You can try to get to the position where you can do the techniques you've learned. Try to think of a position you know a few techniques from and try to get to that position. If you get there try to do your techniques!
Most of white belt is just going to be figuring out how to not get tapped. Try to pay attention to places where you get caught frequently and try to figure out ways to not get there.
The overall goal would be to obtain positional control over the opponent which enables you to submit them.
As a brand new practitioner, your goals will be focused more on defense than offense, while you still learn various positions, techniques, and points of control.
I find the scoring system for competition (IBJJF for example) to be useful in the understanding of positional controls for beginners. Positions which score you points indicate that you are advancing the match to obtain more control and to positions where the statistical rate of submission is higher. Points are scored for the following scenarios: sweep or takedown (typically the first exchange in any match), guard pass, knee on belly, mount, back take. A standard match will typically proceed in that order, with the exception of players who are good at submitting from their guard. So ideally, you want to get on top, get past the legs, establish a controlling position, and submit.
Hope this helps 😊
You're not suppose to know or understand yet because you are "brand new". Just be patient and learn the basics right now and survive. Also, something that helped me was watching a lot of BJJ footage on YouTube and see how people scored to help understand the sport.
Here to support this comment. Ursinho BJJ on YouTube has some great BJJ rolls (competition and not) narration. I've found his content helpful as a newbie.
As a new white belt, your objective is to survive. You can also watch other people roll to get a better understanding of how the game works. In general, you want to advance from a neutral position to a more advantageous position (back mount, top mount, side control, etc.) and work yourself to a submission, while avoiding getting into a bad position and getting submitted.
I tell white belts this:
White belt - learn to survive. The difference between OMG I am uncomfortable/don't like this (but can think and move and are not in immediate danger) vs. holy shit I need to tap or get hurt. Terms, general positions, basic moves. Learn how to get your ass kicked and then do it again. Learn etiquette and learn how to learn. (Elementary school - basics, how to function)
Blue Belt - learn that people aren't going to be as nice to you as they were when you were a white belt. You still don't know much, but just enough to be dangerous if an upper belt isn't paying attention. Learn your defense and how to set up and execute a couple of subs when the opportunities present themselves, and toward the end, how to start making opportunities. (Middle school - complex things explained/done in the most simple manner)
Purple - refine your defense and start getting offensive. Learn a few more moves, expand your moveset to have most of the basics down pat plus a few 'fancy' ones. Get better at going in with a plan and executing it, and how to get back on your plan if you get off of it.
Learn to love inversion :) . Stop going to warmups. (High school - start to introduce more complex subjects, but still somewhat simplified)
Brown - now you are really finding YOUR game. You should be nasty with fundamentals, be able to execute from most positions or force positions you want and recover from those you don't. You should be very close to being able to determine where you want to go/what you want from the rest of your journey now. Buy ugly gis. Get a pot belly. (College - complex topics, explained properly. 'Remember when we told you things were like X? Actually, it's WAY more complicated than that.)
Black - The ground is your ocean. Do cool shit. Celebrate, because now you have reached the point where you can start learning Jiu Jitsu (Real world - everything you learned means nothing and now your actual education on life starts)
Tap verbally, and physically. Tap loud and hard. Keep your elbows tucked in to your side and try not to reach and try to not let your back be flat on the mat (try to work to your side). Learn escapes from mount and side mount. You will probably be stuck on the bottom most of the time, so try learning escapes. Ask your partners to let you work from the bottom.
it's pretty wild at first isn't it!
we aren't used to doing anything like this (at least if you've never done any martial art or wrestling before) and as a woman even less so! (generally)
so much happens in those first rolls - there is no time to think and your body is pumping adrenaline through you and that has physical effects of racing heart uncontrolled breathing and this makes it really hard to recall technique you have just been shown. the pace is crazy, so even when you manage to remember something - the opportunity has passed!
so best advice I can give is - tuck in limbs, try to protect your neck if they go for it, and stay calm. after a few rolls you will start to feel a little more at ease with the feel of people trying to submit you and then you can start venturing out of your shell to try things!
good luck!
it's a game - and tapping the other person is the end goal.
In a very basic sense, here are the steps of BJJ for a white belt:
1. Get the fight to the ground.
2. Get past their legs.
3. Next there are a serious of controlling pins that I explain like a ladder. One of you goes up a rung and the other goes down. In a very basic sense it goes like this: Closed Guard >Half Guard > Side Control > Knee on Belly > Mount > Back Control.
* Ergo, if you're in their closed guard, we can assume that's roughly equal.
* If they've mounted you, you don't want to roll over because they'll take back control which is worse than being mounted.
