Why does he pick up new BJJ techniques so fast and I don’t?

“He’s a natural.”

That’s what most people would say. 

A natural is someone who doesn’t really have to learn a skill or ability. It just kinda comes naturally to him or her. 

While you seem to invest twice as much time into getting the movements down the natural just picks it up after a few reps and can quickly integrate it into his BJJ game. Unfair.

But is that really so? Do you either have it or you don’t? Or can you train in a way that enables you to pick up skills quickly? And if so, how would you train?

That’s what I want to talk about with you today. 

See, I’m quite a natural myself. 

Just kidding. 

I’m a blue belt in BJJ and I have done grappling (mostly Judo and wrestling) for over 20 years. I am currently a Personal Trainer at Equinox and I train and teach skills like the handstand or muscle up. Read this or check out my Instagram if you want to know more.

I will use Brazilian Jiu-jitsu as an example for this post, but the same information applies to any other sports as well. 

Before I talk about if and how you can train to learn new skills faster, you need to understand the difference between skills, abilities, and fitness, and how these elements come together in general and in BJJ.  Then we’ll talk about how you could train each element.

Here we go…

What’s the difference between skills and abilities?

Skills and abilities – two words which are often mixed up and given many different definitions. I will draw a clear line between them to make things easy. 

This is not about which definition is right or wrong. It’s about helping you to improve your skills and abilities.  So let’s start with some simple descriptions. 

Abilities: You are born with them and you can train them

Every human being is born with abilities.

Everyone has strength, mobility, orientation, rhythm, balance, etc.. You are born with them. 

Some people are naturally better in some than others. But it doesn’t matter because you can improve your abilities by training them. For example, weak people become strong with strength training. As simple as that. 

Skills: You have to learn them

No human being is born with skills.

We all start from scratch. Nobody can drive a car right after birth. We come out fragile and helpless. 

Some skills you learn automatically because nature was so kind to give you a basic set, like crawling, squatting, walking, etc. Other skills you have to learn from your environment like speaking, writing, handstands, BJJ, or calling an Uber. 

We can separate skills and abilities like this:

The next thing that we will separate is your body and your nervous system. 

Your body and your nervous system

“Make a fist!”

You read the sentence. The information is being processed in your brain.

If you decide to make a fist, your brain sends a signal through the spinal cord to the muscles in your arm, which then contract.

Your brain and your spinal cord form your Central Nervous System (CNS).

Its job is immense: From the reception and processing of stimuli by your sensory organs, through the entire motor system of your body, up to the regulation of your organs.

Without your nervous system you would just be a useless shell. Dead.

You also have a Peripheral Nervous System (PNS), which communicates with the CNS. These two systems overlap and are difficult to separate depending on the situation. I won’t go into details here.

Just remember that your nervous system is processing information and your body is kinda like a shell allowing you to move.

Here you can see the interplay between the nervous system, body, skills, and abilities:

Two Types of Abilities

In the table above, we have three containers. The first container holds your skills like BJJ and Handstand, and the other two containers hold your abilities. 

First, we have abilities managed by the nervous system. These are coordinative, or motor control, abilities.  

Then, there are  your body’s abilities – like strength, mobility and endurance – which is basically your fitness. 

And this is where it gets interesting. Most people neglect training  the nervous system’s abilities (like balance, rhythm, reaction, spatial orientation etc.), probably because there is little information on how to train them. You can find millions of training concepts, workouts, and tips on how to get stronger or improve your endurance, but very little on how to improve your motor control. 

Another reason is that it is harder to measure these abilities  than it is to measure abilities like strength and endurance, but these motor control abilities are exactly what defines a natural. 

A natural picks up new movements easily because his motor control is advanced. It’s not because he has endurance, mobility, or strength. These are important, but not crucial. 

Let me explain it with a simple example:

BJJ is like an app on your phone 

Think of BJJ as an app on your phone.

Actually, think of all your skills as apps. 

What do you need in order for an app to work well? A good phone, aka hardware. That’s kinda obvious. A shitty phone won’t be able to run the app – just like you need a good body for many athletic skills. 

And that’s what most athletes focus on – their body (hardware) and their skills (apps). 

But there is something else: Your operating system. In an iPhone it’s iOS, in Samsung it’s Android.  

A shitty operating system makes all apps shitty. So it’s equally as important as your hardware.

It is the link between apps and phone. 

Motor control is like the operating system. It is the link between your skills and your body. It makes sure that your body does what you want it to do. 

You can improve your motor control with the right training, just like you can update the operating system of your phone. 

So it is basically possible to become a natural or at least get better at picking up new movements quickly. 

Now – we have 3 elements (fitness, skills and motor control). You can train all of them. The question is how. 

Fitness: How do you actually train strength, mobility and endurance?

Let’s start with the “easy” stuff that everybody talks about: Your fitness (strength, mobility and endurance). 

