Many jiu-jitsu schools have a motto—sometimes unwritten but often scrawled on the wall as well—that goes “Leave your ego at the door.” The sentiment is sincere, and the intention seems to be one of encouraging students to be humble and to have an open mind. Almost anyone would agree that these are valuable traits to have in your gym culture, but the idea that anyone, anyone at all, is leaving their ego at the door is naïve. As much as we want to believe that jiu-jitsu is a great equalizer and that our sport is overflowing with positivity, we should be honest with ourselves about our very human shortcomings. Instead of acting like everyone on the mat is leaving their...

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Over the last decade of writing about Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, much of my work has been dedicated to understanding how students can learn faster and how instructors can teach better. We all only have so much time to spend on the mats and we want to make the biggest strides we can. That trend continues today because I want to talk about an idea from psychology that will help you at any stage in your BJJ journey. It is called the four stages of competence. Per this learning model, you pass through these stages as you learn a skill: Unconscious incompetence Conscious incompetence Conscious competence Unconscious competence Put another way, the stages of competence are: You do not know the skill...

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If you train jiu-jitsu for long enough, you will likely be called upon to teach jiu-jitsu. Maybe your instructor needs to take a call just as class is starting and asks you to run the warmup. Maybe she or he is unexpectedly detained and calls upon you to cover. Maybe you have a particularly effective take on a given technical sequence and some of your teammates ask you to show it. Or maybe you want to teach on a regular basis but do not yet have much experience. Learning to teach jiu-jitsu is like learning to do jiu-jitsu: When you start, you will not be nearly as good as you will become over time, and your skill improves directly as...

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In our previous showcase of members of the Panda Nation, we spoke to videographer and purple belt assassin Kyvann ‘Guapinho’ Jimenez. In this episode, we introduce black belt Chris Ulbricht, owner and head coach at Garden State Brazilian Jiu Jitsu, and occasional Tekken aficionado.Chris Ulbricht (26) got into the art by accident. He wanted to learn Capoeira – the original Brazilian martial art, but he got confused and ended up on a BJJ mat somewhere, learning the upa-escape in his jeans and shirt. It was the best mistake ever. After earning his purple belt, he dropped out of college to train BJJ full-time, and has been on the path of improving himself through martial arts ever since. You’ve just won...

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In even a single year of jiu-jitsu, a student will see a wide range of techniques. At two classes a week with an average of two techniques shown per class, a student will “learn” 208 techniques. Then factor in the odd private lessons, a seminar or two, instructional material, and the casual exchange of tips and tricks that happens at any generic open mat, and you quickly end up with a volume of material that’s just not practical to learn all at once.The result is that a lot of techniques are left to the wayside, and even the newest jiu-jiteiros adopt a pattern of looking for the moves that they “need.” They naturally want a technique that solves a problem...

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Want to be good at jiu-jitsu? That puts you in illustrious—and sometimes obsessed—company. Thousands of people are striving for the same thing, all over the world. Numerous theories about learning can help explain the process by which people go from being unskilled at a technique sequence, to becoming somewhat skilled, to becoming ever more skilled. Research and best practice remind us that different people require different types of inputs and supports for learning. That all sounds impressive, right? Lots of big words and concepts and whatnot. Here is the truth, though: When I try to learn a new technique, it feels like I flounder around for days and weeks and months and lifetimes, convinced I will never be able to...

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Last week was the five-year anniversary of my promotion to black belt, and next month marks my thirteenth year in Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu. I wanted to take this opportunity to reflect on my journey through BJJ, how it has evolved, and share what training and teaching is like as a black belt. Here are the personal projects I have worked on since earning my black belt: Learning the modern leglock game. Interest in leglocks, especially heelhooks, has exploded with the popularity of events like EBI with alternative rulesets. I always liked IBJJF-legal straight ankle locks, but with Nelson’s influence, I have joined Team Reap. For the past two years, I have attended Reilly Bodycomb’s 3-day RDojo winter leglock camps. Nelson is...

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I got my black belt three years ago. For the first and second anniversaries of earning my black belt, I wrote blog posts about what I had learned in year one and year two. Time flies, but Panda Nation seems to enjoy hearing about my black belt adventures and just how much learning occurs after black belt. So here’s the third edition!My training has been inconsistent. Hillary and I have been traveling a ton for camps and seminars and a bunch of stuff in between. Sometimes we only come home for a week or two before heading out again. My time at my “home gym” has been minimal, so I haven’t gotten to spend as much time in the lab...

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The other day I was talking with a student who had recently competed for the first time. He recounted how anxious he was as he waited to compete, how fast he started to experience the adrenaline dump so common for inexperienced competitors once his match started, and how frustrating it was not to be able to apply his game effectively (he lost via a collar choke at about the 3-minute mark). “It really exposed some of my shortcomings,” he said. I started thinking about the concept of exposure and how often it is linked in my mind with Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu. I can share countless times during my jiu-jitsu career when I felt completely exposed—embarrassed, frustrated, frightened, anxious, disappointed—because of something...

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Early in our jiu-jitsu careers, we tend to have a problem and solution mindset, and this view of jiu-jitsu is actually pretty narrow. For example, you might get stuck in a headlock a lot, so you ask your instructors (or YouTube) for the solution. This thinking continues as you encounter new positions. What do I do when his legs are like this and my arms like this? Boom, another solution.And then something weird happens. You run into someone that uses a different solution to solve the exact same problem.When I was teaching three or four times a week, this got to be problematic because I was not a black belt, and right after teaching a move I’d sometimes hear, “Well...

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