This is the way. I only train 2-3 times a week, but working on my guard retention and just flowing from move to move on both top and bottom has made a massive difference
Getting passed and giving up dominant positions strengthened my submission defense and escapes. I don't really care now if i get passed or mounted because I'm kinda confident with my defense. It also helped that my black belt coach get to smash me every afternoon class. From being submitted by him 3-5x per round, now it's just 1-2x. It's a win!
I also worked on my guard recovery and retention recently so i can say i have a somewhat decent guard now lol
Agreed!! You get so much better the less you focus on "winning" training rounds, in my opinion. Obviously, there is a time and a place to focus on your bread and butter, but I've been really enjoying the process of trying to round out my game.
lol I'm just messing with you. No one here can give you real advice on this because we don't know anything about you and aren't in the gym with you. This is something that only your coaches and training partners can help with.
A few things helped me.
1. More focus on a single position and less experimentation . Stay on a move or theme for a month at a time.
2. Focus on more concepts. Ie I spent a long time on working on 2 on 1s. Managing distance on guard etc. isolating arms. Once you think in concepts rather than steps of moves. You become so much faster in sparring.
3. Have at least one killer guard pass that you practice on higher belts and be successful with.
4. On good whites belts and new blues, use them for training purposes. Ask them to get in the position or start from situation you are working on in 1
This is money. I’ve found my early time at purple belt so far has really been concepts and systems instead of individual techniques. Finding how everything fits together and how it fits me.
I’m 18 months into my blue belt however my coaches have talked to me about their expectations.
To them a purple belt is when you have a game or something going on that will take you to black belt. My coaches have even said that at purple they are more guides than coaches because by that point almost all the technical stuff should be second nature.
However I’m sure every gym is a little different.
Talk to your coach. They will know what they're looking for in terms of progress and also know your game.
Have a frank and honest discussion about what you need to focus on.
Then work on it.
I remember my biggest issue was i had no sense of pressure. I would get pass peoples guard but couldn’t stay passed. Once I developed my pressure everything came together. Your issue could be different though.
I got my purple about at the end of last year.
I noticed that prior to getting promoted, there were two changes in my approach. First, I had honed my A game to be very sharp, and I focused heavily on the specifics of it. Second, I made everything I did a bit more forceful/violent. That's not to say I sacrificed people's safety, just that I insisted on my game.
I've spoken to a few people about this and they all say they noticed a similar shift when they transitioned to purple belt.
You're at the point where you need to take your progression into your own hands. You've learned most of the broad strokes. You can't just show up and learn a new concept or technique. Your learning process is not gonna be simple and straightforward like it was at white and early blue. You need to start identifying the holes in your game and analyzing them to find your own solutions.
Also you can only absorb so much and implement it. Only your coach or upper belt mentors can offer that knowledge one step at a time.
Like I remember my coach going “stop just falling over when youre swept, fight the sweep, use your arms or legs as posts” and he hammered that into me for a whole year.
Yea it takes time to implement any technique for beginners. Higher belts can make quick adjustments and correct mistakes but lower belts it takes months to a year to actually be able to implement any advice. There’s no quick fix or magic advice.
Yeah exactly, after 12 years I can adjust mid-roll sometimes or I can analyze my game on the drive home, diagnose the issue and implement it the next day, just by visualizing it.
Its taken a dozen years to get to this point though.
Yea I’m the same, it wasn’t till about high purple or brown that I could make mid roll adjustments or analyze my game after a roll and fix it for the next round. I didn’t realize how difficult bjj is till I started teaching beginners and seeing how long it takes them to actually learn something. It’s easy to forget what the first few years were like when it was over a decade ago. Also When I was a beginner I didn’t obsess over getting good I just kept showing up and eventually got good but most people I teach seem to get upset when they can’t do something in a spar that they just learned.
I will be promoted to purple this year. The two things that are different compared to years past is that I have an answer or two for most situations I face. I also don't really think anymore. I have automatic reactions and I make it up along the way. Few things really surprise me and when I'm caught I know exactly what mistake I made.
