The three P’s of Gracie Jiu Jitsu training

The keys to becoming better at Jiu-Jitsu aren’t always in the hands of your instructor or the quality of your sparring partners, nor do they always come from getting the most up-to-date techniques used in competition.

While those things are important and contribute to the overall development of your skills, what really matters is the commitment you make to the art of jiu-jitsu and your discipline and what I like to call the three P’s of training.

What are the three P’s of training?
Practice, Persistence and Patience…

This article will teach you how to use the three P’s to ensure that your jiu-jitsu improves at a steady rate, avoiding the typical “downs” that come with training an art for so long.

P1 – Practice
Drilling is one of the most important, if not the most important, keys to developing an overall game in jiu-jitsu.
1. When learning a new technique; Practice the movement without resistance, if your partner is using resistance it will only ensure that you will have to force the movement to make it work! When you force a movement, you are most likely doing something incorrectly, and that incorrect movement will be programmed into your muscle memory. Work hard to make sure your body is learning the correct form early on and consistently throughout your workout.

2. Downward movement lock; Once you have a basic understanding of how the technique works, you can start having your partner use varying degrees of resistance. This will help you learn timing and create different angles on the technique, so that when used in live training, you will be able to have moderate to good success in making the technique work.

3. Connect the puzzle pieces; Once you’ve practiced a move to death, pushed yourself through resistance training, and had success in live training, it’s time to figure out how the technique fits into your game. For example, a brabo choke is a great submission, but if you never get to the position where you see it and can use it, then it’s worth nothing. All techniques have their place in a series of exchanges. Your job now is to figure out how to seamlessly connect the new movement with your movement style. If you have problems, ask your instructor.

P2 – Persistence
Being persistent has many meanings, but for me its most important meaning is having discipline in your approach to training.
1.Introduce yourself; If you’re not going to train, I’m sorry, but you’re not going to improve. While a short break in training is good to focus your mind, taking a month or more only slows you down. There is nothing better to break a losing streak than to get in there and work your way out of it.

2. Go after him; If you want to get better at, say, an X choke, then you’ll need to practice that move, and more importantly, you’ll need to really chase that move in your live training. This has a way of making your matches a bit boring, but overall it improves your chances of making the move work.

3. Drop the ego; Be persistent in controlling your ego. Being the best jiu-jitsu guy in your academy just ensures that someone will eventually catch up with you. Don’t fall into the trap of always having to win every game in the class. You need to experiment, you need to take risks, and you need to get into bad positions as often as possible. Here are some things you can do in your live training to ensure you keep your game in top shape.

i.) Positional bearing only; If you’re a submission hunter, then a great exercise is to start your first match without allowing any submissions, as your goal is to outmaneuver your opponent to gain an advantageous position.

ii.) poor lateral balance; Here you are going to want to train everything on the other side. So if you like to block your opponent’s left arm, then he just blocks the right arm. If you like to pass the guard to the left, go to the right. If you’re a mage escaping the cross side when he’s on your right, then he has to be on your left. Etc..

iii.) Egoless, unconventional rocking; In this type of training, your job is basically to look for movements that are not typical of your game and positions that you don’t normally find yourself in. You’re going to want to move as quickly as possible from positions, sweeps, and submissions while at the same time allowing your partner to do the same. This type of training really improves your ability to improvise and watch different presentations while on the go.

P3 – Patience
Rome wasn’t built in a day and so was jiu-jitsu. Mastering the art, for the average person, takes many, many years, if that’s even possible.

1. You don’t need all the answers right now; In jiu-jitsu there are many techniques, many counters and many counters to counters and so on. Understand that your brain and body can only download so much information before they become overloaded with information. This often happens to beginners, so avoid the pitfalls of trying to know everything at once…you can’t. Focus on the most important thing, which in the beginning must be to develop a great defensive game.

2. Movements come and go; Years ago, I was an ace with the Uchi Mata, which is a type of JUDO throw. Now, I can’t seem to find the timing or the opening to land that pitch. Don’t worry, my takedown arsenal has grown and matured over the years. I may at some point go back and find that movement or I may not. It’s not important as long as you’re improving.

3. I’ll work on that later; You don’t need to have the best half guard to be good at jiu-jitsu. Focus on what you’re good at now, as there’s always time to explore later. I always remind my students that there are techniques I learned as a white belt that I didn’t really begin to explore until I was a brown belt. In the end, will not knowing that move or position affect your game today? Probably not, but as you progress and mature in the art, you’ll definitely want to go back and start the exploration process.

4. Don’t give up; David Adiv once told me early in my career that if he wanted to be better than everyone else, he just didn’t give up on me. It sounds like fun, but the truth is that if you do something for a long time, you really have no choice but to eventually get good at it.

Jiu-jitsu can be, that is if you want it to be, a lifetime journey. Now, in my fifteen plus years of training, I find myself exploring and learning even more now than in all the years I worked to earn my black belt. Using the three P’s will only make you feel better. But the most important thing is not to worry about your strengths and weaknesses but to enjoy the process of your improvement.