Hitting a plateau in jiu-jitsu?

One thing that you must remember when training is that jiu-jitsu is forever. It doesn’t matter what belt you are at now, you will still continue to train, right? I always hear, “enjoy the journey,” and I agree. You know, it’s going to take you x amount of years to get your black belt. Then the rest of your life, you will be a black belt, so no rush! If you love jiu-jitsu, keep training. But what happens when you hit a brick wall? Out of nowhere, jiu-jitsu isn’t fun. You feel like you’re getting beat up all the time. The technique that worked for so long is failing!

My student, Rennan, is a great example of consistent progress.

This happens and it’s no big deal. You have to remember, you’re training with other people who are also progressing. If you are a triangle choke guru, your rolling partners are becoming triangle choke defense gurus! This happens to me ALL OF THE TIME. I’m a brown belt, and there are blue belts in my academy that can defend my move-sets easier than other brown belts at different academies. Often, one hits a plateau, but in reality, their partners have excelled in figuring out defenses and counters. So what do you do?

I have a few tips, and I’m going to be very honest in saying that my last plateau was in 2014, believe it or not. These are in no particular order.

1. Recognize that you do not suck at jiu-jitsu. Lack of confidence will not make you better. You were once progressing, and you will do it again. You don’t go to a competition thinking that you’re going to lose, right? If you do, then I honor your courage, but you should keep reading.
2. Roll with newer students. Of course this seems easy, but you must do this with a purpose, and be willing to lose lower belts. Rolling with lower belts, or newer students if you are a lower belt, allows you to work on new material. If you’re just starting to play deep half guard, and you’re doing it against a black belt, it’s going to be tough to get things going. Take someone who doesn’t know all of the counters, and work on your entrance. Once you have your entrance down, then you can start working on your entrance with higher belts. In the meantime, continue to work the next move in your series, like the sweep, with the lower belts. You may now be good at getting to deep half on upper belts, but you can’t sweep, but three weeks ago, you couldn’t even get there. Of course, with this comes “losing” to lower belts. YOU HAVE TO DROP THE EGO. It doesn’t matter if you get your ass kicked by a white belt. White belts have feelings to! Let them walk away with their chin up high. Confidence is king, and you’re helping them too. How? Well, you’re showing them both hard work, and humility. They may be stopping your deep half entrances right now, but in three weeks they won’t be. Then in three more weeks you’ll be hitting the sweep. Then, the pass from the sweep, and so on. It’s going to happen. If you’re progressing to the next level of moves, it means your are already solid in your fundamental approach, and they (the white belts) are still working on their fundamentals. They get the feeling of doing well against a mid level, or upper belt, then watching you progress through this series. Eventually, you will be working this series on upper belts, meanwhile your training partner white belts have a much better awareness of this position. It’s a win-win!
3. Roll more rounds with your instructor. I roll with my students for multiple reasons. One is to practice my newer positions and transitions. Another is to track their progress. When someone feels stagnant, I can give them a boost, since I’ve been there before. I try to figure out their strengths and build off of that. Which leads to number 4.
4. A good example is one of my purple belt students. He’s great, but struggles because he’s one of the older students on the mat, in his late 40’s. He’s not exceptionally athletic, though strong (man strength and yoga), he relies mainly on technique. Training with the young guns is hard, but when he enters competition, he usually does well, because when he competes, it’s always against someone his age/weight. In fact, he’s an IBJJF gold medalist, yet, still, 25 year old blue belts can wipe the floor with him sometimes. Although it’s not a big deal, it still gets frustrating. When I roll with him, I train the same way I train with everyone else at my academy. I’m either practicing for myself, or figuring out his strengths and weaknesses. Well, turns out, he is a mini Bernardo Faria. His next step, is some tape study on Faria. He’s going to have a bunch of “Oh yeah!!!” moments when watching Faria’s videos. My point is, find your strengths. Have your instructor or training partner help you with this. Then do some study on high level black belts that have your style, and if possible, schedule a private lesson. He figured out his Faria style just six weeks before a major tournament, and with that was able to train just two-chains for six weeks and win a gold medal! This was before he even looked up who Faria was. I am a Faria fan, and passed down a few sweeps and passes from previous tape study of my own.