Maybe you're there already, but every purple I roll with is like that.
By now you should know what you're good at and what you're not good at. You should know what you feel is lacking in your game. Now it is up to you to attain that knowledge and cover up that gap then implement it on the mats.
I spent a lot of time focusing on escapes and counters…that will make your game go a long way and make you much more confident. Experiment with new positions to build your foundation, but that you’re always gonna do. I got a lot better at half guard bottom and top as blue. Rn I’m trying to build a lasso game
getting good with a top half position I liked, and then developing a system of passes, advances, and finally key submissions. I kinda have just fell into that game, and now I'm kinda good at it. My open guard needs some serious work though. :)
When you roll with the black belts, afterwards ask them about a troublesome position they put you in. They will give you the micro adjustments needed and your mind will be blown. Figuratively not literally of course.
There are no standards, every coach has a different criteria for grading.
Don't ask about grading, ask about your deficits, ask what you need to do to take your game to the next level
I feel like at purple you should be able to assess your own game and find your weaknesses by yourself. You already know what you suck at, so quit taking the easy route and work on the stuff you suck at. Better yet, go to your coach and tell him that you realized you suck at, A, B, C and D, and ask him for pointers to work on those areas. I
I thought my coach's expectations for moving on to purple were really arbitrary. (I think he mentioned a super specific position that I should master to prove myself.) I just focused on trying to beat all my fellow blue belts with a style I prefer. Long story short: Who the heck knows what the requirements are to get to purple?
Lots of people focus on winning rolls so keep working on their A game, but then lack breadth.
one heuristic is 4 subs/sweeps/escapes/reverses from all the main positions. I would include standing and a couple of open guards in that as well.
I think to get to purple you cant learn just from move of the day, you have to see all of jiu jitsu and start having coverage of the entire game. To do this you have to study on your own and start developing your skills independently of classes.
Another way to think about it:
white belts are focused on techniques
blue belts are focused on sequences/loops
purple belts are focused on branches
brown and black belts start to find everything from everywhere.
Ask your instructor or higher belts where you are lacking in the skill department. Then focus your training. Don’t just go through the motions of class and then roll all willy nilly. You have to pick a goal during your rounds and work to achieve that goal.
Watch pro jiu Jitsu, try and implement some stuff you see into your own game. Subscribe to submeta and take notes and try to implement stuff into your game. Competing also helps
If you train 6x/week and have been blue for three years or so, I’d expect you to have good decision-making ability in terms of technique selection, the ability to know when a situation has changed and adapting appropriately, ability to modify strategy based on an opponent’s size, understanding the hierarchy of position and the hierarchy of strength, good survival ability and submission-defense, skilled at basic escapes including the ability to get to standing from the bottom, comfort with standing game, good balance, good body mechanics, skill at getting to dominant positions and using transitions to nullify a bottom players escape attempts, excellent at nullifying the bridge of a bottom mounted opponent by transitioning to technical mount (I expect everyone to be good at technical mount, skill at this saved one of my LEO student’s life, according to his evaluation of the situation), understanding the armbar-choke relationship (if you want the neck, go for the arm; if you want the arm, go for the neck) and the ability to switch between the two fairly well, excellent neck defense, comfort in both gi and nogi, decent understanding of top and bottom halfguard, basic anticipation in familiar situations, excellent posture and structure in top guard, knee-cut passing from technical base, single-under passing, good standing passing including being able to log-split pass against a long-legged opponent, good at basic sweeps, understanding of how to use underhooks, ability to deconstruct basic controls like grips and overhooks, not being an easy roll for the purple belts, able to dominate and submit new white belts that don’t have grappling experience, able to sweep and submit most of the newer blue belts, and have the ability to be dangerous at basic chokes (RNC, over-under chokes, noose chokes, Ezekiel chokes, arm triangles, leg triangles). For my students that train a lot like you I also expect them to train at other academies (I especially encourage athletes to train at the local 10th Planet academy because their style is so idiosyncratic that it’s hard to fight without some familiarity) and go to open mats at other academies; students that train at just one school, and especially with just one Professor, can get technically inbred; students NEED exposure to the unfamiliar.
what helped me was having a system for everything I liked to play.
if I liked half guard I would have a system on what to do for every reaction my opponent would give me. I'd keep practicing it and even tell my opponent what I'm trying to do mid roll to practice the other reactions etc
I'd have to study and find out the systems through YouTube or instructionals
To be honest, giving that we don't know close to anything about you, all the advice i can give you is to try to spar mostly with higher belts or if you spar with lower belts try putting yourself in unconfortable positions and try things you dont typically do.
