3 Practical Pieces of Advice for Jiu Jitsu

“Right then”, I hear you say, “what about some practical advice, or are you going to just waffle again. I’m bored of your tripe”.

Okay, here’s some practical advice for you today for getting to the next level in whatever you want to do in Jiu Jitsu. New Belt, tournaments, starting for the first time- whatever. These things have served me and lots of others well. Here we go.

1.      Adopt a 24/7-365 mentality

2.      Control the Crab Bucket

3.      Your Goal is to Keep the Goal, the Goal

24/7-365 Mentality

I robbed this phrasing from John Kavanagh. Nathan told me that John says it regularly to his guys, so I thought, yoink, I’ll rob that, change the phrase slightly, and use it as my own. Then I didn’t bother doing any of that. Anyway, what it means is that you’re not a part-time grappler, or fighter. You’re living your life to get better at this thing that we do, to be the best that you can be. You eat right, sleep right, and even relax right. Your course is not decided by the intense training session, or the week you just had, but across a long time period of constant improvement and focus.

It doesn’t mean you become a monk, but that you remain focused over the long term.

Control the Crab Bucket

Another phrase I robbed! This one from Terry Pratchett, who may have robbed it from Sean O’Casey. (“The poor keeping the poor, poor”, might have been his one) Many a teenage boy has come home from my sessions talking about Crabs, possibly to the confusion of his family.

In a bucket of crabs, when one crab tries to climb out, the others pull it back in.

Let that digest for a while. Now a lot of the self-help crap goes that you should cut off those bad influences completely, but in truth, you can’t reject your family and friends, if they’re indeed acting like crabs. A lot of people will be great supporters of your goals. But there’s always someone who says “Just one drink” or “Do you HAVE to train again tonight?” You need to learn who is helping you in this new goal, and who isn’t, and develop ways to make sure they don’t knock you off course.

Your Goal is to Keep The Goal, The Goal

This one is from Dan John! “Jesus man, do you have any original ideas!” Yes I do have some, but whenever I have one, I usually find someone has said it before and better.

The idea here is that you have to keep your focus on the ultimate goal. There are many distractions along the way even in a training environment. If your goal is to win a tournament, you might fall in love with takedowns for example, and pursue months of intense takedown practice to the detriment of the rest of your game. Then in your big final, the guy pulls guard and you never get to use it! You lost focus! You forgot that your job was to win however it went, not to score a highlight reel takedown!

I have more ideas like this, but I’ve only got so many blogs I can write!

However if you want to know more, [email protected] gets me at any stage. I love hearing from people and getting feedback, by email or in person at the gym.

See you on the mat,

Barry