Let me explain how I overcame my plateau. This could be a little confusing to newer students, but just understand the general concept here. In 2014, I was a newer academy owner, and very stressed. I did well in competition using pure fundamental moves. But then I hit that concrete wall. One of my professors, Monroe, kicked my butt way too easily. WAAAAAY TOO EASILY, and he wasn’t even trying. It wasn’t malice. He was just rolling. What he was doing is exactly what I was talking about earlier. He was practicing a move-set over and over again on me. Not to put me down, but to make his rounds have a purpose for himself, but also, enlighten me. What I was able to do was recognize some of his moves after a few months. That’s right… MONTHS! It was sit-up guard. Then half guard passes. The was the catalyst of myself progressing once again beyond my plateau. I started taking private lessons with him, specifically on sit-up guard, and half guard passing. This lasted for maybe three months. I went to a tournament just to practice my sit-up guard and half guard passing. Winning was secondary. I did not go to LOSE. I wanted to WIN, however, I wanted to win using my new move sets. Well, I got three golds and a silver that day. Gi and NoGi, weight class and absolute. I left feeling very accomplished. After only a few months of training one particular guard on bottom and one on top, I started progressing very fast. I started rolling with a purpose again - to hit my sit-up sweeps, and half guard passes. My students got VERY good at defending this, and with that, I got even better also. One of my students, who is more of a training partner, Maine (of the Grappling Rewind Podcast) has a nasty guillotine, and also has good leg locks, specifically, knee bars. I couldn’t tell you how many times he guillotined and knee barred me when I was learning these newer positions to me. He was still a blue belt at the time. After a few dozen times, I figured out how to avoid this, and when anyone else goes for guillotine or knee bar from this position on me, it’s nowhere near Maine’s. I’m fully prepared. Also, this was good for Maine. He got to practice against a developing higher level guard and figure out when to actually submit, and when he will be out of position. He can even test a submission and bail to a better spot on others who play this guard. I’ve seen him submit people in situp guard, who are better than me at situp guard, because he got to practice on me while I was improving. Like I said earlier, win-win. It was time to practice this same concept with a new position. That’s when I started playing deep-half guard. Again, I took about 3-4 months of private lessons. Side note:I have the luxury of training all day, and I understand not everyone has this. The speed of your growth does not matter as much as the consistency of your growth. I started studying Bernardo Faria’s deep half guard. I just picked up a few details that I knew, but wasn’t implementing. Again, my student’s became really good at defending deep-half guard. So, I took a few lessons with 2018 IBJJF World Champ, Shane Jamil Hill-Taylor on spider guard. Simply because I was constantly improving, my mindset changed. I believe this mindset is what allowed me to accept all of Shane’s knowledge very quickly. Spider guard became my game for about 3-4 months. All film study was on Shane. Then I started following Keenan. Now it’s worm all-day! I try not to deviate from worm guard at all when training right now. Even if it means getting my butt kicked, but in competition, I can go down any of my paths. Sit-up, Deep Half, Spider, Worm. I still take regular classes because I like to pick up small tips from all positions that allow me to GET BACK TO MY CHAIN of moves. If I’m not doing well, I need to focus on getting back to a position that allows me to work MY move-sets and chain things together. I never roll without a purpose. EVER! Once you realize this, you will bust through your plateau. Rolling is practice.

Sorry, that was a little ranty. If you’re newer to jiu-jitsu, you probably don’t know any of their names, but it doesn’t matter. Just think of them as Tiger Woods, David Beckham, Tom Brady, uhhhh, Joe Flacco? (Sorry I don’t watch sports. Those were the popular athletes when I last watched)

Do you feel like you are stuck right now?
You do not suck! Go roll with newer students to practice, it’s not hurting them, it’s making them better. Roll with your instructor more. Take a private lesson or two.

Got any more tips? Drop them in the comments.

-Greg

The day I won triple gold and a silver in the advanced divisions. Back in 2016. I repeated this again with a completely new set of chains in 2018.

I took my loss with pride. Head up.

And even got some pointers from my opponent afterward

I'm still out there grinding!