Articles

Bellingham BJJ: The First Five Years of Belts

Bellingham BJJ: The First Five Years of Belts

Every so often, it pays off to look up from the grind and see how far you’ve come. This is true of jiujitsu academies, but it’s also true of you on your own personal jiujitsu journey. We’ve all experienced plateaus, since this is a dynamic and challenging art that will never be fully solved. Your plateaus are always higher than your previous personal bests — but it’s hard to see that. We’ve been open five and a half years total, and we’ll celebrate our fifth anniversary downtown this May. Taking a look at some of the numbers we’ve gathered over Read more »

Competition at Bellingham BJJ

Competition at Bellingham BJJ

With competition season in full swing, let’s talk a little bit about some recent results we’re excited about, as well as what competition means (and what it doesn’t mean). Competition is very valuable for growing your jiujitsu. We train every day to improve, and if you’re training correctly, you’re testing yourself in the academy against people of all different levels and backgrounds. But going up against people who you don’t know, who do different techniques, and who are trying to earn the same medals you are, is a tremendously valuable experience — it shows you what really works and what Read more »

Summer Events

Summer Events

Great progress! As we move forward with re-opening, we have a ton of exciting things scheduled for this summer that we want to share with you — starting next week. Let’s begin with the return of … Women/NB Self Defense: Starts June 5 For six weeks on Saturdays, beginning this Saturday, we’ll be doing Self Defense Saturdays at 1 p.m. Any women or non-binary folks training at the academy are welcome to come to these classes at no extra charge. (Folks outside the academy are joining the class, too, and if you’re interested, you can sign up here). If it Read more »

May 1, We’re Expanding Our Schedule

May 1, We’re Expanding Our Schedule

Hey everyone! Lots of progress, and we’re going to continue our progressive system of opening more based on the conditions on the ground and guidance from professionals. Whatcom County is in Phase 3 of re-opening, and that allows us to run more classes, more often. You can see our schedule starting May 1 here, with classes 7 days a week. The short version: We’re expanding to allow 20 people in each mat room (50% capacity), opening up an Intro to BJJ session, and allowing vaccinated people to train with other vaccinated people outside their training pods. We’re also keeping the Read more »

Show Notes: BJJ Mental Models on Pro Wrestling for BJJ

Show Notes: BJJ Mental Models on Pro Wrestling for BJJ

Exactly two weeks ago today, on the first of April, I appeared on the BJJ Mental Models podcast to discuss my views on why professional wrestling is the best base for learning the grappling arts. Show host Steve Kwan concurs, and for an hour, we talked about all the reasons this is true. Since, I’ve received a host of messages asking for further research support — people interested in expanding their games are asking me where to go to learn pro wrestling techniques that they can include in their jiu-jitsu game. OK, off the top of my head, the best Read more »

Phase 3 Starts Next Week. Here’s What That Means.

Phase 3 Starts Next Week. Here’s What That Means.

Spring is here, and with it, some changes: We’ve had tons of questions about when we’ll open to the public again, and what Phase 3 means for us. I’m pleased to be able to supply some answers! Those are below. But first … We have some folks testing for belts on April 3! Here’s the Facebook event. I’ll be reaching out this week and next to folks that are testing and their partners, and then we’ll know how many in-person observers we can have. We will also stream the event starting at 10 a.m. on April 3 at bit.ly/BellinghamBJJ and Read more »

Limited Re-Opening Monday

Limited Re-Opening Monday

On March 1, we’ll do a limited re-opening of the academy. We’re excited about this — we have some new class offerings, too — and we’re going to be extremely careful over the next month to be sure that we do our part to combat coronavirus and stay open. During the month of March, we’re going to be extremely careful — which means we’re not accepting new students at this time, at least until after April 3. We’ve consulted with local health officials to make sure that we’re meeting or exceeding their guidance on best practices. We have a phased Read more »

Online training starts Feb. 1: Here’s our schedule

Online training starts Feb. 1: Here’s our schedule

Y’all, we continue to have a lot of interest in both our online programs and in our eventual re-opening date. Here’s a comprehensive update on both! We won’t be opening our downtown space until at least March, and will continue to track the pandemic indicators for guidance on when that will be. I wish I had better news, but Whatcom County is in the midst of an outbreak and all counties are still in Phase One of the re-opening plan. We will continue to hope for March and keep you posted. In the meantime, we’ve paid in advance for our Read more »

Our Next Video Project: The Bellingham BJJ Advanced Curriculum

Our Next Video Project: The Bellingham BJJ Advanced Curriculum

Y’all, we continue to be closed due to COVID, and we won’t re-open until 2021 for sure. We want to keep bringing you jiu-jitsu, though, and use this time productively. In that spirit, I’m excited to let you in on our next video project. The fundamentals are the most important techniques in jiujitsu: That’s why we’ve already filmed our entire fundamentals curriculum and put it in an Unlisted YouTube playlist for members. Everyone has to learn the fundamentals: That’s a requirement to be considered for blue belt, and you can see that list of techniques both in the playlist and Read more »

Closed until further notice due to coronavirus

Closed until further notice due to coronavirus

Hello, everyone: Doesn’t the virus understand it’s KIMURA MONTH?!?!?!? Sadly, no, it doesn’t, because it’s a virus. I hope everyone’s weekend is going well: We got some great training yesterday, including our first Blue Belt Curriculum class. Unfortunately, we expect those to be our last classes for a while.  We expect to get some bad news today at 11 a.m. Due to rising cases of coronavirus statewide, Gov. Inslee is expected to announce closure of all gyms in the state — along with other restrictions on businesses like restaurants and bars. This means that as of Monday, we will be Read more »