One of the most important things you could do for your BJJ progress is to compete as much as possible. Gaining plenty of competition experience at each belt level will spotlight the things you need to work on – and will therefore make you improve faster. It will make you a more skilled competitor as well.
This approach needs to stay the same when you reach your black belt, too. For example, Rafael Lovato Jr. has had 346 matches as a black belt so far!
He shared the statistics on his social media:
The Raw Grappling Championship made a cool poster of me to promote my participation in their event this weekend. On the poster it says that I have 56 submission wins. I knew I had much more than that, but I wasn’t sure exactly how many. I have kept track of all my competitions since becoming a Black Belt, but I had not organized any stats or counted up my total matches.
I decided to do that & there is the number I came up with. I’ve won right at 75% of those matches. Could be better, but could also be worse… Can you guess how many submissions I have for real?I’ll give you a hint, I submit my opponent in more than 50% of my victories.
View this post on Instagram
Can you imagine it? 346 matches, only as a black belt. His next competition will be on November 14, at the Raw Grappling Championship.
Check out what Rafael Lovato Jr. had to say about improving your BJJ on this BJJEE Podcast episode:
