Inside The BJJ Class: What Happens and What Does it Look Like?

Brazilian Jiu Jitsu is becoming the dream that many people see to join and start training as soon as possible. It is not like an ordinary martial art that will teach you self defense only or any other single aspect. Instead, it is a complete art that teaches you many things that translate into your daily life as well, and you become a person with improved mental and physical health. So it is a complete package that is helpful in many areas of your life. This is the reason for its increasing popularity, and more and more people are joining it with each passing year. If you are also a BJJ dreamer but cannot find time to start training, then you might be passionate about knowing what a BJJ class looks like and what the grapplers do there. So let’s explore the details within the Brazilian Jiu Jitsu class.

• What you will see if you arrive at the Brazilian Jiu Jitsu class depends on the time of day you are entering. If you are early into the BJJ gym or academy, then you might see that the people are getting ready for the class. If you are entering during the day, then you will observe that some people are training, others are taking rest between the sessions, and still others might be settling in to prepare themselves to start their training for the day after they have arrived. So it all depends on the time of day you enter the class.

• It is often advised to BJJ practitioners that they should not arrive just at the time of their class. Instead, they should try to arrive at least 15 to 20 minutes before the Jiu Jitsu class. This time is important for you to be present in the class for a number of reasons. The first reason is that you should take some time to prepare yourself mentally. Starting the day, you have a lot of tasks pending for the day to do, and your mind is filled with such tasks.

• With such a mind, you cannot focus effectively on the BJJ training. So have some time to prepare your mind for the training and clear it for some time, so you can give your 100% in training. The second reason to arrive before the class is that you should have some time to change your clothes. You don’t come to the class already wearing a Gi. So time is required for changing clothes. It will save you time for class. If you come on time, then you will wear the Gi while the class will already be going on, so you will miss some learning.

• Arriving at the Brazilian Jiu Jitsu class 20 minutes earlier also gives you the time to do certain things that help you train effectively and efficiently throughout your day of training.

• BJJ practitioners typically arrive earlier to warm themselves up. Training is mostly done in the morning. So you have to arrive after waking up from sleep. Waking up from sleep means that your brain and body are in a resting phase and not fully active. You cannot train any move in BJJ effectively by waking up straight from sleep. So doing the warm up physical activity is very crucial for you to make sure you train effectively during the day. For warm ups the most common exercises the BJJ practitioners do are the forward rolls, shrimping drills, and shoulder bridges. Some athletes focus on strengthening drills such as push ups. But the basic purpose of everyone before the class remains the same, and that is the movement of the body before the class to help in the perfect execution of techniques and movements during the class.

• Another thing most BJJ practitioners do after arriving earlier is stretch themselves. The movement of every part of your body is critical for executing the techniques in BJJ training. So the BJJ practitioners stretch their legs, arms, and other body parts to make themselves active and ready for executing the BJJ techniques and movements.

• The thing that is very crucial is the friendships with your teammates and partners in Brazilian Jiu Jitsu training. BJJ partners have the same mindset because they are training the same art for a number of reasons. This makes them like each other and becoming friends is easier. The friendships are crucial because they will help you in learning the techniques you cannot learn and in the execution of movements you cannot execute, in which you are having difficulty. So if you are joining the BJJ training, make sure you arrive earlier so that you can have good friends, warm ups, stretch, and mental preparation, all of which will contribute to your effective and efficient training.

Now is the time for the Brazilian Jiu Jitsu class of the day. All students will enter the class, and after everyone has come on time, the instructor will also come on time to take the class. Usually, only one move or technique is discussed in the class of the day. Everything is discussed about one technique. Every small detail is discussed and taught to the students in the class. The options of the technique, like the submissions, attacks, escapes, and other things like these, are also discussed. The main thing that the instructor teaches in the class is the method or way to execute the technique. All steps are discussed, and the pattern or order of steps for execution is also discussed.

• The next step after the class is drilling. The students, after the class, get themselves into pairs. The pair performs the execution of the technique in front of the instructor. At one time, one student executes the technique and the other partner just acts as the opponent who does not make any action other than resistance. After one student completes the execution, the other student of the pair performs the same technique of the day. So in this way, drilling continues, and the students learn the technique, execution, and performance. On the same day, the students learn the technique and then perform the technique.

