Avoid Embarrassing Yourself as a Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu White Belt
I’ve thought about the pretention involved in writing an article to cover something with which I only barely have experience but decided the experience of being a new student of BJJ (which is what this article is about) will never be fresher — so there will never be a more appropriate time to write this article.
Likewise, this article has nothing to offer experienced BJJ practitioners — it’s meant instead to cover the things that newbies don’t know they don’t know and in doing so, help them avoid embarrassment and injury. I know this struggle because I’ve suffered both in sufficient quantities since starting BJJ a few months ago.
Perhaps the most frustrating part of being embarrassed and/or injured is feeling like the experience was unavoidable with the information and experience you’d had. “How was I supposed to know that?!?” seems an all too common lament among white belts. This article, taken before first stepping onto the mat, is meant to alleviate that frustration. You’ll still likely be embarrassed and/or injured, but at least now you won’t feel like you had no way of knowing what to expect.
There are loads of YouTube videos out there explaining things like “The best defense against guard sweep” or “8 leg locks you absolutely need to know” but little in the way of the ABSOLUTE BASICS. Like “how to tie your pants”, “how to tie your belt”, or “why do you close your legs around an attacker?” and all kinds of other questions I wouldn’t even think to ask but are nonetheless important. I get it. Learning and teaching a sick triangle or armbar is way cooler than tying your belt in a knot but here we are.
If you stick with the sport long enough, you’ll end up learning most of these basics by osmosis. But not knowing many of these things up front may be the reason you don’t stick with the sport long enough to learn them. To solve this chicken and the egg issue, and to reduce the number of injuries and embarrassing moments white belts inevitably will face, I present this simple and basic introductory guide.
What is BJJ and why is it so awesome? (history and application of the sport)
Jiu-Jitsu is a martial art of Japanese origin, but it was co-opted into “Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu” by the Gracie family in Brazil (specifically one man, Helio Gracie) who modified the techniques to allow smaller, weaker individuals to more regularly defeat larger opponents.
More specifically on history, Helio’s brother Carlos Gracie was taught judo by Mitsuyo Maeda. Judo’s contribution was to take various forms of Japanese Jiu-Jitsu and remove the dangerous techniques so that the art could be practiced (“randori”) at full-speed with limited risk of injury.
Helio was an absolute badass. At only 5'9" and 143lbs, he spent most of his adult life refining his form of Jiu Jitsu and challenging larger, stronger martial artists to “anything goes”-style fights. Of course, Helio routinely defeated his opponents and taught his whole family and lineage how to do “Gracie Jiu-Jitsu”. Helio’s spirit of constant willingness to demonstrate the superiority of his martial art has continued to this day through his descendants.
It’s also worth covering that because the sport’s lineage is part Japanese and part Brazilian (Portuguese) — and because I practice it in the U.S.— it has some interesting naming conventions. For example, anytime you see an “r” in BJJ at the beginning of a word thinking of it as an “h” will avoid some embarrassment (e.g. “Royce” is “Hoyce” and “Roger” is “Hoger”). Then for no obvious categorical reason, though nearly everything has Japanese, English, and Portuguese names, some terms are more commonly said in one language — and this will depend on your school or instructor. e.g.
- Americana is more common than Ude Garami (I had to look up the latter)
- Triangle is more common than Sankaku (Danaher’s team use these interchangeably)
- Kesa-Gatame is about as popular as Scarf Hold
- and someone else could have a completely different take on the above.
Back to descendants of the Gracie lineage though, one such individual named Royce Gracie was probably the most influential member of the Gracie family to popularize the aforementioned mentality of the sport. Royce’s brother Rorion effectively started the UFC (though originally without weight classes) to prove on a national stage how awesome and effective Gracie Jiu Jitsu is and Rorion chose Royce to represent the family in this contest. In the following videos, you can see a normal-sized Royce defeating sumo wrestlers, and Black Belts in Tae Kwon Doe.
In the years since Royce Gracie’s UFC-dominance, BJJ has failed to uphold its status as untouchably superior to all other martial arts. Many UFC fighters are still trained in elements of BJJ but as we’ll see in the information to come, critical to being successful with BJJ (or any grappling art) is to quickly close the physical distance between oneself and a larger / stronger striking (kicking or punching opponent). When BJJ martial artists do lose, it’s usually because they failed stay close enough to their opponent (or far enough away) to prevent strong kicks or punches. In the above videos, you’ll see Royce doing a tremendous job staying frustratingly close to his opponents who want to smash his face in. In this video though, you’ll see the result of a member of the Gracie family failing to keep that distance.
What’s not allowed and a quick note on BJJ schools
In contrast to other martial arts, many Jiu-Jitsu victories are achieved by submission (though point systems also exist), meaning that the opponent ‘taps out’, or asks to stop applying some uncomfortable pressure in exchange for admitting defeat. Other martial arts may rely more heavily on victory by knockout, meaning that one’s opponent is rendered unconscious, usually after a kick or punch to the head.
