Year 1 — Your First Twelve Positions
Year 1 is the foundation. Across twelve months you'll learn every major position in jiu jitsu from both the top and the bottom — side control, mount, guard, half guard, the back and turtle — so nothing on the mat feels unfamiliar.
Each month is one position, broken into four weeks that build on each other. By the end of the year you have a complete positional base and the vocabulary the rest of your jiu jitsu is built on.
Curious what class looks like? Your first one is completely free.
Reserve Your Free ClassWe start where every good top game starts — holding someone with weight and structure instead of strength. The early weeks are about hand position and the kind of control that makes a partner's escapes feel pointless, then we open into the pins this position is built on. Get this month right and your guard passing gets easier too — same principles, different position.
Closed guard isn't a place to feel safe — it's a position you have to make work for you. I want you to stop thinking of it as good or bad and start reading what the situation calls for, building control and posture-breaking before the offense that comes off it. By the end you'll see your back as a place to attack from, not just survive.
Mount is the most dominant position in the game, and we treat it that way. There are no highlight-reel finishes early — just a suffocating level of control that makes everything your partner tries feel impossible, climbing from low and heavy to the highest, most attacking version. Control first; the finishes come once they can't move.
Open guard is where your legs become your most useful tool. This month you learn to use your feet as hooks and frames to off-balance, move your partner, and create openings instead of waiting for them. The goal is a bottom game that's active and dangerous, not defensive.
When you take the back you've taken away their offense — everything they do from there is reactive, and that asymmetry is the whole point. This month is about earning that position and, just as importantly, keeping it, including the work on top of turtle that gets you there. Stay calm, stay connected, and the finishes open up on their own.
The first rule of half guard from the bottom: stay off your back. The moment you get flattened the top player has every option, so we get you onto your side and build the frames that keep you there. Done right, the bottom becomes a launching point, not a hole.
Bottom side control is a position, not a problem — and how you treat it is everything. Panic and fight to not be there and you'll just burn energy and stay stuck; instead I want you calm, framing, and creating space on your terms. We work several ways out so you're never relying on one escape that might not be there.
Here's what nobody tells you: you can't pass a closed guard — you can only break it open to create the chance to pass. So this month is about the break: staying safe, controlling posture, and opening the legs without getting swept. Once it's open the pass is the easy part; this is where the real work lives.
Being mounted isn't a crisis — it's a position, and like any position it can be learned and controlled. Survival comes first, with a tight shell that protects your neck and arms so you don't get finished while you work, and from there we build the escapes that get your hips back. Stay calm, protect, then move.
Passing the open guard starts with changing how you think about it — the word 'pass' makes people race, and that's exactly the wrong frame. We slow it down: control the legs, take away their frames, and arrive in a dominant position on your terms. Patience and pressure beat speed every time here.
Having your back taken is about the most uncomfortable spot in jiu jitsu, and learning to manage that discomfort is the actual skill. Panic gets you finished; staying calm buys the time to defend the neck and methodically fight your hips back to safety. Build confidence here and very little on the mat will scare you.
Passing from half guard top starts with a pin, not a scramble. We establish a stabilizing top position first — the foundation everything else is built on — then flatten them out, win the inside, and pass through to a dominant pin. Control the position and the pass becomes a matter of when, not if.
Our Thibodaux BJJ Gym Isn't Built on
Who's Toughest in the Room.
The most common fear people have before walking into a BJJ gym for the first time is not the
technique. It is the room. They picture aggressive people competing to dominate each other,
ego-driven training partners, and an environment where you either keep up or get left behind.
That is not what you will find here.
At NGMA, we made a deliberate decision about the kind of environment we were going to build —
and then we built it on purpose, over years of consistent culture work. The result is a room
where highly capable people show up to help the people around them get better. Not to prove
a point. Not to be the best person on the mat. To train, to grow, and to bring others with them.
That culture is what makes everyone in this gym improve faster.