What Should You Focus On At Each Belt Level in BJJ?

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VIDEO DESCRIPTION
In this video, Rick Ellis discusses what you should work on at each belt level in BJJ.
01:00 - White Belt
06:57 - Blue Belt
13:20 - Purple Belt
16:41 - Brown Belt
22:30 - Black Belt

[@WConn100]

As a 73 year old white belt/one stripe right now I am focusing on staying alive and not breaking anything new.

[@Guitarial_arts]

Solid plan! It’s amazing that you’re on the mat at your age. My goal is to be like you. I’ll be 40 this year and I’m entering my old guy stage lol.

[@InsertDeafultName]

Didn't see this posted yet so @7:00--Blue Belt. @13:17--Purple Belt. @16:40--Brown Belt. @ 22:28--Black Belt.

[@yew2oob954]

Was just about to do this...thanks. 🙏🏽

[@GTCTraders]

52 year old white belt here. Loving these vids. Loving the presentation as an older guy. I'm enjoying it. I'm old enough to know that as you learn skills? You're "childlike stage" in that period of the skill, is gone, and gone forever. So enjoy it while you have it. Be content to be in that stage of the journey. Couple of folks gave me great advice 1 ) Slow down, conserve energy and move less. You don't always have to be moving at every moment, let your cardio gas tank fill up. Building solid frames has helped here. When you see an opening ... THATS when you put on the speed and aggression. 2 ) It's not about getting your training partner to tap. It's about learning from each roll. Learn on the loss. 3 ) THEN, learn the moves. Drill them to the point of insanity, because my body, arms, hips and legs don't know how to work together yet, with what's happening and to see traps etc. So drill ... drill ... drill ... drill. 4 ) Rolling is about surviving and learning, not showing how "good" you are. Because we're not.

[@robphipps9662]

Thank you so much Professor! As a brand brand new white belt I really appreciate having some general guidelines of techniques that I should be checking off on my way to blue. 😎🙏🏼

[@KazzArie]

FULL SPEED AHEAD

[@RandRandolph]

I agree. Most professors say, "just keep showing up!" 😑

[@XieTianXieDi888]

Taking notes is so underrated. It helps so much with retention. Treat jiu-jitsu like it’s a college class and you might find you’ll get better results.

[@CoachMacGlory]

Thank you so much for this. 43 year old white belt finishing up my first year. The list you gave here will be great for me to follow and tackle over the next year heading towards blue belt now that I understand some concepts. Thanks again.

[@dustinnagy6011]

3 months in as a white belt here! 3:13 this is actually really helpful to see something I need to work towards to be more well rounded. And it’s only 50 things, one new thing a week and it’s all touched on in a year!

[@EliteForceLHP]

What a great view of the journey to Black Belt. As a Black Belt myself, I think you are spot on!

[@kingwilly8041]

I read Roy Harris' article on progression in jiu-jitsu (he's in your lineage) and I always liked it. I also like how Saulo Ribeiro laid things out in his book, which was focusing on one aspect (survival, escapes, guard, guard passing, submissions) which corresponds to white, blue, purple, brown, black belt. Now "focusing" doesn't mean ignoring the other aspects, it just means concentrating on really improving a particular aspect.

[@momentum8640]

Thanks for this video! Im a white belt. Ive been training for about 3 to months. I train at a new school that's been in existence for less than 7 months. We don't have a curriculum for any belt that I'm aware of and i wish we did. I've spoken to my instructor about structure and curriculum. I feel I need that. Thank you again for this video.

[@tomtrader6559]

Awesome stuff as always, you actually look like my BJJ Coach from my city in Poland:)

[@JJDIDTIEBUCKLE72]

51year old blue belt here. Appreciated the video ❤

[@michaelconner5732]

This was really cool and interesting. Brand new purple and I’m definitely looking forward to the continued growth.

[@3nt3rtain]

Truly appreciate you, brother. Thank you for answering my question about older players taking recovery breaks. I'm somewhere in the middle of my journey to the new white belt 🙏🏼. Thank you for the right words at the right time.

[@williambreen4290]

This was an excellent video! Can you do a follow-up video to the self defense aspect of jiu jitsu regarding more than just the ground game regarding distance management tactical stand-up and closing the Gap as well as defending against strikes and standing jiu jitsu please and thank you

[@cameronsellers4235]

Terrific video! You deserve even more subs and views. Great content, and relaxing to listen too.

[@CrossFitSJPD]

Great videos!! Thank you so much for all the great content, truly appreciated!!!

[@chtopteam]

Really enjoy your videos. Thank you!!

[@atileidos]

Im a recent blue belt, yea i dont know still nothing but i think this techniques can be use for guide but know 4 escapes and 3 throws etc dont convert you in the next belt, you need demostrate persistence, that you develope skills, that you can use this all techniques on a combat and above all you understand the concepts that are behind of them. Old things is not always better.

[@kingwilly8041]

True, but the old things usually contain all of the concepts. The "new" things are usually just variations or disregard the concepts, thus making them something I wouldn't bother with as I and most people have limited training time.

[@mustafamalas1302]

Thank you so much, it's very helpful.

[@tomtrader6559]

That is a video i needed!

[@MultiTictock]

I like the ecological approach to BJJ but its interesting the check list you provided to some of these

[@jtbatista]

At my school, they don't teach leg locks to white belts. So, it's a little tough to meet this level of curriculum for a white belt.

[@franciscofallon]

Go to other schools, and hit their open mats. Work with higher level belts. I notice in my journey higher belts are always down to teach and show you skill set.

[@Doppps]

Be patient at white belt. Don’t need to jump to other schools to improve. As a white belt nothing in your game is great. Work on the rest and leg locks will come when you are ready.

[@jtbatista]

@Doppps thank you for the advice. It's been a while of course. Even though bjj is more for self defense approach for me, since I'm not really interested for the sport competitiveness of it? But sometimes certain things should be 2+2=4, start on feet often should be emphasized down to things that you normally end up in.

[@DaMartialAthlete]

I wish I had access to videos like this back in the day. I just trained hard with no real purpose, just tryna kill and have fun 😂.. I was pretty consistent tho which kinda made up for my lack of purpose. Now I’m about to be 42, training with a more focused and thoughtful approach tryna get to that black belt level 🥋

[@TC-nh4uh]

My disagreement and as humble as possible: “I fear not the man who has practiced 10,000 kicks once, but I fear the man who has practiced one kick 10,000 times.” It worked for me anyway 🤷‍♀️

[@tusccountyjiujitsu]

As a Black Belt I am working on trying to get my energy output down to as close to zero as I can.

[@briankayaker1]

Thanks for the video! I’d love to see a no gi version of this video

[@DavidCarterBJJ]

Can you add your blue belt combo sequence in the description?

[@bobbydabutcha]

I am at a year and a half at Blue belt, and after this video, I still feel like I don't know shit lol :D

[@rwdchannel2901]

Being steps ahead of another person when it comes to fighting is called being stealthy. Having stealth will make a fighter 10 times more powerful than their opponent. Stealth creates a window of opportunity for a fighter drop their payload on target. If people understand this concept they'll be a much better fighter.

[@wrxstock2820]

Thank you

[@SG-gk5yq]

Thank you for posting this! I am a white belt who has been training for 9 months, and I was wondering it is good that I am playing around with tempos and different paces at this stage, in addition to acquiring as many techniques as possible?

[@RunYourLuck]

A wise and really good brown belt told me to focus on a few things at once. Then get really good at them. Once you're feeling you're really good add a new move to your playbook. Like pick a week when you roll to work on Guard Passing and drill it hard. Next week add Sweeps, etc. That advice really helped me.

[@ckwilliams2440]

Train for improvement. Quit worrying about accolades. Remember "belt hold up pants" and from the udt/seal instructor staff "it’s not the car the instructor drives - it’s the size of the instructor driving it" Belts are nice but I remember as a white belt I tapped out plenty of colored belts and black belts as well. Of course I sandbagged for years and still do. Train for skill and have fun. Keep showing up and the belts will come to you.

[@brianbouchard1899]

I’ve just received my purple belt after 11 years of training. I’m having a hard time going deep into techniques. For example, 8 months ago I was obsessed with gubber guard. Now I’m into Butterfly. Should I allow myself to enjoy these explorations of systems for brief periods or should I force myself to go deep into my A-game regardless of what I find interesting that day? I have a feeling the answer is “both” but balancing between the two is hard.

[@jnwoodard8764]

I’ve been told “focus on surviving” as a white belt more times than I could count. It’s the biggest cop-out I’ve ever heard. My response is always “Okay, HOW?!”

[@Anthony-pg3wv]

It’s simple.. mat time. And home studies. As a white belt.. you’re gonna get tapped more times than you can count. But with every tap.. comes a lesson. Every time I get tapped, I try to recollect after class on what led to that, and I’ll usually try to go home and find the technique on how to escape that position. Bottom line.. the more times you get tapped, the better you will get at surviving. But always be sure to reflect.

