Why You Feel Stuck

(In Jiu-Jitsu)

Terlingua, Texas — Photo by MJ

Have you ever been trapped in the prison of a Jiu-Jitsu plateau?

Maybe you feel like you’re doing all the right things.

You’re training as much as you can, doing what your coach tells you, and maybe you’re even competing a bit. You want to be better, but you’re just not getting there.

What gives?

What do you do?

• Buy some new expensive rashguards?

• Buy some instructionals? (Maybe mine?)

• Go to a seminar?

• Purchase some private lessons?

• Read The Grappler’s Diary religiously?

While these 5 things will all help you get better at Jiu-Jitsu (even buying the rashguards), these aren’t the 5 things that I’d do when I experience a plateau in my training. I’ll get to those in a minute.

If you’re anything like I was at purple and blue belt, it might be because you don’t know how to actually train Jiu-Jitsu in a way that makes you better at Jiu-Jitsu.

You might be training hard and you might be training consistently, but are you training smart?

Most people aren’t.

Most Jiu-Jitsu coaches just teach moves.

When I was training as a white belt in the Western United States, I had one of those coaches.

He wasn’t a bad guy or anything, and in fact, he wasn’t even a lazy coach. If anything, my coach when I was training out there was doing too much. He was a “professor” and everyone at the gym had a deep respect for him, but I didn’t really learn much from him.

I rolled with him once and he beat the heck out of me, but again, I didn’t learn anything. I just learned that I was a white belt and he was a black belt who was better.

When he taught class, I’d learn a few moves, we’d line up and bow to each other, and then he’d beat the shit out of me again.

It wasn’t a toxic gym by any means, just a bad one. It’s really hard to get better when all you're given from your coach is some moves and a few beatings.

When I started training with Jeff Serafin regularly (who would eventually give me my black belt in 2022), I learned the most important lessons about training and getting better at Jiu-Jitsu.

I learned how to get past plateaus.