The fact that Jiu-Jitsu practice, and therefore technique, is submission-based, instead of knockout-based, and further that knockout-based techniques are not permitted (no striking), means that the sport can be performed in practice with near 100% intensity without a different type of injury risk to your training partner. The idea is that your partner has the opportunity to “tap out” before he or she is seriously injured. Compared to taking a haymaker to the face in boxing practice, tapping out when your arm feels weird is a welcomed relief. It’s worth noting that despite this, people do sustain serious injuries from Jiu-Jitsu alone — the worst of which are probably neck and spine injuries, which carry paralysis risk.
In addition to being able to practice at nearly full speed with unique consequences — another neat thing about Jiu-Jitsu practice is how few “sacred cows” exist which would prevent you from doing something simply because they’re “not allowed”. This aspect of the sport makes it uniquely approachable. Nearly anyone can grab someone else and try to toss them around and/or get on top and stay on top — you might not be great at it — but you can intuitively try in a manner that doesn’t feel forced, but natural, and isn’t “against the rules”.
When you first start doing Jiu-Jitsu it feels like you’re allowed to do anything to get to a submission except punching or kick your opponent. While that’s near true, it’s not entirely true — so now’s a good time to pause and give you the list of the basic things you’re NOT ALLOWED TO DO IN MOST BRAZILIAN JIU-JITSU SCHOOLS.
- No striking (no kicking, punching, kneeing, elbowing, etc.)
- No slamming (picking someone up and forcefully smashing them down)
- No putting your fingers into an opponent (Eye gouging, fish hooking, oil checking, etc.)
- No attacking fingers (pulling individual fingers or bending fingers backward)
- No Spine / Neck cranking (pulling your opponent’s head into their chest with your hands) (the move ‘can opener’ from top of guard is a weird exception — I’m pretty sure it’s allowed but don’t take my word for it.)
- No Hair pulling
- No leg stuff until you’re a blue belt at least — so no heel hooks and/or twisting the knee. If you think you have an opportunity to get a submission by fucking with someone’s knee or foot — just don’t. Leave all lower-body-related submissions until you’ve learned a move’s proper technique from a professor, in class.
- No Choking by squeezing someone’s neck with bare hands or belt; lapels are fine
There are some other things you aren’t allowed to do too but if you follow the spirit of the above-disallowed events you’ll probably be OK. If you ever aren’t sure what’s allowed — better to air on the side of “probably not” and then ask a professor later.
Given these limitations and the fact that many of them don’t exist in MMA applications, certain Jiu Jitsu schools may focus on distinct parts of the art. For example, Gracie Jiu Jitsu’s core white belt curriculum involves paying significant attention to your opponent’s ability to deliver a strike. The school considers that they’re first preparing you to protect yourself against an opponent who wants to hurt you and likely doesn’t know Jiu Jitsu. Gracie Barra Jiu-Jitsu (another school within the Gracie Jiu Jitsu family) focuses more of their core white-belt curriculum on sport Jiu-Jitsu applications. It’s not that Gracie Barra doesn’t care about self-defense applications (indeed they’ll reference self-defense applications often) but the focus will just be more on the sport. For example, Gracie Jiu Jitsu’s core curriculum will teach you to let an opponent out of your guard if he or she is able to posture up in a certain way — and this makes complete sense if you want to avoid getting punched in the face. GBJJ, however, would probably suggest the same technique if you’re trying to avoid punches, but will not drill a technique where you deliberately let your opponent out of your guard because in sport Jiu Jitsu you don’t need to defend against punches. If none of this makes sense right now that’s totally fine — the point is just to say that techniques are often context-dependent — and certain schools prepare you more for certain contexts — even though the principles are generally the same.
Position hierarchy and why that makes sense
The position hierarchy in Jiu Jitsu is slightly counterintuitive. Below we outline a series of common positions and which person has the advantage in each. The position hierarchy outlined below (ordered from best to worst) is based on both the number of submissions available from that position, and your ability to move to a better position from that position— so the more submission opportunities you have from a certain position, the more “advantaged” that position is for you and the more “disadvantaged” that position is for your opponent. So though the ultimate objective of grappling is to submit your opponent — you usually first need to consider yourposition.
- Back Mount
- Mount
- Side Control
- Bottom of Guard
- Both Standing
Images below for each position
This is meant to be a high-level explanation of what’s going on in a typical BJJ setup. We’re not going to go deep into what distinguishes one position for another or list the submissions, escapes, and counters from each position — that’s what going to the gym is for!
As a white belt though, it’s worth knowing this order if only so you can have a general idea of how the fight is going if you’re in some given position. If you find yourself in the bottom of the mount, the fight’s not going so well for you; if you find yourself in the bottom of the guard, however, you’re doing great — don’t give that position away!
This is also a very, very, basic list of positions and could be updated to include Half Guard, North/South, Turtle, etc. but it gets a bit more challenging to set a clear hierarchy — all else equal.