[@xerse29]

That question “How” although it is the right question to be asking it’s the wrong way to go asking others that very specific question. That question should be fully embodied within yourself. As a white belt you need to know and learn this very thing. YOU want to survive but also thrive in jiu jitsu. YOU ask how but it’s YOU that needs to actually learn and get the repetitions. Your body mind psyche and quite literally your spirit need the mat time to actually see, process, and execute what you are seeing and what you are doing. It takes time for your body and mind to put dots together. I always make the analogy of when you start jiu jitsu, the puzzle that jiu jitsu is is a massive ball of yarn up in your head. There’s so much chaos that you realize you need to sort out and straighten out. As time goes on that ball of yarn starts loosening up and starts to look neater and some straight lines start appearing from the big bundle of chaos. It’s actually a great piece of advice to focus on surviving. When faced with a big piece of chaos you can quite literally only do what you can and know how to do and in this case of jiu jitsu, survive. Survive. Don’t let him get the back. When he gets the back, don’t let him choke you. Force him to react to you. You’ll see when you start surviving and fighting things more that you’ll find yourself in positions you’ve never been in before. When this happens your body and mind quite literally get thrown into the state of learning when they see something new. Survive. Observe. Attack. Asking how questions are great but to me it sounds like you really need to ask yourself first that question before you go asking others. This is YOUR JOURNEY. There are no shortcuts. Face it.

[@tomtrader6559]

What do you do if you had a coach who was jumping from technique to technique and from guard to guard and you feel so overhelmed that it feels like you don't really wanna go for the next training?? I limited number of trainings and added 2 judo trainings just to reset my mind!

[@BlakeUnderwood-ew6yu]

Go to class anyway :) In alcoholics anonymous they say "It works if you work it", we don't get better if we don't work on what we need to work on.

[@Bigboss41510]

Build a system. I’m in the same boat later in my journey. I find that a lot of what is taught in class doesn’t apply to me so I just try techniques out and discard what doesn’t work for me. Use KZbin to supplement what your coach teaches you (as long as the source is reputable). Note that what you may discard at white belt might become useful later and what works for you at white belt might not later. Your style will evolve along with your skillset. Lastly, cross training is a great idea. It’ll keep you from getting burnt out as you’ve probably discovered.

[@KazX37]

Great question

[@jamessanchez6756]

You’re going to be exposed to everything early. It won’t make sense early on but as you continue to train and learn fundamentals, you might find those moves you’re lost on now just happening. Trust the process :). As long as you’re in a good environment, being lost is normal for a bit.

[@tomtrader6559]

@@jamessanchez6756 that is the thing - I don't see any process but a random techniques that are not connected! You could just f sit and watch whiye belts rolling to see what majority of people strugle with to know what to do and then build on that. Here I come on Monday and we do half butterfly half lasso on Wednesday are attacks from closed guard using lapel and on Friday deep half sweeps. There is no subject at school that you would learn in such a none logical way plus most of the positions with dela riva with lasso or spider I have never been in, even some purple belts there are looking at her with wtf expresion on their faces. I literally added judo just to clear my mind!

[@neverlookingbacktv3796]

By that definition I should be blue belt- 1 stripe white belt 5 months but I do understand the things on that list & do them decently well also 2 years wrestling

[@Dwillztx]

Nah there’s a reason why you haven’t been given a blue belt, coaches and upper belts see it. Instead of sounding entitled either reject his viewpoint or take what you can from it and keep training.

[@Anthony-pg3wv]

4 leg locks at white belt.. hah. That’s more than most of the old school black belts even knew

[@LOLSNAPED]

Teaching white belts heel hooks lol dam

[@TevenOG]

I think the sharpness of the video is kinda high

[@Simply_chase]

I'm glad we don't have heel hookin white belts at my gym

[@dond2807]

4 leg locks as White belt? Stopped watching here. What a bs

[@TheArtofSkill]

I had to perfom leglocks to earn my bluebelt and every one of Roy Dean's and Roy Harris' students have had to as well. If you only train a subset of BJJ that ignores half the body, well that's the real bs here.

[@dond2807]

@@TheArtofSkill Yeah good luck in injuring New players and pushing them out of this beautiful sport.

[@MatthewMessmer-me5ji]

Why are you so angry. It's okay for white belts to learn leg locks, and almost a necessity in the modern game ​@@dond2807