The only real tried and tested method to learning BJJ faster than others is simply by training and learning more. If you work harder than everyone else then you will improve faster. Obviously, there will be talented individuals who improve the fastest, but hard work and technique will overcome everything eventually.
Imagine if you wanted to become a doctor, interestingly enough this maybe around the same amount of time to become a BJJ black belt. If you wondered “Can I become a doctor in 1 year?” then obviously the answer is no, there is simply too much to learn. For BJJ it is exactly the same, whilst you can’t become a black belt in 1 year, you can certainly become proficient and beat others who have been training for twice as long compared to yourself.
There are two other aspects which will also factor in how fast you progress, the first is athleticism. This is a natural gift but can also be nurtured over time. If there is a guy who has wrestled for 10 years, he already has years of athletic experience, so has already put in some practice even without realizing it. With this experience, he will not have to work as hard in this area as everyone else.
The final way is to study harder and learn faster than everyone else. This can be done on your own time online using youtube and various paid instructionals for detailed positional intricacies. If you really want to devote all of your time to learning from instructionals you WILL improve faster than other people. For most people, this is not an option as it takes a lot of your free time and costs a good amount of money.
Table of Contents
Consistency is King
When learning a new hobby, new job or new skill, you must be consistent. If you can remember when you learned to drive a car, you didn’t learn every day for 3 weeks, forget about it for 6 months and then begin learning again. This is something you must try and do as much as possible. If your schedule and body allow it, then there is no real reason not to train, it has positive effects for both your mind and body.
Once again, this is not for most people since a lot of us will have family commitments, work commitments and various other things we must take care of in our lives before we can train. However, if you’re young and want to improve at BJJ fast then you can really train as much as you want.
Experimenting, Making Mistakes & Getting Tapped Is Good
If you have been training for any length of time then you probably already know that there is someone in your gym who is not that good for their belt colour. This is most likely to them not experimenting and trying new things. Whilst it is always good to focus on making one position your best, you must try new techniques.
If you are not attempting to learn, drill and spar with a new technique then it will never appear to you. In other words, if you never attempted a triangle from half guard, there isn’t going to be a day when you are suddenly just able to do this. You will be stuck with the moves you’ve attempted and learned.
Sometimes, especially against lower belts it is a good idea to try new things. Perhaps you have an idea for a new side control escape that leaves your arm exposed. If the while belt taps you here then you have learned that this was a mistake and won’t leave your arm there again. If you never attempt the escape, then you will never learn that this was a mistake – thus you will be stuck doing the same thing again and again.
Don’t Just Pick On The Weak
Another common mistake made is by picking on weaker belts or people who are physically less of a challenge. Whilst it may feel good to constantly beat people, if you are not challenging yourself occasionally, then you are not learning enough. When rolling with higher belts in BJJ you will learn things that you wouldn’t have learned against the lower belts.
Once again this will create cognitive reinforcement in your brain not to do things that get you tapped. You will get away with a lot of bad habits against lower belts since they don’t know how to capitalize on them yet. As soon as you are facing a seasoned competitor these mistakes will be recognized instantly and you will be punished for them. Thus creating a much faster improvement.
Try To Learn Systematically
John Danaher is often praised for areas of his teaching such as “The Leg Lock System” But what really is the Leg Lock System?
Having a system in place means that you are able to move from one area to the next without skipping large details of the mechanics and also learning everything about counters and what you should do if your opponent does something you haven’t seen before.
By detailing every movement and mechanic, Danaher is able to give his students the best instruction by chaining techniques and movements together – this gives them a concrete foundation of what to do in their minds.
A basic example of this is the triangle, armbar and omoplata. These moves are often taught in a systematic manner since they are all obviously linked. Sometimes people will turn out of a locked triangle, thus giving you the shoulder for the omoplata. If people duck their heads and try to pull out of a triangle, they often expose their elbow, thus giving you the armbar.
Diet, Conditioning & Injuries
Obviously, these factors are crucial when trying to train BJJ as much as possible. Injuries for example cannot be controlled 100%, but they certainly can be limited by both conditioning and diet as well as training sensibly which we will talk about next.
Diet should be obvious, you want to eat as many fruits and vegetables as you can. Along with as much protein as you can get. You will also need to have a lot of carbs since BJJ workouts are so intense. You may want to make a specific mealplan to suit your needs.
