Design a BJJ Curriculum That Keeps Kids and Adults Coming Back

How would you feel about sky-high student retention rates? I’m talking about clear student progression, fewer admin requirements, and a significant drop in cancellations. 

Would it surprise you to learn that the answer depends on your BJJ curriculum and your student's progression? 

Students want to see that they’re getting better. 

That’s the obvious problem—but factors like attendance, interest level, discipline, etc, make it difficult for students to progress at the pace they’re looking for. The hidden problem? A large group of your students wants to progress at a rate that’s faster than their teammates. 

Most won’t admit that publicly. 

If you’re like other coaches, you’re tired of scrambling to throw a BJJ lesson plan together 30 minutes before class starts. You have too much to do and not enough time to do it. 

But it’s a must-have. 

If you want to keep more of your students, student progression is the way you do it. Your curriculum is glue, the foundation that keeps the kids and adults in your gym moving forward. Ignore this, and you’ll find students fade away quietly.

Why Kids and Adults Struggle to Progress in Training

Most gyms follow the traditional approach:

1. Warm-ups 
2. Three techniques
3. Roll

For many gyms, the curriculum includes a game at the end of class if they were “good” during their session. This approach is better than nothing, but it leaves students feeling like they’re struggling to use the material they’ve learned. 

Here’s why: With the traditional approach, there’s a huge amount of time spent on drilling—“drillers make killers” was a mantra repeated constantly. It was a miserable grind. 

As a white/blue belt, I spent hours continually drilling the technique on cooperative partners.

‍I love training, but this was incredibly boring. 

None of the students would ever admit that to our instructor, but we all hated it. But that wasn’t even our biggest problem.

The traditional approach made it really difficult to apply these techniques during live rolls. If we’ve spent the last 45 minutes drilling an armbar from guard, all of our teammates are on the lookout for the setups we’ve learned. 

It’s no surprise, then, that none of us allowed our partners to catch us using these techniques. 

At the end of class, our instructor asked for a show of hands: 

“How many of you were able to hit the techniques we covered in class today?” 

A few hands went up, but there was generally this sense of failure—students who struggled looked away, hung their heads, or avoided eye contact. 

This makes building skills incredibly difficult. 

Over time, the outcome is predictable.  Students may struggle with imposter syndrome. They hesitate when you tell them they’ve made progress. They know they’ve made some progress, but they’re nowhere close to where they should be, and they know that. 

How do we fix this? 

BJJ Lesson Planning Starts With a System

There is no one-size-fits-all lesson plan that works for every gym. 

It’s about customizing a system that works. Wouldn’t it be easy to just create a system and run with it? Well, no, because there are lots of variables you’ll have to account for. 

1. BJJ for MMA is completely different from BJJ
2. Gi vs No-Gi is an entirely different animal 
3. Hobbyists vs competitors require very different attention
4. Wrestling heavy vs judo heavy gyms, change your approach

You’ll need to identify the core elements of a strong curriculum—then work to customize and adapt the system to your gym’s needs. 

You need to create a system that gives students consistent, repeatable progress; something that helps each coach teaching in your gym. 

The four parts of a strong curriculum (not just random techniques) 

A strong jiu-jitsu curriculum has four parts: 

1. Objectives outlining what your students will learn
2. Technique, the subject matter you’re demonstrating to students
3. Learning methods outlining how students will develop the technique and skills you’re teaching
4. Assessments that verify that students are learning the information

The three-techniques-then-roll approach falls short on items three and four. 

Students know what they’re about to learn, and they’re receiving techniques, but approaches like these fall short because: 

• There are no short-term assessments. You can’t assess your student’s armbar skills if they can’t get to the position.
• Students are on their own. The learning methods leave live training in the student's hands. They’re expected to figure things out and determine how best to learn the material.
• Student teachers are trying to please everyone. They’re often unsure what to teach; they want the other students to enjoy it, but they also want their head instructor (you) to be happy with them. Most default to teaching what they know and like.

So what does a “good” curriculum look like? 

Well, for starters, it’s consistent. You focus your attention on outcomes, set expectations, and build around shared goals. 

