Competition should be a natural outgrowth of your jiu-jitsu progress. This is a long game, and getting better at jiu-jitsu (by coming to class) means you’ll get better at competition jiu-jitsu. That said, preparing for a tournament is a specialized type of training.
Here is the way we want our competitors to prepare for tournaments. We’ll update this post with specific tournament information as it becomes available!
FOR GENERAL ADVICE: Check out the Dirty White Belt post Preparing for Tournaments 101, which has links to several blog posts Jeff has done about competing.
IF YOU HAVE ANY QUESTIONS NOT COVERED HERE: You can always e-mail Jeff or Dave at jeff@bellinghambjj.com or dave@bellinghambjj.com, or talk to us in person.
UPCOMING EVENTS
Be sure you know the rules for every event you compete in! Different tournaments have very different rules.
Proving Grounds
Rules / submission legality.
Weight classes
How to Win and Other rules
The Revolution
Rules (including points, weight classes, etc.)
CBJJF
All CBJJF Tournaments follow IBJJF rules.
Grappling Industries
Rules
We want you to succeed. Maybe you’re choosing to compete for the fun experience, which is great. But if you want to train to win, we have the following expectations for folks who choose to compete seriously:
OUR SPECIFIC EXPECTATIONS FOR COMPETITORS
COME TO REGULAR CLASSES. GRIND HARD IN THOSE CLASSES. There is no substitute for showing up to class, drilling the moves, and training hard during rolling. This keeps your jiu-jitsu growing for the future, beyond any tournament, but it also keeps you on track for the event.
Competitors should be training 5 times per week, minimum. We have classes every day now: Check out the full schedule here.
DO EXTRA DRILLING. At least twice a week, do a series of two-minute drilling rounds. You should make a list of the techniques you want to focus on for this tournament. Then, grab a partner and drill those moves for two minutes at a time. We suggest you make a list of your best two standing techniques, guard passes, sweeps, submissions and escapes.
DO COMPETITION STYLE ROUNDS UNDER SUPERVISION. Competitors need to be at open mat — at least one of the weekend open mats. Competitors can use this time to drill techniques and get in rolling rounds.
For the final hour of open mat, we will take one room and designate that a room for competition rounds under supervision by Jeff, Dave, or whoever is running open mat. Competitors will start standing and do competition-style rounds using the time limits and rulesets of the event they’ll be competing in.
Over 8 weeks, competitors need to do at least 10 of these mock rounds before the tournament they’re competing in.
A TEMPLATE 8-WEEK PREPARATION GUIDE
8 Weeks Out:
1. Start eating clean. Drink water: avoid beverages other than water or green tea. Pick the weight class you’re aiming at and begin eating the healthy foods that will get you there. Don’t focus on dropping weight: focus on being healthy, strong and prepared at your natural weight.
2. Come to class. Roll every round. (If you want to do extra cardio, that’s fine, but in order to get better at jiu-jitsu, the key thing is to do a lot of ju-jitsu).
3. Create your list of moves to drill. Drill that list twice.
4. Read the entire list of rules at the tournament where you’re competing.
7 Weeks Out:
1. Continue eating clean. Give yourself one cheat meal per week.
2. Come to class. Roll every round.
3. Drill your list of moves to drill twice.
4. Do your first supervised competition rounds. Ask Jeff or Dave to supervise and offer feedback.
6 Weeks Out:
1. Continue eating clean. Give yourself one cheat meal per week.
2. Come to class. Roll every round.
3. Drill your list of moves to drill twice. Do your first Perfect Match drills for top and bottom. If you need help designing your Perfect Match drills, ask Jeff or Dave.
4. More supervised competition rounds. Ask Jeff or Dave to supervise and offer feedback. Use these rounds to see what’s working and where the holes are. If necessary, re-evaluate your drilling list.
From 5 Weeks to 2 Weeks Out:
1. Continue eating clean. Give yourself one cheat meal per week.
2. Come to class. Roll every round.
3. Do your Perfect Match drills for top and bottom every day. Use them as a pre-class warmup.
4. Drill your FINAL list of moves to drill twice.
5. Continue supervised competition rounds. Ask Jeff or Dave to supervise and offer feedback.
1 Week Out:
Your last day of rolling should be Monday before the event. Roll only with trusted partners. Be sure you’re on weight Monday. Plan nutrition accordingly. We don’t want to dehydrate ourselves to make a weight class.
Drill a lot, up through Wednesday, to stay sharp.
Do some light drilling the night before, including your last Perfect Match drills.
GENERAL TOURNAMENT ADVICE
WHAT DO I NEED TO BRING TO THE TOURNAMENT?: Besides the gi and no-gi gear, you’ll want to wear athletic shorts (like bike shorts, fight shorts, or any secure shorts or leggings without zippers and pockets) underneath the gi. Some people wear a shirt or rash guard under the gi. Many do not. Trim your nails short and be clean (i.e. have showered). I also like to have a spare gi and belt in case for some reason they hassle me about my gi being competition legal.
Bring fruit, nuts, water, energy bars — whatever clean snacks will keep you going between divisions.
Don’t forget to have fun out there, killer.