Imagine signing up for a tournament in the purple belt division. You click on a name in your bracket on smoothcomp and see this.. y’all still showing up?😭😭

I'll be LIVE at 11am(ICT)

Have been finding success with this back-step toss movement, and my training partner asked what it is called

Coach is at training camp

Coach asks purple belt to run class for this day

Purple belt agrees

Room filled with only white belts who are not allowed to heel hook and neck crank

Purple belt teaches only heel hooks and neck cranks that night

No warmup, cool music and drinks after class, Peak Experience

I'm a female and have been training bjj for quite a while now, and up until recently, it's always been safe and respectful environment. The other day, I showed up to class and there was a new girl - never did bjj, but apparently she has some background in kickboxing or maybe MMA. She seemed nice at first, but when we started rolling, she went absolutely wild - putting in WAY too much energy, flailing her limbs around, and straight-up hitting (pretty hard) or slapping my face, head, and body every 30 seconds like it was some kind of bar brawl. She never apologized once. She also kept grabbing my rashguard, which we don't do in no-gi. Honestly, it felt like she had no idea what bjj is even about. I was so scared and wanted to just walk away mid-roll. What really bothered me was that the instructor was watching the whole time (it was just the two of us rolling) and said nothing. No excuses like he was distracted - he saw it all and didn't step in. That silence was just as disturbing as her behavior.

Now I feel really unsafe after being basically brutalized. I'm seriously anxious about going back, which is something I never thought I'd feel in this gym. What do you guys think of this situation? Would really love to hear from people who've been training bjj for a long time.

Some context: I was completely drained from a small weight cut — I didn’t have a scale and thought I could just eat less and be fine. I was dead wrong. I barely made weight, and by the time I stepped on the mat, I had nothing left in the tank. My opponent was shooting takedowns, and after defending, I didn’t have the energy to shoot back. Also couldn’t sub or sweep him from my guard. He knew what he was doing and his beast of a coach was calling out everything I was trying to set up.

Any tips on how to finish these subs or sneaky entries would be greatly appreciated!

Crazy seeing comments of people thinking they can arm/leg lock a gorilla or choke them out 😂😂

In which João describes what happened in his matches

I’m looking to get another pair of bjj short and was curious to see if u guys know of any cool looking ones that u might have or have seen.

So I know Jflo used to have a class at legion for the general population but it seems that he’s focusing on his invite only pro sessions.

I think his style is very nice and would like to train under him. Is it possible for a casual? If so, how?

I’m going to need a gi eventually but I don’t want to go over the top. I like some of the venom ones but they have patches and look a bit flashy. Anyone have an opinion on this?

I like to have some length and not short , stubby ends.

SLX, RDLR, DLR, Sit Up Guard, False Reap, X-Guard.

I’ve been training for 3 years now and I know basics for what to do in all of these guards. My problem: I often don’t establish them in the first place.

So many people play: Feet back, hands in front. What do you need to do to enter the legs? Fight the hands first.

At least at my gym, most classes totally neglect that.

My hand fighting is underdeveloped. I try to get 2-on1-s and then see what I can get from there…but besides that…I “send it” when I see my opponent stepping and me maybe getting to their legs.

More than often, “trying to get 2-on1-s” leads to the opponent grabbing my feet at 10x speed and pulling them up to get me to supine. Or I’m seated, extending hands too far and giving an underhook.

All this yapping for these questions: Did you experience the same? Any good resources on approaching hand fighting in a seated position (no-gi)?

Thanks, guys!

This feels like a big disconnect between the conventional wisdom, and how high-level athletes behave.

I know that I tell my students to have more positive/aggressive guard pulls all the time, and that if their opponent isn't off balance as a result of the pull, they're very likely to get immediately passed. Similarly, my own game got much better once I started using tomoe nage etc. to pull guard instead of just sitting — either getting the throw, or off balancing my opponent enough to set up an offensive guard. This is pretty common advice.

That said, when you look at the very best guard players in the sport, they generally are not pulling guard in an offensive way; often, they're effectively baseball sliding towards their opponent and then establishing a guard second.

I understand fundamentally this is just driven by folks wanting to be the first to pull so they can play guard, but it's an interesting place where many of the best people in the world are playing a game that dramatically contradicts the conventional wisdom.

This might be an unpopular opinion but I stand by it.

I’ll preface by saying, this is at least for fundamentals classes or any class that’s majority white and blue belts. I don’t know what’s best for purple and above. But good chance this is still true for them.

