what do you do if you want to train
Brazilian Jujitsu
but there are no good schools in your
area where you just live so far away
that it's like a two-hour drive to go to
class and come back and that's obviously
not sustainable for most people if you
have a job what do you do well there are
a couple main options a couple different
options to talk about them and have
answered this question so many times in
emails in articles one-on-one with
people on Twitter that I'm going to now
make a video about it and then my answer
will be immortalized on video as well so
number one in the current day and age
there's no reason you can do most of the
heavy lifting for learning jiu-jitsu on
your own you can do it with a training
partner couple of training partners and
a couple of match for less than a couple
of hundred dollars of puzzle max and a
willing person who's willing to let you
bend and twist their body and crush the
other person you can for sure learn the
basics of jiu-jitsu now there's a caveat
it's going to be the same caveat as for
the next solution which is to find a
school to train at that teach us some
grappling but that isn't specifically
Brazilian jiu-jitsu for example judo
school judo is an amazing martial art it
has a couple of problems number one
stand-up judo has a pretty high rate of
injury I'm not going to lie
most of my orthopedic injuries come from
some kind of judo or takedown practice
number two some judo schools do a lot
more ground work than others judo has
touchy Wazza which is stand-up training
and nawaz a-- which is ground training
and if you go to a school that's very
very touchy was a heavy you're just not
going to get the same level of ground
right now maybe you can cut a deal with
some of those people some of your
training partners to stay after class
and do some additional nails that's
often a good answer and maybe you can
meet up with those people on the weekend
or at a different time go train with
them that's also a good answer so judo
is one really good option there are a
lot of judo clubs throughout North
America Joe's been around
longer than Brazilian Jujitsu has been
infiltrating the North American market
for a lot longer than Brazilian Jujitsu
so there may be more Judo Club what are
some other options well if you wrestles
you want to wrestle if there are options
for people wanting to wrestle in your
age category wrestling's a really good
base for martial arts no you're not
going to learn passing a guard no you're
not going to learn submissions but the
base that you're building that then sets
you up for success when you do get a
chance to train those specific aspects
of grappling man you're going to be off
to a really good start now some other
schools they'll teach you know they say
we teach ground fighting try and go to a
school martial arts school and ask do
you do ground fighting or grappling they
will say yes now maybe it's because they
discovered that in their kata they've
got one move that's technically a wrist
lock and now that one move that they do
in kata form qualifies them to be a
grappling school so you gotta tune your
detector but a lot of schools
will have some kind of grappling program
and some grappling is usually better
than none maybe you can find Krav Maga
school that has got a Brazilian
jiu-jitsu blue belt who teaches a class
that emphasizes a lot of ground fighting
can you learn from a blue belt
absolutely my first instructor was a
blue belt my first Brazilian jiu-jitsu
instructor was a blue belt and I got a
lot out of it of course he was a very
attention to detail oriented guy who
knew a lot and had a strong grounding
the combative arts and training athletes
but you know I still learned an awful
lot from him if you're doing the
training with your buddies option you
can get instruction a couple of ways
there's that ton of stuff on the
internet there's a ton of instructional
DVDs apps online streaming products
membership sites some of which I produce
but there are other good products as
well you can learn an awful lot from
them but you have to be careful they are
not learning completely in isolation if
it's just you and your friends you're
doing your best
you never really learn if you're getting
it if there's something fundamental that
you're missing so again if the tune your
detector but this time you have
to tune your detector so that
you're not bullshitting yourself so how
do you do that well let's say you live
in small town Ohio you're way in the
back woods somewhere takes you two hours
to make it to a school and you're going
to set up a train once a week at the
YMCA and do some judo but they don't do
that much groundwork and you're not a
hundred percent sure they're very good
and you're going to do some additional
training with your friends and you're
going to train in a garage somewhere
going to spend 200 bucks on a bunch of
three foot square puzzle mats and you're
going to train but how do you know that
you're not fooling yourself the answer
is once every couple of weeks once a
month go to an established digital
school do the drive if necessary do the
flight and go spend a week at a school
just a week of getting your ass kicked
by a bunch of really good people will
establish your detection skills
you'll be able to very quickly learn
what it is that you're doing
and what it is that you're not doing the
things that you're missing and then you
can take that knowledge you can take
that experiential knowledge and bring it
back to your training group and you'll
be a much better person for it it's
possible if you're training in isolation
if you're off training without
occasionally bouncing your skills and
the techniques that might work against a
low-level guy your training partner if
you're not carrying testing that against
high level guys that you're building a
game that really only works against the
white belts you don't want that you want
to be building a game that will serve
you well as you go up to the ranks of
jiu-jitsu by going and getting this
calibration occasionally you are at less
of a risk of fooling yourself similarly
if you have Joe's MMA and Hapkido school
down the road and you go there and you
ask do you guys do Graff when you do
gram fighting absolutely we do it's an
important part of our curriculum we
teach all
you need to know to keep yourself safe
on the ground that's pretty good but
without going and calibrating your
knowledge once in a while and going
training at a real Jiu Jitsu school it's
pretty hard to know if Joe is feeling
feeding you a line of BS so once again
by going and training at a legitimate
school every couple of weeks if it's a
long drive a couple of times a year if
it's a flight just doing and getting
that experience you'll really learn a
lot you will be able to learn all the
techniques you'll need to know but
you'll develop the feel how people are
rolling how people are moving what
pressure really feels like what it feels
like to go with a really good guy and
then you can go you can learn all the
techniques that you need to know online
I'm or through instructionals the
techniques are not the problem the
problem is training methods and the
problem is feel the feel the pressure of
somebody grinding into you the right way
the problem the feel of somebody just
being a step ahead of you or two steps
ahead of you the whole way and there's
nothing that you can do these are really
valuable experiences to have so if you
live in a place where there's no
jiu-jitsu you want to train jiu-jitsu
try to train it's some kind of grappling
somewhere somehow be that a hockey no
school that includes a little bit of
Jitsu in the curriculum be that a judo
school he's got a wrestling program if
they don't look at you you know they
don't look at you and what are you doing
man you're 30 years old you want to
train with a bunch of high school
students must be a pervert get out of
town so it can be hard to find a
wrestling program for grown ups in a lot
of small towns that's just part of the
problem or and or you can train with a
small group of guys all of them have the
same goal which is to learn the basics
of Jitsu and you can come a very long
way in the modern day and age and then
of course the most important thing is
occasionally go and calibrate your
skills calibrate your knowledge and get
some feedback from people who are better
than you who've been at it for longer
than you and you know you don't need to
do that every day you can go learn a
bunch of stuff and go away and train it
you know try it against the training
buddies try to gain training partners
come to the next roadblock then go back
to the school the person that you
learned it from and learn the next set
of things that you need to learn okay so
the good news is you've picked an
excellent excellent time to be
interested in jiu-jitsu because there
are so many resources out there for you
there's so many options available to you
that all you need to do really
ultimately is make the effort to train
to absorb knowledge to actually put it
into practice and then once in a while
to go calibrate what it is they just
learned I hope this helps take care and
good luck with your training regardless
of whatever small town you live in