If you want to improve in Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu – especially if you’re an active competitor – then training a bit of MMA is going to be extremely beneficial.

Why? Firas Zahabi explained that to one of his BJJ competitor teams:

“Even though you guys are just doing Jiu-Jitsu, you should – once a week or once every two weeks – do open palm sparring. No gloves, you don’t even need gloves.”

I was telling them that it’s harder than Jiu-Jitsu, that it’s going to make them better athletes, that it’s more calories per second, that it’s intense… So, when you get to a grappling tournament, they’ll feel like: “Hey, this is not so bad.”

Zahabi also mentions how he watched the Ruotolo brothers prepare for their Who’s Number One (WNO) matches; and how Andre Galvao (their coach) would make them wear gloves and do a bit of punching/MMA before they’d start with the actual grappling session.
He emphasized how wise that is:

MMA is more intense, it’s going to complement your Jiu-Jitsu.

There’s a certain amount of MMA that will help your Jiu-Jitsu. I’m not saying: “Do MMA to win in Jiu-Jitsu”. No; if you take the world’s best MMA fighter and put in ADCC, he’s gonna get crushed.

What I’m saying is – think about the Pareto principle. You want to do 80% of Jiu-Jitsu and 20% of something else, that is going to complement your Jiu-Jitsu.

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