BJJ Skills That Matter Most.

Empowerment is always a personal resource that I take very seriously. It all started when I was in elementary school when I used to be bullied a lot. As I get older, bullying continous to happen to me and other people that I know.

Bullying can also happen in the academic world and professional world. I always know that being resourcefull is my only remedy to go through life full of odds.  Martial arts for me is great tool to use to empower myself.  For me, martial art is a way of life to always be resourcefull in achieving one’s dreams and goals. Achieving proficiency in the arts is the goal, its not just about fighting or even tournaments.

In Brazilian Jiujitsu, i always see this art as a tool to complete the whole package. Empty hand fighting for me consist of kicking range, punching range, clinch range and ground range. BJJ completes the ground range.

With 17 years of experience in training and learning BJJ, here are what I think one should focus in mastering 80% of the time, when they practice for BJJ:

• Side mount and mount control. I always start with these when I teach my students. Positional control training in these areas first will help any student achieve phenomenal confidence in BJJ. He or she will understand the whole game and what needs to be accomplished in grappling.
• Side mount and mount escapes.  These are the next area that one needs to master and have confidence in.  Many different hold downs from side control and mount need to be dealt seriously with one ability to escapes the positional dominance. Having proficiency in positional escapes on these will skyrocket one’s confidence in grappling. I would say, get good at positional dominance and then get good at positional escapes.
• Guard control and guard passing. I say that guard is 50% of what separates BJJ with other grappling arts. Your ability to have excellent skills in guard control and guard passing will create headache to most people that will grapple you, so make sure you get good at guard control on at least 4 areas: closed guard, spider guard, butterfly guard and half guard. Also get good on passing these 4 guards.
• Sweeps and submissions.  Sweeps are the tool that one can use to reverse the situation from inferior to superior.  Having few reliable techniques to sweep from 4 types of guard is paramount. Get good at sweeps, you will thank me later. Submissions is offcourse the whole outcome one wants to achieve. Never forget the ultimate goal of any grappling match is to finish with submissions. Dont just get good at pulling them off. I suggest, first get good at escaping from any of the submissions first. That way you can then relax and start focusing on developing skills on how to sink more submissons in a fight both grappling match and self defense.

Thats it. I think if you put good amount of time, energy and money in improving the 4 areas above, you will enjoy your grappling experience much more as well as having confidence in grappling and fighting in general.