It took a few months and some more classes before Charles and I became friends. He then asked me to help him prepare for competitions and be a test dummy for students in his private lessons. Little did I know that was going to be most transformative period for my Jiu-Jitsu.

Lesson No.1: Master the fundamentals

Charles spent many years training with Roger Gracie in London. Throughout all of his lessons he would reference the techniques he had learned and developed with Roger and Braulio Estima. And all them were around basic positions.

His main focus was mastering the fundamentals and the core positions to the highest level. He would often remind me that there is no point learning how to berimbolo if you can’t hold someone in back mount.

It was humble reminder to learn to walk before trying to run. Here’s a simple checklist you can ask yourself:

Can you hold a higher belt in Side Control for 5 minutes?

Can you hold a higher belt in Mount for 5 minutes?

Can you hold a higher belt in Back Mount for 5 minutes?

Lesson No.2: Train to be a Black Belt

At the time I was a brown belt. I was snobbish and felt like I had done my years of grinding basic positions. I had picked up some tricky escapes and cool submissions that worked well against lower belts.

But . . .

When Charles had me in bottom of side control I tried to use my tricky escape and trap the bottom leg and get my half guard back. Yeah right. I was instead flattened out, could barely breathe and couldn’t do sh*t.

Afterwards I said to him that usually works against lower belts. He replied “do you want to train to beat blue belts or do you want to train to be a Black Belt?.”

The lesson is to aim higher. Whether you are a brand new white belt or a seasoned purple belt. You’re Jiu-Jitsu should be geared towards a higher level of mastery. Avoid learning flashy tricks and doubling down on bad habits because you got away with it a few times.

I’ve recently heard a good analogy about this. Imagine a strong oak tree. It’s roots firmly planted in the soil, it has a strong trunk and grows to the very top of the rain forest canopy before it’s branches span out and it’s leaves grows. If one of the branches break the tree doesn’t fall down.

Now picture your Jiu-Jitsu. Unless you have strong strong fundamentals you do not have strong tree. If your rely on flashy tricks and someone is aware of it you are going to fall down pretty quickly.

Lesson No.3 It takes time to learn

As you know Jiu-Jitsu takes a long time to learn. The things I learned from Charles around pressure passing, holding and escaping basic positions took years to implement. Here’s why.

There are two forms of Jiu-Jitsu:

1. Your knowledge of Jiu-Jitsu

2. Your skill and ability in Jiu-Jitsu

When your Coach shows you something new you understand it theoretically. You watch them demonstrate it. You even try practice the technique with a partner. In the process you are expanding your knowledge of Jiu-Jitsu.

But when it comes time to implement your skill and ability is lacking because it’s usually your first time and it’s hard. The roll is live and you meet resistance. It becomes easier to slide into what you are familiar with rather than what you should be practicing. This problem compounds the more techniques you learn.

Unless you make a habit of consistently trying to implement what you have learned you will forget it and it will become irrelevant.

It took me 2 years of practicing what Charles taught me before it started coming naturally. I had to force myself to start under the bottom of side control every roll I could and practice the escapes. I was also fortunate to have filmed a large amount of techniques so I could go back and watch them to make sure I was doing the details correctly.

But now the strongest part of my game is defending and escaping from bad positions. Click below to watch a Free Video from Charles around side control. You won’t regret it.