• After drilling, the students continue performing and executing the technique in front of the instructor. The instructor is always there to point out the mistakes in their execution, and if any student is facing difficulty in learning and executing the technique. The goal is to make the muscle memory for a specific technique so that everyone can perform the technique even in a professional Brazilian Jiu Jitsu match without facing any difficulty. So they continue repeating the technique until it becomes their muscle memory.

• The next thing students do after drilling is positional training. In positional training, the grapplers or BJJ practitioners start performing the same technique of the day that they have learnt in the class from a specific position. For example, they will start from the guard, and after some time, they will change the starting position to the mount. The other student in the pair tries to go to the submission or just control themselves and their opponent.

• The students in positional training learn how they can apply the same technique in different situations and from different positions. This is very important to learn because it is not necessary that they will be in the same position to apply the technique in the match as they learnt during drilling. There are a lot of positions and different situations that the students have to face during the match. If a practitioner has learn to apply the technique from only one specific position, then they will wait for that position to come through the entire match, and this is a very bad approach to take.

• So that is the reason, after the drilling, the students are instructed to do the positional training in which they execute the same technique from different positions. Moreover, the positional training also helps the students to learn the escapes. While one student is focusing entirely on the execution of the technique, the other student focuses on the submissions and the escapes from their opponent. The students switch their roles after some time so that they can learn to do both. So positional training works and teaches both ways, the offense and the defense.

• The last and most important part of your BJJ class is the sparring. It is also known as rolling in Jiu Jitsu. In sparring, you are executing the technique against your partner just like you perform it in a professional BJJ match against your opponent. Sparring gives you the opportunity to learn the live experience of a professional BJJ match.

• The experience and feelings of playing in a live match are very important for every BJJ practitioner. The reason is that nothing can beat or become an alternative to playing a BJJ match. The pressure you feel, the strategy you have to make suddenly during the match, if anything goes wrong against your plan for the match. Moreover, you have to encounter different situations during the match in which sometimes you are dominant, in which you don’t feel any pressure, and at other times you are submissive, in which you are feeling a lot of pressure and fear of defeat. So these situations are very important for you to feel for two reasons.

• The first is that you have to become mentally adapted to such a type of experience so that it becomes a normal thing for you, in which you know how you deal with the situation to pass that without facing defeat. The ways to pass such situations involve making a strategy or tricking your opponent to make yourself dominant against them. The second reason is the pressure. In submissive positions or situations in which you are trapped by your opponent, you feel a lot of pressure. That pressure continuously pushes you towards defeat. So to deal with that pressure, you need to experience such pressure again and again until it becomes normal for you, so that you can effectively focus on the game and lead you to the winning side.

• The BJJ practitioners do the learning, then drilling, positional training, and sparring, and then the day ends for everyone’s BJJ training. The practitioners usually end the day by cooling down. This ending session involves stretching themselves. The athletes do slight warm ups to end the day with the light movements, just like they started the day with light stretching.

• Moreover, the instructor shares the last words of the day with the students. These last words usually include the motivating words, the mistakes of the students, and some ways to improve their BJJ techniques and movements.

• Just before exiting the class, all students shake hands with each other, saying goodbyes for the next day. So they end their day just like they start their day.

The Brazilian Jiu Jitsu class is all about learning and implementing both in your game and real life. You implement everything you learn in the class in all aspects of your life. Besides training for self defense, BJJ gives you a lot of other things, such as learning self defense, discipline, punctuality, confidence, dealing with pressure situations, and the most important thing you get from BJJ is true friendships. The reason for getting true friendship is that you only become friends with those who you feel are good with you and help you perform and execute the techniques and skills. The same help you get from them in your real life, also whenever you need them. So everything you learn in a BJJ class is translated to your real life.

You do the following things in your BJJ class:

• Arriving Into The Brazilian Jiu Jitsu Class

• Stretch, Warm Ups, And Catching Up With Teammates

• Instruction of the Techniques

• Drilling After The Class

• Positional Training

• Brazilian Jiu Jitsu BJJ Sparring

• The practitioners usually end the day by cooling down with the light movements, just like they started the day with light stretching.

In positional training, the grapplers or BJJ practitioners start performing the same technique of the day that they have learnt in the class from a specific position. For example, they will start from the guard, and after some time, they will change the starting position to the mount. The other student in the pair tries to go to the submission or just control themselves and their opponent.