What “drop-in friendly” means for BJJ gyms 

Each of your classes can be taught as standalone sessions that form a whole. Each class loops, so newcomers can learn the new material without falling behind. Students work towards specific outcomes. What does this look like? 

Let’s say you’re spending a week on back control. 

You’re taking your students through each offensive option available from back control. If we’re building out our lesson plan for the week, it could look like this: 

• On Monday, you focus on back control basics (e.g., goal setting, chest-to-back connection, back control maintenance, diagonal control, retaking the back, etc.)
• On Tuesday, you focus on the different elements of back control (e.g., overhook vs. underhook side, hooks vs. body triangle vs. post rear mount vs. high ball ride) 
• On Wednesday, you can focus on handfighting, hand trapping, hand positioning, and finishing positions. 
• On Thursday, it’s all about strangles and follow-up submissions (e.g., finishes on the back as well as triangles, armbars, front head attacks, etc.)
• On Friday, you focus on entries to the back from the most common positions (e.g., standing, guard, passing, mount, side control, north south, and half guard)

If you do a quick recap of the previous session before starting class, you’re able to build on the material from previous days. However, each day is a standalone session that’s focused on one thing—making your students better at controlling and finishing opponents from the back. 

See what I mean? I take a similar approach in my gym for good reason. 

Here’s why this is so powerful: Students can start their training on random days. Each session is a standalone class that references previous classes.   

Start With Outcomes: What Should A Beginner Know First? 

If you’re looking to build a strong curriculum, lead with outcomes. 

If you’re working with white belts, you'll want to structure your curriculum around a few specific skills. 

These skills build on one another, creating a system that drives rapid progress. Here’s a list of skills beginners should develop, in order of importance.

Pin escapes

White belts will spend most of their time in the bottom position in pins. It’s important: 

1. They know how to escape pins from each position (e.g., mount, side control, north-south, chest-to-chest half guard, etc.). 
2. They know how to create escape dilemmas—situations that make escaping inevitable. 

Here’s an example: If your students are in bottom mount, you could teach them a few key escapes, such as bump trap and roll, elbow knee escapes, inside elbow, and kipping escapes. 

Once students can apply these techniques independently, you show them how to use them together as part of a system (e.g., elbow-knee escapes + inside elbow + kipping). 

Submission escapes

Your white belts should have early-, mid-, and late-stage escapes for common, high-percentage submissions used in competition (e.g., guillotine, darce, anaconda, armbar, kimura, triangle, ankle lock). 

It’s obviously unreasonable that you expect your white belts to escape submissions from high-level black belts; it's completely reasonable to expect them to escape submissions from other white belts. 

Start with the most common submissions used at their level of competition, then build from there. 

Guard play/retention

Students should be comfortable playing off their back. 

They should be able to make meaningful connections (e.g., four points of contact) and immediately off-balance their opponents. If opponents attempt to pass their guard, they should be able to defend, retain, and reestablish their guard. 

Gravity and time are on the passer’s side, so their guard needs to be defensively strong, but primarily offensive. 

Their guard should be consistently offensive, with brief periods of defense used to transition back into their offense. 

If opponents can’t pass your student’s guard, they can’t pin or submit them. 

Guard passing

Students should have three-dimensional passing. Your curriculum should teach them how to: 

1. Pass at long range via loose passing, medium range to engage open seated and supine guards, and short range to prevent guard players from standing up. 
2. Build skills with 1–2 passes they can use in each passing bucket (e.g., loose, stack, tight, and float passing) and 
3. Enter staging positions and use them as a guide to determine which pass to use. 

Pinning

How do you pin your opponent while you continue to move? You give your students a primer on zone management. 

Share the ins and outs of pinning someone first, how zone management works, and how you go about negating movement.

But why, though? What’s the goal of a pin? 

It’s all about getting chest-to-chest or chest-to-back connections!  

From there, you can show them the correct order of operations so they can move from one position to another (e.g., capturing the far-side underhook from side control before transitioning to mount). 

Submission systems 

Your students know how to move from dominant positions (e.g., mount, side control, back control) to control positions (e.g., seated head and arm, dorsal kimura, size scissors crucifix, etc.). 

