柔の道
Blog
Notes on learning jiu-jitsu from zero, technique by technique.
- The Art of Learning by Josh Waitzkin: what transfers to BJJ Josh Waitzkin's The Art of Learning maps cleanly onto a first year of BJJ. What a beginner can use, how to train it, and where the book needs doubting.
- The Danaher Diaries: what a beginner can actually use The Danaher Diaries compiles John Danaher's social-media essays into an unofficial book. What a beginner can take from it, and why provenance matters.
- Warrior Mindset by Roger Gracie: what a beginner can use Roger Gracie's Warrior Mindset distills ten world titles into lessons on calm and simplicity. What a nervous beginner can actually use, and where to doubt it.
- Oswaldo Fadda: jiu-jitsu's other lineage beat the Gracies Oswaldo Fadda taught jiu-jitsu to working-class Rio, and in the 1950s his foot-lock men beat the Gracies in front of a Rio crowd. The honest second lineage.
- Jiu-jitsu vs Luta Livre and the 1991 Desafio Jiu-jitsu vs Luta Livre: how Brazilian jiu-jitsu beat its closest rival through the vale tudo years and swept the 1991 Desafio in Rio that decided it.
- Breathe by Rickson Gracie: what's actually useful Rickson Gracie's memoir Breathe mixes real lessons on breathing and flow with self-myth. Here's what a beginner can use, and what to take with a grain of salt.
- My first submission: an americana I hit before I understood it My first jiu-jitsu submission was an americana I could not name until I looked it up afterward. What I actually did, and the part of it that worried me.
- What cauliflower ear is, and why grappling causes it Cauliflower ear is not a toughened bruise. It is the ear rebuilding itself wrong after its cartilage loses the blood supply that keeps it alive.
- Skin infections in jiu-jitsu, and how to avoid them The mat moves skin infections by the same contact that makes grappling work. The common ones, why grappling spreads them, and the hygiene that stops it.
- The unwritten rules of a jiu-jitsu gym Shoes off the mat, clean gi, short nails, ask before you roll, and let the higher belt set the pace. The etiquette nobody posts on the wall.
- Breaking the closed guard from your feet Closed guard is much weaker once you stand. How to open it from your feet, the hip and posture mechanics that do the work, and how to keep your thumb out of it.
- Defending the collar grip in jiu-jitsu A collar grip only threatens you if it can break your posture or reach your neck. How posture beats the grip, from a real exchange passing someone's guard.
- When they stand and break your grip in guard Open guard, feet on the hips, and the standing passer twists to strip your grip and trap your hand. How the break works, how to prevent it, how to react.
- Grip strength for jiu-jitsu: what the gi actually demands Grip is the first thing to fail in the gi. What grip strength means for BJJ, why I use Captains of Crush grippers daily, and what else trains it.
- What lives in the bag: gear after the gi The standing jiu-jitsu kit: mouthguard, sandals, tape, a spare rashguard, small cash. What earns a place in the bag and what stays home.
- Position before submission, finally explained Position before submission means the hold is the technique, not the pause before it. The maxim, unpacked for people still lunging at armbars.
- Remembering techniques: the notebook method You will forget most of what class teaches by next week. A five-minute notebook habit catches the part that matters, and it is not the steps.
- Base: the thing you lose before you get swept Base in BJJ is the connection to the ground that lets you absorb force without falling over. You notice it like electricity, only when it goes out.
- When you are the big one on the mat Being the big strong beginner is a liability wearing a compliment. What the room actually needs from you, and why slow is the fastest way in.
- How to choose a jiu-jitsu gym: the open-mat test Choose a BJJ gym by its room, not its website: watch an open mat, take the trial class, and check five quiet things. The test that picked mine.
- The belt system, explained without mysticism White, blue, purple, brown, black, with stripes between: what each jiu-jitsu belt certifies, and why nobody honest promises you a timeline.
- The month almost everyone wants to quit Wanting to quit jiu-jitsu around month two is so common it has a schedule. What the urge actually is, what it is not, and what to do when it visits.
- The first-month soreness: what is normal and what is not Normal BJJ soreness is dull, symmetrical, and gone in two days. Sharp, one-sided, or joint pain is a different animal. How I learned to tell them apart.
- Your first no-gi class: what changes and what does not No-gi strips away the handles and doubles the pace. What actually changes in your first no-gi class, what stays the same, and what to wear into it.
- Lifting for jiu-jitsu: what I changed in the gym I did not stop lifting for jiu-jitsu; I changed what the lifting is for. Towel grips, neck work, and carries: the quiet edit a grappler makes to a gym habit.
- Pulling guard, explained for people who just watched it happen Pulling guard means choosing the bottom on purpose: trading the takedown battle for a fight you have prepared. Why it exists and why it confuses everyone.
- More words you'll hear: the submission edition Kimura, americana, triangle, guillotine: the submission names you will hear before you learn any of them. What each one is, in plain words, no instructions.
- Dropping in: training at a gym that is not yours Most BJJ gyms welcome traveling visitors who email first, bring a clean white gi, and roll politely. The drop-in ritual, learned by doing it wrong once.
- Should a white belt compete? Notes from the fence Whether a white belt should compete has two honest answers, and mine changed while writing this. Notes from someone still deciding, with both cases intact.
- Rolling with higher belts, and why you cannot do anything yet Getting handled by upper belts is not evidence you are failing. It is the curriculum working. What those rounds are for, and how to stop dreading them.
- Why they call it the gentle art Jiu-jitsu means the gentle art because 柔 (jū) names a method, yielding to force instead of meeting it, not a temperament. The mat explains the word eventually.
