Randy Brown Randy Brown

Failing to Learn

Since it burst onto the public scene in the early 1990s, Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu has garnered immense respect worldwide for its efficacy. BJJ later gave rise to the entertainment industry known as MMA. However, adult practitioners of BJJ and other combat sports have an exceptionally high attrition rate.

Why does BJJ succeed at producing high levels of skill, but only for the select few who survive the gauntlet? Why is the retention rate so low, and what causes students of this esteemed art to fall by the wayside without achieving empowerment, fulfillment, and skill?

Encouraging Failure in Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, MMA & other Combat Martial Arts to Fuel Success

Randy Brown 2024

ABSTRACT FOR THE 9th Annual MARTIAL ARTS STUDIES CONFERENCE - CARDIFF, ENGLAND, UK

Since it burst onto the public scene in the early 1990s, Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu has garnered immense respect worldwide for its efficacy. BJJ later gave rise to the entertainment industry known as MMA. However, adult practitioners of BJJ and other combat sports have an exceptionally high attrition rate.

Why does BJJ succeed at producing high levels of skill, but only for the select few who survive the gauntlet? Why is the retention rate so low, and what causes students of this esteemed art to fall by the wayside without achieving empowerment, fulfillment, and skill?

A structural flaw in the training approach is frequently the primary cause alongside the many other reasons they may have. In contrast, an analysis of modern Eastern Martial Arts training methods that employ non-contact exercises, or cooperative/semi-cooperative drills such as push hands or sticky hands found in Chinese martial arts, frequently hold a higher retention level primarily mitigated by reducing the "cost of failure," but are not heralded for their efficacy in today's combat arenas.

The teaching concepts presented will demonstrate efficient ways to support students' failures during the learning process, coach them to view failure as a learning opportunity, and, indirectly, positively impact the atmosphere, culture, and degree of success that each student experiences when learning a martial art. Additionally, the concepts will highlight and/or eliminate elements that are highly detrimental to the teaching of practical self-defense techniques, student retention, and the empowerment of those who seek out martial arts instruction.

DISCLAIMER: The following paper was written for publication in 2024 based on personal experience in training and teaching kung fu, tai chi, tae kwon do, and Brazilian jiu-jitsu, 1991 to 2024. Attendees who were present for the 9th Annual Martial Arts Studies Conference in Cardiff, England, UK requested that I share this as a written paper. Although this was originally intended solely as a presentation, I was convinced by their strong voices that this information, and my reflection upon years of coaching and teaching would serve the broader Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, MMA, and martial arts community at large. The following version is written for warriors and coaches. Those on the mats everyday who need this the most. A second scholarly version co-authored with David Glover, PhD., is in the final review stage. It will hopefully be coming out later this year (2026).

INTRODUCTION

Failure is a necessary component to human learning (Zhou, Q., Mao, J. Y., & Tang, F. 2020), we require it in order to find the optimal solutions and paths to navigate subjects we commit to learning. However, when we pull back the veil of excitement of said practice, and take a closer look at the martial art Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu (BJJ), and the intense training regimen commonplace in many gyms, it raises the question: 1) is there far too much failure baked into the learning process?, and 2) Is the training too costly physically, or emotionally to those who undertake it?

When examining the high attrition rates found within the style, especially when compared to traditional martial arts such as kung fu, karate, and taekwondo it exposes legitimate evidence indicating such. If this IS true, how can we still benefit from the use of failure in the learning process, but lower the physical and emotional cost, thereby helping more people reach their goals and enjoy the art?

BRAZILIAN JIU-JITSU RANKING STANDARDS

The following data is from my own gym. It is comprised of a relatively small sample size. I began tracking this data 8 to 10 years ago for the purposes of belt promotions. The data is incomplete. At times people joined my gym and left before I had updated my roster. The real numbers, are significantly worse than what I will show, yet these liberal numbers still lay bare a distinct problem that reaches well beyond my gym, and across the wider martial art world.

What caused me to examine this data, was a video with Rener Gracie discussing how only 10% of white belts achieve their first rank in BJJ - the Blue Belt. This encouraged me to look at my own data in comparison. It is important to recognize that this problem is not unique to BJJ but rather, any style of combat martial arts that introduces students to sparring at an early stage.

The  ‘time in rank’ for Brazilian jiu-jitsu is based strictly on ‘minimum time in rank’ standards established by the IBJJF (International Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu Federation, 2024) for their competitions, combined with arbitrary averages within my own gym and those I trained in on my way to black belt. ‘Time to promotion’ however, is completely subjective from coach to coach, gym to gym, and student to student.

The average time to achieve each rank:

  • Blue Belt - 2 to 4 years

  • Purple Belt - 3 to 6 years

  • Brown Belt - 7 to 8 years

  • Black Belt - 8 to 10 years

BJJ ATTRITION RATES

Attrition from rank to rank is seen in the chart below using the data from my own gym. These are the rates of attrition for each rank from white to black:

  • 22% of white belts made it to their first rank of blue belt.

