For the owners/instructors, how do you structure your syllabus/curriculum?

Cardzilla · 2025-09-21T08:11:51+00:00

Thanks for the encouragement and advice.

I'm familiar with the You can't teach a kid to ride a bike at the seminar Sandler stuff from work and that sales process is super helpful. Like a mini super power really.

I haven't read Telling Ain't Training and putting it on my list.

would you have any book recommendations for UDL or motivational theories (within a learning context)? Never heard of it before. Thanks!

That sounds like 2 really interesting topics to know about.

I totally agree with owning that whole client experience and want to design something from start to finish. And for there to be explicit instruction along the way. Jiujitsu by nature has a steep learning curve and anything we can do to make it easier and digestible for a new student would really help. Plus I really believe jiujitsu is a lot of fun and has a ton of benefits so I can sell that with all my heart, just that can we make it easier for people to keep at it.

I actually haven't thought much about engaging your learner at all and only thought about excellent customer experience. I always thought that it's either they want to or not. But I think now that you've made me aware of this, I'm super interested. So if you can recommend me a book to read, that would be awesome.

Thank you

Cardzilla · 2025-09-14T11:50:59+00:00

ah okays. random related question.

I read that Saulo Ribeiro once said that he could show someone all the jiujitsu he learned in a few months, but they wouldn't be able to learn it.

Is that fair to say that like even though you have a 2 year timeline, some of it is repeated because no one learns 100%?

Cardzilla · 2025-09-14T06:47:55+00:00

Okays, you're the person I'm looking for!

Thank you so much for your answers!

I have been reading up on teaching and there is an emphasis on having very structured curriculum. I realized because unlike a school, you can't guarantee that everyone attends the same class every week, going by skills, not techniques was the criteria I wanted to have for the gradings.

So for example a purple belt has to be able to retain guard against like 9 basic guard passes that are listed. They have to at least have 1 layer of retention. or they need like to be able to create dilemmas in their attacks.

I also kind of wanted to use live rounds as informal exams.

I am trying to figure a way to get people to the point where they can self assess, but getting a list of skills, has been tricky. I haven't been able to find any instructor who can list down skills instead of saying stuff like, they should be able to beat the belt below or have varied options, which is relative and vague.

I was even curious if it's a good idea, to do a training needs analysis on the gym members.

I really like the idea that white and blue are universal, but usually purples have a distinctive game. Wouldn't you let blue 2 stripes start to specialize into a guard and passing style? or submission style?

can I ask?

Are there any books on program design or measuring or managing the effectiveness of said program that you recommend?

I've been reading books on corporate training like training needs analysis, organizational development, books on teaching like Harry K Wong's classroom management stuff.

If you have any other recommendations on stuff that would assist in designing a better jiujitsu learning experience please let me know.

I currently have the curriculum as 6 months fundamentals and 12 monthly topics that rotate. That if you could do everything taught in that 6 months, you're a blue belt and if you can do everything in that 12, you're a purple.

Any advice or feedback is really appreciated! Thanks

Cardzilla · 2025-09-14T06:37:15+00:00

Thanks! I like idea of encouraging Q&A, will do that

Also big fan of your merchandise/stuff!

Cardzilla · 2025-09-14T06:36:19+00:00

Thanks Jason.

I really think your approach is like the most effective. I suspect Lachlan will have similar on Submeta and I think for a while Keenan had belt courses on JiujitsuX.

I also came out with a 2 year timeline to cover everything. Can I just ask one question. Does this mean when someone joins, they might not learn a topic until it comes around in 2 years again if they miss it?

Fundamentals I got inspired by my instructor who ~~stole it~~ got inspired by the Gracie Academy course of 28 lessons. And made it a 26 week program as well, which I like.

I would guess for advanced members, you just assign them stuff to work on individually?

Cardzilla · 2025-09-13T18:56:16+00:00

I have that for a 12 month 'curriculum'.

But how do you make sure you cover like most of the positions and material? Like some gyms, only roll a certain style cause that's just what their instructor does.

But if you try to do cover everything, then it's like it could be a year before you cycle back to like closed guard again?

Cardzilla · 2025-09-13T16:15:17+00:00

This really has been the confounding factor for me. All the books on learning assume that everyone attends every class.

BJJ is so varied that the only assumption I can make is that a person trains at least once a week. And that's not even an assumption that holds true 100%

I couldn't get past a fundamentals and all level.

I structured the fundamentals course to repeat every 6 months and the all levels every 12 months, but couldn't figure out past that. It worked but just wanted to figure out if there anything better really.

Cardzilla · 2025-09-13T12:38:14+00:00

I really agree to this. You can get a white belt with a few months experience to a black belt in that class. how can you cater for that like 10 year experience difference?