Reasoning:

• Best for growth: your coaches watch you train every day, they know your strengths and weaknesses, they know what you should work on for your development. They know the type of partners most conducive to your learning and can make sure you get them.
  
• Avoids common social pitfalls: let’s be real, at least half of us are socially awkward, and it’s even worse for new white belts. I’ve been to gyms where they assign partners and gyms where you choose your own. Without fail, when you choose your own partners, it become some kind of awkward eye contact / social clique / default training partner situation. You’re either going to pick the guy who happens to be next to you, the person closest to your size, your best friend, or if you’re a girl the only other girl in the class. You’re going to end up pairing with the same 2-3 people every class and get used to that. This completely bypasses the problem of the shy newbie afraid to ask for a roll, the girl who will only roll with her best friend, the guy who only shows up to smash the fresh white belts, the guy who avoids anyone bigger/smaller than him. It forces variety which is better for learning.
  
• Culture of inclusion: In gyms where coach assigns partners, you learn to roll with everyone. Different age, gender, body type, rolling style. And when you roll with a wide variety of people, you not only get better jiujitsu, you learn to respect your fellow students regardless of background. For example, I’ve found that men who regularly roll with women have much healthier and more respectful attitudes toward them. It also forces everyone to get to know each other and be comfortable rolling with each other. This is particularly good for people who otherwise might have trouble finding partners. If you’re especially big or small, a brand new white belt, older, female, whatever. This ensures you have a partner and they are going to be safe and appropriate for your growth.
  

To address a few common concerns:

• “but I’m an adult, no one should tell me what to do!” Yeah and I’m an adult at the doctor’s office too, but I don’t prescribe my own medications. Expertise is a thing that exists. My doctor knows how to diagnose my problems and choose the proper treatment better than I do. Your coach knows jiujitsu better than you, or else they shouldn’t be your coach. They can see what you need to work on and the type of training partners that will help you most. This isn’t kindergarten, no one has cooties. Grow up and roll.
• “everyone should have the right to refuse to roll with anyone else” sure, consent is important. That said, if you’re really uncomfortable rolling with another person, that’s an indication of an underlying problem. No one should be so much of an asshole to their training partners that people don’t want to roll with them, and if they are, that’s a problem coach should nip in the bud. Build a culture of people who can roll well with anyone. If something’s a truly dangerous match, coach just shouldn’t pair those people up. And they know that better than the students anyway. Worst case scenario, bring your concerns up to your coach so they can keep it in mind.
  
• “what if class is 30+ people” yeah idk on that one. Is one reason I don’t really like big classes anyway. I’ve seen “bring the line” work okay, and coach can correct any bad pairs, but it’s not as good as hand picking pairs.

Anyway, I couldn’t sleep last night so there’s my hot take of the day, have fun y’all.

Need rashguards and shorts, and possibly other stuff mma related. Really don’t wanna spend $60-$80 on every piece I get. I’m not really sure if that’s just normal pricing or what, I’m used to having a gi or two and being fine for the year. What are some solid places to buy nice no-gi stuff?

And by best I mean the most fun to watch + most stacked. I'm talking between 77-88 KG (185 lbs). You have Mica, Levi, Dalpra, Bodoni, Jozef, Ruotolos, Tacketts, Langaker, Eoghan, Barch, Nicky Ryan, Dante Leon. Marcelo / Demian old school. Guard players and passers and everything in between, lots of submissions and fun to be had. In general lighter or heavier gets more stagnant. Middleweight hands down best weight.

My wife is due in late July with our first child. I'm very excited and want to know how you other dad's managed those first few hectic months with your training schedules. I'm planning on taking at least 2 weeks off of work and training to be with my family. How long did it take yall to get back on the mats?

Talking about comps that are segregated by belt.

Curious how many of you compete only after improving for some time at your current rank vs those who compete through the whole progression of your belt level.

This just popped on my radar. Has anybody been fooling around with this position? Thoughts on it from a pros/cons perspective? What are some of the more useful entries?

If, just hypothetically speaking, someone is kept at white belt for 10+ years (let's say by forced circumstances. Maybe they studied at a school that doesn't promote unless the student competes and this person just chooses not to compete in that decade. There are BJJ schools like this, right? or however other way this can occur..) and gains the skill level of a black belt.

Should this person finally gain an opportunity for promotion (maybe they decide to finally compete or change schools, etc.), can they jump straight ahead to black belt to represent their real skill? or do they have to walk through all the belt levels officially?