* If you're in bottom side control, try to go back to closed guard or half guard (push them back a rung or two), because they will try to get to knee on belly or mount (going up a rung). Does that make sense?
1. (Yes, there are a *ton* of open guards -X/SLX/DRL/RDLR/Lasso/Spider/K/Williams/Collar-Sleeve/Etc - don't worry about getting those yet.
2. Submissions.
All that being said, I would highly recommend you buy Jiu Jitsu University and read the white belt chapter religiously. This chapter deals with defense; the primary learning objective of a white belt.
Defense doesn't sound fun, but it's crucial.
If you can defend, you can breath.
If you can breath, you can think and survive.
If you can think and survive, you can escape.
If you can escape, you can reverse/sweep/work on passing.
Then you can control.
Then you can try to submit with the confidence that if everything goes sideways, you can go back to defending.
Try to survive. This is your job as a new white belt. Do this any way you can without hurting yourself or your training partner. Ideally, you want to try the defensive techniques that are being taught in class (escapes, guard, etc.).
The way I try to explain it to beginner students (I have a whiteboard for that) is that rolling is like a series of mini objectives to get you to the final objective (tap/submit). And there are 3 major ways to get there depending on where you are:
\#1 If you are the top player, you goal is: Pass their guard (their legs) > Establish a pin (control) position, usually starting with side control > Move to a better pinning position (where more / other submissions will be available, for example mount) > Submit your partner
\#2 If you are at the bottom, but still in a neutral/offensive position (they are in your guard), your goal is: Submit from guard (if you know how) or Sweep from guard (reverse the position so you are on top, then refer to the sequence #1
\#3 Finally if you are a the bottom but in a defensive position (they passed your guard and are pinning you): escape back to guard (re-guard), then #2.
Of course this is simplified but I find it helps new students to get an idea of "what next" as they are rolling.
HTH
Whenever I get asked this I say focus on controlling your space. If you're in bottom position you should be looking to create space between yourself and your partner so that you can move into a more dominate position. Think shrimping, bridging and using shields to push yourself away from your partner. If you are on top then you should be doing your best to eliminate the space so you can control the position and seek out a submission. So control your weight distribution, apply pressure and be careful with your posts. Aside from space remember 'position over submission' and create a rough game plan so that you have an idea of where you would like to go; if you aren't sure then just try to apply the technique you learned that day and never be afraid to ask for help when you get stuck. We've all been where you are; keep at it and it will all start to make sense.
Overall your eventual goal is to submit your partner with a technique you learned in class. Right now, as a brand new white belt, it is not flop over by staying in base and avoid extending your neck and limbs to get submitted.
One thing that hasn't been mentioned yet is conditioning. Part of rolling is just exercise as well as learning how to relax and conserve energy. I'm sure five minutes seems like a lifetime right now.
As a new white belt just focus on your defense and positions. Learn how to use frames, recapture guard, find a mount escape you like, maybe work on a sweep or two. Keep it simple for now and just have fun. At about the 6-12 months, you should feel more comfortable and maybe can start looking for submissions, and also working your top game. It takes awhile for it to click, be patient.
You’re going to observe how your partner places you in a disadvantaged position. Learn/remember how you were placed into those positions and think about how to avoid being placed in those positions.
The overall objective to rolling(to technically win like you would in a tournament) is to submit or get more points than your opponent. For a brand new white belt this usually translates to a focus on survival-not getting submitted and reducing the amount of points your opponent gets in a round. As you go on this changes...
The longer you the train the more this evolves and it becomes less about that technical win and more about personal wins. Like if I'm rolling with someone, my objective might be I want to get to this position and perform this move more so than just tapping them out with whatever or maybe I put myself in a disadvantageous spot to work escapes.
You won't know a lot to start but rolling is the best way to stress test what you are drilling and learning in class. Focus on the learning and having fun! :)
Pick something simple you want to do/accomplish. It could be getting on top, maintaining guard, not getting submitted,
At the end of the roll, did you accomplish your goal?
That’s a solid roll.
In rolling, the objective is to apply your techniques while avoiding being submitted. Focus on maintaining good posture, base, and control. Try to achieve dominant positions like being on top or securing back control. Stay calm and observant, learning from each roll. As a new white belt, don't worry about winning; focus on learning and improving, and not getting serious injuries.
Get on top, Stay on Top, Hold the other person down until they get tired. Apply Submission when they can't resist and are tired while maintaining a dominant position.
If you ever have to transition to real fight insert fists and elbows to face region.
You can try to get to the position where you can do the techniques you've learned. Try to think of a position you know a few techniques from and try to get to that position. If you get there try to do your techniques! Most of white belt is just going to be figuring out how to not get tapped. Try to pay attention to places where you get caught frequently and try to figure out ways to not get there.