What can a strong body do? It can go against a force. The greater the force the stronger the body. Those forces are usually gravity or weights. The opposite of a strong body is a weak body. 

What can a mobile body do? It can move in a wide range of motion. The opposite is a stiff body. 

A body with endurance usually has a big and strong heart, lots of red blood cells and good lungs. This body can move for a long period of time. The opposite is a body that gets out of breath easily. 

How do you usually train these 3 fitness attributes?

With simple skills. 

You can train your fitness using simple skills

Take a squat, for example. 

Depending on the range of motion, time under tension, tempo, or resistance you can increase your strength, mobility, and endurance.

But that’s not all. When you squat, you don’t only train your fitness. You’ll also get better at squatting itself, which means you become more efficient in that specific movement pattern.  So it’s kinda like a circle. You can train a skill to improve your fitness and to improve the skill itself. 

Which brings us to the next point. 

Skills: How do you learn skills like a handstand or BJJ?

BJJ practitioner after he got beat: “Man, I have to improve my cardio.” 

Person who beat him: “No, you have to improve your Jiu-jitsu.”

Back in the day, I did bicep curls because I thought that it would get me stronger and improve my Judo. It took me a while to realize that it was a waste of time. I got a bigger biceps, but it didn’t help me with my Judo. 

I hear the thought process “I need to improve my fitness for XYZ-skill” very often, but it’s usually inefficient. The answer is simple, yet often overlooked:

The best way to learn a skill is by training the skill itself.

If you want to learn a handstand, then train the handstand. If you want to get better in BJJ, then do more BJJ. If you want to get better in basketball, then play more basketball, and so on …

Your fitness usually comes with the skill itself. You can get stronger and improve your endurance by training BJJ,  for example. Of course it will be sport-specific and you might have to include some additional exercises to keep a structural balance, but the majority of your training should be within the skill itself.  

Another thing will happen when you focus on your skill. Instead of thinking about how to improve your cardio or strength or mobility,  you will think: “How can I improve my skill?”

Once you shift your focus to your skill, you will realize that you need to invest more time in your practice.  In order to invest the most time in your practice, you can’t afford to get injured because injuries might keep you from practicing.  

Then you’ll start looking for ways to decrease the chances of getting  injured. BJJ injuries usually happen at your joints, which means you need resilient joints to prevent injury. So you’ll start searching for training methods that focus on strengthening  your joints (not your biceps).

Then you’ll  find out that there is a whole new world of possibilities. Stuff your opponents don’t even think about. 

Which brings us to the next topic: Motor control 

Motor Control: How do you train abilities like balance, spatial orientation, or rhythm?

Imagine your body does exactly what you want it to do. 

You see a new technique, you pick it up, and apply it 5 minutes later when you roll. You are happy and your coach is happy because you do what he tells you to do. 

You need good motor control for that. 

There are many more coordinative abilities (motor control) than there are conditional abilities (fitness). 

The German Professors. Dr. Kurt Meinel and Dr.? Günter Schnabel  proposed seven abilities: Kinesthetic differentiation, conversion, coupling, equilibrium, rhythm, spatial orientation, and reaction.

• Coupling: This refers to the efficient coordination of certain body segments to reach a goal. In plain English: Your coordination. You can observe this in BJJ when you watch an experienced practitioner go against a newbie. Within a few minutes the newbie will sweat and be out of breath because he moves inefficiently, while the experienced practitioner does not. He looks like he could go on forever. 
• Conversion: This is improvisation. When things change, how fast can you adapt? You will find it less in gymnastics or track and field, and more in team sports and martial arts. 
• Kinesthetic Differentiation: It’s the feeling you have with another object. For example:  the feel of the water (resistance, movement, etc.) that you have in water sports, the feel of a ball (like impact/contact) in ball sports, the feel of snow in snow sports,… and so forth.  In BJJ you could say the feel of your opponent. When he pushes, you can feel it. You can react and pull him to get him out of balance for a sweep, for example, or choke or do an armbar without using a lot of force. Some people barely move their body and choke you while others have to use a lot of strength.
• Spatial Orientation: This is knowing where you are in space. Think of a throw in BJJ. One reason why people get hurt when they are being thrown is that they don’t know where they are during the throw and how to position their body. This is common in adults with no grappling background. You also need this sense of orientation when you roll around on the floor. 
• Equilibrium: This is balance, which is important for your stand-up game, aka Judo/wrestling. When you break your opponent’s balance you can throw him. 
• Reaction: How fast can you respond to an action? When your opponent starts moving fast he might challenge your reaction. This is an important ability in Judo. One quick foot sweep will land you on your back if you don’t react appropriately.  
• Rhythm: This is the ability to move your body to a rhythm that comes from outside (like music), as well as the ability to notice a rhythm inside your body. For example when you are running or doing any type of repetitive movement where a rhythm makes it easier / more efficient to execute.