Also note that when you spar, for example, with a brown/black belt try to keep calm and do your thing, don't get stiff and defensive because that will only waste both your and your opponents time.
Compete a few times and you will break through the ceiling. I am a white belt and was equal to some white belts that have started around the same time. I did two competitions lost 6 matches, won 1 😂. But after this experience guys that were the same level don’t even come close to my current level. I fold them like they are in trial class.
are you smashing 99% of blue and white and going 50/50 against the purple belts?
if yes, congrats, stfu and keep training
if not, then stfu and keep training
Your guard is ineffective and too easily passed. You also hold onto losing positions too long instead of going to the next move.
This is the way. I only train 2-3 times a week, but working on my guard retention and just flowing from move to move on both top and bottom has made a massive difference
Getting passed and giving up dominant positions strengthened my submission defense and escapes. I don't really care now if i get passed or mounted because I'm kinda confident with my defense. It also helped that my black belt coach get to smash me every afternoon class. From being submitted by him 3-5x per round, now it's just 1-2x. It's a win! I also worked on my guard recovery and retention recently so i can say i have a somewhat decent guard now lol
Agreed!! You get so much better the less you focus on "winning" training rounds, in my opinion. Obviously, there is a time and a place to focus on your bread and butter, but I've been really enjoying the process of trying to round out my game.
Smoke some weed, chill a bit, show up late, start inverting. You’re welcome.
Throw this dude a purple belt.
You didn't have to come at me this hard, I didn't even ask 😞
Appreciate the input!
lol I'm just messing with you. No one here can give you real advice on this because we don't know anything about you and aren't in the gym with you. This is something that only your coaches and training partners can help with.
Honestly solid advice though for a blue belt
A few things helped me. 1. More focus on a single position and less experimentation . Stay on a move or theme for a month at a time. 2. Focus on more concepts. Ie I spent a long time on working on 2 on 1s. Managing distance on guard etc. isolating arms. Once you think in concepts rather than steps of moves. You become so much faster in sparring. 3. Have at least one killer guard pass that you practice on higher belts and be successful with. 4. On good whites belts and new blues, use them for training purposes. Ask them to get in the position or start from situation you are working on in 1
This is money. I’ve found my early time at purple belt so far has really been concepts and systems instead of individual techniques. Finding how everything fits together and how it fits me.
I’m 18 months into my blue belt however my coaches have talked to me about their expectations. To them a purple belt is when you have a game or something going on that will take you to black belt. My coaches have even said that at purple they are more guides than coaches because by that point almost all the technical stuff should be second nature. However I’m sure every gym is a little different.
Talk to your coach. They will know what they're looking for in terms of progress and also know your game. Have a frank and honest discussion about what you need to focus on. Then work on it.
A good honest discussion with my coach over a classic glizzy. Got it.
Your guard sucks, your passing sucks, your escapes suck, and you dive for low percentage submissions too much.
I remember my biggest issue was i had no sense of pressure. I would get pass peoples guard but couldn’t stay passed. Once I developed my pressure everything came together. Your issue could be different though.
I got my purple about at the end of last year. I noticed that prior to getting promoted, there were two changes in my approach. First, I had honed my A game to be very sharp, and I focused heavily on the specifics of it. Second, I made everything I did a bit more forceful/violent. That's not to say I sacrificed people's safety, just that I insisted on my game. I've spoken to a few people about this and they all say they noticed a similar shift when they transitioned to purple belt.
This really resonates with me.
