How Long Does it Take to Learn Jiu-Jitsu?

Experienced practitioners recognize that it takes a while to learn and become proficient in jiu-jitsu. That reality exists for nearly any physical skill you wish to gain. However, if you are a beginner, you’ll likely want a clearer idea of how long it takes to learn jiu-jitsu.

While most practitioners can pick up basic skills in a few months, achieving a level of mastery in jiu-jitsu will take a decade or more of dedicated training. Even then, the nearly limitless set of techniques in jiu-jitsu means that even the most skilled practitioner will always have more to learn.  

The time it takes to learn jiu-jitsu can be daunting. This article will address a few ways that you can learn jiu-jitsu as quickly as possible. We’ll also discuss a few factors that make jiu-jitsu quite difficult to learn. 

What’s the Quickest Way to Learn Jiu-Jitsu?

Jiu-jitsu takes a long time to learn, but there are some tactics you can use to speed up the process. Here are some of the actions you can take to learn jiu-jitsu in the quickest way:

• Find an excellent instructor

• Maintain a consistent training routine

• Train with a specific focus

• Remain as healthy as possible

• Develop positive relationships with your training partners

Rather than being discouraged about how long it takes to learn jiu-jitsu, let’s focus on what can make your learning experience as efficient as possible. Below are a few insights that will help you do just that.

Find an Excellent Instructor

Finding a knowledgeable instructor with strong teaching skills is one of the most effective ways to learn jiu-jitsu quickly. A well-qualified instructor not only possesses enough jiu-jitsu experience to keep you busy learning for many years, but they will also know how to guide each student along their individual jiu-jitsu journey.

Maintain a Consistent Training Routine

As is true when learning any skill, consistency will help you progress as much as anything else. There’s nothing wrong with treating jiu-jitsu as a casual hobby that you practice when and where you feel like it. However, if improving is your goal, you’ll need to train often. Maintaining a consistent training schedule will make it far easier to build on your current skills and retain more new insights.

Train with a Specific Focus

It’s surprisingly easy to complete a training session without having a distinct focus on specific jiu-jitsu moves. But if you want to be the best that you can be, you should enter every training session with some small goals that relate to the techniques you’re developing. Focusing on specific areas of jiu-jitsu each time you train helps you improve in those areas and steadily build a comprehensive set of skills. 

Remain as Healthy as Possible

Illness and injury will detract from your overall jiu-jitsu progress. While it’s not always possible to do so, you should make your best effort to remain as healthy as possible. At times, preserving your health means taking a break from training to recover and heal. If you avoid getting hurt and sick, you’ll have more opportunities to remain on the mats continuing to work consistently on your specific jiu-jitsu goals.

Develop Positive Relationships with Your Training Partners

The relationships you hold with your training partners can help or hurt your progress. Aim to develop a positive mentality and help your training partners progress in their jiu-jitsu efforts. Prove to your training partners that you wish to aid in their success, and they will often be excited to do the same for you. Those positive relationships create a beneficial training environment in which everyone can learn more quickly.  

Why is Jiu-Jitsu So Difficult to Learn?

Boosting your jiu-jitsu skill requires a lot of time and effort. But even if you give that time and effort, there are three prominent reasons why jiu-jitsu will remain difficult to learn for most.

You already now know some of the ways that you can learn jiu-jitsu more quickly. So, let’s turn our attention to the reasons why jiu-jitsu is so difficult to learn in the first place.

Jiu-Jitsu Includes Countless Moves

Jiu-jitsu includes an incredibly large set of techniques, which makes it difficult to decide which ones to learn next. Many practitioners are discouraged by how many moves they must learn before becoming proficient at jiu-jitsu. However, the many moves of jiu-jitsu can also be a source of excitement as they imply that there will always be more for you to learn and explore during training.

Jiu-Jitsu is Physically Demanding

The physical demands of jiu-jitsu training can be an impediment to your learning progress. While reading and watching videos can increase your knowledge of the art, those activities cannot replicate the advantages of actual training. The issue is that rigorous training can cause discomfort and injury, which can deter many practitioners and make learning new skills much harder.

Losing in Jiu-Jitsu Can Hurt Your Pride

Our final reason for why jiu-jitsu is difficult to learn is purely mental. Losing in jiu-jitsu can damage your ego and causes many practitioners to quit for good. If you wish to learn jiu-jitsu, you must be willing to lose and learn from those losses. Remaining humble during sparring is not always easy to do, but it is necessary if you want to improve as quickly as you can.

Conclusion

Jiu-jitsu is a challenging activity that can take a while to learn. However, if you understand why jiu-jitsu is so difficult and follow the tips in the article above, you’ll have a chance to learn faster than most. The more you learn and progress, the sooner jiu-jitsu will become a rewarding and enjoyable hobby.