  • 11.7% of white belts made it to purple belt, or 53% of blue belts.

  • 6.5% of white belts made it to brown belt, or 56% of purple belts.

  • There was zero attrition from brown to black.

BJJ Attrition Rates Chart

COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS - US ARMY SPECIAL FORCES

The US Army has a branch of special forces known colloquially as the Green Berets, named for the color and style of cap they wear with their uniforms. During the green beret selection process there is a phase of training designed to weed out and eliminate those who are unsuitable for the job. The success rate of people who pass this phase of training is, 40% on average (Pavelko, Jeff Lieutenant Colonel, 2017).

These are frontline war-fighters who use their combat skills day to day, often fighting when the rest of us are unaware battles are even underway. Juxtapose that with the average martial artist, who is undertaking their training as a hobby more than for immediate survival. Although survival and self-defense are still at the forefront of goals established by many practitioners, the necessity of using these skills in day to day life is often less imperative.

When we compare and contrast, Special Forces and Brazilian jiu-jitsu, it certainly raises a legitimate question – why are those who are using combat as a job, and going through a training phase designed to eliminate inadequate candidates, encountering a higher success rate than those engaging in the ‘sport/hobby’ of Brazilian jiu-jitsu? And by a magnitude of two to four times the success rate.

This observation, while idealistic, is based on the assumption that each professional Brazilian jiu-jitsu coach, those performing their duties for monetary gain, 1) by and large wishes to retain as many students as possible so as to make a living, and 2) help as many people as possible achieve their goals.

WHY DO PEOPLE START BRAZILIAN JIU-JITSU?

When interviewing new students, there are several reasons for individuals starting BJJ: self-defense, confidence, fitness, cool factor, friend, or family member showed them an inspiring technique, or ‘Joe Rogan told them they should’ on his highly successful podcast. Based on personal Interviews conducted with new prospects and students from 2011 to 2024 who came to my gym, the primary reason is for ‘self-defense’.

THE PURPLE BELT

At the rank of blue belt the average practitioner can do things in singular form in various instances in the fight – 1 submission, 1 escape, 1 guard pass, etc. However, when faced with adversity, strength, resistance, or an opponent who outweighs them or is much larger and/or stronger, the singular technique often fails to work and a backup is necessary.

The rank of purple belt is where we see the ability to adapt and overcome begin to really take hold. The ability to do things in series – a submission is countered, they have a back-up. The first escape attempt fails, they try another. They lose the dominant position, and immediately switch to a new position without hesitation, maintaining control over their foe. Boiled down, upon hitting a wall they are able to find another solution or, the capability to exhibit a level of control over an adversary and purchase ‘time’. Time to observe the problem, orient to a new position, decide, and attack. In my opinion these are necessary skills to adapt to the chaos of a violent attack.

Using the purple belt as the measure of success for helping students reach their goal of self-defense from BJJ training, we see that less than 12% met this goal.

WHY DO PEOPLE QUIT BJJ?

In exploring Brazilian jiu-jitsu we can separate the reasons practitioners quit into two larger categories: generic, and those specific to combat sports. The ‘generic’ category is comprised of attrition factors seen in any martial art or hobby. Especially ones that require such a lengthy commitment to achieve a high level of skill. These include:

  • Employment factors such as job relocation, promotions with larger time commitments, demotions, or job loss.

  • Family factors such as marriage, divorce, having children, or a family member who becomes ill and requires more care.

  • Financial factors like buying a home, or losing a home.

  • Declining health of the participant due to illness, or injury sustained outside of training.

  • Experimented with something new and decided it was not for them.

The reasons above are not of interest to us at this time for the purposes of this paper. The next category is of serious importance and central to the use of failure in the learning process of martial arts.

 

INJURIES - THE HIGH COSTS OF FAILURE IN BJJ

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Injuries or, the fear of being injured, are primary culprits for people quitting and leaving BJJ. Even if they enjoy it. When we look around BJJ gyms, we see a bevy of taped fingers, braces for knees and elbows, and the odor of sports medicine sprays as ample evidence in support of this argument.

If a direct or severe injury is not sustained, it is the intensity in which some individuals train that causes the fear some individuals experience — a fear of getting injured. This will drive people to quit, or sit on the sidelines. Due to a majority of gyms taking a — ‘sport’ focus (no striking), it is commonplace to see aggression and intensity increased due to a false sense of security that is born of an environment free of strike-based attacks.

In other words, people take more risks (Risk Homeostasis), and execute the art with more strength and speed than they should. Falsely believing it is ok to execute sparring hard and fast because they’re not hitting one another. No one had a parent or driving instructor tell them when learning to drive, “Put the car in gear, now push that pedal on the right all the way to the floor.” This would quickly and magnificently end in a catastrophe. Going fast and hard on the mats creates a similar risk, albeit one that often takes longer to manifest into serious injury than doing so in a car.

