Ten quick tips for you, who is practicing Brazilian Jiu Jitsu.

I am trying to organize a ton of notes for my upcoming book, The BJJ Globetrotter, on which I am writing like a maniac at the moment. It is containing a lot of my thoughts and philosophy on Jiu Jitsu, and looking at the notes, I decided to quickly boil some of them down for a blogpost.

 
So here are ten quick tips to make your training and life easier:

1) Don't worry about getting good. There is always someone out there, who will kick your ass anyway, no matter how "good" you get. Just enjoy the daily training, that’s the real value of Jiu Jitsu.

2) The number one factor to really learn Jiu Jitsu is time. Talent and hard work will get you nowhere without time, and there are no shortcuts. Everyone has periods, where they feel like they have stopped improving or are getting worse. Frustrations like that, are a part of the journey and they will pass. Stick with it and eventually you will be a black belt too, it’s just that simple.

3) Don't try to learn too many things at once. Focus on really learning a few things, maybe only four or five a year. Make a commitment to yourself to always go for these in sparring, and with time, you will end up with a handful of solid a-game moves, that you can pull off against almost anyone. As a beginner, trying to learn a hundred moves off YouTube is a classic mistake. Pick out a few basic things, that you have been taught in person instead.

4) Trust experience. The advantage of having a more experienced teacher is, that he made all the mistakes for you in the past. Even though something might initially not make sense or seem to work for you, trust what he tells you, keep trying and it will pay off in the end.

5) Don’t worry about the color of your belt and number of little tape stripes on it. It really doesn’t make sense to try and sharply divide the skill level of individual athletes into so many categories. Imagine a ranking system like that in any other sport, like maybe tennis, golf or basketball? Measuring your expectations of performance against who ever you clap hands with, through these nonsense visual indicators is impossible. Despite being a cute idea, belts symbolize many other things, than just how you are “supposed” to do in sparring and competition. We are each on own our own journey, and you can confidently be proud of where ever you have personally gotten to. It is normal for many people to feel, that they don’t deserve a promotion, but you have to trust your instructor on that. He probably trained a lot longer than you, and most likely knows better. There will be plenty of time to mature in your belt, and it is a part of it.

6) Compete, even though your brain tries to convince you not to. You will lose and you will suck, but it is an important and non-avoidable part of competing, that pays off in the long run. For us normal people, it takes everything from 20-40 matches to start getting a hang of competing. Everything up until that point is full of nerves, irrational thoughts and lots of bad results. And don't wait till you feel “ready” to compete. No matter how ready and prepared you might think you are, there is still a very good chance, that you will lose anyway. Just jump in the deep water as early as possible and learn how to swim there, instead of spending all your time practicing on land. The experience - no matter the result - is worth way more, than giving in to your natural fear of failing. You will agree, when you've done it.

7) Train with everyone. There isn't one correct way to do Jiu Jitsu and you might have ten different black belts show you ten ways to do the same technique, before you settle on how it works best for you. Also, the people in that other gym in town have similar interests as you, and could very likely become great friends and training partners. Why not pay them a visit next week? Jiu Jitsu politics makes zero sense, except for those, who are worried about losing money or status in a fantasy hierarchy, which basically only exists in their own heads. In the real world, where most of us lives, grown ups should be allowed to play with any other grown ups they like. Especially, if they pay for it.

8) Jiu Jitsu is a fantastic vehicle for social life and traveling. With this sport, you posses a special key to experience other worlds. You can walk into any academy on the planet and you will have an instant network of local friends. That is a bulletproof recipe for lifetime experiences, memories and friendships. Do it.

9) The final answer, on wether you should train gi or no-gi is here. Just do whatever you enjoy most.

10) If you come by a waterfall, always do a cool Kung Fu pose under it. It will improve your balance and sweep defense.

Getting back in the competition game

Besides competing in the gym almost every single day against a bunch of really skilled teammates, it has been a very long time since I have entered any sort of competition. I always have a lot of projects going on, and given my time consuming roles as full time gym owner, promoter, coach and instructor, it has been difficult for me to find the required time and energy to focus on my own training enough to compete again. Last time I competed was about two and a half years ago and shortly after that, I got a pretty bad pelvis/hip injury from a deadlift, that has held me from doing any form of lower body (and thereby cardio-)training since. These factors combined has put my focus on all the other factors of the sport besides competing.


I have tried several treatments for my injury over the last few years, but nothing has really worked until recently where a friend of mine referred me to a physiotherapist of his. Over the last two months, I have paid her for literally torturing my body, and finally I see some results. I can now run, squat, jump, etc. without feeling pain for a week afterwards. It is not fully treated yet, but definitely going in the right direction.

