Our Next Video Project: The Bellingham BJJ Advanced Curriculum

December 10, 2020

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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 »

How to Fail Correctly

February 12, 2020

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One of toughest things to do — in life or in jiujitsu — is to fail properly. But wait! I hear you say: If we’re failing, aren’t we, by definition, doing it wrong? Not at all: Failure is a part of everything, and the way we react to failure determines everything. Jiujitsu is powerful because it is utterly unforgiving of the little myths our minds tend to create. During my first ever jiujitsu sparring session, I assumed my high school wrestling background would make me relatively safe from non-wrestlers’ takedowns. A few years later, I assumed I was safe from Read more »

My first class as a black belt

January 13, 2020

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Since I got my black belt last month, people have been very cool about asking me questions about the various firsts associated with this milestone. Today I want to tell you about my first class at black belt. The reason I want to tell you about this: people have been asking what I chose to show during my first-ever class at this rank. The answer. I didn’t teach anything. I took the class, and I took it from my good friend and partner David Porter, who has an extensive library of techniques at his disposal. What kind of wizardry did Read more »

What Jiu-Jitsu Means To Me

January 7, 2020

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Prior to my black belt test, my instructor Seth Shamp asked me to write something that expressed what jiu-jitsu — the art itself, as well as the journey I’ve been on — means to me. This is what I wrote. At the end of the post, you can see a video of my black belt speech and listen to a podcast we did about the journey.— Jeff My life is jiu-jitsu, and jiu-jitsu is my life. I mean that both literally (I train and teach and learn jiu-jitsu constantly), but also metaphorically. For me, jiu-jitsu is a philosophy, a way Read more »

6 Months of Bliss: An Anniversary Post

November 1, 2019

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Warning: mad gratitude ahead. If you don’t like shout-outs, maybe go back to watching that BJJ technique video you were checking out. But it’s time for some love, because we held our first classes in downtown Bellingham 6 months ago today, on May 1, 2019. Since then, we’ve grown — as individual martial artists and as a community — beyond our wildest imaginings. We’ve trained with multiple world champions and legends of the art. We’ve reconnected with old friends and made a ton of new ones. We’ve become what we always hoped we had the potential to be. It’s been Read more »

Competition at Bellingham BJJ: A Guide

September 3, 2019

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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 Read more »

The Drilling List

April 12, 2019

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The best way to improve at jiu-jitsu is this: just come to class and practice the move the instructor shows. It really is that simple. At white and blue belt especially, showing up to training and putting in the drill time will get you where you need to be. As you advance in jiu-jitsu, setting aside time outside of class for drilling becomes a solid strategy for improving — one that becomes more and more important over time. These days, I’m teaching a lot. As an instructor, my first responsibility is always going to be making sure the students are Read more »

How Do You Train Jiu-Jitsu For Life?

April 7, 2019

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You’re never too old to start jiu-jitsu. People think that’s a slogan, but it’s the truth. Every week I have a conversation with someone who tells me they’d start training, but they’re too old. As someone who started in the latter half of my 30s, I usually feel qualified to dispel the myth that Brazilian jiu-jitsu is only for young people. Even more qualified that me to speak on this, though, is my dear friend Betty Broadhurst. Betty started even later in life than I did, and is still an avid competitor. Betty is in the Master 7 division, and Read more »

What Does a BJJ Belt Promotion Mean?

June 30, 2018

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Sometimes I think jiu-jitsu would be better without belts.

I understand the reasons for them: People love having markers of their progress, and they help for competitive fairness, and — my favorite aspect of belt promotions — I believe in any excuse to have a celebration. But belts are also controversial; every school has different standards, depending on whether the school emphasizes sport, self-defense, MMA, or a combination of those. Even within a school, those standards can change — sometimes radically. What a belt means might mean very different things depending on the student or instructor that you ask. Belt rank can feel arbitrary, and people can take them too seriously.

But BJJ belts are meaningful. They display to training partners what type of proficiency they can expect. They provide important waystations on the long journey. Most importantly: they contain memories. This alone means belts, whatever baggage they come with, have importance.

How should we think about belts, then?

Goals for Jiu-Jitsu: A Modest Proposal About Abundance

May 28, 2018

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I just want everybody to train jiu-jitsu. Everybody, everywhere.

That’s unrealistic, right? Sure, but every goal should start out unreasonable. If you start by telling yourself you’ll be happy with a 30 percent successful outcome, you’ll hit a lot of targets, but you’ll also shortchange your potential a fair bit.

Sure, it’s impossible to convince every single person I meet to train jiu-jitsu with a 100 percent success rate. Let’s talk about a tinier success rate, then — let’s say that rate is one percent.

Imagine your community is a mid–size city, somewhere between the average American town population of 20,000 and, say, 100,000. Think of between 2,000 and 10,000 people actively doing jiu-jitsu just in the town where you live. How many gyms could that support? How many Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu tournament competitions, MMA fights, superfight events, seminars? How many fun community events that also inspire people to train?