The beginning of your journey in BJJ

The beginning of your journey in BJJ

At the beginning of your journey in BJJ, there are a variety of problems that beginner Jiu-Jitsu students face. When people begin the study of Jiu-Jitsu, the single biggest problem that beginning Jiu-Jitsu students face is they often see it as a matter of learning a sufficient number of moves in sufficient detail to be able to hold their own on the mat with their classmates. Certainly there is a lot of truth to this. When coaching however, I see the main problem a little differently. The human body has some fundamental and very important asymmetries. An obvious example is the left side/right side asymmetry. People are either right handed or left handed and will be stronger and more coordinated on their strong side. Another extremely important asymmetry is that between upper body and lower body strength and coordination. Almost everyone is much stronger in the lower body than upper body (NJ males may be the outlier here…lol). If I asked you to walk several times across the Academy, you could do this easily and with little effort. If I asked you to walk several lengths of the Academy on your hands in a handstand, even if you had the balance skills to do so, it would be a strenuous and tiring workout. If I asked you to sign your name on paper with your hand, you would do so easily. If I asked you to sign your name holding the pen in your toes it would be a real struggle. People are massively stronger and less coordinated in the lower half of the body than the upper body. This has clear ramifications for BJJ. We must learn to grapple predominantly with our lower body (legs). This means we have to overcome the lack of lower body coordination that most of us bring into the art. As a beginner, you must put your focus on development of coordination in your lower body and legs so that you can learn to use your legs so you can use the superior strength of your lower body for submissions and sweeps. You must overcome the natural beginners tendency to grapple with the upper body and learn to let your legs do most of the work. Every time you drill moves, be mindful of letting your legs do the majority of the work involved. There is no shortcut here. It will take time to learn this but let me assure you that  forming a strong connection of your mind to your legs will be the single biggest deciding factor of your progress in Jiu-Jitsu and how quickly.