With my newly acquired luxury of being able to actually train my lower body, I have decided to join my team in a submission wrestling tournament next saturday. We are 29 competitors from my gym and I will join them in our quest to gather most points and win the team contest.


Competition for me will never be about honor, winning, being "the best" etc., but is merely a tool for me to develop my skills and explore my own potential. I do this for myself and myself only. Self confidence has never been a problem to me (in the good way :)), so I am not out to prove anything to myself or anyone else. What I am trying to do with this project though, is to use competition as a catalyst to evolve, improve and develop my skills in the sports. A natural step on my way to brown belt and beyond! :)

Recently, I was thinking back and realizing, that I have actually competed at about 15 tournaments in the past, but it is such a long time ago, I have a tendency to about forget it. I dug up some old photos from my hard drive from these events and have uploaded them to this post. Skinny kid!! :D


Now, getting back in the competition game is gonna be a long term, slow starting thing for me. I think that technically I could not be better prepared. Physically, I would rate myself to be about 75% of my potential in my current weight class. Mentally, I am obviously lacking experience and I am totally out of the rhythm in this area. Nerves or concentration has never really been a problem for me during matches at competitions in the past, and I have always felt confident in my game, so I hope this will also be the case saturday. Naturally, my mind is playing tricks on me these days about my confidence in getting back on the mat after such a long time and with high expectations for myself, but I am aware of it and working on turning it all to my advantage.


Basically, my plan with this particular competition is to get back in the rhythm. Get on the mat, feel the nerves, do my best to execute my gameplan and see how it goes. I hope to win, but it is not my primary goal this time. I have been making a gameplan for the matches, that I have trained in the gym again and again under pressure against all my team mates, so I feel very confident in being able to execute it saturday. But we'll see how it goes. My toughest opponents will be my own team mates, who are not only extremely well prepared like myself, but also knows my game in and out :)

So these are some of my thoughts about getting back into the competition game. I will be sure to post here after the tournament to evaluate my performance and also put my matches up along with the gameplan I had been using (not gonna reveal that for my opponents just yet ;-)).

A-game Camping vs. making a decision to improve.

Recently, I have wondered a bit about, what I could say was the most important thing for me in the process of improving my skills in BJJ, MMA etc. I feel that my game is constantly improving. I can feel a difference in my skills on the mat from one month to the next and I can see that I catch more new submissions, escape more cleverly, analyze the opponent better, see more openings etc. etc. But what is it, that makes me always improve, when I see other guys have the exact same game year after year, never implementing anything new, never improving or exploring what they already know?


I don't think it is a question of talent. I myself have never been very gifted athletically, I have just worked hard to get where I am. After a lot of thinking and trying to analyze how the other guys in the gym train, think and "work" in the game of Jiu Jitsu, I have come to a conclusion. There is one single factor, that is common for the group of guys I see constantly improving their game the same way as I do, compared to those whose improvements can stall for years:

They all make a concise decision to improve their game.

Those who never stop improving, are the ones that are always "working on something" when they are training. I do this ALL the time and it suddenly makes sense that this is the most important factor in getting better at Jiu Jitsu for me and almost everyone else I have come across.


Beginners are always improving and eager to learn. I have yet to come across a beginner, that was not interested in learning something new and experimenting with it. But when you get to a certain level, where you have a good understandment of the basics and found a few moves that are your favorites, it is not directly necessary for you to improve, in order to survive a class and a sparring session with your team mates. You can hold yourself against most sparring partners, just with the basics and the few moves that works for you.

This is the critical time for you to make a concise decision to improve. It is SO easy to just lean back and play safe with the skills you feel comfortable with, instead of running the risk of trying something new and failing. I have named this phenomenon "A-Game Camping", because I see these guys just camp out in their A-game without making a decision to improve it.


I've set up a few rough identification points and observations I have made for the two groups:

A-game Campers:
- Learns new move in class - goes straight back to A-game in sparring.
- Have a low "technical level" vs. "sparring hours" ratio.
- Have a handful of solid moves.
- Can have the same game for years.
- Not taking many chances in sparring.
- Rarely exposing holes in own game on purpose.

"Constant improvers":
- Learns new move in class - tries it out again and again in sparring.
- Always "working on something" during sparring.
- Can name X number of moves after sparring that he was experimenting with.
- Always thinking of moves to try out when back on the mat.
- Fails and taps many times in sparring, but becomes very skilled in the long run.
- Often exposing holes in own game on purpose.
- Outperforms A-game Campers in a relatively short time.

Of course, this is a very rough way to put things, but the point is, that if you want to improve your game, you MUST make a concise decision to do so. Decide with yourself what you need to improve on and make the decision to do it in every opportunity you get. It can be a specific technique, a position, a transition or maybe a mental aspect.


