This will be a post examining skill acquisition in BJJ (Brazilian Jiu Jitsu) for the hobbyist. This post is mostly for myself to collect my thoughts and outline some of my goals as I work on my current skills. My main goal is to improve my skills rapidly in the next 6 months with a game plan. Let's cover the most important point first: Showing up to your traditional BJJ classes and open mats three to five times a week as your sole method of improving at BJJ is not close to the fastest way to improve at BJJ. It does work, and you will learn, however it is a one size fits all solution. BJJ gyms are stocked with people that are often very good at BJJ, but they often don't have optimized learning systems for students implemented for a number of reasons. One of central tensions for hobbyists is balancing enjoyment of the hobby with skill development. Gyms must consider this when building curriculum and schedules for their students. As an individual it comes down to how important skill development is to you and if you will enjoy and stick with BJJ if skill development is your primary focus.

If skill development is your priority, then it becomes easy to exist within the most common gym structure and still rapidly build skills. If you simply enjoy rolling and find your existing practice rewarding enough I still encourage you to read this post in full. You will probably find some elements and small changes you can make in your weekly practice that will improve the speed with which you acquire BJJ skills without compromising the quality of your enjoyment. Minimal time investment for a relatively high upside. If you find it rewarding to see skills successfully implemented it may encourage further exploration of a more skill development focused path in BJJ for you. My central argument that most BJJ practitioners should focus more on skill development is that it is inherently rewarding for most people to see the successful implementation of skills. BJJ is a ridiculously frustrating sport at times and that frustration stems from the difficulty of learning and implementing skills. Everyone has been there when they have won some small or large movement in a roll and then frozen "What do I do now?" And once you have moved past "What do I do now?" and learned some things that work for you it becomes "How do I do this better. Is this optimal?" We are here to cut down in that learning cycle and start with optimal things.

One of the biggest things and simplest mind sets is continuously asking "Why?" This can lead to a serious rabbit hole where it becomes difficult to know when to stop questioning, so called diminishing returns. That said, most of us are extremely uncritical about numerous minor details of how we play this sport. Where grips are placed, where feet go, how bodies are positioned, and what actually works and does not work. These things all matter. Often they matter tremendously yet they are discarded by ourselves as minor details. Self questioning and review of rolling is an extremely important and often unpracticed activity. TODO Reference Ryan Hall and Lex Friedman podcast where Ryan Hall talks about this.