They should be able to consistently move into control positions that break their opponent’s defensive structure, enabling them to set up submission dilemmas (e.g., triangle/armbar dilemmas).  

So, what’s a good way to summarize all of this? 

Well, in a nutshell, beginners should learn to: escape, fight off their backs, get past their opponent’s legs, hold them down, and submit them. 

Your jiu-jitsu curriculum should be built around these goals; if done well, students will find that their competence naturally builds their confidence over time.  

How to Build a Shared Language Across Coaches 

Developing a shared language among coaches is a common challenge. It really shouldn’t be. 

How hard can it be? You train your coaches and students to use certain terminology—that’s it, easy peasy. Only it’s not that simple. 

Developing a shared language is important because it requires time, careful thought, and planning. 

Here are a few examples:

• Underhooks are for arms. Scoop grips are for legs.
• Overhooks are for arms. Overwraps are for legs.
• Figure 4 grips use your arms. Sankaku uses your legs.
• Elbow cut to pull your elbow to your ribs. Back heel to pull your heels to your butt.

Some people hate using Japanese terms in Judo—they feel it’s cringe. Others appreciate it and feel it’s a helpful, plug-and-play option they can use to get their coaches on the same page. 

Use whatever works, just be consistent with your naming conventions and cues. 

Train your coaches so the descriptions and naming conventions used are seamless, consistent, and clear.

If you’re using a gym management software tool like Gymdesk, you can create a library that has all the terminology, references, and techniques you’d like coaches to use/reference when teaching. 

Do your best to keep your coaches on the same page. 

The BJJ Class Structure Template (45/60/90 Minutes) 

Here’s a class structure template you can use to run classes in your gym. 

Use this template for kids and adults, BJJ fundamentals curriculum, and competition classes. Customize each template around the training philosophy in your gym. 

A 45-minute class template 

These classes/sessions are generally short and focused on a specific element. You can run your 45-minute sessions as a condensed class or use them for specialized learning, as you’ll see below. 

If you’re running a condensed class: 

1. Warm-up (optional) (0-5 minutes)
2. Technique/instruction (10 min)
3. Positional rounds (specific positions) (20 min)
4. Open rounds/rolling (10 min)

These condensed sessions work well for fundamentals classes. Most beginners in your classes will experience fatigue. 

Short, condensed classes allow your students to train without burning out.  

If you’re using these sessions for specialized learning, you can use the entire 45 minutes on one of these: 

1. Positional rounds (position-specific or varied)
2. Competition rounds, designed around specific skills (e.g., pacing, endurance, points stacking, training for rulesets, etc.)
3. Open rounds/rolling
4. Question and answer period 
5. Creativity/improvisation rounds
6. Rolls/rounds structured around a specific goal (e.g., camping, passing, submission hunting, prepping for specific opponents, etc.)

These specialized sessions are great because they create options for adult and competition classes.  

A 60-minute class template 

For 60-minute sessions, you can add a bit more to your classes:

1. Warm-up (optional) (0-10 min)
2. Technique/instruction (10-20 min)
3. Positional rounds (specific positions)(20-30 min)
4. Open rounds/rolling (10 min)

This is a simple template you can add to. 

For example, at my gym, we focus on a variety of positions during positional rounds, including guard, turtle/front head, mount, back control, side control, north-south, and standing positions. 

If we’re going through a specific series, we prioritize our rounds in those positions. 

A 90/120-minute class template 

For 90 and 120-minute sessions, you can add more depth to your classes. You can go deeper into any of these, for example, or use the time to create a specialized session for part of it.  

1. Warm-up (optional) (0-5 min)
2. Technique/instruction (5-20 min)
3. Positional rounds (specific positions) (30 min)
4. Competition rounds, designed around specific skills (e.g., pacing, endurance, points stacking, training for rulesets, etc.) (30-45 min, used in place of other training options)
5. Open rounds/rolling (30 min, if other training options aren’t used)
6. Question and answer period (variable amount of time depending on goals)
7. Creativity/improvisation rounds (20-30 min)
8. Rolls/rounds structured around a specific goal (e.g., camping, passing, submission hunting, prepping for specific opponents, etc.) (30 min)

You can pick and choose which option is needed for a particular week. This list isn’t intended to be completed in its entirety. You’ll need to pick and choose which option is most appropriate at that time. 

