Name: 3 Principles Every BJJ Beginner Should Understand
Uploaded: 2026-02-01T01:42:52.000Z
Duration: 6 min 19 s
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Okay, so something that I think is important in a lot of sports and disciplines is to focus on principles over individual, like movements and tricks.

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So in chess, for instance, you're taught to emphasize the center rather than, like, just worrying about specific openings.

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And in boxing, you learn early on that a big part of the game is making angles on other people where they can't hit you and you can hit them.

But this is something that I don't think always happens in Brazilian Jiu jitsu.

And when I did a video talking about what I wish I'd known when I started out and I mentioned principles, a lot of people ask me which principles specifically I was talking about.

And so today I'm going to talk about three of the principles that I think are most important to learn as a why or maybe a blue belt that you aren't always explicitly told and you kind of end up working out as you go along.

To be clear, I'm not a competition beast.

I'm just a guy who's a black belt who's been doing it for quite a long time.

But these are the things that I teach to our beginners and also to guys who kind of come from our academy after maybe six months or a year of training and.

And haven't been taught them anywhere else.

I'm not saying that the most important principles to focus on are the only ones you'll ever need to know, but

I do think that by starting to think about them early in your jiu jitsu journey, you are going to set yourself up for success later on.

Okay, so the first thing I want to talk about is keeping your elbows in.

And I think a lot of people start to understand the importance of this fairly early on, but

it's still useful to, like, think about why it matters.

So, firstly, having your elbows close to your body just makes you structurally stronger.

You can do, like, a trick where you get another guy to keep his elbows tucked and and then, like, deadlift him off the floor, and

he'll be able to keep his elbows pretty much in place so he's hanging off his entire body weight without a struggle.

You basically can't do that when your elbows are out here.

So keeping your elbows in makes it harder for the other person to manipulate your limbs, and

But also, tons of attacks, including like, arm bars, kimuras, oma platters, arm triangles, but

also stuff like duck unders to the back, all rely on your opponent getting your elbows away from your body.

And so when you're a white belt, one of the best things you can do to stop getting tapped out pretty much all the time is think about bringing your elbows close into your body pretty much whenever you can.

And conversely, when you're going on the attack, what you want to think about is getting the other person's elbows away from their body and keeping them there.

And when you're a white belt, this is pretty easy.

all you have to do is put some kind of wedge, whether that's like a knee or an underhook, in between their arm and their body so they can't get it back.

But then as you go through the belts, you're going to need to find ways to get people to extend their arms away from them.

Well, that's like convincing them to frame on you because you're putting weight on them or, like, moving their arm away from their body in some other way that's like, reinforced by a wedge.

Ryan hall has an entire DVD set called the Open Elbow that goes into this stuff in a ton of detail.

But generally speaking, think about keeping your own elbows in and getting your opponent's elbows away from their body.

And that kind of leads on to the next principle, which is about getting inside position.

So the concept of inside position has kind of been popularized recently by John Danaher, who.

Who talks about it in terms of where your limbs are.

So in inside position, your limbs are inside, the other person's in outside position, obviously it's the other way around, and

But certainly when you're new to the art or you're fighting someone much heavier than you, inside position is quite often a safer place to be.

So, for instance, if someone big is on top of you, having inside position stops them putting the wedges around you.

That will allow them to pin you to the floor effectively, which is what lets you create effective movement underneath them and start to, like, move them around and manipulate their weight.

And this is where a lot of the value of the underhook comes in.

Basically, what the underhook does is keep you in inside position by, like, gluing you to the opponent.

And that's why a lot of the fight in a position like half guard is who can get that underhook and go on the attack, whether they're going for, like, a sweep or a pass.

Inside position is also a really helpful concept when you start to think about leg locks.

A lot of leg lock setups start with you, like, pummeling your feet inside the other person's.

And if you're worried about getting leg lock, then taking inside position on the other person can often keep you safe from the vast majority of the stuff they're going to try on you.

And finally, it's really important on the feet.

If you're wearing the Judo gi, having the inside position on your opponent is going to let you manage distance better and stop them from taking strong grips.

And if you're wrestling or doing no gi, then taking inside position is what's going to let you take like strong collar and elbow ties and let you start snapping people down and messing with their balance and their posture.

So it's not always right to chase the inside position, but

And it's certainly useful to understand the value of it as you get better and better at jiu jitsu.

And then the final thing that I think is super valuable to start thinking about when you're a white belt is structure and frames.

And again, this is something that's kind of probably going to be hinted at early on by certain movements you do, but

So this is about finding places where you're resisting your opponent's force without using any strength, usually because you're using the strength of your own skeleton.

So a super simple and easy to understand example of this is when you're locking up a kimura from side control.

Hopefully you've been taught to keep your elbow on the floor when you take your kimura grip.

And that way, when your opponent tries to suck their hand back to their side, they're trying to push straight through your forearm bones into their own hip bone, which is like a structure that unless they're freakishly, freakishly strong, they're not going to be able to break through.

If you keep your elbow off the floor just a tiny bit, they're going to suck their arm back in and you're not going to Kimura them.

The other place that people think about structure a lot is in terms of frames.

And the most basic way to think about it is in movements that keep your skeleton aligned against the force of your opponent, as opposed to using muscular strength to push them away.

Side note, Sometimes this is going to mean extending an elbow.

And part of jiu jitsu is about learning places when it's safe to do that.

But ultimately it's not just about frames.

Good structure is about finding ways to connect yourself to the ground in these strong positions.

So your opponent's line of force is going through your skeleton and pushing against an object that is ultimately immovable.

And that's where Jiu Jitsu starts to feel really effortless.

And yeah, none of these things are things that you're going to completely wrap your head around at white belt or even blue belt.

But they're definitely things to start thinking about because they're things that you're going to tweak and understand better through your whole experience of Jiu Jitsu.

So those are the three most important principles I think you have to take on board.

if you want to think about how to learn more holistically, then I recommend this video.