Principles
Sweeps (transitioning from the bottom of the guard to mount) happen when you can compromise your partner’s ability to balance on one side of their body. If you stay evenly balanced, it will be hard to sweep you.
Submissions happen when a limb is isolated from your body or you can’t protect your neck. So if you don’t want to be submitted, keep your elbows and knees in tight to your body and protect your neck.
Your first few weeks of rolling (“sparring”) should be focused on submission avoidance and learning by observing what your opponent will do when you try not to give them anything. If you come into a roll full of piss and vinegar, it will be harder to pick up on what you’re doing wrong and what your partner is doing right. Minimizing your own movements gives you more focus on what your partner does.
Wrists are weaker than elbows; ankles are weaker than knees.
To improve a position, try moving your partner; if he or she won’t move, then you move.
To control your partner, control his or her hips.
If you’re in a dominant position, stay as close as you can to your partner. If you’re in a weak position, create space between you and your partner, and immediately fill that space with your body in a more advantaged (inside) position.
Gym etiquette and other stuff
There are just a few more things to be aware of before you step on the mat for the first time.
- Keeping the mats on which we grapple clean is of utmost importance. Not keeping the mats clean can lead to staph infections, flesh-eating bacteria, and worse. But wiping down the mats each night is not sufficient to keep these infectious diseases out for good. Everyone needs to make a conscious effort not to sully the mat. And for the most part, this means being mindful of where your feet have been before they step on the mat. Without exception, the ONLY PLACE where bare feet are allowed is on the mat. No bare feet in the locker room, bathrooms, equipment area, etc. Likewise, the only things allowed on the mat are bare feet. No socks, sandals, shoes, etc. If you’re on the mat with clean bare feet and need to go to the bathroom, sit at the edge of the mat and put on sandals or socks before you exit the mat. Then when you get back, remove those socks or sandals before you step on the mat. The same process should be followed if you forget your attendance card and need to step off the mat to get it. If you see someone not respecting these rules — call them out for it — unless they’re a higher belt rank than you in which case say nothing and think about changing gyms.
- If you’re rolling (rolling is the BJJ term for “sparring”) with someone smaller and/or of lower belt rank, consider it your responsibility that they don’t get injured. Likewise, take responsibility for your own injuries — you can do this by making sure you tap out early or let your training partner know if things need to go slower.
- If you’re at a Gracie Barra school in particular, bring your laminated card attendance card when you step on the mat. The professor or coach will collect these cards before class starts.
- When class starts, folks will line up by belt rank. The highest belt ranks to the right and the lowest belt ranks to the left. The belt color hierarchy to respect is as follows. Red, Black, Brown, Purple, Blue, White. Stripes on a belt indicate progress toward the next belt. So a 2 stripe white belt should stand in front of a 1 or no stripe white belt — this applies to all belt ranks. If there is a mixed field of Gi (kimono) and No Gi (not wearing a kimono) wearing people in the lineup, the Gis line up at right even if they’re lower ranked than their NoGi wearing classmates. I’m not sure why this is and again, if you’re a white belt wearing a gi and someone steps in front of you (to your right) not wearing a Gi — best to let that slide.
- Refer to black belts as “Professor”, refer to other higher belt ranks “coach”,
- Be respectful to your training partners, no profanities.
- Write your name on the outside lapel of your Gi so people know what to call you (Gracie Barra insists on this, other schools not as much in my experience). Your Gi lapel should cross left over right, so your left lapel is your outside lapel — and the one that bears your name.
- Here’s how to tie your jiu-jitsu pants
- Here’s how to tie your jiu-jitsu belt
- Always wash and dry your Gi and rash guard (stretchy t-shirt) after every practice — it can carry bacteria that infect your training partners even if it doesn’t smell
- Always wear your school’s branded rash guard and Gi — this shows respect for the school — unless of course your school doesn’t care — some schools i’ve been to have people wearing streetwear — my personal take is whatever you’re wearing on your legs shouldn’t have pockets where hands and fingers could catch.
- Injuries will keep you out of the gym, and not improving much longer than a hurt ego will. Tapping early when some limb or artery is compromised will keep you healthy, training, and improving.
- To tap out, you can tap on your partner (usually one or two good full-handed taps) or you can say, loudly the word “tap”. If you tap only on the mat without saying anything, you risk your partner not hearing the tap and continuing to apply pressure — best to air on the side of ‘extra’.
- Starting a “roll” from a standing position is more likely to lead to some injury than starting from the ground (either both on your knees or in some standard position like the guard). As a white belt, it’s good practice to start rolling from the ground until you know what you’re doing RE takedowns — and even then, many of the worst injuries come from covering the distance from standing to the ground in the wrong way.
- Lastly, because I posed this question in the intro, if you don’t close your legs around your opponent in guard, they can easily pass to mount, which you now know is bad for you.