I have been doing this for a long time, but I think the moment it really took off as a very efficient training tool for me, was when I started to write down a list of what I was currently working on. When I write it down, it is as if I am making a promise to myself, that I will do it and run the risks. That I won't just fall back to my safe A-game that doesn't hurt, doesn't fail and doesn't require a lot of stamina, will and determination in sparring. The list is constantly changing. Some things, I work on only for a few weeks, some things have been on the list for half or whole years. The important thing is, that as soon as the list is written down, I know exactly what I need to try out next time on the mat, and it is obvious to me, that I am really improving in these areas. I know this because I strike out things on the list now and then :)

I like to keep my list simple with as few things to work on as possible. Funny thing is, if I have a period when I don't write down my current "projects" and I then decide to do it, I realize that the list i huuuge and I really need to cut it down and focus on less areas. So writing it down also keeps my focus on the most important areas of potential improvement.


If you look back in my blog, you can find lists like this here and there. My current list of what I am working on looks like this:

- Being more aware of footlocks both offensively and defensively
- Toehold from Omo Plata
- Ryan Hall's 50/50 heelhook
- Short armdrags in guard
- Marceloplata mountattack position
- X-guard as guard defense to sweep or set up footlocks
- Triangle as a way of control from sidecontrol bottom and top
- Inside trip from double overhooks, collargrips and beltcontrol
- Committing to takedown attempts even though I know they might fail
- Marcelo-style armdrag scramble (on the list since January 2007! :))

Obviously, this would be a good time to ask yourself: Are you an A-game Camper? :)

EDIT: I wrote this when I was a little tired and might not have got the definitions out exactly as I meant them. By A-game camping, I don't mean only working on your A-game, which ofcourse there is always a time and place for, and which is very important. I am talking about only surviving sparring by holding on to what you know and not working on improving it. The point is to make a decision to improve, no matter what area the improvement is on. It can be anything from improving your timing in your A-game, escaping mount more often, working on your "poker-face" or learn a fancy new spinning heelhook. Don't be fooled by MY list, that often has fancy techniques on it. I am fully aware that most people will never do those techniques that I am working on, and that is perfectly fine as it should be. The "B-game Explorers" was maybe the wrong term, since I by "B-game" only meant areas in your game that can improve, and that is - as we all know - everything. So I can see where confusion on that term can arise.

BJJ as a tool to handle emotions and pressures

BJJ is much more than the sport you see on the outside. It is much more than just the techniques, the history or the system.


One of the biggest values of BJJ training lies in the way it works as a tool to learn how to handle different emotions and pressures, that we don't normally experience in our daily life. Think about all the things you may feel, when you roll in class or competition:

• Pain
• Fear
• Nervousness
• Adrenaline
• Claustrophobia
• Limited breathing
• Exhaustion
• Panic
• Frustration
• Failure
  
• Etc.

Sometimes you have an easy roll and don't experience any of this and other times you go hard or you roll with someone who puts a lot of pressure on you. The most important thing to think of is, that no matter how many emotions and pressures you must go through in that roll, you always come out on the other side.

So if you roll and feel really uncomfortable because of some of these things, remember that it is exactly this experience that makes you stronger. It will end and when it does, you come out stronger on the other side. Next time it happens, you handle the pressure a little better and next time again a little more, untill in the end none of these things bother you at all. Nothing can make you panic, no matter under how much pressure you are.

And that is a super valuable real-life skill you develop from training in BJJ.

Aliveness

If I were to point out one thing, that has had the biggest influence on my training throughout the years, it is without doubt the principle of Aliveness. It is basically just common sense, but I have not come across a better definition and description of just that, than from the Straight Blast Gym.

I don't want to copy/paste a long description of Aliveness here, but I want to encourage everyone to read the Aliveness 101 blog and especially the post Why Aliveness.

Here is a videoclip on the subject with Matt Thornton, the President of the SBGi, that I shot in my gym some years ago:

It is just a giant videogame

This is a quite posted by Leo Kirby from Florida on the subject of internet discussions. I think it is a great little piece, that everyone can benefit from reading now and then. Just as a reminder on what we are actually doing here.

----

Everyone knows this is just a game...right?

To steal a thought from a friend of mind who posts here occasionally, do you think there are badmitton forums where people get pissed off at each other and debate technique vs. concept, live drills vs. dead patterns?

What is it about the Martial Arts that makes all this so serious? Our lack of ego?

If I post questions that I have about the way we do things it doesn't mean we do not have a lot of great people all over the world, some of them I have met and some I haven't. It doesn't mean we don't have a few dicks out there either. In short, we are pretty much like everyone else in that regard. Shouldn't upset anyone that i say it though. I'm not sure where that comes from.