 

BEHIND THE CURTAIN

My own injuries (of the more serious type), include — torn supraspinatus tendon, torn shoulder labrum, dislodged bone fragments (shoulder), advanced arthritis (shoulder), broken toes, ripped ear, crushed trachea — all before I officially began BJJ training. These were my first three attempts at finding a teacher/gym. Once I found a gym that was of a higher caliber, the injuries lessened.

Over the course of the next seven years working toward my Black Belt in BJJ, in my primary gym that I trained at, as well as the team trainings around New England, and including camps, and competitions, the following injuries happened — torn left Lateral Collateral Ligament (down to fishing line), several broken toes, HPV contamination, broken teeth, numerous neck injuries. I later ended up with a torn right LCL after this period.

In comparison, decades of mantis boxing/MMA landed me some scrapes, bruises, and a few concussions. Hang-gliding/Para-Gliding since 2001 (arguably far more dangerous), has resulted in only a few minor injuries more akin to scrapes and bruises than anything severe.

Why I Should Have Quit BJJ

The following essay details my initial, and catastrophic attempts at starting Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu. This is why I strongly advocate that you choose your martial arts based on 1) the coach, 2) the students/community, 3) the style. In that order. The essay provides insight into my motivations to being a better coach, and trying to share the art of BJJ with others, while reducing injuries and the fear of injuries.

Why I should have quit BJJ
 

A CURE, OR A POISON?

According to the Bureau of Justice Statistics which tracks victimization statistics in the USA annually, the likelihood of being the victim of stranger violence in 2026, is .0108%, or roughly 1 in 93.

With commonly accepted training practices found in BJJ gyms that include routine sparring, we can refer to studies done on ‘injuries in Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu’. These show that we have a 68% of being injured within a three year period (31% chance annually). Injuries that keep you from training for 2 weeks or more. This is further broken down — 79% of all BJJ injuries happen while sparring.

If the goal is self-defense, and the training has a 30x greater chance of hurting someone than they have of being the victim of a violent attack, it would indicate that the cure is worse than the disease, and that you are safer not training BJJ for self-defense purposes. It is my firm belief there are other highly important reasons to train BJJ and other combat sport martial arts aside from self-defense, which is beyond the scope of this paper. Comparing this data however is a reality-check when it comes to how we train, and should serve as the impetus for all of us who are coaches to do better at increasing retention and reducing injuries on the mats.

*This is a recent addition to the paper and links to the studies will be added shortly.

 

“BOYS DON’T CRY”

Humiliation is an often unspoken and more emotional reason practitioners have for quitting the art of BJJ. Tapping out, an action we perform when caught in a submission hold, is an admission to another person that they defeated us. While this is a necessary part of the learning process, so we may ‘learn from failure’, when an individual is first introduced to any combat art, but specifically Brazilian jiu-jitsu, “this can be an extremely humiliating process for those not accustomed to ‘failure as a learning tool’ modality.” (Eskreis-Winkler, L., & Fishbach, A. 2022). It offers further damage to the psyche if an individual is using everything they have, and it conjures nothing but defeat.

The following behaviors were witnessed when observing classmates in several BJJ gyms over the years — indicators such as – people repeatedly sitting out from rolling/sparring rounds any chance they can get, some leaving the mats rushing to the bathroom holding back tears, or at the outset of sparring rounds; asking another person — “Can we go really slow?” Expressing hesitation to spar/roll with certain individuals.

Another meme source in the BJJ online world — those who begin a round by listing several injuries they have, the purpose of which being — to secretly express a desire to not get hurt or humiliated, or a passive request for the other person to treat them with more care; especially when facing someone they perceive to have superior size, strength, skill, or aggression.

These factors are more emotional than physical, but become extremely important when presenting the argument that there is ‘too much failure’ in the process of learning BJJ. What is even more evident, is these last two examples often result in the person requesting to “go slow”, or listing their litany of injuries, goes into full attack mode as soon as the bell goes off. This is a clear sign of a lack of emotional control, and fear taking over, rather than some Machiavellian plan to defeat all teammates they encounter.

“Constant persistent failure is counter-productive to the learning process. If failure is persistent, especially when undertaking an activity with a high cost of failure like combat sports, then the probability a person will quit is exponentially higher.” (Lee, S., & Park, J. 2024) Pain, whether it is physical, mental, or emotional, is a natural enforcer to ‘stop’ the thing which is causing the pain.

Persistent failure falls in the mental and emotional categories, and therefore it is often overlooked by coaches, mentors, and even the individuals themselves who do not want to appear weak in the eyes of their peers, or mentors. This makes it extremely difficult for coaches to know the true reason a person has for quitting, as the individual is often reluctant to admit this, or they may not have processed exactly why in their own mind.

DEFENSIVE REACTION

A coach or mentor can easily dismiss a student as weaker, or too weak to handle the training, due to one or more of the factors above. Even becoming defensive when faced with this criticism or behavior rather than empathetic. Perceived more as a threat to their status, teaching method, and livelihood rather than a cry for help.