- Open mat: what it is and what to do with it Open mat is unstructured training time. No instruction, just rounds and whoever showed up. What it is for, and how a beginner uses one without wasting it.
- Why beginners start rolling from the knees BJJ rounds start from the knees to fit more pairs on the mat safely, because takedowns are the riskiest thing in the room. What that choice costs and buys.
- Gi or no-gi first? The beginner version of the answer Start with whichever one your gym actually teaches at times you can attend. The honest version of the gi versus no-gi answer, tribalism removed.
- What jiu-jitsu became: sport, self-defense, and who owns it After it won, the art had to decide what it was. It became a sport, inherited an old argument, and stopped belonging to any one family or country.
- What progress feels like when you cannot see it Progress in BJJ hides for months. You do not win more, you drown less. The invisible markers I learned to read instead of waiting for a highlight reel.
- How jiu-jitsu crossed to America: the garage and UFC 1 Rorion Gracie's Torrance garage led to UFC 1 on November 12, 1993, where Royce Gracie beat far bigger men and jiu-jitsu changed the fighting world for good.
- Frames: why the skeleton beats the biceps A frame in BJJ is a bone placed where muscle would fail: structure that holds weight you could never lift. Why the skeleton outlasts the biceps.
- The boring habits that keep you training Most beginner BJJ injuries follow patterns you can see coming. The boring habits I copied from people with decades on the mat. None involve toughness.
- What I learned about surviving side control Side control feels like drowning until someone explains the order: protect your neck, make a frame, breathe, wait. Lessons from the bottom, not a tutorial.
- Drilling, and how to be a good body Most of class is drilling, and half of drilling is being the body. How to give honest energy as a partner, and why compliant is not the same as limp.
- The Gracie academy and the making of a name The Gracie name was not inherited as destiny. It was built in Rio: Carlos's academy, the open challenges, and Hélio versus Masahiko Kimura in 1951.
- Why the gi gasses you out, and it is mostly the grip You gas out faster in the gi than you ever did wrestling, and it is mostly your hands: a hard grip chokes off its own blood, and the forearms quit first.
- Did Maeda really teach Carlos Gracie? Belém's disputed handoff The story says Maeda taught Carlos Gracie and jiu-jitsu passed to Brazil in one clean handoff. The record shows more teachers and less certainty.
- Conde Koma: Mitsuyo Maeda, who brought jiu-jitsu to Brazil Maeda is remembered as the master who gave jiu-jitsu to Brazil. He was also a professional prizefighter, doing something his own teacher had forbidden.
- How to wash a gi, and how often (every time) Wash the gi after every single session, cold, and skip the dryer unless shrinking it is the goal. The full routine, plus what happens if you do not.
- What a first stripe actually means A first stripe in BJJ usually arrives somewhere between two and six months, and it does not mean you are good. What the tape on the belt actually measures.
- Underwater, and learning to stay In wrestling the bottom is an emergency you escape. In jiu-jitsu it is a place you live. On unlearning a reflex twenty-three years old.
- Kanō and the Kōdōkan: judo out of jūjutsu In 1882 a slight, bookish schoolteacher took nine students into a temple and remade jūjutsu into something safe to train hard. That is why judo survived.
- Learning to breathe with someone on your chest How to breathe with someone on your chest is a skill, not a circumstance. Exhale first, breathe into your back, and never trade air for effort you cannot cash.
- Kosen judo and the ne-waza that shaped BJJ The ground fighting Brazil made famous was already inside judo. But the tidy story, that it flowed cleanly from Kosen judo to Maeda to Brazil, is too neat.
- Before judo: the many schools of jūjutsu The popular image of jūjutsu is a samurai in armor. The truer story is a peacetime art of hundreds of schools, as much about policing as about war.
- My first stripe, one month in Getting my first white belt stripe about a month in: what the moment was actually like, and what a wrestling background carries into jiu-jitsu.
- Where jiu-jitsu actually comes from Jiu-jitsu came from Japanese jūjutsu, reshaped by Kanō into judo, then carried to Brazil by Maeda. The real story is older and more contested than the poster.
- Why you gas out in your first months of jiu-jitsu You are not out of shape, or not only. Beginners gas out because panic burns oxygen and inefficiency burns everything else. Both improve faster than cardio.
- Too old, too unfit, too late? Starting jiu-jitsu as a regular adult You are not too old to start BJJ and you do not need to get in shape first. What the mat actually asks of a new adult beginner.
- How often should a brand-new white belt train? Two to three classes a week is the honest answer for most adult beginners. The reasoning, the recovery math, and the trap of week-one enthusiasm.
- Tapping is the curriculum What tapping means in BJJ, when to tap, and why the people who tap most in their first year learn fastest.
- The words you'll hear on the mat: a beginner's glossary Guard, mount, sweep, tap, oss. The small dictionary of jiu-jitsu words I needed in week one, in plain English.
- How to tie your jiu-jitsu belt (and why it keeps coming off) The standard way to tie a BJJ belt, step by step in plain words, why it unties itself mid-roll, and why nobody minds.
- What to wear to your first jiu-jitsu class No, you do not need a gi yet. What to actually wear to a trial BJJ class, what a gi is, and what to buy only after you commit.
- Your first jiu-jitsu class: what actually happens A play-by-play of a first BJJ class from someone who just had one. What to expect, what nobody tells you, and the one thing to remember.
- Kuzushi comes first The lesson that nothing works until the balance is already broken.
- Starting at zero Why I am writing this down, and why the site is named for an old word.