My grappling dummy has been a game changer. I use it maybe 2 hours a week, focusing on techniques that I want to learn, plugging gaps in my game (and there are a lot). Sure the dummy doesn’t work for a lot of positions, but there is a lot you can improve. Best of all I can drill positions hundreds of times, watching KZfaq videos to really learn intricacies. Without fail, the techniques and sequences I drill on my dummy are the ones that work best in free sparring.

I'm a target opportunist. I tend to allow the person to move where they want( starting with jrs.) and always look for the easiest things to attack. If I miss it or get caught I still learn. At 50yr old I have to work smarter.

Thank you for posting, Professor Chewy. I always gain valuable insight from your videos.

This is super timely because I have been having thoughts along the lines of this question recently. Thanks for answering my question before I asked it!

Thanks for this. You worded it exactly how I needed to hear

Thanks Chewey needed this information!

As always , great advice from Chewjitsu

Woah my first time being first and it's on a Chewy vid! 😂 Thank you for all you do Chewy, you've been a big part of my BJJ experience since 2 and a half years ago when I became a lowly white belt! Lol

EXACTLY. Took me 20 years of mat time, to develop my game. Love your video.

Thanks for the tips, this is actually very helpfull!

Thank you for finally mailing this concept and roadmap down. I just started 3 weeks ago but I’m 53 so I need to turbo charge my JJ and frankly get decent with 2 years so can refocus on kickboxing. I shared this with a friend and he’s down. Thanks Chewy

A great video that captures the essence of BJJ and quite possibly all martial arts. What is clear is that at lower belts, we often win because our opponent has made a mistake and vice versa. A lot of white belt competition for example is a series of `mistakes’ or lack of control, before someone catches a position and submission. As we progress through the belts it becomes far more about control and breaking down the others’ control, technique and defences and finding a way to bring the opponent into our area of speciality. Of course there is a physical component to all of this, but through the process of training and honing skill, we begin to close that gap more and more. Something useful to think about after every session is did I `win’ my rolls by design or was it more down to luck? In this way I/we can start to hone our craft. I will be listening to this video many times in future 🤙🤙🤙

Positional sparring is one of my go tos. I just set it up a lot of times without my partner even knowing. For example there’s a sweep that I am working on catching out of bottom side control. So for 2 days straight I would let people pass my guard. If they got mounted then my new sweep didn’t work. If it did then that’s cool, lets set it up again. It actually confused one of my training partners last week because he caught me in a submission from there and I said just start again from that position. He looked at me funny and I said I’m working on something. So then he stopped because he thought I wanted to try drilling something. I said no no keep going full power. I explained afterwards that sparring to me is a laboratory where I take the techniques and learn to apply them in real time against a live opponent.

Half guard game is my fav.

Always quality content Sir. Much respect

Fantastic video! I teach math and physics, and a lot of the idea discussed in the video are relevant to that area of my life. The way Chewy worded things is exactly what I think about education with my students, and it's something that clicked on the best way for me to move forward with my training as a new blue belt.

Right on about the positional drilling. I'm a member of a gym has a separate class dedicated to positional drilling three times a week. Every month we focus on a single position (mount, side control, guard, half-guard, turtle/back) working the position from offense and defense. In the first week we're introduced to a handful of attacks and escapes and by the end of the month we're going live for the entire the class, taking a sort of a crawl, walk, run approach while getting immediate feedback after every round. While the fundamentals classes provide a nice overview of different positions, the positional drilling classes are where I've really started to become competent in each position. To add on the if/then approach: Every technique has certain conditions that must be met in order for the technique to be effective. While working through a particular "flow" identify the conditions that are required for each technique. For example, if I'm in guard and my opponent's hands are on the mat (if/condition), I might go for an elbow roll (then/technique). If that fails because they post out farther (if/condition), I might try for a kimura (then/technique). However, if my opponent drives back into me (if/condition), I'll look to go with their momentum and shoot my hips out for a guillotine (then/technique). As you work through the positions, it's not enough to learn the techniques, you must identify the correct conditions.

