Did you know that Caio Terra earned his BJJ black belt in just 3 years of training?
Yes, that’s right. He progressed super fast. But how did he do it?
Well, he had a studious approach to learning techniques. He didn’t “just drill” – but did so with additional focus.
He explained this process of learning techniques in an interview with BJJEE:
I was always good in school. So, I started taking the approach of „school“, instead of doing what everyone else was doing in practice.
What happens in practice is that, pretty much, the teacher shows the technique, everyone drills and then they train.
But, most people can’t remember the technique when they train – or, even if they do remember, they can’t use the techniques perfectly because everyone has a different body type, everybody has a different level of strength…This is why, in order for the technique to work, you can’t just mimic it – you have to understand it.
That is to say, you have to study Jiu-Jitsu:
What I started doing was that I started studying jiu jitsu, instead of just drilling it.
For, I can’t drill something if I don’t know if it is fully right… If I don’t have the body mechanics down yet.So, what I started doing was that I started studying the techniques that my instructor was trying to teach. I was having my partners do different movements, and to induce different reactions from them.
And from those reactions I would start trying to study and to understand why I should do those techniques.
Terra also analyzed what other instructors taught:
I would look at the other instructors, at what they would teach, and then I would try to mix things around.
I was trying to mix things up and to make the best out of each technique. And I think that my technique aspect evolved a lot faster because of this.
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