Appearing indifferent to the plight of the majority, one can see coaches and senior practitioners, myself included, entrench themselves in ideas such as: “It works for me.”, or “This is the way I was trained.”, or “This is the way we’ve always done it.”. Without realizing how many injuries we ourselves have sustained over time. Or recognizing that we are one bad injury away from being in a similar situation, or unable to do what we love. If a gym is successful financially, and their roster is full, there is little to no incentive to peel back the layers and look for a problem, or address these issues.

HIGHER RETENTION WITHIN TRADITIONAL CHINESE MARTIAL ARTS

If we contrast BJJ with traditional Chinese martial arts training, which typically includes the use of forms training (tao lu), shadow boxing, sticky hands (qi shou), and push hands (tui shou), we see much higher retention rates in the classes. The focus on solo skills training, movement patterns, or partner exercises produces an environment with a very low cost of failure. By and large when people quit in these gyms, it is due to one of the generic reasons above in my experience. Providing it is not an issue with the instructor or teammates. However, despite having a better retention rate there is an inherent problem with the transmission methods of Traditional Chinese Martial Arts. For that we first need to define what martial arts is.

WHAT IS MARTIAL ARTS?

To define Martial Arts we should consider Paul Bowman’s thoughts from his keynote talk at the Martial Arts Studies Conference 2024, Cardiff, UK that the definition of martial arts itself is arbitrary, and subject to the viewpoints of the practitioner, training group, and coach. (Bowman, MAS 2024) Before delving into the deficiencies and failures of the modern-traditional Chinese martial arts curricula, I’ll establish a measurement criteria by defining what martial arts means (to me), and why the aforementioned goals individual students establish for beginning their martial arts training, are not being met according to these standards.

As a coach and practitioner I define martial arts using the following three criteria:

  1. SEEKING WEAKNESS - the constant and never ending quest to find our own weaknesses in — skill, technique, timing, etc., and the overarching goal of shoring up these weaknesses once found. The mats/dojo/wuguan/training hall/garage/backyard, or wherever we train, this environment informs us of where we are deficient not only in hand-to-hand combat, or weapon combat, but likely it reflects and translates directly to psychological and emotional weaknesses we have off the mats in our day to day life. This constant struggle and exploration allows us a vehicle to continue to improve and strengthen who we are as human beings.

  2. ORGANIZING CHAOS - the idea of a martial art itself as the ‘organization of chaos’. Fighting another human being can be defined as — ‘chaotic’. This word describes succinctly the randomness, challenges, and disarray that happens within combat with another human being. During the engagement we cannot possibly know what the other person will do, or how they will go about attacking us. Through training martial arts skills and techniques, controlling ourselves, our actions, tactics, positions, and emotions, we can limit the options available to an opponent. Thereby reducing the number of possibilities they have to attack us and organizing the chaos into a more manageable state.

  3. INOCULATION TO METHODS OF VIOLENCE - the third definition of martial arts is the ‘inoculation to methods of violence’. Through trust in our partners and teammates we engage in the act of inoculating ourselves, and one another, to the wide range of possible attacks that could happen to us in a real world situation. This exposure allows us to learn and adapt appropriate responses to these acts of violence through repetition, and control failure. Training effective means of mitigating and possibly dominating these risky scenarios. Martial arts training halls ‘should be’ a safe environment where we can engage in such practices so as to build skills to deal with circumstances that could otherwise kill us outside of the training hall where ‘TAP!!!’ is no longer an option.

A martial art that fails to meet any or all of these criteria leaves the practitioner feeling insecure in their abilities, or provides a false confidence in one’s capabilities. Creating a ‘skills fantasy’ versus ‘skills actual’. When practitioners engage strictly in solo and restricted partner training routines found in Traditional Chinese Martial Arts (and others), they fail to achieve the goal of learning ‘self-defense’, as is evident by the lack of participation and/or success of Traditional Martial Arts in modern combat sport arenas, challenge matches by amateur fighters, and sparring.(See early UFC/MMA fights, challenge matches versus traditional ‘masters’ in China, et al Personal Experience sparring with taekwondo and kung fu from 1999 to 2006, and versus practitioners of these arts from 2006 to 2024)

These failures are not exclusive to specific styles, or schools of Asian martial arts. The same outcome can be reproduced when sparring with practitioners of combat sports such as: boxing, kickboxing, etc. from gyms that focus strictly on bag and mitt work, kickboxing workout classes with ‘no partner work or sparring’, and any other martial art style focused on technique and void of sparring.

To be fair, combat sports suffer their own inherent weaknesses due to overly specialized training. Training modalities that lock practitioners into sport rule-sets, reducing their exposure to the chaos they will likely face in a real world self-defense scenario.

“When faced with a situation outside of their specialty, an attack the martial artist has not been inoculated to, the fighter often hesitates, or pauses to question what is currently happening, or why they are not effective at their skills, etc.” (Buonomano 2012) This can place the combatant ‘behind in the fight’ versus an aggressor, who shows no such reluctance or hesitation in the battle.

