BJJ Camp: White to Blue belt in 3 months

yeah he is definitely kidding or bs-ing you. 7 days a week for 5 months..haha
I see nothing unreasonable about this. I've been training 7 days per week for over five years. It would depend on how many hours per day and what exactly he's training more than how many days per week. For example: I train roughly 2-3 hours per day right now, seven days per week. Four days at the gym bodybuilding (5/3/1 routine), 3 days of BJJ. I have a ton of energy and seem to be recovering just fine.

By comparison, when I started training MMA: I did not slow down on my bodybuilding. I was at the gym for 2 hours every morning, and training MMA for 2 hours every evening. I was overtraining, felt sick, was easily gassed in class, and stopped growing efficiently. Prior to my MMA training, I was bodybuilding seven days per week (2 hours per day). I had a six day isolation routine with 10-30 min cardio warmup. Worked on my grip forearms, spinal decompression, more thorough stretches, etc on the seventh day.

I got my bluie belt in 2 years. Am I retarded?
In my classes, that's about average for someone who trains 4-6 hours per week. Keep in mind that in these classes (posted by the OP), they are trained more efficiently and clock many more hours.
 
I've trained for 20 hours a week, 6 days a week for the past 15 months (15 hours BJJ, 3 hours Judo, 2 hours wrestling). Before that I trained about 12 hours a week. Six classes a week is not that much; just because you couldn't hack it doesn't mean others can't.

Thats how much you train optimally. Are you saying that in fifteen months, you've never missed classes?

Most people tend to look at their optimum training rather than their actual training.
 
I train 11x in a 7 day period. That gives me 1 whole rest day, and one day that is only 1 practice. I have done this for 6 months now after my last ACL surgery, and it is very, very easy compared to what I was doing in wrestling. Did I miss a few days here and there? Yes, but I also went some weeks at over 15 practices a week. It can be done if you are dedicated and have a decent working knowledge of how to program your phasic cycles of training for your goals and body. 125 hours for a belt upgrade is nothing; there are guys in my gym that do that in 3 weeks.

Keep in mind that going from white to blue is by far the easiest transition of belts. Most first day whites dont really know a single thing about bjj. Taking that to a low level blue doing 2 practices a day for 90 days to me seems completely attainable for a person with the bare minimum in athletic ability.
 
Most people tend to look at their optimum training rather than their actual training.

Haha very true, hours of training per week must be the most inflated number there is in BJJ - everyone seems to answer that question with the most they've EVER trained!
 
You have successfully gotten my goat.

People train 3x a day - with 1 being hard, 1 medium and 1 light - all the dang time. It's pretty much the only way to get to the elite level. Multiply that by 5 or 6 for the full week and you get something like 50, 60 gym hours a week with quite a bit of that being drilling, sparring and getting stronger.

So Abreu is throwing in the bomba? Because you don't train that much BJJ without some help. That's a ridiculous workload. I don't care how great an athlete you are, simply training with other high level people at that pace is going to cause fatigue related injuries, I don't see any way around it. Other than the bomba.
 
Your personal experience is not necessarily the norm. Different people learn at different rates. Look at BJ Penn, for example. Or the one stripe white belt in my class who has been training 4-6 hours per week for 3 years.

My experience not being the norm is exactly my point. It took me 1.5 years, but that is an a lot of hard work. My point is that independent of actual hours of training, it takes the average individual about 2 years to get the muscle memory, and to train their body to use techniques as reflexes, not something they have to think about.
 
So Abreu is throwing in the bomba? Because you don't train that much BJJ without some help. That's a ridiculous workload. I don't care how great an athlete you are, simply training with other high level people at that pace is going to cause fatigue related injuries, I don't see any way around it. Other than the bomba.
I don't know.

