5 Basic Things You Need to Learn about Jiu-Jitsu

SO there you are finally deciding to get off your couch and try out that awesome thing that you saw in MMA being shown on primetime TV. You finally said, “hey, my body is a huge mess, and girls dig MMA fighters. Right?”

And then you walk into one of them Gracie Barra schools, or any school that you would normally drive pass by. You park your car and step into the gym. You have never seen so many people in one place your entire life! You decided to sign up. Get your very first Gi, a rashguard.

Welcome to the wonderful world of BJJ.

As a newcomer, I applaud you for choosing to start your journey in BJJ. As thousands already have, you are now a member of a wonderful brotherhood / sisterhood of martial artist. I know you are really fired up, however, there are things that you will need to remember to become AWESOME in this field.

Things to remember ARE:

Becoming a black belt takes years

Yes. Getting a blackbelt takes around 5-8 years of training. Depending on your training and your will to be promoted, belt ranking is actually done regularly. Be prepared to brush up on your lessons. From basics to advance. There are exemptions to this, of course. I believe BJ Penn received his in 4 years. The kid’s a prodigy,

If you are expecting to be a black belt in less than 2-3 years, think again. I think Jiu-Jitsu is not for you, or Gracie Barra is not the school that will provide that. A black belt is just something dark-colored and that goes around your waist. That’s about it. It’s not the color that makes the fighter, but the fighter to who fights and doesn’t quit training.

There some who claim that you can get it in just 2 years. I believe they trained at McDojo BJJ. No offense meant.

There is a thing called over training

Unless you are superman, or heals like Wolverine, you should look out for signs of overtraining. This occurs when well, you spend a little too much time training. At first, it’s your body that takes in the first blow. Then your start to lose focus. You lose strength in your arms. Running seems laborious, and grappling such a task.

The answer: take some break. Probably giving yourself a day or two from training will work. The logic is quite simple: if an employee needs a vacation, what more for a budding martial artist?

Listening actually WORKS in BJJ

Ok. I’ve seen some BJJ newbies that are struggling. The core root cause is the lack of listening skills. I have noticed a lot of them spacing out while being instructed moves. Some have difficulty in listening because they think that YouTube videos actually are the best ways to learn. While there is no evil behind learning in YouTube, it is far better that you first develop these new techniques and follow the basic rudiments of the art. IF you plan to reinvent the wheel and come up with your own training regimen,

Prepare to Fail

Ok. Don’t get this wrong. Seriously. But there will be a lot of heartaches in BJJ. Well, in anything that rewards anybody will not be easy. Prepare to fail on your first to attempt to submit someone. Failure is normal. If all boxers succeeded in knocking out someone the very first time, they threw a punch, it wouldn’t the boxing that we all know today.

Expect to Succeed

Success is not measured by the number of opponents that you were able to beat on the mats. Well, at least for me, that is. Success is measured by how far you have improved as a person while and after doing Jiu-Jitsu. Expect that you will succeed. Expect eventually you will get to that rank. Expect that you will win that gold.

Jiu-Jitsu for everyone!

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