Another technique based class, with our focus on reviewing the techniques from day 1 and adding in another fun transition. While I wouldn’t consider these classes to be completely fundamentals, I do believe there is a great benefit in showing… Continue reading

Attacking the back brings the class back to a more traditional structure. I always try to avoid making submissions into games. Mostly because I want to reduce the risk of injury, but also because I want the students to understand… Continue reading

Our second day of taking the back and I’m definitely feeling the pressure of these short blocks. Moving from position to position at this pace feels like I can never take the time to fully dive into anything. After this… Continue reading

This will be our first class taught by Lea. So I won’t have first hand accounts of what happened. This means these next few pages will be the topics how I would present them and with the important details that… Continue reading

Our second day of mount escapes will mirror day one in most ways. I started class with a brief introduction to half guard as a means to recover. I wanted the students to understand that getting to a butterfly guard… Continue reading

One challenge that will continue to present itself is new students. I have to keep the classes progressing towards a blue belt while also making them easy enough for a day one student to understand. Last night was a reminder… Continue reading

I think my favorite part about this class structure is how quickly we are able to move into the action. The students are actively rolling within the first 5 minutes of class. When we have new students joining us their… Continue reading

Last night was our first mount class. The goal of this practice was very simple, how long can you hold mount. As always we started with our four primary movements, forward roll, backward roll, granby roll and sidewinders. Then we… Continue reading

Today we will deep dive into multiple outcomes allowing for more Jiu Jitsu to happen throughout the drill. We need to understand the importance of the inside underhook as a means to advance our position. My first action from turtle… Continue reading

Lately, many of my classes have been about standing up, or making an attempt to stand. For me this opens up a vast world of possibilities. An attempt at standing from guard means top player must engage or allow me… Continue reading

Today we will focus more on our hips. From both the bottom and top position the hips tell the secondary story. I still want our main focus to be on tight waist or under hooks as those are the building… Continue reading

A big trend and emerging focus from my guard recovery block has been progressing to turtle and working to a stand up. I think this is an incredibly important transition. Both for guard recovery and for working to a topside… Continue reading

My goal today was to really allow the students to use their Jiu jitsu. I wanted to encourage that fight we touched on during the last class. So for our first game we used basically the same rules. Game 1:… Continue reading

Moving into our side control bottom or guard recovery block should be pretty straight forward. Even though our focus in the previous block was top position the students spent the majority of their drilling time working from the bottom position.… Continue reading

At this point in the block the students know what to expect. So we quickly move into our first game. Game 1: Top player is the active play and they will stay in for 3 minutes. Bottom player will alternate… Continue reading

I don’t like to spend a lot of time on submissions with beginners. I’ve always felt positional dominance and understanding is significantly more important than submissions. Everyone wants to learn submissions, but if you only focus on them without learning… Continue reading

At this point in the program I’m starting to see solid Jiu jitsu from my students. Some of whom are only 8 weeks into training. I think a fundamentals program is essential to a successful gym, but the gym also… Continue reading

Today we allowed our top players to advance position. I wanted to keep it narrow, so I only gave them two ways to end the rep. Either they progress to mount, or they are able to secure the back. Two… Continue reading

To start off this block we asked for a very simple task. Hold our training partner in side control for as long as we can. Our partners can do literally anything they want. They have no rules to follow. Any… Continue reading

This block marks the first time we move to a more traditional approach to classes. I want my beginners to understand and identify positions in which they could submit, but I don’t necessarily need them to perfect the submissions. I… Continue reading

This practice was a tough one for me. I want to repeat the last practice while adding a few details, but I don’t want to overwhelm the students with guard retention dogma. The class begins with a brief explanation of… Continue reading

Again, we begin our first class of the block with our 4 foundational movements. Forward rolls, backward rolls, granby rolls, and sidewinders. Today I offered a few new details on these movements, for two reasons. I wanted the movements to… Continue reading

Now that my students have a bit of context I can begin to sprinkle in a few details. I don’t want to overwhelm them with technique, but I do want them to have a few ideas in their head as… Continue reading

The second week of my curriculum focused on guard passing. For me this is the most important part of grappling, there’s really nothing harder. If I want my students to develop a good guard then they have to have a… Continue reading

My main goal for 2026 is to develop a strong fundamentals program. A program that will allow students of any skill level to enjoy a fun, fast paced practice while retaining as much information as possible. I have found that… Continue reading