The Main Quest of BJJ: How To Win All 3 Levels of the Game

This is my 2 minute YouTube video about how to think of the 3 main levels of BJJ and how to win them. If you do all these steps perfectly, you never need to learn anything else. Of course, no one does them perfectly, so you’ll need to understand a lot more about BJJ before you can be good at it.

That being said, I often think that BJJ has too many options.

• Golf: hit the ball in the hole.
• Wrestling: take them down and pin them.
• Basketball: put the ball in the hoop.

That’s not to say that there aren’t infinite variations on how to be good at basketball. But the goals of each phase are relatively well understood.

No one sits there with the basketball in their hands thinking “ok, now what?”

But with BJJ, I often see people struggle with the fundamentals of “now what?”. I’m in bottom side control, now what? Am I supposed to try to choke them, or am I supposed to get guard, or am I supposed to roll them? Oh, I saw this video on a buggy choke, maybe I should do that? Or maybe octopus guard? etc. etc.

All of those are options, and can be fun paths to explore. But when I watch high level matches, I think a fairly good summary of what’s most effective (with the exception of leg locks):

• Standing: pull guard.
• Bottom: sweep to top.
• Top: pass guard and submit them.

• Beginners
• Main Quest
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