The Ninja Blog

Competing is a different skill set from jiu-jitsu. Do you know someone who is really good at rolling but not very good at competing? This person usually dominates open mats by developing a high level of training skills, but has not yet developed their competition skills. In fact they may hate competing because they don’t like losing and find competition too stressful. These 5 tips are for both types of grapplers...........

One of the most difficult, and almost inevitable, experiences in jiu-jitsu is injury. To make matters even worse, many people get into a vicious cycle that follows something like this:

1. Get hurt 
2. Stop training completely
3. Come back ready to go hardcore
4. Get re-injured
5. Repeat.

Consistency has been and is a major key to improving my jiu jitsu game. I try to build a routine around my training schedule so that by default I’m busy on training nights. Friends want to go out for drinks that night? Sorry, but that is a training day for me. Take it as seriously as you would an appointment with someone else. 

If you are able to consistently dedicate as little as 300 minutes per week (3 days per week) to improving your Jiu Jitsu, you’ll be on track for great results. It's better to be consistent and steady than the alternative. I have had many friends hit the gym super hard for a few weeks only to vanish for months while they figure out why they got hurt or burned out. It's just as important to get quality rest as it is to get those hard sparring rounds in!  You can use Grapple.Ninja to help keep yourself accountable and motivated, while also keeping an eye on your training volume. I use Grapple.Ninja to keep an eye on how much I'm training and I adjust my days accordingly. 

Go train and happy tracking :)
 

One of my training partners was recently complaining that he felt slow.

He said that usually he would be faster to avoid getting swept or submitted. He would post faster. Find his base faster. He would be better.

Now this guy is fast.This particular training partners is known to be one of the fastest guys at the gym.  Physically he is very fast. Much faster than me. Let’s call him Gonzales. But the reason Gonzales felt he was being slow wasn’t because his physical speed wasn’t up to snuff...