How Intense Does a Jiu Jitsu Class Need to Be?

Today I saw a post in a Facebook group for women in Jiu Jitsu from a brand new blue belt who is feeling discouraged because the day after receiving her promotion, her training partners (mostly men) started going a lot harder on her in their rolls, and with how physically intense her classes were already (no air conditioning, cardio-intense warmup, no resting allowed between rounds) she is now considering quitting.

Seeing her post made me thankful yet again that I am able to train at a gym that’s far more laid back: the classes I attend last just one hour, usually begin with a 5-minute warmup, and end with just 15-20 minutes of sparring. I go home after class feeling invigorated, not defeated. A couple times per week I attend a class that’s a full hour of sparring, and those classes are definitely more challenging, but the culture is still laid-back and encouraging instead of like Army boot camp. Students are encouraged to push through and not give up, but if they do need to step off the mat, they won’t be shamed or made to feel bad, just encouraged to try to build up their stamina over time.

From what I understand, physically demanding Jiu Jitsu classes used to be the norm in the early days of the sport: a typical class would start with at least 20 minutes of boot camp style exercise and would end with at least 30 minutes of intense sparring, often in an un-air conditioned gym or garage, deference to rank was expected, and quitting was not an option. I wonder whether many of the “Old School” BJJ practitioners look at today’s chill, laid-back gyms and think the sport has gone soft.

To be frank, I would never have done Jiu Jitsu if my only option for learning it was to attend one of the “Old School” style gyms. When I started BJJ, I was a woman in my mid-30’s, not very athletic, and I wanted to preserve my health and energy for other aspects of daily life that I cared about, including my job. I was interested in learning Jiu Jitsu and wanted a fun way to get more exercise, but I wasn’t keeping pace with athletic men in their 20’s wasn’t something I was interested in or able to do. If that had been a requirement for training, it would have caused me to leave or never even enter the sport, and I would have missed out on Jiu Jitsu’s numerous benefits.

I know that even after five years of training my Jiu Jitsu isn’t at a level to win competitions, and that’s okay with me. Without feeling like I’m going to die at every class, I’ve developed skills that potentially could save my life if I was ever attacked, I’ve increased my physical strength and self-confidence, and I’ve found a way to get consistent exercise that I enjoy. I may never need to use my Jiu Jitsu skills to defend myself in a fight, but by adding years to my life expectancy, Jiu Jitsu has potentially allowed me to “defend myself” me from “attackers” such as obesity, heart disease, and cancer. Plus, it’s a whole lot of fun, and I’m glad I’ve been able to experience that joy in a way that’s accessible to me.

In the summer of 2023, my husband and I spent a month visiting Austin, Texas, during which time we trained at a total of ten BJJ gyms between the both of us. Most of those gyms had a pretty “laid back” culture, and several of them were VERY “chill”: no warm-up or just some light stretching, no pressure to keep up or push through pain, no judgement if you needed to step out for a round. Possibly the most “chill” of all the gyms we visited was B Team, where some of the top athletes in the sport of Jiu Jitsu train.

Jiu Jitsu has exploded in popularity in the last few years (especially after COVID) and I have a theory that one of the reasons is the move away from tradition taking place across the sport as a whole. I heard Ffion Davies describe her training regimen at a seminar and know from her description that extremely rigorous training is still available to people who want to push themselves to become a top level athlete, but not everyone wants that, and I think it’s a good thing that “normal people”–middle aged moms, elementary teachers, blue collar laborers, doctors, dentists, and others who are not able to or don’t want to train like Olympic athletes–can still learn and enjoy Jiu Jitsu.