Beating BJJ Plateaus

BJJ plateaus are a common problem. Generally they manifest themselves most commonly when you're a blue belt or a purple belt, though they affect individuals at every level. There are different reasons why this happens and different ways to defeat this. Sometimes the plateaus last for as little as a few weeks or as long as a few months.

One common plateau happens due to over training. If you're training 4-5 days/week sometimes twice/day, it's not uncommon to get a sense of feeling that things aren't improving. You need to take a break. Your mind gets tired and doesn't retain as much as you would like to. Sleeping and eating patterns too can help or hurt depending on if you're sleeping enough or eating correctly. My recommendation for beating this is taking a week off. Your mind and body both need a break.

Another common plateau is the feeling of not improving. I feel this one is most attributed to the fact that it is VERY difficult to gauge your own improvements. You are in a training environment with at least a dozen other people and generally everybody improves. One day you might be "beating" Joe then a week later Joe is tapping you left and right and it makes you feel like you hit a plateau. Generally, Joe is just improving faster than you are, but you are still improving. Sometimes you need to take a step back, analyze what your mistakes are, where you need improvement and work on one or two aspects the next couple of weeks.

I feel that the best way I break plateaus is by working on something new or working on something I haven't done in a very long time. I get bored easily doing the same techniques over and over again, I have a "go to" guardpass that I can get on just about anybody, but I feel like it becomes too easy so I start playing around with new things. You need to find new reasons to motivate your learning. The motivation is key, if you've been training a while and you go to class not knowing what you want to or need to work on, then I feel that's the start of a problem that can end up as a plateau, already your mind has reverted to a state that it just wants to attend, but not excel. My professor Keith sometimes asks what techniques we want to work on, when nobody says anything, his response is "What? Are you all experts? You don't need to work on anything or learn anything in particular?" Fortunately for me, I always have questions, there's something I always want to work on. It's good to think about things in that sense.

Bottom line is, first you need to diagnose your problem. Are you having issues due to overtraining, are you having issues due to motivation, are people around you getting better than you, etc... There are other reasons you might start plateauing but generally they aren't as relevant. Once you figure out why you feel no improvement, then see which way best suits you to find the motivation to improve (and I really don't mean saying "I just want to get better", SPECIFICS are the key). Hope this helps you get over your BJJ humps.