How to Actually Get Better at BJJ

In my last article, I talked about the difference between training BJJ and practicing BJJ. You can spend years on the mat, attend hundreds of classes, and roll thousands of rounds without getting nearly as much better as you could have.

That isn't because rolling isn't valuable. It absolutely is.

The problem is that simply doing more BJJ doesn't necessarily mean you're deliberately working to improve your BJJ.

So if simply training isn't enough, what does deliberate practice actually look like?

The answer starts with identifying something specific that you need to get better at and then creating opportunities to work on it.

That sounds simple, but it is very different from normal live training.

When you roll, you're trying to solve whatever problem your partner is giving you at that moment. You naturally fall back on the techniques you're most comfortable with. You use your best positions, your favorite passes, and the submissions you already know how to finish.

That's normal.

It's also one of the reasons people can get stuck.

If you want to improve, sometimes you have to deliberately take yourself out of your comfort zone and practice the things that aren't working.

Find the Problem

Let's say you keep getting your guard passed.

You could continue rolling and simply try harder not to get passed. Maybe you'll eventually improve, but you may also spend months making the same mistake without ever figuring out what you're doing wrong.

Instead, isolate the problem.

Start in the position where you're getting passed. Have your partner work to pass while your only objective is to maintain your guard and prevent the pass.

Now you can pay attention to what's actually happening.

Are you losing your frames? Are you allowing your opponent to establish inside position? Are you too flat? Are you reacting too late? Is your leg position creating the problem?

Once you've identified the problem, you can actually work on fixing it.

That's deliberate practice.

Work on the Thing You're Bad At

One of the easiest ways to get better at BJJ is to deliberately practice the things you're not good at.

Unfortunately, it's also one of the easiest things to avoid.

If you're really good at passing someone's guard, it's fun to pass their guard. If you have a favorite sweep, it's satisfying to hit it. If you have a submission that works regularly, you're naturally going to look for it.

But if you always spend your training time doing the things you're already good at, you're mostly practicing being good at those things.

Sometimes you need to do the opposite.

If your half guard is terrible, start there. If you struggle to escape mount, spend some time working from mount. If you always lose the same position, deliberately put yourself there and work on getting out.

You're probably going to get tapped.

That's okay.

You're not trying to win the drill. You're trying to improve a weakness.

Use Constraints

You can also use constraints to force yourself to develop specific skills.

Let's say you have a great guard pass, but you rely on the same sequence every time. For a few rounds, take that option away.

Now you have to find another solution.

Or maybe you always use your strongest side. Deliberately work the other side.

Maybe you have a particular submission you want to develop. Start from the position where that submission is available and give your partner the job of defending it.

Constraints make you solve a narrower problem, which allows you to spend more attention on the details.

That's something that is difficult to accomplish when every roll is completely open.

Gradually Add Resistance

There's another important part of deliberate practice: the technique eventually has to work against someone who doesn't want it to work.

It's easy to make a technique look good when your partner is cooperating. It's another thing entirely when they're actively trying to stop you.

That's why deliberate practice should progress.

Start by understanding the movement. Then practice it with cooperation. Add some resistance. Increase the resistance. Eventually, try to use it in positional sparring and then in live rolling.

This allows you to work on the skill without immediately throwing yourself into the hardest possible version of the problem.

The goal isn't to make practice easy.

The goal is to make it productive.

Get Feedback

One of the hardest things about BJJ is identifying your own mistakes.

You know that something isn't working, but you don't necessarily know why.

That's where a coach can be incredibly valuable.

If you keep getting passed, swept, or submitted in the same situation, ask your coach to watch it. Sometimes the problem isn't the technique you think it is. A small detail earlier in the sequence may be creating the problem.

Then take that feedback back to your practice.

Try the adjustment. See what changes. Get more feedback. Make another adjustment.

That's how you turn a vague goal like “I need to get better at passing” into something you can actually work on.

Don't Confuse More With Better

None of this means that you shouldn't roll.

You should.

Live training is an essential part of BJJ. You need to learn how to make decisions against an opponent who is actively trying to prevent you from succeeding.

But live training shouldn't be the only tool you use.

You can roll for an hour and reinforce the exact same habits you've had for the last year.

Or you can spend part of that hour deliberately working on a weakness, getting feedback, and creating situations where you are forced to solve a specific problem.

Those are very different training sessions.

The goal isn't to make every class harder. It isn't to roll harder every round. It isn't to learn a new technique every time you train.

The goal is to make sure that your training is actually producing improvement.

Once something becomes automatic, that's not the end of the process. It's the foundation for the next level of development.

Find the next thing you aren't good at.

Work on it. Get feedback. Try again.

Then take it back into live training and see if you can make it work.

Don't just accumulate years of BJJ. Accumulate improvement.

That's the difference between simply training BJJ and deliberately getting better at it.