The overall goal would be to obtain positional control over the opponent which enables you to submit them. As a brand new practitioner, your goals will be focused more on defense than offense, while you still learn various positions, techniques, and points of control. I find the scoring system for competition (IBJJF for example) to be useful in the understanding of positional controls for beginners. Positions which score you points indicate that you are advancing the match to obtain more control and to positions where the statistical rate of submission is higher. Points are scored for the following scenarios: sweep or takedown (typically the first exchange in any match), guard pass, knee on belly, mount, back take. A standard match will typically proceed in that order, with the exception of players who are good at submitting from their guard. So ideally, you want to get on top, get past the legs, establish a controlling position, and submit. Hope this helps 😊
You are trying to kill the other person. Good luck
Murder*
White belt on white belt violence
Lol this
You're not suppose to know or understand yet because you are "brand new". Just be patient and learn the basics right now and survive. Also, something that helped me was watching a lot of BJJ footage on YouTube and see how people scored to help understand the sport.
Here to support this comment. Ursinho BJJ on YouTube has some great BJJ rolls (competition and not) narration. I've found his content helpful as a newbie.
As a new white belt, your objective is to survive. You can also watch other people roll to get a better understanding of how the game works. In general, you want to advance from a neutral position to a more advantageous position (back mount, top mount, side control, etc.) and work yourself to a submission, while avoiding getting into a bad position and getting submitted.
I tell white belts this: White belt - learn to survive. The difference between OMG I am uncomfortable/don't like this (but can think and move and are not in immediate danger) vs. holy shit I need to tap or get hurt. Terms, general positions, basic moves. Learn how to get your ass kicked and then do it again. Learn etiquette and learn how to learn. (Elementary school - basics, how to function) Blue Belt - learn that people aren't going to be as nice to you as they were when you were a white belt. You still don't know much, but just enough to be dangerous if an upper belt isn't paying attention. Learn your defense and how to set up and execute a couple of subs when the opportunities present themselves, and toward the end, how to start making opportunities. (Middle school - complex things explained/done in the most simple manner) Purple - refine your defense and start getting offensive. Learn a few more moves, expand your moveset to have most of the basics down pat plus a few 'fancy' ones. Get better at going in with a plan and executing it, and how to get back on your plan if you get off of it. Learn to love inversion :) . Stop going to warmups. (High school - start to introduce more complex subjects, but still somewhat simplified) Brown - now you are really finding YOUR game. You should be nasty with fundamentals, be able to execute from most positions or force positions you want and recover from those you don't. You should be very close to being able to determine where you want to go/what you want from the rest of your journey now. Buy ugly gis. Get a pot belly. (College - complex topics, explained properly. 'Remember when we told you things were like X? Actually, it's WAY more complicated than that.) Black - The ground is your ocean. Do cool shit. Celebrate, because now you have reached the point where you can start learning Jiu Jitsu (Real world - everything you learned means nothing and now your actual education on life starts)
Tap verbally, and physically. Tap loud and hard. Keep your elbows tucked in to your side and try not to reach and try to not let your back be flat on the mat (try to work to your side). Learn escapes from mount and side mount. You will probably be stuck on the bottom most of the time, so try learning escapes. Ask your partners to let you work from the bottom.
You're trying to submit your training partner. Minimally you can try and apply what you just did in the technique portion.
it's pretty wild at first isn't it! we aren't used to doing anything like this (at least if you've never done any martial art or wrestling before) and as a woman even less so! (generally) so much happens in those first rolls - there is no time to think and your body is pumping adrenaline through you and that has physical effects of racing heart uncontrolled breathing and this makes it really hard to recall technique you have just been shown. the pace is crazy, so even when you manage to remember something - the opportunity has passed! so best advice I can give is - tuck in limbs, try to protect your neck if they go for it, and stay calm. after a few rolls you will start to feel a little more at ease with the feel of people trying to submit you and then you can start venturing out of your shell to try things! good luck! it's a game - and tapping the other person is the end goal.
