The 5 Black Belt Learning Strategies

“What matters is not how many classes you take, but what you take from each class.”

-R. Gracie

Team:

If you don't subscribe to the Gracie Insider, I'd highly recommend you sign up to receive it. Each month, you'll receive an email newsletter from the Gracie Academy in Torrance, California, that has training tips and other educational information.

This month's Gracie Insider featured a video (see previous post) about maintaining the mount position. In addition, the newsletter also contained the first of five learning strategies characteristic of a black belt. Tips two through five will be featured in upcoming newsletters, but here's the first one. To sign up for the newsletter, click here.

The 5 Black Belt Learning Strategies

At the Gracie Academy a black belt is awarded to any person who reaches their max potential in Gracie Jiu-Jitsu. Although any person who trains long enough will eventually be awarded a black belt, it is fascinating how some people do it in much less time than others.

Because the time varies so greatly, people often wonder what the secret is to rapid progress in Gracie Jiu-Jitsu. Most instructors would tell you that all it takes is hard training as often as possible. At the Gracie Academy we believe that it is not how many classes you take, but what you take from the classes.

Those who progress most rapidly in Gracie Jiu-Jitsu are the ones who know how to learn most effectively. In the each of the next 5 issues of the Gracie Insider, we will be discussing one learning strategy that will help you reach black belt in the least amount of time possible.

Black Belt Learning Strategy #1: Learn Between the Lines

At the Gracie Academy, we pride ourselves in providing super detailed instruction. The problem is that students of ours tend to believe that by simply showing up to class and absorbing all the details, they are reaping all the benefit of the class, when if fact, this is totally wrong.

What they don’t realize is that in any given class, the spoken details only cover 50% of the valuable information presented during the class. The secret to learning between the lines is to take what is said and see what other valuable information you can derive from it.

For example, if we say, “The most important Triangle Choke detail is to control the head,” most people would only infer that they must control the head during the Triangle Choke while the students with more effective learning strategies would also infer that if you are on the receiving end of the Triangle, the most important thing would be to keep your head from getting controlled by your opponent.

By learning to “learn between the lines,” you will benefit doubly from each lesson which is why this learning strategy will unquestionably put you on the fast track to Gracie Jiu-Jitsu mastery.

See you on the mat -- this evening!