Examples:

  1. A boxer facing a kicker. Each time the boxer approaches, they get blasted in the leg. Unfamiliar with this attack due to sport rules, they hesitate, and question what just happened. 

  2. A Muay Thai fighter with a light fighting stance for mobility and kicking facing a Greco-Roman wrestler only interested in shooting the takedown. The muay thai fighter suddenly finds themselves on their back while getting smothered with pressure. With no tools to deal with this, delay, and likely panic sets in.

  3. A BJJ Purple Belt with a focus on sport rules fighting a striker. They pull guard on the striker ready to go to work. The strike begins to ground and pound and the BJJ practitioner is now in uncharted territory with no map.

All of these scenarios reproduce similar outcomes. The mind of the fighter facing an unfamiliar, unscripted condition they have not been inoculated to. The fighter/grappler/wrestlre now falls back on whatever tools or attributes they had prior to gaining skills — speed and power. It is observed that quite often after being indoctrinated into sport fighting, the practitioner even forgets basic fighting and survival tools they may have used before taking up martial arts training e.g., hair pulling, groin strikes, eye pokes, etc.

WHY DO PEOPLE GET INJURED IN BJJ?

When people start Brazilian jiu-jitsu or any martial art, especially individuals with no prior training, there are two phenotypes, or innate attributes that have dramatic effects on sparring — 1) power, and 2) temperament, which manifests as speed (Naureen, Perrone,  Paolacci, Maltese, Dhuli, Kurti, Dautaj, Miotto, Casadei, Fioretti, Beccari, Romeo, & Bertelli, et al, 2020).

When a student is faced with stress, fatigue, fear, a lack of skill to deal with a situation, or the aggression or speed of a partner, or the perception of such even if it is not happening, then they will inherently fall back on using one or both of the aforementioned attributes as a survival mechanism. Therefore, the introduction of speed and power into the act of sparring in a gym is the primary culprit that leads to injuries and such a high cost of failure in Brazilian jiu-jitsu, and other combat sports such as MMA.

WHEN SUCCESS IS NOT SUCCESS

The use of ‘strength’ and/or ‘speed’ to bring success to prevent a ‘TAP!’, a hit, or a takedown, only “reinforces to our brain that we are using the correct behavior/response” (Russel, Stuart; Norvig, Peter 1995) to help us not just succeed, but more importantly — survive.

Example: A practitioner taps out a teammate four times in a rolling session. The following week the victim decides they are not going to get caught again by this person. They approach their next sparring session with all the resistance they can muster. If they are successful they reinforce the use of speed and power as behaviors, rather than skill. This delays the learning of skills. Additionally, they are vastly increasing the likelihood of injury as the person who was tapping them out is receiving that speed and power, and adds speed and power of their own. Couple that with some amount of skill and this leads to catastrophic injuries in a ‘learning’ environment.

SOLUTIONS

How can we encourage failure in learning to fight while lowering the cost of failure, allowing students the freedom and enjoyment of training and gaining new skills? The following methods have been found in my own gym, to increase retention, drastically lessen injury and the fear of injury, as well as build improve teamwork and camaraderie on the mats for everyone in the class.

Although new numbers will take years for an accurate comparison, the following guidelines are the principles I use in my gym which have been successful at affecting positive change that was evident within months, and continues to show promise after now 4 years of using these methods:

  1. PROBLEM SOLVE APPROACH (Halloun, Hestenes 1985, et al) - Present students with problems not solutions. Avoid over-coaching. Let people work together to solve problems and embrace the struggle together. This has shown increased ownership over the learning process and increases enjoyment of successes when they achieve them. We can accomplish this with a variety of methods: 1) show a move, let others figure it out, 2) set up a situation and ask them to try and solve it before revealing answers. Provide hints where needed, or to prevent massive detours down non-productive paths. Use a light touch.

  2. CURRICULUM - Build a curriculum to teach by. An outline is sufficient, and does not need to be specific down to the lesson plan which can often put the teacher into a cruise control mode. Preventing innovative thought or organic evolution to the process that may spawn from a looser structure each time the same subject matter is taught. If I teach the same curriculum I developed 15 years ago, then I am failing to share 15 year of further growth, knowledge, development that I can bring to bear to help people avoid pitfalls and mistakes.

    • Brazilian jiu-jitsu is quite easy to build a curriculum for, especially for white belts. We use the 4 Dominant positions template - mount, side mount, back mount, guard (closed/open) as a platform. We add how to control someone, or positional control, a handful of submissions from each position, and then how to escape said position.

  3. STAY ON TASK - Once we have a curriculum stay focused on each ground position for months before moving on. Start with solo drills to give students a way to practice off the mats, then introduce ‘one’ submission. Add from there week by week, all the while the student is getting reps on the moves they have already learned establishing pattern recognition (what to use where), gaining coordination, strength in the right places, learning to relax in the moves, and becoming adept at the technique while being exposed to other submissions they may never otherwise see. Repetition is the mother of all skill.