Strength and conditioning is also key to your success. The more conditioned you are the less you will get injured. The less you are injured, the more you will train. If your body has more muscle mass and flexibility then it will be able to take more hits and awkward bends than it would if you don’t bother doing this.
Training Sensibly
Whilst you want to train as much as possible, it is always recommended to train sensibly. Remember this is a BJJ in a gym, not a fight to the death. If you are going to go 100% every day in every round, your body will soon tire of this. One day you will have your leg or arm stuck at an awkward angle, how much it is injured that day will depend on how hard you were going. If that day it is 100% then you may blow your knee out for a long time and be off the mats for even longer.
Drilling & Sparring
Both drilling and sparring are equally important. Drilling is to get the technique of a move set in your mind before you successfully complete it. Sparring is to train your brain what to do in various novel situations whilst adding the opponent’s resistance into the equation.
When drilling in BJJ, it is always important to practise the technique on both sides. It is no use having an armbar from mount on a single side if your opponent is raising the opposite arm.
Sparring is also required since having a smooth technique on a passive body is quite different to a human who wants to escape. Even if the opponent is doing something “bad” or “incorrect” – you must learn what to do when they make these reactions, otherwise they will be able to get out of bad positions because you don’t know how to counter their movements.
Competing
Competing in BJJ is a great way to learn from your experiences and “level up” faster. Since you’re put into a high pressure environment you will be punished for your mistakes faster than in the gym and will also generally up against better competition since people will take it more seriously.
Here it is a trial by fire and you will learn your ability is either what you thought, or perhaps you need to do some things differently if you’re getting badly beaten. Either way, it will be a reality check and you are going to find out just how good you are whether you like it or not.
Private Lessons & Focussing On One Particular Thing
One way to get good fast at something is to have a private lesson with an expert. It may be that your professor is an expert at X-Guard and this is what you want to learn. It would then make sense for you to have a private lesson with the instructor since he can show you intricacies that it wouldn’t make sense to show to 30 people at once.
If the instructor is not an expert in the area that you want, there are plenty of tutorials online. If this is finishing a specific submission such as the calf slicer, then perhaps youtube is the best place to learn this. However if you’re looking for a whole series on something like deep half guard. There are many paid instructionals available online which is basically an online version of a private lesson from one of the best black belts in the world.
Decide Which Gym You Will Train At
Despite what some may say, it is important to have an instructor. You cannot blame your instructor for performing badly or having bad techniques, but you should obviously trying to be the best possible version of yourself. The way to do this is by picking the best possible gym to train at.
If you truly want to be the best then perhaps picking the “nicest” instructor is not the way forward. Sometimes an instructor can be both a great guy and excellent at BJJ. However sometimes the best instructor might be the guy who is a bit cold and rude. It really depends on whether you can put up with this and which enivronment you think you would learn best in.
Befriend A Higher Belt
This is similar to getting a private lesson from your professor but it’s free! If you can make friends with higher belts in BJJ then they will help you out along the way. If a white belt asks me what he did wrong after a lesson I am more than happy to help him, as are most other people. This is a very cheap, easy and simple way to improve with minimal effort.
This can help you improve very fast since you’re instantly learning from your mistakes. If you don’t do this, it could be weeks or months until you figure out what you were doing wrong and put it right.
A Good Attitude & Enthusiasm
Lastly, the points which have already been mentioned are important, but perhaps most important to BJJ is enthusiasm and attitude. Without these things you will never succeed. Motivation to train will come and go, but if you truly love BJJ then you will keep coming back to the mats regardless, rather than forcing yourself to do something you don’t want to do. Eventually this will wear thin.
A good attitude is equally as important as it will help you make friendships and good relationships in the gym. If people like you then they will be much more willing to help you out. Where as if you have a bad attitude people will not want to partner with you, nor spend their time helping you with a technique you wanted to learn.
The Exception To The Rule
How Did BJ Penn Get A Black Belt In 3 Years?
BJ Penn and some other athletes are real outliers. There is no doubt that Penn would have done most of the above to get where he did so quickly. It’s also well known he came from a fairly wealthy family so was able to train full time without a job. Penn was also at one of the best gyms in the world at the time training at old school legend Ralph Gracie’s gym. He was certainly in the right place at the right time since he was able to train with some of the best in the sport at the time with sparring partners such as Shaolin Ribeiro & Robson Moura.