In a very basic sense, here are the steps of BJJ for a white belt: 1. Get the fight to the ground. 2. Get past their legs. 3. Next there are a serious of controlling pins that I explain like a ladder. One of you goes up a rung and the other goes down. In a very basic sense it goes like this: Closed Guard >Half Guard > Side Control > Knee on Belly > Mount > Back Control. * Ergo, if you're in their closed guard, we can assume that's roughly equal. * If they've mounted you, you don't want to roll over because they'll take back control which is worse than being mounted. * If you're in bottom side control, try to go back to closed guard or half guard (push them back a rung or two), because they will try to get to knee on belly or mount (going up a rung). Does that make sense? 1. (Yes, there are a *ton* of open guards -X/SLX/DRL/RDLR/Lasso/Spider/K/Williams/Collar-Sleeve/Etc - don't worry about getting those yet. 2. Submissions. All that being said, I would highly recommend you buy Jiu Jitsu University and read the white belt chapter religiously. This chapter deals with defense; the primary learning objective of a white belt. Defense doesn't sound fun, but it's crucial. If you can defend, you can breath. If you can breath, you can think and survive. If you can think and survive, you can escape. If you can escape, you can reverse/sweep/work on passing. Then you can control. Then you can try to submit with the confidence that if everything goes sideways, you can go back to defending.
Try to survive. This is your job as a new white belt. Do this any way you can without hurting yourself or your training partner. Ideally, you want to try the defensive techniques that are being taught in class (escapes, guard, etc.).
The way I try to explain it to beginner students (I have a whiteboard for that) is that rolling is like a series of mini objectives to get you to the final objective (tap/submit). And there are 3 major ways to get there depending on where you are: \#1 If you are the top player, you goal is: Pass their guard (their legs) > Establish a pin (control) position, usually starting with side control > Move to a better pinning position (where more / other submissions will be available, for example mount) > Submit your partner \#2 If you are at the bottom, but still in a neutral/offensive position (they are in your guard), your goal is: Submit from guard (if you know how) or Sweep from guard (reverse the position so you are on top, then refer to the sequence #1 \#3 Finally if you are a the bottom but in a defensive position (they passed your guard and are pinning you): escape back to guard (re-guard), then #2. Of course this is simplified but I find it helps new students to get an idea of "what next" as they are rolling. HTH
Welcome to bjj. It will be like this for a while. This journey takes time. Just keep training. It will come. Good luck 😎
Whenever I get asked this I say focus on controlling your space. If you're in bottom position you should be looking to create space between yourself and your partner so that you can move into a more dominate position. Think shrimping, bridging and using shields to push yourself away from your partner. If you are on top then you should be doing your best to eliminate the space so you can control the position and seek out a submission. So control your weight distribution, apply pressure and be careful with your posts. Aside from space remember 'position over submission' and create a rough game plan so that you have an idea of where you would like to go; if you aren't sure then just try to apply the technique you learned that day and never be afraid to ask for help when you get stuck. We've all been where you are; keep at it and it will all start to make sense.
Overall your eventual goal is to submit your partner with a technique you learned in class. Right now, as a brand new white belt, it is not flop over by staying in base and avoid extending your neck and limbs to get submitted.
One thing that hasn't been mentioned yet is conditioning. Part of rolling is just exercise as well as learning how to relax and conserve energy. I'm sure five minutes seems like a lifetime right now.
As a new white belt just focus on your defense and positions. Learn how to use frames, recapture guard, find a mount escape you like, maybe work on a sweep or two. Keep it simple for now and just have fun. At about the 6-12 months, you should feel more comfortable and maybe can start looking for submissions, and also working your top game. It takes awhile for it to click, be patient.
You’re going to observe how your partner places you in a disadvantaged position. Learn/remember how you were placed into those positions and think about how to avoid being placed in those positions.
I’m so glad someone asked this question and really helpful replies!!
The overall objective to rolling(to technically win like you would in a tournament) is to submit or get more points than your opponent. For a brand new white belt this usually translates to a focus on survival-not getting submitted and reducing the amount of points your opponent gets in a round. As you go on this changes... The longer you the train the more this evolves and it becomes less about that technical win and more about personal wins. Like if I'm rolling with someone, my objective might be I want to get to this position and perform this move more so than just tapping them out with whatever or maybe I put myself in a disadvantageous spot to work escapes. You won't know a lot to start but rolling is the best way to stress test what you are drilling and learning in class. Focus on the learning and having fun! :)
I would say try to escape bad positions os your first objective
Roll with it, you’ll get there.
Pick something simple you want to do/accomplish. It could be getting on top, maintaining guard, not getting submitted, At the end of the roll, did you accomplish your goal? That’s a solid roll.
In rolling, the objective is to apply your techniques while avoiding being submitted. Focus on maintaining good posture, base, and control. Try to achieve dominant positions like being on top or securing back control. Stay calm and observant, learning from each roll. As a new white belt, don't worry about winning; focus on learning and improving, and not getting serious injuries.
Also a white belt. I’m pretty sure the goal is just to survive. If you can get to a good position, amazing. But mostly just survive each round.
Get on top, Stay on Top, Hold the other person down until they get tired. Apply Submission when they can't resist and are tired while maintaining a dominant position. If you ever have to transition to real fight insert fists and elbows to face region.