  4. STRESS TEST - Prior to leaving a position behind, spend 1 to 2 weeks stress testing the position — ‘positional sparring’. Each student starts in the position and tries to pull off the submissions when the person under them, or in their guard, is non-compliant. Escapes work the same way. Using resistance to test the escape to see if they can still get out, or at least apply the correct principles under duress. While success here is welcome, it is not the point of the test. The goal here is to give the person exposure to what a resistant adversary feels like. Helping them understand that things are not always as easy as they appear without the risk of full on sparring.

  5. NO STRINGS! - Avoid showing off some fancy move, or a high level sequence to set the person up to pull off a submission. After introducing a technique in this way, most students cannot execute the submission when the time comes in live rolling. All of the time and repetition was spent on the chain, or sequence that lead up to the submission or sweep, rather than on the submission itself. By showing chains of movements to arrive at the point of the lesson, we are only distracting them and inhibiting learning rather than instilling how to finish the move in the first place.

    Example: We start our lesson off with something like — “Today we are going to work on the keylock (americana) from side control. Start in your opponent’s guard then grab the belt —> walk the knees back —> round the back to break the guard. Now knee slice pass to the side mount —> execute the keylock.”

    This can be drilled for the usual 10 to 20 minutes before rolling begins. As soon as it is time to roll the outcome is more like this:
    The student starts in guard, grabs the belt as they were shown, and the person under them punches them in the face. Now they are asking themselves what the hell just happened, and why the coach didn’t talk about that.

    We can use sport rules only for the example:
    The student starts in guard, grabs the belt to start their break, and the person on the bottom reaches into their collar and starts choking them. The same questions arise: “What do I do now?”, “Why didn’t the coach talk about this?”

    Did the student go home that day remembering the keylock and how to execute it from side control? No. They instead went home thinking about all the times they were tapped out in the subsequent X number of rounds of sparring, and wondering what they can do to stop that from happening the next time. Are they learning through failure, and coming up with questions? Yes, but we’re not providing a new skill, but rather constantly putting out fires, and reinforcing the use of primitive skills, or attributes.

  6. DELAY SPARRING/ROLLING - Remove sparring for white belts until they have gone through the entire curriculum one time. For my gym this takes roughly 2 years for both the Mantis Boxing, and BJJ cycles. There is still periodic and strategic pressure testing with resistance drills, and positional sparring as I mentioned. This is by far the most important piece, and was the hardest for me to institute. I was not taught this way and refused for years to institute it in my own gym even though deep down I knew it was the right call. Once I took this step, change began almost immediately. This action allows for:

    1. Ample time for students to replace ‘power’, and ‘speed’, with skill so when it comes time to spar, they do not fall back on the fight, flight, freeze response and rather, institute the new responses with the skills they’ve invested two years into learning.

    2. Builds trust and camaraderie amongst teammates. Martial arts is an individual sport/activity vs a team sport like soccer, or football. However, we need a team, or partner(s) in order to progress and evolve. Without such we have very limited chance of successfully understanding these arts we practice. By removing sparring, and thereby developing skills and trust, the next step is possible. The introduction of sparring will require ultimate trust and strong bonds within teammates, or we risk backsliding into raw emotion and out of control bouts within the gym.

  7. MENTOR SPARRING - Once a student has gone through the curriculum one complete cycle institute mentor sparring to help them achieve pattern recognition and acclimate to all the moving parts working together. Mentor sparring is established with the following parameters:

  1. One-Offense / One-Defense: Before the round starts establish ‘one person on offense’, and ‘one person on defense’ parameter. This can be determined by the participants or coach, and allows each person to know what their primary role is. This prevents accidental clashing where both sides are competing for position and are failing to help one another, increasing the likelihood of injury with those new to sparring.

  2. Setups: The mentor sets up opportunities for the newer individual to apply skills they have learned. Examples of this are: they are in the mount and they leave their arm out so the person sees the arm bar. Another would be rolling to the turtle to give the person an opportunity to take the back, and then execute the lion killer choke after rolling them. Dropping a hand to leave the head open for a strike. This is done in a variety of situations on an as needed basis.

  3. Pauses: The mentor pauses in positions their partner fails to recognize, or when a mistake is made, giving the student time to recognize the pattern and take action. The lower the skill level the longer the gaps. A purple belt may still need a pause to assimilate a new skill learned, but likely the gap will be much smaller than that same move for a white belt. No matter what rank or skill level, if the fighter is not recognizing the pattern, and definitely does not know what to do in that situation, the mentor can then give them a nudge, or a hint as to what they are missing so they can recognize the next time. Good practice is for the mentor to set up that same situation a couple more times (if time allows in the round), so the person can repeat the correct solution.