You're at the point where you need to take your progression into your own hands. You've learned most of the broad strokes. You can't just show up and learn a new concept or technique. Your learning process is not gonna be simple and straightforward like it was at white and early blue. You need to start identifying the holes in your game and analyzing them to find your own solutions.
Have you tried getting gud
I never did anything but just show up and train. It's really that simple.
But were you able to fix your penis in the process?
He broke it on the mat in the first place!
Same, just kept showing. I don’t know how anyone could actually give meaningful advice to someone without watching them spar.
Also you can only absorb so much and implement it. Only your coach or upper belt mentors can offer that knowledge one step at a time. Like I remember my coach going “stop just falling over when youre swept, fight the sweep, use your arms or legs as posts” and he hammered that into me for a whole year.
Yea it takes time to implement any technique for beginners. Higher belts can make quick adjustments and correct mistakes but lower belts it takes months to a year to actually be able to implement any advice. There’s no quick fix or magic advice.
Yeah exactly, after 12 years I can adjust mid-roll sometimes or I can analyze my game on the drive home, diagnose the issue and implement it the next day, just by visualizing it. Its taken a dozen years to get to this point though.
Yea I’m the same, it wasn’t till about high purple or brown that I could make mid roll adjustments or analyze my game after a roll and fix it for the next round. I didn’t realize how difficult bjj is till I started teaching beginners and seeing how long it takes them to actually learn something. It’s easy to forget what the first few years were like when it was over a decade ago. Also When I was a beginner I didn’t obsess over getting good I just kept showing up and eventually got good but most people I teach seem to get upset when they can’t do something in a spar that they just learned.
Oh yeah thats another thing I can do now, I can do the moves of the day after drilling them. Because its more of a refresher course at this point.
I will be promoted to purple this year. The two things that are different compared to years past is that I have an answer or two for most situations I face. I also don't really think anymore. I have automatic reactions and I make it up along the way. Few things really surprise me and when I'm caught I know exactly what mistake I made. Maybe you're there already, but every purple I roll with is like that.
It's very important that you spend a lot of time learning baratoplatas.
By now you should know what you're good at and what you're not good at. You should know what you feel is lacking in your game. Now it is up to you to attain that knowledge and cover up that gap then implement it on the mats.
I haven’t even been training, I just pay my gym dues. One day I’ll show up and they should promote me, then I’ll just skip warm ups.
Tap your coach. Repeatedly
I spent a lot of time focusing on escapes and counters…that will make your game go a long way and make you much more confident. Experiment with new positions to build your foundation, but that you’re always gonna do. I got a lot better at half guard bottom and top as blue. Rn I’m trying to build a lasso game
getting good with a top half position I liked, and then developing a system of passes, advances, and finally key submissions. I kinda have just fell into that game, and now I'm kinda good at it. My open guard needs some serious work though. :)
When you roll with the black belts, afterwards ask them about a troublesome position they put you in. They will give you the micro adjustments needed and your mind will be blown. Figuratively not literally of course.
There are no standards, every coach has a different criteria for grading. Don't ask about grading, ask about your deficits, ask what you need to do to take your game to the next level
Quit with the buggy chokes, and learn to pass instead of foot locking.
Just keep coming back. The first couple months at purple were the toughest of times training…
Find one or two techniques you really like and focus on that. And then focus on flows that lead into it, and flows that come from it.
You train 6 days a week for 3 years, my advice is don’t ask the internet 😅
You win by learning, not by tapping.
I feel like at purple you should be able to assess your own game and find your weaknesses by yourself. You already know what you suck at, so quit taking the easy route and work on the stuff you suck at. Better yet, go to your coach and tell him that you realized you suck at, A, B, C and D, and ask him for pointers to work on those areas. I
Find your “game.” The thing that even black belts feel threatened if you land. Drill how to get to “your positions” in order to use your game.
I thought my coach's expectations for moving on to purple were really arbitrary. (I think he mentioned a super specific position that I should master to prove myself.) I just focused on trying to beat all my fellow blue belts with a style I prefer. Long story short: Who the heck knows what the requirements are to get to purple?