I've not pushed myself to this level of dedication yet, although I've done occasional 2x day with weight lifting (squats/deadlifts etc.) and BJJ. I was tired for a while, but I got used to it. It doesn't feel like outside the realm of possibility to train that hard (3x a day_ while being bomba/steroid-free. Again, I've not reached the elite levels (and may never do so), but I don't think I'd necessarily HAVE to turn to steroids to get to that level of training.

I'm not going to say that using steroids wouldn't help the recovery rates and thus allow me to train more and better, but is it completely outside the realm of clean human physicality to train 3x a day for quite a while? I don't think so - especially not if you're a professional athlete whose livelihood depends on it.

I think most of the drug use comes from the monomaniacal pursuit of that little advantage or two that gives you a win, medals, titles and/or glory and money. Not from simply keeping up with the workload. These athletes don't want to keep up, they want to obliterate the workouts and their opponents.
 
money making scheme unless you have some serious grappling experience beforehand.
 
Im assuming the training they do there takes a cirriculam style, I think Roy Dean does something along these lines, almost kata like. So in theory if they can learn at the pace it is being taught then why not? This I think then leads on to the question of general teaching of bjj, would it be more efficient with proper structure? Id personally say yes it would be. I know a lot of you guys talk about keeping diaries or log books of training but does anybody think it would be a good idea for the instructer to provide these. Should a good instructer see it as his job? At least for the basics (White belt to blue).
I teach (not bjj) and would never not provide my pupils with notes to help them?
 
I don't know.

I've not pushed myself to this level of dedication yet, although I've done occasional 2x day with weight lifting (squats/deadlifts etc.) and BJJ. I was tired for a while, but I got used to it. It doesn't feel like outside the realm of possibility to train that hard (3x a day_ while being bomba/steroid-free. Again, I've not reached the elite levels (and may never do so), but I don't think I'd necessarily HAVE to turn to steroids to get to that level of training.

I'm not going to say that using steroids wouldn't help the recovery rates and thus allow me to train more and better, but is it completely outside the realm of clean human physicality to train 3x a day for quite a while? I don't think so - especially not if you're a professional athlete whose livelihood depends on it.

I think most of the drug use comes from the monomaniacal pursuit of that little advantage or two that gives you a win, medals, titles and/or glory and money. Not from simply keeping up with the workload. These athletes don't want to keep up, they want to obliterate the workouts and their opponents.

That's kinda my point. I've done two a days with conditioning in a variety of sports over the years, mostly when I was in my teens and early 20s, and I could always handle it for a while. But I wasn't training with elite athletes, and my workouts varied in intensity. Plus, it was never for very long. Do I think you could do a few technical sessions and a harder sparring session every day, perhaps with some running and weight lifting? Yes, probably for quite a while. MMA camps usually last what, about 8 weeks prior to the pre-fight rest period, and those guys get tested for PEDs pretty rigorously. But to do it all the time for years on end, really hardcore 8-10 hour days of grappling like a fair number of the top BJJ guys do...I have a hard time believing that's natural. It's amazing how rarely we see guys pull out of tournaments with injuries, considering the injury level among the general BJJ population. I think (and this has been backed up by the few conversations I've had with guys who were part of elite camps) that many of the people training like this are using drugs of some sort. In a sense it's the old arms race issue...if your opponent is taking something that, after all, isn't against IBJJF rules and it's allowing them to train longer and harder and get an edge on you, you almost have to do it. I honestly feel somewhat sorry for high level guys who have to make that choice when deciding whether or not to really make a run at a world title.
 
It can be done if you are dedicated and have a decent working knowledge of how to program your phasic cycles of training for your goals and body.

Serious question: How would I go about acquiring such a decent working knowledge? My body is taking a beating while training substantially below the frequency that you're talking about, and I've love to be able to make some intelligent adjustments.
 
Is it possible to attend a training camp where a coach focuses on all the skills an individual needs systematically through proper muscle memory building drills, and have the student a legit blue belt in 3 months?

Absolutely.