The importance of each ability depends heavily on your practice. Rhythm is more important in dancing than in BJJ, for example. Conversion is more important for BJJ than for learning a handstand. 

Think of your practice and rate these abilities accordingly. Then choose one of the top 3 that you think will have the biggest impact on your practice and train them.

Why you should train your motor control

Why even bother?

Well, why not? You can see your motor control training as a third lever that can help you improve drastically. If you do it right, you will learn skills or new techniques  faster, which will give you a huge advantage over your competition. 

When you started learning BJJ your fitness, motor control, and BJJ itself improved, right? 

But it goes in reverse as well: When you improve your fitness and your motor control your BJJ will improve. That’s the rule with many athletic practices.

What do most people do? They do strength, endurance and mobility training to improve their BJJ or other sports.

But they miss a big element: motor control. Why not take advantage of it?

And guess what? Many of the coordinative abilities can be improved without putting a lot of stress on your body. 

As you know, there is a limit on how much training your body can handle because you need time to regenerate. But motor control training is about your nervous system, not your body. So when you train your motor control in a way that doesn’t require cardio or strength, you can easily add it on top of your current training without needing to worry about “overtraining”. 

How to not train motor control

Let’s take balance, for example. 

Balancing on a BOSU Ball does not mean that you have good balance. It just means that you can balance on a BOSU ball. That’s it. 

BOSU Ball Balance ≠ Good Balance

There are more scenarios about balance. 

What about balance on a steady surface? What about a skateboard? What about one foot? What about barefoot vs shoes? What about handbalance or toe balance? What about ice skating or slacklining? What about with eyes closed? What about getting in and out of balance? What about someone trying to get you out of balance (like in Judo)? 

Being an expert at one scenario doesn’t automatically make you good at the whole ability. 

How to train motor control

If you want to improve an ability you have to constantly challenge it in order to get better. Once you are good at one scenario you have to move on. It doesn’t serve you anymore. 

You do that already with strength training. There was a time when you could only bench press 45 lbs. Did you become an expert in bench pressing 45 lbs? No! Because these 45 lbs don’t serve you anymore. You need more weight to increase your strength. 

If you want to improve kinesthetic differentiation, feeling an object / your opponent for example:

You could start playing with a yoga ball, like this guy, or you do a partner game.  For example: Stay on your partner’s back while he tries to escape. You could increase the challenge by playing this game with a better partner or eyes closed. You could also just train more BJJ or start learning a new skill that requires kinesthetic differentiation, like partner dancing.

As long as you increase the challenge you will improve. That means you will constantly feel kinda shitty at this, like a beginner. The moment it feels like you “got this,” it won’t serve you anymore. Move on. Don’t become an expert at yoga ball balance – it’s a waste of time. 

It’s these kinds of games, skills, and scenarios that will challenge your nervous system enough to improve your motor control.

Now you know the concept. 

1. Find an ability that is important in your practice that you want to improve.
2. Play with scenarios or games that will challenge this ability. 
3. Don’t become an expert at the game.

Train 2-6 times a week for at least 6 consecutive weeks and see what happens. 

The best way to become a natural is to train your motor control 

Here is a little recap:

Naturals pick up skills faster than the average person, but you don’t have to be born a natural. It’s possible to improve your ability to learn skills faster if you train your motor control.

Your nervous system processes information, such as skills and abilities, and your body takes care of your movement processes.

Skills like BJJ are learned. Abilities like strength and balance come with your DNA, but you can improve them with training. 

Remember:  In reality, you cannot draw clear lines between all of these elements because they overlap and are interdependent. They function together as one single system. 

You have two types of abilities that we split up into motor control (abilities of nervous system aka coordinative abilities) and fitness (abilities of body). 

That gives us three containers: fitness, skills, and motor control. You can compare them to a phone. Your fitness is comparable to the hardware of a phone, your skills are like apps, and your motor control is like the operating system. 

If you want your apps to work well you have to have a good phone with a good operating system. The operating system is the link between hardware and apps. You cannot install apps without it.

If you want to pick up skills fast, like a natural, you have to have good motor control. Motor control is the link between your body and new skills. You cannot learn skills without it. 

Your motor control will improve if you challenge it. This can be done in numerous ways. Like learning new skills or putting yourself into scenarios that will challenge certain coordinative abilities. 

How much time should I invest into my Motor Control Training?

That depend on a lot of factors. How much time do you have? How important is BJJ in your life? Do you have an injury? Etc. 

Rule of thumb:

Invest the majority of your time and energy in BJJ and train fitness and motor control a lesser, equal amount. 

Percentage-wise it would look like this: 

What about you? What are you practicing? or wWhat ability do you want to improve and what games could you play to improve it? What challenges are you dealing with in your training? Leave a comment.

Also, if you have any questions feel free to comment, write me an email, or DM me on Instagram.

-Marco