The Dreaded BJJ Plateau

About the author: Sam Joseph is a second-degree black belt, head instructor and gym owner.

The road to a Brazilian Jiu Jitsu black belt can take 8–10 years if you're not a "full-time BJJ student" — and most of us aren't. With that in mind, it's no surprise that every Jiu Jitsu athlete eventually hits a "training plateau."

A plateau is a stretch of time when you feel like you're not improving no matter how much effort you pour into your training. To make it worse, sometimes during these spells you feel like you're actually going backwards. Plateaus are no respecters of belts — they hit every level and they can strike at any time.

The good news is that they happen to everyone who has put on a gi and trained Jiu Jitsu for any real length of time. The bad news is that knowing that doesn't make you feel any better when you're stuck in the middle of one — and they can last weeks or even months.

Plateaus show up for all kinds of reasons: over-training, not training enough, a rough run in sparring or at a tournament, a slow recovery from injury, trouble locking down a new technique, getting "looked over" for a promotion, and on and on. Over the years I've hit a few and climbed back out, so here are a handful of tips you can use to shorten your time in the rut — and set yourself up for a nice jump in improvement when you come out the other side.

Tip 1: Drill the basics!

This is probably the least popular tip, because drilling fundamentals is not a "sexy" idea. But it's a key one. To make the point, think about the athletes at the very top of the game right now. Mikey Musumeci, the Ruotolo brothers, Gordon Ryan, Ffion Davies — different body types, different styles, different attributes entirely. What they share is that they are pathologically, almost obsessively, sound on the fundamentals.

Watch Gordon control from the back and it's like reading a textbook. Watch Mikey hunt a leg and every detail is in exactly the right place. Watch Ffion pass and the pressure is simply perfect. None of that is luck — it's hard-wired into them through hours and hours of drilling, which is why it holds up in the highest-pressure matches in the world. Every time I've come out the back of a plateau, I've looked back and found small details I was missing or getting slightly wrong that were quietly sabotaging my positions. Drilling the basics cleans those up and keeps them clean, so you don't fall into the same trap even as you pile on new positions and concepts.

Tip 2: Do positional Jiu Jitsu training

People often define a plateau by how they're doing in sparring. If someone they used to tap starts tapping them, or a partner they used to handle easily starts giving them fits, they decide they're not getting better. I have a few issues with making "how you do in sparring" the main measure of progress — but in the spirit of getting unstuck regardless of attitude, my second tip is to build positional training into your week.

When I was a blue belt, my open guard was the weakest part of my game. When we rolled at the end of class, I was wary of even working on it, because if the person passed I'd be stuck in a bad spot — possibly for the whole round. That was a problem, because I knew I had to fix that part of my game to take my BJJ to the next level. Finally a training partner came up with the idea of playing "pass and sweep" at the end of class. We'd start in open guard, and the moment one of us passed or swept, we'd reset and go again. We could go 100% but still try new things, because there was no fear of being stuck if something failed.

Both our guards improved so much from this that we started meeting up on Sundays to do nothing else. Over the years we applied the same idea to other positions and got rewarded every single time. Positional training lets you zero in on one area and drive improvement through repetition and a little healthy competition.

Tip 3: Keep a BJJ training journal

I'm a big believer in keeping some kind of training journal. You can hunt down a fancy app or a beautifully structured template online, or you can just grab a notes app on your phone — or an actual notebook, which is what I did — and organise it however feels natural. The key is writing down notes on positions and concepts in a way you can easily revisit. One reason this helps so much during a plateau is that plateaus are often mental. One of my favourite sayings is that "things are neither as great nor as bad as you think they are." That's usually the case with training — you're neither the best grappler who ever lived nor the worst person ever to tie on a belt. When I've been down on my training, I've scrolled back through my notes and been pleasantly reminded of how much I'd actually learned, which put me in a far better headspace even during a bad stretch. Sometimes the journal gives a more tangible payoff too — I've found "answers" buried in old entries to the exact "questions" that had me feeling stuck.

Tip 4: S-Roll

I discovered S-Rolling — submission rolling — as a brown belt. In a nutshell, it's sparring with very little power, taking turns being the instigator with your partner. There are a couple of keys to making it work. First, even though you're not using power, your movement has to be technically sound, offensively and defensively. If you get caught somewhere unfamiliar, you don't just muscle out — you tap and explore the position later. Everything stays clean. Second, a lack of power does not mean a lack of speed. You move and flow at close to normal pace.

For me that's one of the most valuable parts of good S-Rolling. Flowing without power lets you clean up entries, transitions and techniques — and it ruthlessly exposes the gaps in them. You get all the technical benefit of training with a live partner without the ego getting involved, without "who won the roll?" hanging over everything. And done right, it's a genuinely great cardio workout, because you never stop moving. The ego tends to be ultra-sensitive during a plateau, and S-Rolling lets you train hard and advance technically without giving it any opening to sabotage your way out.

For me, the important thing about the inevitable plateaus is how you respond to them — how you shorten them and how you blunt their negative impact. Work these tips into your strategy and watch your plateaus shrink from obstacles that could derail your training into mere inconveniences. See you on the mat!

Originally published in Jiu Jitsu Style by Sam Joseph. Refreshed for 2026.