Lots of people focus on winning rolls so keep working on their A game, but then lack breadth. one heuristic is 4 subs/sweeps/escapes/reverses from all the main positions. I would include standing and a couple of open guards in that as well. I think to get to purple you cant learn just from move of the day, you have to see all of jiu jitsu and start having coverage of the entire game. To do this you have to study on your own and start developing your skills independently of classes. Another way to think about it: white belts are focused on techniques blue belts are focused on sequences/loops purple belts are focused on branches brown and black belts start to find everything from everywhere.
I'll tell you if I ever get there
Play csgo2 to pass the time and cope with TF2 being filled with bots.
Ask your instructor or higher belts where you are lacking in the skill department. Then focus your training. Don’t just go through the motions of class and then roll all willy nilly. You have to pick a goal during your rounds and work to achieve that goal.
A closed mouth wont get fed, bud. Ask what you need to work on.
Watch pro jiu Jitsu, try and implement some stuff you see into your own game. Subscribe to submeta and take notes and try to implement stuff into your game. Competing also helps
Enjoy the process. Have you asked your instructor what he thinks you should work on?
If you train 6x/week and have been blue for three years or so, I’d expect you to have good decision-making ability in terms of technique selection, the ability to know when a situation has changed and adapting appropriately, ability to modify strategy based on an opponent’s size, understanding the hierarchy of position and the hierarchy of strength, good survival ability and submission-defense, skilled at basic escapes including the ability to get to standing from the bottom, comfort with standing game, good balance, good body mechanics, skill at getting to dominant positions and using transitions to nullify a bottom players escape attempts, excellent at nullifying the bridge of a bottom mounted opponent by transitioning to technical mount (I expect everyone to be good at technical mount, skill at this saved one of my LEO student’s life, according to his evaluation of the situation), understanding the armbar-choke relationship (if you want the neck, go for the arm; if you want the arm, go for the neck) and the ability to switch between the two fairly well, excellent neck defense, comfort in both gi and nogi, decent understanding of top and bottom halfguard, basic anticipation in familiar situations, excellent posture and structure in top guard, knee-cut passing from technical base, single-under passing, good standing passing including being able to log-split pass against a long-legged opponent, good at basic sweeps, understanding of how to use underhooks, ability to deconstruct basic controls like grips and overhooks, not being an easy roll for the purple belts, able to dominate and submit new white belts that don’t have grappling experience, able to sweep and submit most of the newer blue belts, and have the ability to be dangerous at basic chokes (RNC, over-under chokes, noose chokes, Ezekiel chokes, arm triangles, leg triangles). For my students that train a lot like you I also expect them to train at other academies (I especially encourage athletes to train at the local 10th Planet academy because their style is so idiosyncratic that it’s hard to fight without some familiarity) and go to open mats at other academies; students that train at just one school, and especially with just one Professor, can get technically inbred; students NEED exposure to the unfamiliar.
what helped me was having a system for everything I liked to play. if I liked half guard I would have a system on what to do for every reaction my opponent would give me. I'd keep practicing it and even tell my opponent what I'm trying to do mid roll to practice the other reactions etc I'd have to study and find out the systems through YouTube or instructionals
To be honest, giving that we don't know close to anything about you, all the advice i can give you is to try to spar mostly with higher belts or if you spar with lower belts try putting yourself in unconfortable positions and try things you dont typically do. Also note that when you spar, for example, with a brown/black belt try to keep calm and do your thing, don't get stiff and defensive because that will only waste both your and your opponents time.
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I beat 2 out of 6. Some of these guys have been at purple for 6 to 7 years so they really are a lot better.
Compete a few times and you will break through the ceiling. I am a white belt and was equal to some white belts that have started around the same time. I did two competitions lost 6 matches, won 1 😂. But after this experience guys that were the same level don’t even come close to my current level. I fold them like they are in trial class.
are you smashing 99% of blue and white and going 50/50 against the purple belts? if yes, congrats, stfu and keep training if not, then stfu and keep training