Your Quick Beginner Guide To Jiu-Jitsu
The First Three Skills You Need to Master
Let me ask you a question. When do you stop being a beginner at jiu-jitsu?
Some say it's the moment you get your blue belt, while others say it's when you get your purple belt. I don't agree with either of these views. There are purple and brown belts who are still beginners.
We've all seen the black belt who loses to the spazzy blue belts at his gym. So, what is it then?
The answer is skill. Your belt doesn't matter as much as your skills. Developing the right skills is the most important thing.
I believe there are three skills that allow you to beat the beginner level. Interestingly, some black belts don't have these skills.
If you develop them, your game will improve drastically. You’ll win more matches, become more confident on the mat, and be able to use your other skills more effectively.
So let’s look at them.
Pin Escapes
If your guard is passed and you spend the rest of the match in bottom side control, then you are a beginner. It doesn't matter how difficult it was to get you into that position.
Imagine if your opponent had to work extremely hard to pin you down, get past your guard, and finally hold you in place, only to see you escape with little effort. That would be demoralizing.
I could talk about the importance of pin escapes for hours, but I'd just be citing Danaher. Instead, I'll give you some resources and practical advice.
All pins have things in common that you can use to your advantage to learn how to escape. However, I'm not here to give technical advice because I've done that before. If you're interested, here's an article about it:
Of course, if jiu-jitsu is new to you and you are not skilled in any area, the bottom of the pin is where you are likely to find yourself more often than not. Use those opportunities to learn how to escape from them.
If you are someone who avoids those positions at all costs, stop. You're only hindering your long-term growth. Start by letting less skilled partners pass your guard and work from there.
Ideally, you want to do a lot of specific training. One round I've really been enjoying lately is starting in the bottom of side control. Once I escape, I get to the bottom of north south. Then, I work on mount, followed by going back to side control. This works great because it allows me to work on the main chest-to-chest pins in just one round instead of doing them separately. Of course, I can do this because I can escape those pins much faster than when I was a white belt. You might benefit more from working on them separately.
What about chest-to-back pins? In wrestling or judo, they wouldn't be considered pins, but in jiu-jitsu, we need to treat them as if they were. The three main chest-to-back pins are back control, turtle, and front headlock. There is also the crucifix, but that’s an even more advanced position.
I think they're important to develop, but I consider them more advanced than chest-to-chest pins. If you're ready to work on them, here's a back retention guide that I wrote a while ago. You can use it in reverse to escape the position.
I believe the best way to start is to first master escaping each pin separately, and then learn to escape them in unison. This takes time, but it's a timeless jiu-jitsu skill.
This is the first skill you need to master. Get really good at it.
Guard Rentention
I don't care if you're a top player or even an All-American D1 wrestler—which you surely aren't if you're reading this—you're going to end up on your ass at some point in a match.
If you're a menace from the top, but once you get taken down or swept, you're a baby on your guard, then you have a problem.
Again, I won't spend more time on this. Let's look at how to approach this.
First, here are some of my articles on open guard and guard retention, in case you're interested.1
I like to think of guard retention as having three stages: early, mid, and late. Obviously, start with the first two. But don't overlook the third stage, which is extremely important.
I’ve recently been improving my late-stage guard retention against north-south passing, and it feels great to retain in situations where another person would have folded. Believe me, you won't regret working on this skill.
Find a partner who excels in the passing style with which you struggle the most—it could be north-south passing, split squat passing, body lock passing, etc.—and work on that specific situation.
Let's say, for instance, that I have a partner at the gym who is really good at using headquarters passing, and I can't stop him. Instead of avoiding the headquarters position, I would ask him to start a roll in that position and try to figure out how to stop his passing. After a couple of weeks, your guard retention will be at a whole new level, and you can move on to working with a different partner on a different passing style.
This is another skill you won't regret developing. Without guard retention, there is no guard offense.
Counter Offense
You don't want to be the guy with an impenetrable guard who never attacks and only retains. The next skill you need is the ability to transition from defense to offense using your pin escapes and guard retention.
I'll put it this way: if you are defending the whole match, you are losing, even if the defense is great.
That’s why it’s important to turn your defense into a counteroffense.
For example, you could be in bottom mount and use a kipping escape to get to your partner’s legs. Or, from north-south, you could use a pendulum escape to get to your knees and wrestle up to take the top position.
When it comes to guard retention, use it to connect with your opponent after his passing attempt. Use that connection to off-balance him.
Keep working on the other two skills the same way, but change your objective from "just escape and retain my guard" to "get into offense after defense." It doesn't matter if the offense isn't successful, as long as your opponent has to react and disengage. That’s a win.
In Summary
To overcome the beginner level, forget about belts and build a strong defensive foundation. First, get really good at pin escapes. Then, develop your guard retention. Once you are effective at both, learn how to counterattack off your defensive reactions.
Once you have mastered these skills, you can start developing your offensive systems and impose your game on your opponents—and that’s the exciting part! If you don't know where to start, here are some articles I wrote on offensive systems.
Closed Guard System:
Back Attacks System:
Outside Passing System:
Hopefully this helps :)
So…
That’s all I have to say for today. Although I didn't intend to convince you to work on these skills — Danaher and Gordon have already discussed them at length — I hope you develop them well. The focus of this article was to provide practical advice on how to develop these skills, and I hope it was helpful.
Anyway, I hope you enjoyed this article. Have a great day!
These articles are old and not as publish compared to my recent work. I may write a guide on open guard soon.