Your Guide to the Best of the Inverted Gear Blog

The world of BJJ blogging has changed over the years. I should know -- as "Aesopian" I'm one of the few BJJ bloggers still writing after over a decade, having been active in the online community from white to black belt. Today, most free content has shifted to YouTube channels, BJJ "news" tabloids, Facebook meme reposts, and Instagram one-paragraphers. Thoughtful, in-depth writing is harder and harder to come by. But it's not all dead. Nelson got the kooky idea to round up his favorite BJJ blogs and get them to write for the Inverted Gear blog.

Below you'll find my favorite pieces from the Inverted Gear blog archive, categorized so you can go deep down the rabbits holes. Compiling the links for this guide made me really appreciate the depth and breadth of topics the IG blog covers. This could easily make a book, but we're happy to give it away for free because it's fun to help others and join in the discussions.

(If reading is not your style, check out the Inverted Gear channel on YouTube. We are approaching 200 videos in our "White Belt Questions, Black Belt Answers" playlist!)

Here's what the Inverted Gear blog can do for you:

Put Your Training Into Perspective

We esteem the athletes highest on the podium, but the reality is that most of us are just doing this to have fun and escape from our mundane daily routines. These posts reminds us that we don't all have to be world champs to live the jiu-jitsu lifestyle.

• Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu goals that do not involve becoming a world champion
• How to Impact the Sport Without a Gold Medal
• A Jiu-Jitsu Journey Without Gold Medals
• Jiu-Jitsu Should Change as You Change
• 5 Hard Truths About Training You Need to Hear

Guide You Up the Ranks

Few things cause more anxiety in BJJ than worrying about belt rank. "How do I get my next belt? Do I deserve it? Do I even deserve my current belt? What does it even mean to have a certain belt?"

• The Right and Wrong Way to Think About Belts
  
• Surviving the First Year of BJJ: A Crash Course for White Belts
• Advice for Newbie White Belts and Anxious Blue Belts
• Getting Through the Blue and Purple Belt Growing Pains
• What It Means to be a Brown Belt and How to Make Progress Towards Black
• 5 Tips to Keep You on the Long Road to Black Belt and Beyond
• 3 Common Pitfalls As You Move Up the Ranks

You can gain insights from Nelson's ongoing musings from each year as a black belt:

• What I learn my first year as a black belt
• Observations from a Two-Year Black Belt
• Three Years at Black Belt: Still Learning
• A Reflection on 10 Years of Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu 

Develop Your Gameplan

What takes you out of "just learning a bunch of moves" and into the big leagues is when you take ownership of what you're doing and develop it into your own gameplan. These guides will help you formulate your personal style:

• How to Fully Develop Your Grappling Gameplan
• Build Funnels Into Your Jiu-Jitsu Game
• Building Your Style
• The "Thinking 99 Moves Ahead" Myth
• Building Your Gameplan Around Combo Attacks

Be In It for the Long Haul

For supposedly being "the gentle art," BJJ sure is rough on your body. The way to address this is to first gain a healthy perspective on how to train as you age, then to learn self-care. These posts will help you avoid injuries or at least deal with them when the inevitable happens:

• The "L Word" of BJJ - How I Started Training for Longevity
• Injuries and What to Do with Downtime
• Baby, Don’t Hurt Me

DIY Mobility Routines

Panda Nation is lucky to have in its ranks a team of experts on human movement, including a yogi, an acroyogi (that's a thing, right?), a Functional Range Conditioning Mobility Specialist, and a kettlebell swinging panda warrior. Follow their step-by-step guides to improving your strength and flexibility:

• 5 Death Grips & Wrist Lock Defenses
• Two Poses for Happier Hamstrings
• What to Do When Your Knees Don’t Feel Good
• 5 Bridges Every Jiu-Jiteiro Should Do
• Acroyoga for Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu

 Not specifically mobility drills, but who doesn't like solo grappling drills?

• Solo Drills: Bridging and Sit Outs
• Solo Drills: Horizontal Movements

Learn How to Learn

To reach your full potential, you need to become a self-sufficient learner, not just regurgitate what you were shown. Take our crash course in how to be a good learner: 

• The Best Black Belts Have White Belt Mindsets
• The Spaced Repetition Learning Technique
• The 4 Stages of Learning
• Make Mistakes
• How to Maximize Learning Potential Every Class

Get Conceptual

A lot of jiu-jitsu brains talk about "concepts over techniques," but what does that really mean, and how does it apply to your day to day training? We've tackled this subject from many angles so you can build a conceptual framework: 

• Are Jiu-Jitsu Concepts Actually Helping You Learn?
• Distilling Technique Down to Concepts
• Moving Beyond “Right” or “Wrong” Techniques
• This Technique Doesn’t Work
• Mastering the “When” of Technique
• The Four Corners of Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu
• The Four Stages of Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu

Do Your Homework

Thanks to the internet, there has never been a better time to learn BJJ. You have resources like this blog, as well as countless videos on YouTube, on-demand instructional sites, and streaming membership sites. These posts will help you utilize these tools to their fullest:

• Supplement Your Training with Competition Footage
• How to Use BJJ Instructionals
• The Best Way to Learn from Instructionals

Be a Better Teacher

One day you may find yourself called upon to teach BJJ. Maybe you already do. Teaching is a great honor but it can also be nerve wracking. Get guidance from Panda Nation's experienced coaches:

• My Rules as an Instructor
• My Personal Code of Ethics as an Instructor
• How to Teach for Maximum Knowledge Retention
• Geeking out on Teaching Jiu-Jitsu: How Instructional Design Tools Can Enhance Your Classes
• 5 Tips for New Instructors

Soak Up Val's Sagely Teachings

Nomadic black belt Valerie Worthington, Phd. shares her insights and answers questions. Here are my favorites:

• Why It’s Good to Be Good at Being Bad at Stuff
• BJJ Pet Peeves
• How do I stop overthinking?
• What Is Your Security Blanket?

Read all of Val's posts here.

Meet the Pandas

Inverted Gear has a roster of sponsored grapplers from all walks of life. Daniel Bertina has the envious task of interviewing them all and sharing their story in his regular "Meet the Pandas" column. You can learn a lot by hearing how others got into this crazy art and how they balance training, competing, and teaching with the rest of their life. These will get you started:

• The Panda Viking – Halldór Logi Valsson
• Reilly Bodycomb – The Flying Scissor Leglock Wizard
• Steve Pachon – From Pole-Vaulter to Omoplata Guy
• ‘Positive Mind Tricks’ – Chris Ulbricht

The rest of the interviews are archived here.

Nerd Out

Panda Nation is unabashedly nerdy, and it comes out in our writing. We have compared BJJ to Magic: the Gathering, League of Legends, Metroid speed runs, Overwatch, and many other nerdy endeavors. Here are the highlights:

• That Uber Micro: Actions Per Minute in BJJ
• How to Pwn Mat Awareness
• Rebuild Your Jiu-Jitsu Deck
• Early Game vs Late Game
• Parallels Between BJJ and Magic: The Gathering
• Real Learning is Not All Smiles
• Game Sense in Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu

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While the BJJ blogoshpere may not be what it used to be (for example, no one uses the word "blogosphere" any more), the best of it is still alive and well at Inverted Gear.