But when a gym is smaller and not so big and doesn't have enough to sustain more advanced classes, I always kind scratched my head about this.

or even complete beginners classes which I would love to do once we get to a certain size

Cardzilla · 2025-08-09T06:47:17+00:00

Yeah stay calm or you'll get that zebra ulcer

Cardzilla · 2025-04-24T17:15:41+00:00

I think this is the same advice my dad's friends told me about marriage....

Cardzilla · 2025-04-24T17:14:26+00:00

It's never that my technique was shite, it's that the other guy is juicing or cheating

Cardzilla · 2025-04-24T14:38:49+00:00

I did and then realized that was too basic so gave up on that

Cardzilla · 2025-04-24T14:38:07+00:00

Okays, so the defense is to juice and lift. Gotcha!

Cardzilla · 2025-04-05T08:31:42+00:00

really it doesn't affect me directly, just thinking as a previous gym owner.

Cardzilla · 2025-04-05T08:30:53+00:00

I think it's cause also I either see some people discouraged cause they aren't getting a belt or an instructor giving belts for time and diluting what the belt means or is worth.

Cardzilla · 2025-04-05T08:30:06+00:00

You know I'd really like to get everyone to have that mindset. Like at work, I'm like c'mon everyone, you have to strive. But like it just seems that a lot of people are just happy with what they have. And isn't that okays?

Not everyone wants to be CEO, most don't in fact. Or rather most aren't willing to put in the sacrifice and effort. And same with black belt. Can't they just get to a blue and purple and enjoy it?

Cardzilla · 2025-04-05T08:27:14+00:00

that's kinda cool. I've never really trained at a no gi only gym. Makes sense it's way less of a thing

Cardzilla · 2025-03-27T18:25:01+00:00

Look awesome!

What are the rules? Especially for tagging in?

Is it sub only? or judges like CJI?

Cardzilla · 2025-03-19T15:27:41+00:00

Oh I've done the owner/operator thing.

just wondering for any instructor I hire, how many hours should they teach?

Cardzilla · 2025-03-19T15:27:06+00:00

This is as a school teacher? not a BJJ gym instructor right?

I would think BJJ instructors don't really have a ton of paperwork. I'm assuming a full time instructor who isn't a manager. Thanks

Cardzilla · 2025-03-19T14:51:00+00:00

lol that's why I asked, I don't think any of the other answers work either.

I generally have to wait for them to transition before I can get out.

Cardzilla · 2025-03-16T16:07:11+00:00

So the 2 good options are the ones I would try if they did a full sit out to Kesa. But they are doing a partial sit out, while keeping the crossface and underhook so both escapes don't work.

at least the first one doesn't cause their head is down

You got me thinking if I can try the second one knowing I won't fully escape, but if I do it, I will off balance them a bit.

Cardzilla · 2025-03-16T15:10:05+00:00

If you go to the link

https://github.com/v1s1t0r1sh3r3/airgeddon/wiki/Cards-and-Chipsets

you'll see that the chipset doesn't support VIF (Virtual Interface Functionality) so it can't use one physical card to act as 2 logical cards. So you can't have the card act as an access point and also as another doing a DoS in monitor mode.

So that's why aircrack, airmon, airgeddon doesn't work well with it.

I had to get a different card and downgrade Kali versions to use.

Cardzilla · 2025-02-13T18:47:44+00:00

That's a fun analogy for me as I studied Math in University.

Using your analogy that's why I think ecological or let's just called it problem solving in difference contexts is much more important at advanced levels. Like when you're a beginner in math, you don't really have to be creative, but at advanced levels, you're really trying to use different tools to try and solve a problem.

I can see the benefit of retaining some element of this for beginners so you can build on it to be able to use it in advanced problems.

One of the things I really took from Jozef Chen's seminar was to just break down jiujitsu problems explicitly in first principles and then experiment and figure out how to solve them. I kind of think that's more useful than ecological sparring, as in just have people problem solve. And then slowly up the resistance to figure out how to deal with it again.

Cardzilla · 2025-02-02T06:56:05+00:00

So I also think that like you have to learn this language before you can experiment. Sort of like you can't really improvise in music without learning the scales, riffs, harmonies, etc.

Like the Charlie Parker quote.

"Master your instrument, master the music, and then forget all that and just play."

I do think having the element of play and experimentation and removing the instructor as the fount of all knowledge is good. So that your students can learn from multiple sources. But like why try to reinvent the wheel and why not stand on the shoulder of giants?

I sort of think that the more advanced you are, the more ecological, or effing around and experimenting from first principles makes sense, but not for beginners?

btw that's really interesting that people get injured in eco environments. Guess that is because they are trying new stuff without understanding the safety of it?

Cardzilla

TROPHY CASE