I’m going to make a bold assumption: You want to get better at BJJ. (I must be a mind reader.) Open mat can be a secret weapon in your training if you use it right. These tips will help make sure you do.

1. How to get good isn’t a big secret. Get on the mats, get good instruction and do conditioning, drilling or sparring. Gameplans, flow charts, notebooks, journals and instructionals are gravy. Training is the meat and potatoes.

2. Spar with everyone you can. Force yourself to go with guys who intimidate you. Experience is what counts, not mental tallies of who tapped who. And always finish the round, no matter how tired you are.

3. Escaping submissions and bad positions isn’t easy. And it’s not supposed to be. That’s kinda the point…

Stephan Kesting of Grapple Arts just launched an awesome new BJJ resource, Beginning Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu (beginningbjj.com).

Signing up for the e-course gets you a free e-book, A Roadmap for Brazilian Jiu-jitsu. After reading it, my first thought was “I wish I’d had this when I started.” It’s a superb starting reference, presenting the right lessons and concepts for a beginner. The e-mails that come with the e-course are the same great quality all of Stephan’s work is.

If you run a gym, this would be a perfect to give to new students. I’m thinking…

Rickson once said he admires Nino Schembri for “how he looks at positions in new ways”. (He also might not have said that. The quote is probably inaccurate since I read it years ago and can’t find the source any more.)

That idea stuck with me. As a beginner at the time it struck me, “How many ways can you think about a position? When is mount not just mount? When is guard not guard?” Those questions have become a kind of mind-clearing Zen koan. It opened me up to thinking…

Check out the discussion of Three Rules for Good Jiu-Jitsu. This post stems from that discussion and others elsewhere on the internet.

The two main arguments are that “train smart” and “have fun” are more important than “train hard”. And there is truth to that, but it also depends on how you look at it.

If you don’t enjoy training, you’re not likely going to stick to it, but you have to be careful about how you define “fun” and how much priority you give “fun” things. When I see people who are…

Eduardo has three rules for good jiu-jitsu:

1. Train hard.
2. Eat right.
3. Sleep well.

That’s it.