Your first BJJ class: what to bring and what to expect

Brazilian jiu-jitsu is trained in close contact, on the ground, with someone actively trying to control you. Put like that, it sounds alarming. In practice your first class is the calmest one you will ever have: nobody expects you to know anything, and the partner you get paired with is almost always someone the coach knows to be patient.

What makes the first time awkward is not the technique. It is not knowing what to bring, where to leave your shoes and when things actually start. That part we can sort out right here.

What to put in your bag

You do not need to buy anything for a trial. Do not buy a gi before you have trained: one costs somewhere in the region of 60 to 150 euros, and plenty of gyms will lend you one for your first few classes. Ask when you book.

• A fitted t-shirt and shorts with no pockets, zips or buttons. Pockets are the most common way to sprain a finger: someone's fingers end up inside them mid-scramble.
• Shower sandals. They are for walking around off the mat, and it is a hygiene rule, not a preference.
• A water bottle.
• A towel and a change of clothes.
• A mouthguard, if you have one. It is not compulsory in BJJ, but it does no harm.

One last obvious thing nobody says out loud: turn up clean. You are about to spend an hour training a few centimetres from someone else's face.

How a class runs

It varies from gym to gym, but the shape is almost always the same, and it lasts between sixty and ninety minutes.

1. 1Bow in and warm up. At many academies you salute as you step onto the mat; the warm-up includes ground-specific movements (rolls, bridges, hip escapes) that feel absurd at first and later become your vocabulary.
2. 2Technique. The coach shows one or two movements, broken down into steps.
3. 3Drilling. You repeat the technique with a partner who is not resisting. The point is to get it into your body, not to win.
4. 4Sparring, the rolling. Five or six minute rounds where you go for real, switching partners.
5. 5Bow out, often lined up by rank.

How to tap, and why it is not losing

To tap means telling your partner “that is enough, stop”. There are three ways to do it, and all of them are fine:

• Two or three firm taps with your hand on your partner's body.
• Two or three taps on the mat, if your arms are trapped.
• Out loud: “tap”, or simply “stop”. If you cannot move your arms or your legs, this is the way.

The tap is information, not surrender. It is what lets you train again tomorrow. People who refuse to tap out of pride get hurt, miss three weeks and fall behind: in BJJ the person who stops loses far more than the person who taps.

The unwritten rules of the mat

Nobody explains them to you, but everyone notices when you break them.

• Bare feet on the mat. Never off it. Sandals even for two steps to the bathroom.
• Greet the coach when you arrive and when you leave, and introduce yourself if it is your first time.
• If you are late, wait at the edge of the mat until the coach waves you on.
• Do not give technical advice to people more experienced than you, and not to less experienced people either unless they ask. That is the instructor's job.
• Flag your injuries before rolling: “my right shoulder is in a bad way” is a sentence your partner wants to hear beforehand, not afterwards.
• Rolling is not a competition. The partner you have today is the person who will make you better for the next several years.

At a lot of Brazilian-lineage gyms you will hear “oss” used for just about everything: hello, yes, thank you. At others nobody says it at all. It is not a test, and nobody is offended if you skip it.

What it actually feels like

You will be tired in a new way, because it is a whole-body kind of tired rather than one muscle at a time. You will understand almost nothing of what is happening while you roll, and that is fine: it is like that for everyone for a good few months. You will probably lose to people much smaller than you, and that is the moment you understand what this sport is about.

The most useful piece of advice for a first class is also the dullest: breathe. Beginners hold their breath under pressure and burn out in two minutes.

What next

If you have not picked a gym yet, that choice matters more than anything else on this list. We cover it here: How to choose a BJJ gym.