live rolling. But with every injury is opportunity, and continuing to show up to class is key to capitalizing on them. 1) We learn from watching, and everyone is at least somewhat of a visual learner, even if you’re dominantly more audible or hands-on. It’s an opportunity to analyze the jiujitsu of others, without the urgency of direct interaction with a live training partner. We are usually caught up in the trees of problem solving with our current partners when rolling, so this presents a ..read more

Navigating your BJJ journey entails mile markers, defined differently by all; tournaments, number of classes attended, rolls without breaks, and the obvious rank upgrades. You achieve it, and you’re motivated to the next, always moving forward and evolving along the way. Great ways to measure progress, and are easy to measure. But some milestones aren’t as easily identifiable as events or achievements at all, they’re more like transitions. As an instructor, my favorite example of these is the long transition from “stealing” submissions to being “gifted” submissions. I’m always scanning for pro ..read more

On the flipside of the “rock out, rock on” blog (link at the bottom), don’t be the snowbank either! Nothing grinds my gears more than watching a higher belt, who should know better, bear down on a much less experienced training partner, leaving them to writhe helplessly beneath the “snowbank”. It’s hard to avoid the occasional lay and pray when your options appear minimal as a newer grappler, but when you DO have some experience, i recommend using it. Expose this less experienced grappler, and yourself, to movement and space, dynamics over static tension. Statues are for museums. And nobody wa ..read more

A few months ago we finally got to meet our daughter, our second spawn. And of course i look to BJJ for guidance. With our first child, i read everything i could get my hands on, talking to everyone that had children, and annoyingly to those that didn’t. I wanted to make sure I didn’t go in blind, and that i didn’t screw anything up….selfishly forgetting that it’s my wife that will be pulling the weight, ripping, gushing, likely pooping, and spending precious energy on deciding on loving or hating me through it all. I remember being frustrated finding that everyone’s opinions and pointers diff ..read more

  When rivers flow, they gather more oxygen, invite higher life forms, cover ground, and see major landscape. They’re constantly changing, carving, and evolving. Rivers are experts at navigating obstacles quickly and efficiently along their path. They LEARN as they flow. When glaciers “hold their ground”, they invite little life, grind on, and have the same damn view for years. They grind slowly, hold on to the past, and take 1000s of years to cover any ground, experiencing so much less. They lay still, and OBSERVE life happening around and to them. Grappling is the same. Resist the tempt ..read more

A challenge: don’t roll to last. Give yourself permission to push it, to “fail” early, out of breath. Attempt to push the pace past your comfort level, repeatedly, instead of resting to make sure you don’t. Embrace and look forward to the feeling of desperation in your breathing, and the challenge of controlling it. Don’t take breaks or slow the pace to avoid getting tired. Do the opposite, just move, get tired and put this priority above “winning” in your training. You’ll find a much greater workout, more experienced gained, a faster technical mind with the muscle memory that follows, and a t ..read more

What Is A Stripe And How Do I Get One? When you are newer to a hobby, I think it’s only natural to question if you’re getting any better as time goes on. With jiu-jitsu it’s very difficult to feel like you’re making progress. For those of you who are newer to the gentle art, you’ll notice that certain people have white pieces of tape on the tip of their belt. This is to signify almost like a mini-promotion. Think of a stripe like the series of stages where a baby starts to walk: A baby stands up on their own (stripe) Takes a step and falls (stripe) Takes multiple steps and falls (stripe) Walk ..read more