I think BJJ training is generally speaking poorly thought out and relatively scatter shot with an unsteady focus. If things were streamlined I think most dedicated players would be getting their blue belts in less than 6 months.

Imagine if a good bjj coach took the gracie combatives curriculum and personalized it for each individual student along with adequate levels of sparring. Think of how quickly people would develop.

Exactly.

If the curriculum is well-structured, then this is an excellent training opportunity. Excellent training opportunities are worth money to a lot of people (including me, if I had it). There's absolutely nothing wrong with providing good training in exchange for good money; that's just how it works. As for getting a blue belt . . . as long as it's not guaranteed, I don't see any problem with having a condensed blue belt training program. Like Calibur said, it's very likely that someone going through this program would be able to develop their skills more thoroughly than someone who spent an equivalent number of hours in a regular class setting.
 
I don't have as much time to train as a lot of people, but I've been lucky enough to get low-cost privates with a black belt who is a great teacher who brought structure and direction to my training as opposed to learning the "flavor of the week" in class. As a result, I've been able to advance fairly quickly over what are relatively few mat-hours.

A lot of people are skeptical about this program, but IMO I don't see anything fishy about a high-frequency training program leading to a belt advancement in fewer months--especially if it affords some additional one-on-one training time with good grapplers and is well-structured.
 
IBJJF approved 3rd degree Carlson Gracie Jnr/Brazilian Top Team Black belt Prof. Olavo Abreu is heading a program that will see students sign up to a 3 month intensive training camp.

This part sounds great. I've often wished that when I started out I had the opportunity to experience this kind of focused, intense instruction. I think it would have allowed me to improve much faster. After three months of intense training, I definitely think there are a lot of guys who could enter most white belt tournaments and do very well. Depending on what your standards are, that could very well qualify them for promotion to blue belt.

Phuket Top Team and Prof. Olavo Abreu are offering a 95% success rate on grading from white to blue at the end of the 3 months. With the program in place, the world class training and the consistent training... our students will be very strong blue belts when they grade.

These are the parts that bother me.

First, a 95% success rate guarantee makes it sound like if you complete the course, you are basically given a blue belt by default unless you really messed up. I think that for this to be 100% legitimate, it should instead be marketed as an intense training camp designed to give serious trainees the best possible chance at achieving blue belt in a decreased period of time.

Second, the concept of them being "very strong blue belts" is nuts to me. If a guy manages to get his blue belt through this program, he should be starting out at pretty much the very bottom of the blue-belt totem poll. It means he worked his ass off and was able to accomplish in three months what normally takes people much longer to do. But let's be honest: a mediocre blue-belt competitor should still be able to tool this new 3-month blue belt any day of the week.

Ultimately, when we have these discussions I think people forget that the meaning of all of our belts is completely socially constructed. Sure, there are some attempts at standardization via competition, but (1) most people don't even compete, so promotional standards don't really track what it takes to win tournaments and (2) the makeup of the divisions at the tournaments is ultimately just a manifestation of the arbitrary standards selected by members of the community.

The question really isn't "can someone get good enough in this 3-week camp to deserve a blue belt?" It's actually "should a blue belt represent the approximate skill level that these guys will achieve after their 3-week camp?" I think you can make good arguments for or against having the first promotion in BJJ be that achievable for a novice.
 
This part sounds great. I've often wished that when I started out I had the opportunity to experience this kind of focused, intense instruction. I think it would have allowed me to improve much faster. After three months of intense training, I definitely think there are a lot of guys who could enter most white belt tournaments and do very well. Depending on what your standards are, that could very well qualify them for promotion to blue belt.



These are the parts that bother me.

First, a 95% success rate guarantee makes it sound like if you complete the course, you are basically given a blue belt by default unless you really messed up. I think that for this to be 100% legitimate, it should instead be marketed as an intense training camp designed to give serious trainees the best possible chance at achieving blue belt in a decreased period of time.

