What is Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu?

The sport in one paragraph, then the parts of it

Two people grapple. Neither strikes the other. One tries to get into a position that controls the other's body, and from there attempts a hold on a joint or a strangle; the other tries to stop that, get out, and do the same thing back. When a hold is on and the person caught in it does not want to continue, they tap, and the exchange stops immediately and without argument.

That last sentence is the one that organises the rest of it. A submission is conceded rather than fought to a conclusion, so the tap is the ordinary way an exchange ends and it carries nothing with it. It is still a contact sport practised against a resisting person, so it is practised under a coach, and an injury or condition is something to raise before the session starts.

The sketch below is the shape of one exchange. It is worth having in your head before you read anything else, because almost every piece of Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu vocabulary is a name for one part of it.

The standing phase, and why it is short

Standing, the two people are on their feet, holding each other's arms, wrists, neck or body, each trying to put the other on the mat and stay on top. In other grappling sports this phase is most of the contest. Here it usually is not.

One reason is the scoring. Under the IBJJF competition rules, a takedown is worth two points, the smallest unit in the system, while passing the legs is worth three and reaching mount or back control is worth four. Those points are awarded by the referee when the position is stabilised under the conditions the rulebook sets out, rather than automatically. The scoreboard is weighted toward what happens after the fall.

The other reason is that going to the ground deliberately is a legitimate choice rather than a defeat. A person can sit down in front of their opponent on purpose, put their legs between the two of them, and start working from there. That is not surrender: guard is a position the sport is largely played from, which the next section describes.

Sources: IBJJF rulebook downloads · IBJJF Rule Book (PDF, June 2024). Checked 3 November 2026.

The ground phase: top, bottom, and the legs in between

Once someone is on the mat, the whole sport becomes a question of geometry. There is a person underneath and a person on top, and in between there are the legs of whoever is underneath.

While those legs are in the way, the person underneath is in guard. Guard is the reason Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu does not treat being on the bottom as losing: from there a person can defend, attack, and reverse the position entirely. A great deal of the sport's technical depth is work done by the person who is, to an outside eye, stuck.

When the legs stop being in the way, the person on top has passed the guard, and the positions that follow are more one-sided: across the chest from the side, sitting on the torso, or behind the other person with their chest against their spine. The IBJJF rules award their highest position score, four points, to the last two of those when they are stabilised under the rulebook's conditions.

Standing, guard, passing the guard and controlling positions are useful terms to recognise. They are a way of naming where two people are, not a fixed order the sport runs through: different rule sets and different coaches emphasise different parts of it.

Each of those positions has a name a coach will use in your first hour, and a labelled map of them lives in the beginner terminology guide.

Sources: IBJJF rulebook downloads · IBJJF Rule Book (PDF, June 2024). Checked 3 November 2026.

What a submission is, and what tapping means

A submission is a joint lock or a strangle applied with enough control that the other person cannot escape it. It is not a strike. Positions and submissions are related, but the coach decides how a particular class divides its time.

A person concedes by tapping: two clear taps with the hand, a tap with the foot if the arms are trapped, or simply saying stop. The IBJJF competition rules recognise all three, and a tap ends the match. You can also tap before anything is applied, because you do not like where a position is heading, and that is an ordinary use of it.

Tapping is expected conduct rather than an admission of anything, and people at every level do it in both directions. Tap early if you are unsure, tell your partner, and tell the coach if something hurts.

Sources: IBJJF rulebook downloads · IBJJF Rule Book (PDF, June 2024). Checked 3 November 2026.

A class and a match are not the same thing

Most of what has been described so far is the competition version of the sport, because that is the version with published rules you can read. A class is a different object, and nothing in a rulebook describes one.

Grappling classes commonly include a warm up, instruction and practice with a partner who is cooperating, and some amount of live practice where both people resist. How much of each, in what order, and how live practice is introduced vary by coach and by session, so the only reliable description of a particular hour comes from the academy running it.

Points, divisions and tournaments are not part of a class unless an academy chooses to make them so. Whether a session or a drill keeps score here is up to the coach taking it, so ask in the room rather than assuming either way.

If you want the competition side explained properly, the points guide works through the IBJJF scoring system from a spectator's seat.

Gi, no-gi, and what that means here

Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu is trained in two formats. In the gi, both people wear a heavy cotton jacket and trousers, and the jacket is equipment rather than uniform: sleeves, lapels and collars are the handles, and a good deal of the control and the escapes are built on gripping cloth.

In no-gi there is no jacket. The handles move to the body itself, which means arms threaded under arms, body locks, wrist control and head position, and the practice is generally quicker because there is less to hold on to.

Every session on the timetable at this academy is no-gi Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu and submission grappling. There is no gi programme, no separate no-gi night to look for, and no uniform to buy; clean athletic wear is the whole kit list. If what you specifically want is the jacket version, this is not the academy for it, and it is better to read that here than to find it out after a trial.

What actually changes when the jacket comes off is set out in gi versus no-gi BJJ.

If you want to see it rather than read about it

There is a session every day of the week here. The weekday lunchtime hour runs Monday to Friday at 12pm, all levels with beginners welcome. The evening hours run Tuesday and Friday at 6pm and 7pm, and Wednesday at 7pm, and at the weekend classes run Saturday at 1pm and Sunday at 12pm. The dedicated beginner hours, for people in their first months of training, run Tuesday and Friday at 6pm and 7pm, and Sunday at 12pm.

A one-off trial class is $30. Classes here are requested in advance and confirmed by the academy, so the way in is to ask for a specific hour and wait for the reply rather than travelling on an unanswered message.

Tell whoever replies that it is your first class. That single sentence is what lets the coach set the hour up knowing it, and it matters more than anything you could read beforehand, including this page.

Pick a day and ask for it through the $30 trial session chooser, which prefills the hour you chose so the reply can answer your actual question. Wait for the academy to confirm the session before you travel.

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