As you progress in your BJJ journey, you’ll face challenges in memorizing techniques. The confidence gained from learning new moves often fades quickly as you forget them after class.
This is largely due to the sheer volume of BJJ techniques—there are hundreds to master.
Most techniques in BJJ evolve to meet the changing needs of fighters and grapplers. The good news is that there are practical tricks to help you learn and retain techniques effectively. Read on to discover these retention methods.
Benefits of Retention Methods to Remember BJJ Techniques
It’s common to leave class confident in new techniques, only to forget them later. The amount of BJJ techniques can be overwhelming, especially with inconsistent practice. Mastering the fundamentals helps eliminate hesitation, allowing you to focus on strategizing and choosing your next move.
Retention goes beyond memorization—it’s key to your progress in BJJ. Remembering techniques enables you to:
Improve Performance
Sometimes, memory fails, affecting your performance. Instead of simply memorizing techniques step-by-step, focus on retaining the principles through repetition. This refines your skills, sharpens execution, and ensures every move is seamless and precise.
Increase Confidence
When you stop struggling to recall techniques, your confidence grows—a crucial factor in competition or battle. Confidence leads to more grounded techniques and solid execution because you anticipate what’s next without fearing counters, thanks to your mastery of the moves.
Quick Decision Making (Muscle Memory)
Retention methods help build muscle memory, making your techniques natural and instinctive. Over time, movements and grappling maneuvers become second nature, unlike beginners whose escapes, locks, or guard transitions may still appear hesitant or predictable.
Faster Progression
Once you grasp the techniques and master retention, your progression will accelerate. If you feel behind, don’t worry—your solid foundation will help you catch up and evolve more quickly.
Helps Build Consistency
Retention methods should focus on actionable steps that build consistency. This approach fosters discipline and feels natural, unlike memorization, which can feel forced. BJJ techniques should be applied thoughtfully and mindfully to develop consistent practice.
Overall Development of Skill
Creating a structured, intentional way to learn and instill the techniques helps develop your overall skill. It creates discipline. You become more aware of the movements, mastering their logic and allowing the methods to naturally come to you to form a solid maneuver, especially in a fight.
Common Challenges in Remembering BJJ Techniques
Remembering every detail and variation of BJJ techniques can be tricky, especially for new students. But this does not mean weakness. Retention poses challenges, but memorizing isn’t the solution—and it’s not encouraged in combative arts like Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu. Let’s explore the common challenges hindering mastery of grappling in BJJ so you may focus on building solutions around them.
- Gap Between Training & Practical Application: Retention will be hindered without regular practice. No matter how long you practice in a day, the gap between training and application leaves you lacking muscle memory. The key is testing and using the techniques applied in a fighting scenario.
- Overwhelmed by the Volume of Techniques: BJJ schools offer hundreds of classes, and most students take years to reach the mastery phase. The wide range of techniques and their variations can overwhelm self-defense learners.
- Lack of Consistency: When you don’t train regularly, the gap between application and training sessions widens. Without consistent practice and refinement of techniques, you may struggle to recall or execute moves effectively during “rolling,” leaving them feeling incomplete.
- Skipping Minor Details: Overlooking small but crucial aspects of a BJJ technique hinders effectiveness. Often, it is the small details that count. Not until you see through the whole movement and spot the details will effective retention come. You need to dissect the technique and not just memorize its form about the term.
- Lack of Drilling Partner: Having a partner to observe and respond to your attacks is essential for identifying areas of improvement. Without a partner, it’s nearly impossible to grasp the history and mechanics of a move. The experience is fundamentally different when applying techniques against someone who reciprocates your actions as a grappler. Simply put, without a partner, there is no grappling.
Tips for BJJ Practitioners: Ways to Remember the Techniques
While challenging, techniques like guards, locks, sweeps, escapes, and submissions can be easier to remember by viewing them as natural, logical responses to specific positions. Understanding the principles and logic behind each movement is key to mastering and recalling grappling techniques. Here are tips to refine your BJJ learning approach.
Practice, Practice, Practice (and more practice)
Repetition is key to practice. It conditions your mind and muscles to the flow and posture of grappling. If you ever doubt your progress, remember to return to the principle of relentless practice.
Record BJJ Training Videos
Grappling involves dynamic movements, and video tutorials can be invaluable for mastering techniques like triangles. A key tip: record yourself. Watching your performance helps you become more aware of your positioning and structure, aiding in mastering grappling fundamentals. Film yourself with an instructor and review the recordings to spot and correct errors.
Name and Categorize Grappling Techniques
Here’s a tip you might not hear often: as you train and focus on various techniques over time, name and categorize them. Check out our list of basic technique categories for inspiration—you can create your system, too!
To improve recall, backtrack to the core of submissions, including locks, sweeps, and more. Organize them by category—mapping skills under sweeps, locks, etc., makes them easier to remember.
Take Notes After Training
Take notes during class to improve retention. According to Frontiers In Psychology, handwriting enhances brain activity, aiding information absorption. Writing also bridges the gap between learning and periods of inactivity.
Sketch Diagram
For better categorization, group words and reinforce the practice using diagrams, charts, or colorful maps to illustrate the correlation between techniques.
Visualize BJJ Techniques
Visualization is a crucial yet often overlooked skill. What sets great grapplers apart is their ability to map techniques, movements, and body mechanics mentally. This practice is especially useful during solo drills or when a sparring partner isn’t available. However, it requires keen attention to detail and strong observational skills.
Train with a Sparring Partner
Of course, the best method is to train with a partner. Focusing on variation and cooperation and working with partners at different energy levels is highly recommended. Watching techniques in action is valuable, but the best way to master grappling skills is through consistent practice with partners.
Set Aside Practice Time Outside of BJJ Class
Now, find time to train outside your class to fill the gap between the training time and when you are inactive. Even if there is no BJJ class, drilling the technique and trying possibilities outside what you learned in class would make you progress in remembering Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu techniques. One option is to join open mats or have a friend or comrade join you for outside-class practices, where you will take control of how you explore the techniques.
Ask Questions
Of course, asking questions from mentor instructors and teachers at BJJ gyms and dojos is essential. Do not be intimidated by the moves; in asking questions, seek out possibilities of countering techniques and how to strategize.
Tips for Your Routine
You’ve probably heard that setting a routine is key to improving retention and memorization. But to be truly effective, you need to build a solid routine and stay disciplined.
Here are tips to do that:
- Reinforce Regular Attendance: Discipline means committing to practice, even when you don’t feel like it—monthly, weekly, or daily. Skipping sessions can break the learning flow, making it harder to retain and connect information, ultimately slowing progress.
- Commit to Weekly Training Schedule: It doesn’t matter if you can’t train every day. Weekly training is a great habit for building skill retention. Commit to it, even when you don’t feel like it.
- Combine Various Methods: Building complexity into your routine enhances your ability to learn new techniques and understand the logic and flow of grappling. Don’t rely on just one method—use as many techniques as work for you.
Conclusion
Remembering BJJ techniques is an essential part of progressing in the sport. While it can be challenging, adopting actionable methods like consistent practice, recording, categorizing, and visualization can significantly improve your retention. Building a routine and committing to regular training will enhance your skills, boost your confidence, and allow you to see faster progress on your BJJ journey.