I like the last point you make 👍

Chewy, thank you for all the videos you produce. All these videos are on repeat and are my motivation to keep getting to the gym and train. Will make a trip out to your gym to train with you at some point in my journey. Thank you again! 1.5 year blue belt

I could definitely speak on this forever. Lol Situational drilling is very good. You can add layers to that by making it positional reaction training also. Examples of this would be to start in side control and the guy on the bottom has to turtle away as soon as you say go. Or starting in 50-50 and one guy attacks while the other looks to stand and clear legs. Next would be grip fighting. Understand that at a high level fighting off their grips and getting your own is a TOP priority. The last thing I'll add and never see taught is learning how to complete sweeps by maintaining a foot grip and finding a proper technical stand up rather than relying on momentum without maintaining grips. Also when you are using momentum sweeps stop kicking the person away. Keep your knees close to your body and this will help you follow the person up instead of extending your legs away which creates space and causes unnecessary scrambles. These were all big game changers for me. Sorry for the long winded answer.

Great video. One of your best. To your point about a specific few areas of competence-your comments in “Survive” about Roger Gracie’s performance in 2009 ADCC and how he used basic techniques perfected were very eye opening. I did go back and watch his matches. Amazing to see him just methodically use the same thing over and over to mow through the best of the best.

hey there Chewjitsu great video you have inspired to Brazilian jiu-jitsu

So true man!!!!! Im in my 3rd week. Here are my observations as a beginner white belt. Often the instruction demo starts with 3 moves to submit repeated for my elementary brain like 3 times max. Im excited. Ok. Then the instructor throws another couple moves in for the more advanced, everyone claps and away we go. By the time ive done the first couple the other moves go right out the window. Within a short period of time its an open roll snd i get no chance to work what ive learned. Im told just keep showing up and rolling. It will get better. It would be great to be given a sole opportunity to just do what I learned in a roll situation. I also heard that the first year of bjj you should only be concerned about defence. You cant execute an offensive move if you cant defend first. This is another oversight because they 99% of the time show a new white belt offence moves with no explanation of what to do defensively.

Brilliant 👍

If Chewy posts a video Then I will watch, like and comment.

The blue and purple belts at my gym were talking about their styles. The purple belt said his style is offense. I said, "yeah, people find my jiu-jitsu pretty offensive too."

Tons of awareness and mental anguish. I enjoy bjj tho

Love my deep half guard, because if I feel like my guard is being threatened, I can usually find a deep half entry and work from there. Every failed attempt at any other guard turns into a deep half opportunity.

I love jiu-jitsu in general I prefer No Gi but nothing against GI of course. My question is that I don't really care about colour of belts , my goal is to be better every training. Is it wrong to not hunting belts? I don't have to be black belt , but same time my goal is to have it skills of black belts but mostly in No Gi. Great contents thank you.

The gym I go to is superb in some respects but situational sparring, repping and coaching are not high on the agenda. Excellent instructionals, getting you thinking about concepts and time rolling is all there but I just haven't developed in that environment as much as I'd like. It seems to suit some people who seem to be able to transfer instruction to memory and then rolling but for a lot of us it's lacking coaching and repping. It seems to create a duality of white belts and upper belts, those who have got over the bump somehow and those floundering . Moving away for a year and a new gym... this in theory should bring it all together for me, I hope ....

Chewy, Interested in your thought process on whether it's more important to focus on a wide range of techniques vs picking 3-4 and honing in on only those techniques until you develop "technical mastery".

I always feel lost in what I should be drilling because there are just so many moves. Thinking about the 20/80 rule (ie 20% of moves are used 80% of the time), what 10 moves do you suggest newer people concentrate on and drill to get proficient at first?

Saw you at the airport in Kentucky Friday. Dunno if you were getting ready for a comp or something but you sure did look mad 😂

🙏🏼

off topic, but: after rolling, sometimes i'll feel intense pressure in my throat like a cross between acid reflux or having air trapped in my throat. anyone know what i'm talking about?

What I do is put my self in a bad spot that I want to work on and use my team mates reaction to help with my it that then what. If I don't like what happens I ask upper belts or my coaches about technique after the roll or try different things and watch videos online lol

Step 1: Learn the techniques. Step 2: Spend a bunch of time playing with them to learn when they do and don't work.

Ooda loop… it’s all about the reactionary time!

I call rolling jiu-jitsu candy. I am guilty in overindulging. I don't drill enough.

When you talk about not situational sparring that’s how my gym is a lot of time. We will occasionally do situational sparring but the majority of the time you wait for a full roll or an open mat to work on what we’ve learned. I’m not a fan of it at all

Smoke!

I miss the ambulance 😢😢

Tell Dan to just take TRT ……ya know gotta get back to your youth 🙄