Question: I am a purple belt with four stripes. The other day I was rolling with a blue belt when two other purple belts, one with no stripes and one with two, collided with us. I asked them to move, but they said tw...
Posted on August 16, 2017
Valerie Worthington
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When you teach jiu-jitsu, you will routinely encounter uncomfortable situations. You might have to discretely tell someone that they need to trim their toenails. You might have to explain why pressing one’s chin into...
Posted on August 15, 2017
Marshal Carper
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A few weeks ago, Princeton BJJ hosted a book discussion group about The Art of Learning: An Inner Journey to Optimal Performance by Josh Waitzkin. In the book, Waitzkin, a chess master and Marcelo Garcia black belt, ...
Posted on August 02, 2017
Valerie Worthington
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In my early days of training, I was a broke college student. I convinced a few friends to start training around the time that I did, and the four of us would carpool for the hour drive from campus to the closest gym,...
Posted on August 01, 2017
Marshal Carper
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When you first sign up for Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu classes, you can feel like you're drinking from a fire hose. Everyday you are bombarded with new techniques, strange movements, unknown terminology, and somehow you're e...
Posted on July 26, 2017
Matt Kirtley
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Every time I turn around, our two beloved Boss Pandas are in yet another far-flung locale, bringing with them good will, jiu-jitsu knowledge, and the latest training gear. This month I am getting to follow suit, at le...
Posted on July 25, 2017
Valerie Worthington
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Years ago, I read an article about video game development at Valve Software, the makers of Half-Life and Left 4 Dead, that changed how I value the feedback I get as an instructor. In the interview, Valve game develop...
Posted on July 11, 2017
Matt Kirtley
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After I had been teaching jiu-jitsu for a while, a twenty-something man started coming to my classes. He had never trained before, but he had somehow decided he knew a lot already—shades of the Dunning-Kruger effect ...
Posted on June 28, 2017
Valerie Worthington
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I borrowed the title for this blog post from a video game podcast that faded into inactivity far too soon. Growing up in the 90s and early 2000s, I often encountered a pervasive cultural idea of video games being a...
Posted on June 27, 2017
Marshal Carper
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Recently I was invited to create a Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu instructional. This was actually the second time I got the invitation. The first was probably about two years ago, and my response to that first invitation was, ...
Posted on June 21, 2017
Valerie Worthington
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Starting Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu can be a bewildering and socially awkward experience. You are dropped into a new culture with all its own rules and traditions. To ease some of that tension, I have written answers to a f...
Posted on June 20, 2017
Matt Kirtley
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