Celebrate the small stuff.
In case I haven’t told you yet: Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu is hard. So are most worthwhile athletic endeavors, whether it’s martial arts (except taekwondo*), lifting weights, wrestling, or anything else. You don’t just start out good at it.
It takes time and progressive overload. Training is cultivation: a slow, plodding process of incremental improvement. Those who don’t quit and persevere see the reward.
But in a sport where matches and rolls are often won through submissions, how do you know you’re getting better as a brand-new white belt?
Below are the goals and little wins to look out for as you begin training. This is what I was told when I first started, and it’s what I tell every new person brave enough to put on a white belt and step onto the mats.
Breath. Stay calm. Don’t panic.
You’ll need to learn to breathe. When you’re rolling, you’re stuck in the fight part of the fight-or-flight response, and your adrenaline will be revving higher than a rice burner in a Fast and Furious movie.
The first goal, and therefore the first win, is to catch yourself in the midst of fighting for your life … and breathe.
Rickson Gracie’s memoir, Breathe: A Life in Flow, is a great read for any person new to BJJ. (Editor’s note: Rickson is pronounced Hickson because Portuguese makes the Rs into Hs for linguistic reasons I don’t have time to get into because I don’t know them). He talks about learning to breathe from the gut, controlling stress, and breathing while fighting.
Here’s what many don’t realize about BJJ: it’s a whole other level of cardio. As a white belt, I’ve rolled with bodybuilders half my age and half my weight, and they were throwing up in the parking lot after two rounds while I was good to go for the next roll (that story is one of my fondest achievements). They spent the round trying to be in the UFC, while I spent the round trying to breathe and move.
Now, I have no doubt that if they had kept training, their strong foundation of physical fitness would have had them surpass my skill level sooner rather than later.
But they didn’t know how to breathe while trying not to die. So they lost. And I won.
Learn to box breathe: breathe in for four seconds, hold it for four seconds, breathe out for four seconds, hold it for four seconds, repeat. It’ll help regulate your breathing and calm your nerves, especially through high-stress situations, like cold plunges, toddler tantrums, and getting crushed on the mats.
I do box breathing during staff meetings.
Get comfortable with being uncomfortable.
In Gracie’s book, he talks about his brothers rolling him up in an old carpet. It was hot, stuffy, and he was choking on dusty carpet fibers. At first, he could only handle it for a short time. He challenged himself to keep getting rolled up in the carpet until he learned to handle the discomfort and last longer and longer in that claustrophobic environment. He got comfortable with being uncomfortable.
Before I started training BJJ, I tore my rotator cuff and had to have an MRI. I had to get into a narrow tube with its walls pressing in on me, covering my face. They gave me special headphones and piped in music so I wouldn’t panic.
Later, after I had been training BJJ for a while, I had another MRI for a different torn rotator cuff (because BJJ). But at this point I was used to having my close friends shove their knee into my diaphragm with glee while they watched me suffocate. The MRI tube was nothing compared to that.
You’re going to be stuck under a big dude, suffocating, unable to breathe. You’ll be pinned with your limbs at awkward angles. You’re going to be under pressure to tap. Get comfortable with being uncomfortable.
Because if you can survive for one minute without panicking at the discomfort, then soon it will be three minutes. Then the whole round, then multiple rounds, and then pretty soon you’re going an hour doing hand-to-hand combat with your homies and enjoying it.
And if you can handle that, what can’t you handle? Life will give you worse pressure. It’ll try to suffocate you more ruthlessly than your friends will. Start building up your tolerance for suffering now, so you can handle it when life gets horrible.
Keep moving.
I can still remember the first few rolls where I had no idea what to do. I just … sort of flopped around on top or tried pushing them away. I just wished they would move, so I only had to focus on responding (I swear I’m talking about jiu-jitsu, not something else).
When you’re first starting, you don’t know any submissions other than what you’ve seen on TV. You won’t know any positions or how to get into them. It’ll be like playing chess with a baby, because you’ll just be lying there drooling instead of moving your pawn to set up an attack. That stuff comes later. For now, just keep moving.
When you’re stuck in bottom side control (and will be for the foreseeable future), you need to breathe, deal with the discomfort, and move. Instead of lying there flattened out, try to wiggle out however you can.
Remember you have legs. Try to get your feet under you and bridge your hips up. Try to wedge them between you and your partner.
Try to get on your side instead of staying flat. Move your hips. Push them away with your hands. Breathe, deal with the discomfort, and move.
These three things are your goals. If you can catch yourself and breathe, you won that roll. If you can keep your head and not panic, you won that roll. If you can keep moving even though you want to die, you won that roll.
Eventually, you’ll learn where to put your hands and forearms to frame and create space. You’ll learn how to shrimp your hips away so you can sneak a knee in.
And if you’re very dedicated and wish upon a star, one day you’ll learn how to get out of bottom side control.
*With all due disrespect, any martial art that hands out black belts to children ain’t a real martial art. Can I do any of those kicks? Absolutely not. Nevertheless, I’ve caused family arguments at Thanksgiving over this, and it is a hill I’ll die on.
If you like content like this you should follow my buddy George Cottonwood on Instagram. He writes fiction and has a book coming out Nov. 17. He is me.
