*“I am a shark, the ground is my ocean, and most people can’t even swim.”* — Rickson Gracie ___________ Hello and welcome to the class notes for the Brazilian Jiu Jitsu Beginner Class at UBC, taught by Professor Rafael and Coach C.J. ***Disclaimer*: This notebook is entirely a student volunteer effort, and is not endorsed or reviewed by Professor Rafael. Any mistakes are due to my sole oversight (please correct me when you spot them!), as well as references to any external educational materials.** _________ # Beginner Orientation If you're just starting with no background in martial arts, I would recommend going through an orientation in this order: 1) Finding your motivation [[Why Brazilian Jiu Jitsu]], and knowing [a brief history and origins of BJJ](https://youtu.be/4CGYQjC6WOY?si=BBVJDIureFVkBpW2) *Optional Exploration*: The history of BJJ is actually more complicated than the brief history usually told, which often emphasizes the role of the Gracie family. [This documentary](https://youtu.be/UiVyUQqkWro?si=wkp23T5s4qKsXE5I) is great if you want to dive deeper and know more about how other martial artists and practitioners outside the Gracie family helped develop the art, and how World War II and national politics in Brazil shaped its development. 2) Understanding the importance of maintaining **correct posture** (making yourself very stable and thus difficult to take down) and for self-defense situations, cultivating **situational awareness**. 3) Learning [[Breakfalls & The Technical Stand-Up]] to prevent injuries to your head, spine, hip, heels and ankles when you fall down. 4) Learning Takedowns - check the left menu for the 'Takedowns' folder. Many fights will start standing, and the greater part of BJJ's corpus is on the ground, so you need to *take down* your opponent first before you can apply more jiu jitsu techniques (**the exception to this rule is Standing Submissions** - see left pane). NB: Breakfalls come in handy here when you're the one being taken down. You'll see that lots of these are from judo and wrestling. *Optional exploration*: Effective takedowns need effective grips - if the takedown is Step 1, then **grip-fighting** is Step 0 ! How to set up grips for Gi & No-Gi? and how to get rid of your opponent's grips? See [[Fundamentals of Grip-Fighting & Clinch-Fighting]]. As you'll notice, grips will be different for Gi vs no-Gi, but [[Why do we train both Gi & No-Gi]] in the first place? 5) Now that your opponent is down, you're probably eager to try out all the cool submissions in BJJ. You'll notice that, **except for leglocks, all the other submissions are united in having a single barrier to entry: The Guard**, i.e., your opponent getting their arms and legs to work against you. You must learn how to **Pass the Guard** since a trained opponent will resist you and won't simply give you their neck or arms to submit. Check out the folder 'Passing the Guard'. 6) Learn the [[Illegal Moves in Competitive BJJ]], which are also prohibited in sparring *Optional exploration:* How to spot an illegal move about to be done on you, and how to prevent or mitigate possible damage. See [[Injury Prevention in BJJ]]. 7) [[Sparring Dont's]] and [[Rolling Etiquette]] 8) Take a bird's eye view of BJJ in [[The Architecture]] and in Stefan Kesting's [[Roadmap-for-BJJ-1.5-1.pdf]] 9) Your partner just asked you to practice the technique on their 'bad side', and your instructor asked you to 'flow'. What do they mean? See [[Terms & Terminology]] 10) You're now ready to dive into more ground techniques! Read the next sections. # Notebook structure Coming from [Japanese Jujutsu](https://koryu.com/library/koryu/) background, which has well-organized sets and katas that acted as mental 'files and folders', I found BJJ to be scary as it did not seem to have a clear structure: A technique could be called by multiple names, and some techniques don't have a name (yet); watching trained people spar made it even more confusing as positions changed so quickly it wasn't always clear who's "winning"; higher belts could seem to miss clear opportunities for attack or purposely put themselves in worse position (turns out they do so on purpose so they can later launch surprise attacks from there or they're giving their partner a chance to learn). In short, I was seriously thinking of quitting until I started researching and came across a mental model of BJJ which is based on two central concepts: *the six primary positions* and the *positional hierarchy*. These two concepts inspired the structure and outline of the files and folders in this notebook, which are being populated with videos and tips in the order they are covered in the class log. One can think of 6 primary positions; in each position, there are techniques available to you, depending on whether you're **Top Player (TP)** or **Bottom Player (BP)**. Techniques can be further subdivided by objective: whether they're being used to submit the opponent (submissions), move up the positional hierarchy (sweeps and transitions), or maintain your current position against an opponent trying to transition or submit you (defenses). Submissions and transitions are considered *offensive* techniques, as opposed to *defensive* techniques. PS: A *transition* moves you to a different (typically a more dominant) position, e.g., side mount to full mount. A *sweep* is also transition in which you're switching from being at the bottom to being at the top, e.g., going from the bottom to the top in closed guard via the [[Scissor sweep]]. # How to use the notebook You can use the notebook to keep track of what's currently being covered in class through the [[2025 Class Log]], and/or review a continuously growing knowledgebase of BJJ techniques. NB: I log the classes I personally attend, but there may be gaps if I miss a class (I'm looking for collaborators who wish to keep the class log up-to-date. If you're interested, please send me an email: [email protected]). To use the knowledgebase, you can type in a keyword in the Search Bar in the top left, or start using the notebook by navigating to the primary position you want to learn more about (accessible from the left menu), then to the variant of that position. For example, Butterfly Guard is a variant of the Open Guard. Both the [[Butterfly Guard]] and the [[Standard Open Guard]] are therefore under the folder 'Open Guard'. The note for a specific position will have links to the techniques available in that position, organized by WHO they're available to (TP or BP) and WHAT they're being used for (Defenses, Transitions, or Submissions). Finally, many thanks to Professor Rafael, Coach CJ, [Alex](https://shofukan.ca/about#instructor), Dennis, and David, for their continuous teaching and support. Happy (and Safe) Rolling! [Arwa Abougharib](https://arwaabougharib.page/)