These options can be used to create classes that directly serve your students’ needs. 

A Copy/Paste BJJ Lesson Plan Template (With Examples) 

Here’s a fillable template you can use to create lesson plans for your instructors. I’ll also share examples of output using this template we built. 

Creating a lesson plan ensures that every class is consistent, outcome-driven, and repeatable. It emphasizes student growth and development. 

You can use your lesson plans to create a series of classes that are based on a specific theme (e.g., armbars), or you can use this to develop a full curriculum.  

What does this look like? I went ahead and created a sample plan from the template above.

Attach technique notes/videos to a skill entry, so substitutes can run class without guesswork.

Build a 12-16 Week BJJ Fundamentals Curriculum (That Loops) 

Remember the outcomes I mentioned earlier? Use those to create a fundamentals curriculum for your beginner students. 

• Week 1 & 2: Pin escapes
• Week 3 & 4: Submission escapes
• Week 5 & 6: Guard play/retention
• Week 7 & 8:  Guard passing
• Week 9 & 10: Pinning 
• Week 11 & 12: Submission systems
• Week 13 & 14: Handfighting and takedowns

You organize these weeks into mini-series or modules that loop; this way, new students can jump into the curriculum at any time. 

I’ve added a two-week buffer if any sessions or modules run longer than intended. 

Shorter loops repeat sooner; longer loops go deeper but need more communication to keep students engaged and focused on the curriculum.

How to align Gi and No-Gi without doubling your workload 

It’s a good idea to create an overarching theme for all of your classes.

Here’s what I mean: Let’s say you offer Gi and No-Gi classes. You also offer MMA. 

You have a competition team, but you also have a room full of hobbyists. If you try to cover separate topics for each of your classes, your coaches are likely to burn out. So you create one theme to rule them all.

Theme of the week: Back control

So, how would you align your classes and avoid doubling your workload? 

• MMA sessions would focus on defending strikes, submissions, and transitions from back control.
• Gi sessions would prioritize Gi-dependent setups and strangles for control (e.g., loop, Ezekiels, bow and arrow, and chicken wing strangles) as well as the standard rear naked strangles.
• No-Gi sessions would focus on strangles from the back as well as transitions to rear triangles, armbars, and other dilemmas.  

• Competition teams would focus on advanced tactics to defeat opponents during EBI rounds. As an example, comp teams could focus on sequences like forcing the rear triangle when your arm gets trapped in back control, then forcing an armbar, and countering with the hitchhiker escape.
• Hobbyists would learn about the ins and outs of back control offense and defense (e.g., primary and secondary hands, upper vs. lower body escapes, etc.)

See what I did there? 

The theme is back control, but each class prioritizes different focal points. These details are precise and easy to follow, so if you schedule classes appropriately, you’ll find you have the right amount of overlap. 

Themes maximize efficiency and minimize coaches' burnout.  

Curriculum Ops: Keep Coaches Consistent (Even When You’re Not There) 

“What do you guys want to learn today?” The coaches at a neighboring gym ask their students this question. When these coaches come to class, there’s no plan, no preparation. ‍

Your curriculum helps you to avoid this. 

It keeps your coaches on track. It’s the playbook you should use to create lesson plans for each class. 

When you outline your approach to BJJ lesson planning, you give coaches a clear breakdown telling them what should be included, the detail you’re looking for, and the structure you’d like each class to follow. 

Your coaches will need some time to create their lesson plans. 

Give them enough time, well before each class,, so you have time to review them. Have coaches post their lesson plans in a centralized place so everyone is on the same page. 

You must have a clear record of everything that’s taught. 