Second, the concept of them being "very strong blue belts" is nuts to me. If a guy manages to get his blue belt through this program, he should be starting out at pretty much the very bottom of the blue-belt totem poll. It means he worked his ass off and was able to accomplish in three months what normally takes people much longer to do. But let's be honest: a mediocre blue-belt competitor should still be able to tool this new 3-month blue belt any day of the week.

Ultimately, when we have these discussions I think people forget that the meaning of all of our belts is completely socially constructed. Sure, there are some attempts at standardization via competition, but (1) most people don't even compete, so promotional standards don't really track what it takes to win tournaments and (2) the makeup of the divisions at the tournaments is ultimately just a manifestation of the arbitrary standards selected by members of the community.

The question really isn't "can someone get good enough in this 3-week camp to deserve a blue belt?" It's actually "should a blue belt represent the approximate skill level that these guys will achieve after their 3-week camp?" I think you can make good arguments for or against having the first promotion in BJJ be that achievable for a novice.

So is a guy who did 125hrs of BJJ in 3 months, just as good another blue belt who did 125hrs of BJJ in 1.5yrs? Or a guy put in 1000hrs in 2yrs versus the another guy who put in 1000hrs in 4yrs? Is there a distinction, or all things being equal, is it the same? Just curious.
 
Alliance blue belt criteria;

"On average, 10 to 14 months of training with a minimum of 100 to 120 classes plus passing the following test. Belt promotions
are always at the discretion of the head instructor. Factors such as above-average class attendance, natural ability, or competing
could possibly shortened the time to blue belt, while a poor attitude, bad temper, or a lack of common morality outside the school
could lengthen it."

so as far as number of classes it doesnt seem too far off,especially if the student committed to training in every possible class available to them (12 a week)
 
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So is a guy who did 125hrs of BJJ in 3 months, just as good another blue belt who did 125hrs of BJJ in 1.5yrs? Or a guy put in 1000hrs in 2yrs versus the another guy who put in 1000hrs in 4yrs? Is there a distinction, or all things being equal, is it the same? Just curious.

It really depends on the person.

Some guys can improve a lot while they are off the mats. For example, I videotape most of my rolls and analyze the competitive ones move by move to see how I can improve. The hours I've put in doing that don't directly improve my grappling the way actual mat time does, but it definitely continues to tighten up my game.

In general though, I'd suspect that the guy who got in the given number of mat hours in the shorter period of calendar time would be better because his muscle memory and timing will be superior. It's easier to build those when you are training really frequently.
 
I see nothing unreasonable about this. I've been training 7 days per week for over five years. It would depend on how many hours per day and what exactly he's training more than how many days per week. For example: I train roughly 2-3 hours per day right now, seven days per week. Four days at the gym bodybuilding (5/3/1 routine), 3 days of BJJ. I have a ton of energy and seem to be recovering just fine.

By comparison, when I started training MMA: I did not slow down on my bodybuilding. I was at the gym for 2 hours every morning, and training MMA for 2 hours every evening. I was overtraining, felt sick, was easily gassed in class, and stopped growing efficiently. Prior to my MMA training, I was bodybuilding seven days per week (2 hours per day). I had a six day isolation routine with 10-30 min cardio warmup. Worked on my grip forearms, spinal decompression, more thorough stretches, etc on the seventh day.

Hold it right there chief..im calling you on it. I do not believe that anyone TRAINS BJJ 7 days a week. That was the point I was calling BS on before. Looks like you dont train BJJ 7 days a week either.

As for bodybuilding training..thats certainly difficult to be sure. But I know that Jay Cutler does NOT train 7 days a week either.

Im not calling you a liar dude..but ive yet to meet anyone who trains BJJ or Muay Thai or MMA 7 days a week... and it looks like I still havent.
 
Not calling anyone a liar but how many academy have classes 7 days per week? If you are a senior member, you might have the keys and push for another informal training for other senior members.
 
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