Brazilian Jiu Jitsu (BJJ) puts a big emphasis on the importance of drilling techniques. This practice of repeating a technique over and over again is a great way to refine the technique, be more efficient, and to build muscle memory. This article lists different BJJ drills you can practice before class or at home. In additions to the instructions for completing these drills, the practicality of each for BJJ are also mentioned. Make sure you practice the following drills equally on both sides of your body!
Bridging Side to Side
Bridging and rolling is a fundamental mount escape technique taught to all beginners. Here we are simply detailing the movement of bridging side to side to help perfect and make this technique more effective.
Return back to the initial position and now bridge to your right.
Collapse your hips towards the ground. At the same time, immediately push off with both feet and shoot your hips backward and away from the hip you were framing against.
Make sure to switch back and forth on the direction of your shrimping motion. In a real sparring situation, multiple shrimping actions in a row would most likely be needed to successfully escape from being mounted.
Here is a good video teaching the basic of bridging:
Sit Out
A valuable wrestling move to escape from the bottom of the turtle position is the sit out. This technique is applicable to the scenario where you are turtled up and have an opponent positioned on top that is holding on with a body lock.
Retract the the left arm and right leg back and recover your starting position.
Return back to position 1 and repeat these movements to the opposite side of your body.
Triangle Drill/Triangle Leg Lift
Lay flat on your back and using the core strength and lift your legs up to the ceiling and hit the triangle submission (figure-4).
Continue these steps to practice shooting for triangle submission attempts while actively switching your leg positions.
Once you have become proficient with this drill, add the twisting of your body to the outside leg during the triangle submission attempt. This addition gives you the habit of changing your angle and tightening your triangle---because most triangles will need you to adjust the position of your body a bit in order to hit the submission correctly.
Here is a video of the solo triangle drill with the twisting of the body:
Although the instructor in the video is telling you to open up your legs as wide as possible, this only applies to the drill. When you are applying the actual submission on an oppponent, you do not want to open up your legs that wide.
Want even more solo drills? Watch this video of more BJJ drills you can do alone:
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In addition the the drills above, training takedowns, throws, submissions, and positions with a grappling dummy is also a great addition to solo drills you can do. If you are interested in getting a grappling dummy for solo drills, read our review of the best grappling dummies.