Maybe in our haste to supress our egos and create a playful enviornment where we can all develope our own games in the spirit of fun we have become a little sensitive to criticism from both inside and out.

But in the end we are adults rolling around on the ground with other adults. We are adults sitting behind our little screens typing out thoughts and ideas and opinions. That is all it is. That is all it ever will be. There is really nothing here for anyone to get pissed off at. It is just a giant videogame.

Photo by Nicolas Dalby.

About "getting good" and enjoying the process

From new students, I often get the question "How long does it take to get good at Brazilian Jiu Jitsu?". It is always a question that requires some time to explain, as there is no answer really.

What is "good"? When are you "good"? Consider, that no matter how long you train, there will always be someone who are better and someone who are worse than you at this sport. Let's say you have a goal of reaching the black belt. You train and train for years always with the goal of "getting there". One day, you finally get the belt... and then what? There are still tons of guys out there, who are much better and tons of guys who are much worse.


No matter how long you train, no matter how much you - in your mind - measure your own level up against other students, no matter how much you think about how far the other gym in town has come now compared to you, you will never come to a point where you are "done". It is a natural thing for people to gather in groups (/tribes) and then start to gossip about other groups of same interest with whom they have little or no communication with. I think this is seen more in sports, where those groups eventually will meet in competition and measure themselves up against eachother. In real life, some or all of those people in the other group could have been your best friends if you have just met them in another way than as competitors within your own interest group. Does it really matter how "good" they are? Does it really matter how "good" you are? Does it make sense to not be best possible friends with people who share the same interest as you?


The point is, that you can never "get there" and then you are "done". So if you always focus on getting to a certain point in your training where you are "good" (measuring yourself against others), then you might forget the most important thing of it all - enjoying the process.

Ofcourse, setting a certain goal can be very beneficial for some people/personalities, but I always encourage my students to try to throw all these (natually occouring) thoughts of measurement away and just enjoy playing BJJ. Because the process of training is the real goal, not the belt or a certain level. The real value of this sport is in the training, the sweating, the pain, the small successes, the small failures, the friends you make, the self esteem, the hard work and the development of non-fantasy skill that actually works against resisting opponents. And you are already right there to enjoy it. Every day in the gym, on the mat. So forget about getting good and enjoy what you are doing NOW. The goal is right there in front of you and it has been there all the time :)

My own gym is completely designed with this in mind. Our number one priority has always been to create the best possible environment for enjoying the process of training. We always play nice music in class, hang up pirate flags, play playstation, arrange social activities, and most important of all - we never take training too seriously. Some people might find themselves comfortable in a strict, hierachial, no-music, serious and competition-minded environment, and that is perfectly fine. They just won't come to our place then. We never focus on "being the best", although a side benefit of our process-focus has been, that people are getting really, really good at what they do. Simply because they enjoy coming to the gym every day to hang out and train.

Just some thoughts on a pleasant winter friday in Copenhagen. Enjoy your weekend :)

Geeks with social skills

Yesterday, I stumbled over this old clip from my previous gym. Well, I don't really know if I can call it "old", since the material in it is from late 2002 - early 2003.

It struck me, how cool it is, that the guys on the video from back then are the same guys, that I still enjoy training and being with today. Main difference is, that today, they are all top athletes within MMA and BJJ. Really skilled people that inspire me so much in my own training.

We have never had an instructor in our gym to teach us stuff, nor do we have one today. We have always been this little group of guys who have just enjoyed training, exploring, learning and having fun. Learning and evolving as a group is what have kept us together and that is what still keeps us together today, years later. We have evolved together and shared many great moments inside and outside the gym. For that I thank them all.

This little group that started out over 7 years ago has grown bigger along the years, and all these new guys go through the exact same as we did. All enjoying the process of learning and exploring new things. They too will become great athletes and great friends. Will it ever end? I don't think so. And I don't hope it will.

I talked to one of those guys, with whom I have trained with from the beginning, Thomas la Cour. Today, he is one of the best and most intelligent MMA fighters I know of. We talked about what us in this group of people had in common, and it struck us that we all shared a certain combination of two things. All of us have always been - in school, amongst friends, at work etc. - the geeks with social skills. I am sure all of you have had one of those in your class in school. The computer geek, roleplaying geek or school nerd with a high level of social interaction skills. The guys who are becoming a part of our group today are exactly the same. I can spot them from day one and it never fails.

Maybe this is the magic combination for producing highly intelligent fighting athletes? :)



By the way, don't listen to the song, I am a BIGTIME training addict :D