Break Some Bad Habits

When you first start rolling in BJJ, you quickly find moves that work against other novice guys like yourself and add them to your arsenal. While they may give you a sense of accomplishment, they are actual detrimental to your growth if you hold onto them and give them worth. Here are a few moves that should be removed from your library of moves if you wish to increase your rate of improvement.

#1. The run around. You learn the pass where your grab the pants of your opponent's at the knees then run around your opponent (it's what white belts and even some blue belts believe the Toreando pass to be). The only part you really remember is running around, sometimes you grab something, but the faster you run the more guards you pass. I see this all the time, even at the blue belt level. Unfortunately it's very effective against beginners, but advanced guys will easily follow and counter. Learn how to properly do the Toreando pass and remove the running out of your repertoire.

#2. The bench press escape. This is one that people who are strong and spend lots of time in the gym working their pecs have a lot of success with. It works great at lower levels because novices haven't developed the skills on where and how to put their weight down, or how to move against resistance. What it is is just a waste of energy. Trash it.

#3. On the knees dogfight. I see so many guys fighting so hard from the knees for position, both guys look like they want to be on top. The afterward, ask higher belts for techniques from the knees to get on top. That's just silly, you have to learn how to play guard. If you are DEADSET on working on top ask your training partner if you can work on your top game. Stop wasting time training in a deadlock on your knees.

#4. Submissions on top from inside the guard. I can't say there aren't submissions you can do, but in general they are low percentage, and new guys to the game are not going to be pulling them off. Going for key locks or collar chokes in your opponent's guard puts you in some very bad positions, when you get to purple or brown belt level, then you can start playing around with some.

#5. Tapping to exhaustion. Unless you're about to puke, don't tap from being tired. Roll until there's a tap, whether you get submitted or you submit your opponent. When you've got no gas left, all you have left to rely on is technique. When I used to teach a club class at my university, we would have days where we would roll until we all tapped out. I was the instructor, I had at least 2-3 years of experience on everybody, I would just roll and roll until I was dead tired and somebody was able to capitalize on that and catch me. Everybody gets submitted, get over it.

I hope you guys can take these few pieces of advice and break these awful habits and improve your game.