If it hasn’t yet, this Jiujitsu journey will bring haters. They can come from within the BJJ community; your competition success, rank, or your gi. And haters will appear outside …

Everywhere in life, progress is found through flow, through doing, not stopping doing from being done. There are certainly times to hold the line, park, wait it out and hide. …

One without the other is useless in grappling, and in life. Mat time is the data input and space time is the data analysis. The Mat Time: During your hands-on …

We know injuries are inevitable, and are usually perceived as a huge bummer when time is needed off from live rolling. But with every injury is opportunity, and continuing to …

Navigating your BJJ journey entails mile markers, defined differently by all; tournaments, number of classes attended, rolls without breaks, and the obvious rank upgrades. You achieve it, and you’re motivated …

On the flipside of the “rock out, rock on” blog (link at the bottom), don’t be the snowbank either! Nothing grinds my gears more than watching a higher belt, who …

A few months ago we finally got to meet our daughter, our second spawn. And of course i look to BJJ for guidance. With our first child, i read everything …

  When rivers flow, they gather more oxygen, invite higher life forms, cover ground, and see major landscape. They’re constantly changing, carving, and evolving. Rivers are experts at navigating obstacles …

A challenge: don’t roll to last. Give yourself permission to push it, to “fail” early, out of breath. Attempt to push the pace past your comfort level, repeatedly, instead of …

What Is A Stripe And How Do I Get One? When you are newer to a hobby, I think it’s only natural to question if you’re getting any better as …

One thing that’s overlooked in jiu-jitsu is just how rare an injury is. Yes, you will have aches and pains and yes, your body might need breaks. What I’m talking …

As children, we learn to play. Through play we learn to trust, share, communicate and show empathy. We allow ourselves to get exhausted, forgetting sometimes to eat or sleep. A …

If you’ve read any of my prior pieces, it’s no secret I’m a big fan of analogies, similes, and parables. Before ever signing up for jiu-jitsu, I remember my friend …

The closest thing I have to grappling experience is playing offensive tackle in high school. You’re taught to extend your arms as quickly as possible. This helps keep defensive lineman …

Prior to breaking my foot I learned two different chokes. Even though you learn them slowly, and over the watchful eye of instructors you’re bound to have some awkward miscues. …

I haven’t written about my jiu-jitsu experiences for awhile, because I haven’t had too many. On August 29th I fractured my foot while playing basketball. I talked to Jon, who …

A basic armbar: You have your partner ALMOST there, one leg over his chest, the other sorta over his face. You’re grabbing his arm (most likely with your hands buried …

When I was 20 I got my first “grown-up” job as a bank teller. The night before my first day my dad had to show me how to tie a …

It had officially been a week since I joined Neutral Ground, and it was going great. I got to know a lot of the guys in the noon class by …

I finally broke down and signed up for jiu jitsu. I say “broke down” because it’s been something I’ve wanted to do for a little over a year. When I …

You are shown the technique and practice it. You are corrected in your technique, usually several times, and adjust accordingly. You are praised for “getting it” and are now searching …

 In defeat: If the opponent’s hand is raised. Blame no one, for there needn’t be blame. You put in your effort during and up to this point, the rest is …

When I started Jiu-Jitsu, I weighed 330 pounds and was strong as an ox from competitive powerlifting. I was by far the strongest guy at the dojo and was the …

Jiujitsu is painless, technical, and flowing. That is a beauty of Jiujitsu. It can be done by all walks of life, with anybody, regardless of stature, and without pain. A …

As a human being it is difficult for me not to tie my own self-worth to that of my accomplishments or in some cases the lack there of. I think …

We’ve all overheard this one. Two grapplers will be either finishing their rolling or momentarily pause during it, with one of them explaining “that move never works on you”. There …

As a powerlifter strength was king. It was all about getting bigger and bigger numbers for me and once I accomplished a big number then I have to get an …

In the real world no one is going to start a fight with you while they are on the ground on their knees and if someone does you can just …

This is a question that everyone that has trained (any sport) has asked themselves plenty of times. Learning and training Brazilian Jiu Jitsu has been one of the most exciting …

Jiujitsu is so open-ended, ever expanding…without clearly defined edges. Progress is difficult to measure as it is difficult to have a clearly defined measuring stick that isn’t also in constant …

A goal is defined as “the object of a person’s ambition or effort; an aim or a desired result.” Are you training with a sense of purpose? If you do …

