By Guillaume Huni

I’ve just finished reading Nicolas Gregoriades’s new book ‘The Black Belt Blueprint‘. Gregoriades is Roger Gracie’s first black belt. The book is about the system that he put in place when training, which allowed him to progress so fast in Jiu-Jitsu. I got my black belt in 12 years, so I was really curious to see what Nic did differently than me.

This isn’t your regular BJJ instructional book crammed with a bunch of positions and techniques, and some acrobatic submission moves.

The ‘Black belt blueprint‘ combines all the important issues that affect your progression in Jiu-Jitsu. It is a guide which applies to all grapplers coming from a very technical and spiritual BJJ player that understands the value of perfection of basics, small details that make a difference, nutrition, strength and conditioning, training mentality, breathing techniques, how to avoid overtraining and much much more.

Nic goes through the main position such as mount, backmount, sidecontrol etc.. and gives us pointers on the best ways to position your bodies from an attacking and defending position. While reading this, I had so many ‘Aha’ moments especially in the part for the mount. Nic is the student of the king of the mount choke, Roger Gracie, so those details on how to place your feet and legs, while in the mount, will come in very handy.

Nic also gets into other aspects of BJJ such as diet, competition, what type of gi to buy, breathing and awareness while on the mat, head control and movement, controlling angles, training with your eyes closed, how to avoid injuries, training in Brazil, warm ups and cool down.

Nicolas Gregoriades talks about his book:

Conclusion:

This is really the book that I should have read 12 years ago when I had started BJJ! Of course Nic says it himself that he was training 3 times a day and living for BJJ. But his method makes a lot of sense and can be applied by all from top competitors to part time BJJ players. I recommend this book to BJJ players of all levels. There is so much to learn from this book from the physical, mental and spiritual aspect.

10/10

You can download it here.