  4. No Gear!: If striking and kicking are part of your training, remove all pads and gloves from the sparring rounds. Gloves, helmets, pads result in people taking more risks in sparring. This is known as ‘Risk Homeostasis’ and is well studied in football and driving. Additionally, within combat sports, it is my experience that helmets, pads, and gloves cause people to hit harder and go faster. Each time they hit someone, they do not get the expected response (pain and disruption), so they naturally add more intensity in order to compensate. Not only do helmets specifically, encourage injuries (concussions & CTE), the use of them retards the learning rather than encouraging it. People take more risks and eat more punches, mistakenly thinking they are ‘protected’.

RESULTS AND CLOSING STATEMENTS

In closing, I challenge that we must ask ourselves who is setting these standards of what Brazilian jiu-jitsu training looks like? Who is running classes and coaching others? Whose job is it to help the students reach their goals? Who continues to perpetuate this ineffective cycle? It is not the 94% who quit along the way. It is not even the 6.5% that made it to black belt as not all of them go on to teach. It is the even smaller percentage that go on to coach. Change must start with us.

A majority of practitioners are not trying to be the best competition jiu-jitsu grappler in the world, and yet our training practices and sparring formats exhibit such patterns, and our attrition is worse than the elite military units. Without self-reflection, interviewing students who leave, or taking stock of retention data, we as coaches can become entrenched in the status quo.  “It worked for us so why is this a problem?”

We made it through the gauntlet, and it feels good to be a member of such an elite group of people that made it to the highest levels of BJJ, one of the few who overcame a monumentally difficult task over such a long period of time and in the face of extreme adversity. Yet, is the destruction of bodies, minds, and spirits, in our purview of coaching and teaching others the art of Brazilian jiu-jitsu? Or is our objective to help students achieve success and reach their own goals of learning to defend themselves?

It is unrealistic and idealistic to believe we can eliminate all injury from martial arts training, but we can vastly decrease the propensity for such, while reaping the benefits from sparring. Over the past two years I have instituted the changes I laid out above. It has shown my students, those who I am fortunate enough to get to teach, that sparring can be fun. An activity we enjoy and learn more from than any other part of our training. It is the glue that binds our skills, teaches us to adapt, and produces confidence in our abilities. And we have shown it can be done without compromising efficacy, while also reducing injuries, improving confidence, and building solid skills across the entire team.

We have witnessed an epic change in the atmosphere of the team these past couple years. We graduated a crew of 5 new blue belts, all with increased competency. Each of them acclimated well to the sparring classes, and rely on skills when they spar rather than using speed and power as their primary tools. Camaraderie is now the norm, rather than competition. Team members have become invested in one another's success, not just their own and by proxy the failure of others they train with, and constantly compete against.

We replaced power and speed with skill, and skill is the new normal. Knowledge, understanding and abilities have gone up drastically, and retention, even though it will be years to compare the data, has flipped 180 degrees.

References

  1. Zhou, Q., Mao, J. Y., & Tang, F. (2020). Don't Be Afraid to Fail Because You Can Learn From It! How Intrinsic Motivation Leads to Enhanced Self-Development and Benevolent Leadership as a Boundary Condition. Frontiers in psychology, 11, 699. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2020.00699

  2. International Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu Federation (IBJJF) (2013-2024). Graduation Standards. https://ibjjf.com/graduation-system

  3. Pavelko, Jeff Lieutenant Colonel (2017). US Special Operations Command, USSOCOM IMPLEMENTATION PLAN PROGRESS, 6 (SFAS Table 2012-2015 et al).  https://dacowits.defense.gov/Portals/48/Documents/General%20Documents/RFI%20Docs/June2017/SOCOM%20RFI%202.pdf

  4. Eskreis-Winkler, L., & Fishbach, A. (2022). You Think Failure Is Hard? So Is Learning From It. Perspectives on Psychological Science, 17(6), 1511-1524.https://doi.org/10.1177/17456916211059817

  5. Lee, S., & Park, J. (2024). Giving up learning from failures? An examination of learning from one's own failures in the context of heart surgeons. Strategic Management Journal, 1–32. https://doi.org/10.1002/smj.3609

  6. Russel, Stuart; Norvig, Peter (1995) Artificial Intelligence: A Modern Approach, Prentice Hall. 

  7. Ibrahim Abou Halloun, David Hestenes; The initial knowledge state of college physics students. Am. J. Phys. 1 November 1985; 53 (11): 1043–1055.https://doi.org/10.1119/1.14030

  8. Ibrahim Abou Halloun, David Hestenes; Common sense concepts about motion. Am. J. Phys. 1 November 1985; 53 (11): 1056–1065.https://doi.org/10.1119/1.14031

  9. David Hestenes; Toward a modeling theory of physics instruction. Am. J. Phys. 1 May 1987; 55 (5): 440–454.https://doi.org/10.1119/1.15129

  10. Hanford, Emily (Host). (2012) Physicists Seek To Lose The Lecture As Teaching Tool [Audio Podcast]. National Public Radio.  https://www.npr.org/2012/01/01/144550920/physicists-seek-to-lose-the-lecture-as-teaching-tool

  11. Buonomano, Dean (2012) Brain Bugs: How the Brain's Flaws Shape Our Lives, W.W. Norton & Company

  12. Bowman, Paul (2024). Opening Talk Martial Arts Studies Conference 2024, Cardiff University, Cardiff, UK. https://youtu.be/PuTWMS0z1XQ?si=hsdyKJsFjbpAiZnS

  13. Naureen, Z., Perrone, M., Paolacci, S., Maltese, P. E., Dhuli, K., Kurti, D., Dautaj, A., Miotto, R., Casadei, A., Fioretti, B., Beccari, T., Romeo, F., & Bertelli, M. (2020). Genetic test for the personalization of sport training. Acta bio-medica : Atenei Parmensis, 91(13-S), e2020012. https://doi.org/10.23750/abm.v91i13-S.10593

  14. Varillas-Delgado, D., Del Coso, J., Gutiérrez-Hellín, J., Aguilar-Navarro, M., Muñoz, A., Maestro, A., & Morencos, E. (2022). Genetics and sports performance: the present and future in the identification of talent for sports based on DNA testing. European journal of applied physiology, 122(8), 1811–1830. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00421-022-04945-z

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Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, Mantis Boxing, Research Theory & History Randy Brown Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, Mantis Boxing, Research Theory & History Randy Brown

What Can BJJ Teach Us About Qing Dynasty Martial Arts? - Randy Brown - MAS Conference 2019

This podcast is a re-recording of a talk I gave at the 5th Annual Martial Arts Studies Conference held at Chapman University in Los Angeles, California in May 2019. The event was hosted by Dr. Paul Bowman, and Dr. Andrea Molle. A two day extravaganza of martial arts history, politics, and culture. There is amazing research into the martial arts taking place around the globe today. It was an honor to be a part of this significant event, and contribute in some small way to the Martial Arts Research Network. Below is a copy of the…

Mantis Boxing Historical Timeline

This podcast is a re-recording of a talk I gave at the 5th Annual Martial Arts Studies Conference held at Chapman University in Los Angeles, California in May 2019. The event was hosted by Dr. Paul Bowman, and Dr. Andrea Molle. A two day extravaganza of martial arts history, politics, and culture. There is amazing research into the martial arts taking place around the globe today. It was an honor to be a part of this significant event, and contribute in some small way to the Martial Arts Research Network. Below is a copy of the abstract submission for my talk at the conference to help lay context before listening.

Abstract

What Can Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu Teach Us About Qīng Dynasty Martial Arts?

The continually evolving art of Brazilian jiu-jitsu (BJJ) and the journey of this style throughout the 20th century can provide insights into key elements of the Qīng dynasty Chinese martial arts, helping to demonstrate similar developments in the ‘Chinese Boxing’ systems of that era. Specifically, by following the modern evolution of BJJ, it is possible to gain insights into the sudden appearance of totem styles or subsets across China, how these anomalies become styles in their own right, and how they survived and thrived for over a century. A martial arts cross-cultural comparison of style subsets within BJJ, which have developed since the early 1990s, can be juxtaposed with the pre-modern development of comparable ‘subsets’ within Qīng dynasty ‘Chinese boxing’. On the other hand, the survival and globalization of this stylization in China differs with how developments within BJJ propagate, where instead changes become rolled into a pool of common knowledge and do not take hold as independent systems or alternative styles outside of the core art. A question needs to be asked, did ‘Chinese boxing’ of the era, have a similar common pool of knowledge? Qī Jì guāng’s manual would hint at such. Within ‘Chinese Boxing’, attributes, feats, or skills defining one fighter over another became definitive styles of their own right due to events of the time, compared to a failure in modern times for these subsets to survive independent of BJJ, even though properly vetted in the crucible of worldwide tournaments. In the Qīng dynasty a confluence of events which included rebellions, opium wars, global humiliation and the collapse of a dynasty, began to solidify these subsets as styles in China. Eventually, cultural industrialization of Chinese martial arts, notably through the Hong Kong movies, ingrained these styles into popular culture with the result being securing their legitimacy to the public eye without any evidence of martial prowess.

Keywords:

Chinese martial arts, Brazilian jiu-jitsu, Qīng dynasty, animal styles, Chinese boxing

Biography

Randy Brown

Randy is an owner and teacher at Randy Brown Mantis Boxing, Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu in Acton Massachusetts. Randy has over 20 years’ experience with praying mantis boxing with additional cross-disciplinary training in various Chinese martial arts: eagle claw, Hung gar, long fist, Yang, xingyiquan. Randy has trained in 17 Chinese martial arts weapons and specializes in staff, saber, sword, and military saber and has seven years’ experience in Brazilian jiu-jitsu. He has published a number of articles in martial arts journals, including Kung Fu Tai Chi Magazine and Journal of 7 Star Mantis and has competed and placed in both the U.S. National Wu Shu Championships and the International Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu Federation. Randy holds a Bachelor of Science in computer science from Franklin Pierce University. In his spare time, he enjoys writing, drawing, painting, and hang-gliding.

Bibliography

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