Create a weekly/monthly planning workflow 

Your workflow should account for the various training situations you’ll encounter. Here’s what your workflow could look like: 

1. Gym owner posts the theme of the week to use in training (e.g., back control)
2. Students let coaches know when they’re competing
3. Gym owner and coaches outline the problem areas that need to be addressed 
4. Gym owners assigning specific problems to coaches (i.e., kickboxing problems to MMA coaches)
5. Assistant coaches create lesson plans for the upcoming week using our template
6. Gym owners verify that all classes within a specific period, say a week, are covered
7. Assistant coaches create lesson plans based on the templates created by the gym owner (see above)

Track what has been taught 

Keep a teacher’s log—treat it as a centralized record of: 

• Lesson plans
• Themes of the week/month/quarter
• Techniques covered
• Curriculum coverage
• Rounds and activities
• Student progress 

Use this to identify gaps in training, content that’s already been covered, and student progress with the material covered so far. 

Onboarding a new instructor into your system 

Themes keep everyone on the same page. 

Let’s say your theme of the month is back control. Each of your instructors can create a lesson plan that follows the template/framework we’ve created above. 

What does that look like? 

• Instructor A: Back control maintenance and recovery
• Instructor B: 12 strangles from back control
• Instructor C: Armbars and leg locks from back control
• Instructor A: Back control to leg locks to back control 
• Instructor B: Back control to triangles 

See that? The theme is back control—every class is built around that theme, but there’s flexibility and creativity here. 

Your instructors can give students a broad understanding of the position, choosing specific topics to explore in-depth. 

How do you help them? 

Provide student instructors with a framework, workflows, checklists, and sample lesson plans to follow. Show students where these docs live, give them direction on how to use them, and how to run positional rounds. 

Explain the dos and don’ts in detail and go over policies and procedures that should be followed. You’ll want to shadow your instructors, giving them in-person help and support before they’re asked to teach on their own. 

Verify that they’re ready before they’re asked to lead. 

Common Curriculum Mistakes (And Easy Fixes) 

Several issues cause curriculum breakdown:

1. Too much technique
2. No rules or direction with positional rounds, rolls, or improve drills
3. No clear guidelines or goals for rolling (e.g., point stacking, hunting for the back, negation of movement, etc.)

When standards are inconsistent, it’s difficult for students to progress. 

If they’re overwhelmed or confused about what to do in a particular situation or position (e.g., back control), their growth stalls.

Proper individual guidance goes a long way (for instance, for back control—“Long legs? Use a body triangle to control the back. Short legs? Use your upper body to control the back”).

Unproductive failure becomes common when the feedback students receive is poor. 

Teaching five techniques and drilling none 

A better approach would be to introduce all five techniques, but focus on one or two techniques for that day, drilling reps so that students have a good grasp of the mechanics. 

Then, spend lots of time in positional rounds. The more resistance, exposure, and reps students have with a specific technique, the faster their progress.  

Promotions feel random 

Promotions are challenging for students for a variety of reasons:

1. Instructors forget to assess students
2. Promotions feel like a black box that’s unclear to students
3. The perception of politics and favoritism 
4. Sandbagging and manipulation

Each of these challenges leads to confusion and student discouragement—some students aren’t sure if they deserve to be promoted. Others believe they’re ready or overdue for a promotion. Others feel they’ve been cheated out of a promotion that’s rightfully theirs. 

All of these issues kill progress and student retention. 

The good news is that the fix is simple—set objective criteria for the skills students should be able to demonstrate against resisting opponents at their current rank. 

Want to take it a step further? 

Make your progress visible, and run periodic check-ins. With Gymdesk, you and your students can easily track progress toward new stripes and belts (no physical cards necessary).

Plan Smarter to Keep Your Students Around

If you want to keep more of your students, student progression is the way you do it. 

Your curriculum is glue, the foundation that keeps the kids and adults in your gym moving forward. Ignore this, and you’ll find students fade away quietly.

You’re tired of working nights and weekends, scrambling to keep everything together. If you’re like other coaches, you’re sick of scrambling to throw a BJJ lesson plan together 30 minutes before class starts. 

It’s time for you to progress. 

A strong curriculum gives your students a clear path to promotion. It gives you an easy way to reclaim your nights and weekends. 

No more late-night accounting, no neglecting your classes in favor of accounting.  

If you’re using gym management software like Gymdesk, you’ll find it’s easy to automate these to-dos; just copy the template, pick next week’s theme, and publish it. 

If you aren’t using Gymdesk yet, you could be! Try it free for 30 days to see what it can do for your gym.