One of the first things you learn in school is the alphabet. If asked what letter comes after “p” you’d most likely say in your head “l-m-n-o-p…Q” It’s so ingrained …

After much reflection I have come to the conclusion that a promotion whether it be a stripe or a belt in Brazilian Jiu Jitsu is an acknowledgement that the practitioner …

The above quote is a Samurai quote. The Samurai were feudal warriors of nobility in Japan who lived by bushido (“the way of the warrior”). Bushido embodied concepts such as …

There’s the famous old story, about a professor’s analogy for time management, demonstrating it with rocks, pebbles, sand, and water put into a single jar, the jar being your total …

Recognize that it is natural for most beginning grapplers to rip hard, balls-out, wall to wall. They simply have no idea where to begin in the new world of grappling. …

After re-reading Part 1 (after it was posted on the website) I realized that I am in need of getting someone to edit what I write. Good thing I am …

I have decided to make this into a two part blog. Part 1 gives you some background on my decision. Part 2 will go more in depth in how I …

Chances are that if you are reading this, then you are probably in a very similar situation to me. I am not a professional athlete nor am I an amateur …

defend everything – everything the training partner does is “bad” for you, so everything is wholeheartedly defended. this is the new student, terrified of everything, attempting to slap, yank, punch every …

When you’re stuck, most commonly while on the bottom, techniques you’ve been taught can seem to just freeze, keeping you locked into an inferior position. Every time you attempt to …

In training and in competition, there are the things you can control and the things you cannot. You can control most of your training, arranging your schedule and finances, diet, …

Be wary of the desperate kamikaze, they are, after all, completely with disregard and reckless abandon. With the real life kamikazes, their opponents were at first completely taken aback at …

Like i said in my bio, I’ve been teaching full on Brazilian Jiu jitsu classes for the better part of 20 years. You’d think i’d just have ideas flow off …

So you’ve been training for a few months now, or even a few years and it’s time to up your game a little. Well aside from SHOWING UP TO CLASS …

WAIT! I CAN LOOK GOOD AND FEEL GOOD BY TRAINING IN KICKBOXING? Lets face it when you think of a kickboxer you think of an amazing athlete with skill and …

I remember the first time I felt the sneaky force of the Baseball Choke: a very innocuous name for such a devastating submission. I hadn’t actually even heard of it …

Neutral Ground Grafton is very proud of our head judo coach Gregg Roloff for being recently inducted into the Wisconsin Judo Hall of Fame. Gregg has been an excellent coach, …

I experienced the “technique vs. strength” debate almost immediately after starting my jiu jitsu journey because of my awesome “newb” strategy: grab whoever I rolled with and hold on for …

My high school had one of the best distance runners in the country. He was a state champion Cross Country runner and would have been state champ in track in …

The idea that a blog entry could have gotten me ready for the barrage of information that came when I started training is absurd. But, that’s not to say a …

So it happened.  You were in the middle of an intense jiu jitsu sparring match attempting to exert your will on your training partner.  You felt something happen and it …

Between Christmas vacation and the hellish Polar Vortex that rendered everyone’s car motionless, I haven’t been to Jiu Jitsu or Core Cardio in almost three weeks. While getting back to …

Competitions are an amazing way to put what you’ve been learning into action, it can be tons of fun, rewarding…… and also make you a nervous wreck. Especially the first time.  Here are some tips to …

Like a lot of people—particularly those that didn’t wrestle in high school—I had to do some self-psyching-up to get to my first jiu-jitsu class. I wasn’t worried about the chokes, …

We are always learning whether we are conscious of it or not. However, we will get the most of our jiu jitsu journey if we are more aware of the …

So you’ve decided to take the first step and start training Brazilian Jiu Jitsu, great job! But now you have the daunting task of choosing a gym to train at. …

Happy New Year!! Congratulations! You have made the resolution to start exercising! But where should you start? If you have already decided a fitness gym is for you ,hopefully this blog …

Everyone is talking about bullying. School shootings, which are happening at an alarming rate these days, often cite peer abuse as a root cause. Even a 300 lb. lineman is …

Compared to other combat sports, the equipment investment for jiu-jitsu is pretty low. You still need a few things though and, with the holidays just around the corner, there’s no …

One of the major misconceptions about training Jiu Jitsu is that you need to be in shape to do it.  I can’t stress enough how wrong that is.  I mean, …