Everyone wants to find out the secret to becoming good in BJJ! They want to figure out that „one little detail“ or that „one small change“ in their game, which would give them an edge over their training partners… But, as you may have noticed, there are no secrets in Jiu Jitsu; it all comes down to being consistent in training and being analytical about your techniques.
But here’s the thing: if you’re looking for a „secret“, then you should think about performing the two above-mentioned tasks with more quality. For instance, you could analyze your game better by video recording your rolls!
WHY SHOULD YOU VIDEO RECORD YOUR ROLLS?
You may think that video recording your training sessions isn’t really beneficial. That it’s unnecessary. Well, sure, you can continue training without it – but why do you want to find a secret to BJJ success if you’re not willing to use it?
Video recording your rolls, as well as your drills in training, will open up your eyes to the aspects of your game and techniques in a way that wasn’t accessible before. You’ll know what this is about if you ever did something cool (in-training or otherwise) and had a friend film you doing it… How did it look like when you watched the video? Was it as cool as you thought it was? Or were you kind of disappointed in how it turned out to be?
It’s the same thing with Jiu Jitsu. You may think that you’re doing something extremely well, but if you record yourself – you’ll notice that there’s a lot of room for improvement.
It serves as a reality slap on your face. Which you absolutely need if you want to improve!
HOW SHOULD YOU VIDEO RECORD YOUR ROLLS?
Now that you’ve decided to record your rolls, you need to figure out how to do it. And it isn’t quantum physics, really; all that you need to have is a camera and a place to position it.
The „camera“ doesn’t have to be an actual camera, but you can use any phone or video recording hardware you have. Just grab anything you have and bring it to training. But you have to put some thought into where you’ll position it.
That is, if your academy is generally packed with people, it may not be smart to put it on the mats; it’ll probably get crushed at one point in time or another. Instead, place it somewhere outside of the mats, perhaps on a chair that’s on the side of them.
Also, be wary of which angle you want to record yourself from, so that you can get as many details out of the recording as possible. If it’s a live roll that you’re recording, then it probably won’t matter much, because you’ll be changing position all the time. But if it’s during a drill, make sure to find the best angle first.
WHAT TO DO WITH THE FOOTAGE?
Once you have the recording and you get home after training, you need to get analytical about it. Take your notebook, take your pen and play the video(s); look for things that you’ve done and think about how you could do them better. Observe the techniques and setups you failed at – and figure out what you need to change to get them right next time.
Write all of this down, for writing will make your thought process more thorough. Then, you’ll be able to reflect on it once or multiple times more; which will give you a LOT of insights on how to improve your Jiu Jitsu!
