Year 2 — From Positions to a Game
Year 2 returns to the same twelve positions — but the focus shifts to how you get there: the takedowns and passes that deliver the position, the recoveries and sweeps that fight out of the bottom, and the timing that lets you escape on your terms.
Same map, deeper game. Each month adds the entries, transitions, and reactions that connect isolated positions into a system you can actually flow through when you roll.
Curious what class looks like? Your first one is completely free.
Reserve Your Free ClassYear 2 sends you back to side control, but now we answer the question Year 1 skipped: how did you get here? This month is about arriving in the pin on purpose — the takedowns and passes that deliver you on top with control already in place. You know how to hold it; now you learn to earn it.
We return to closed guard from the bottom, but the focus shifts to getting there and getting up. This month is about recovering the position when it's slipping and turning it into a sweep that puts you on top. Same guard you learned in Year 1 — now it's a launchpad.
You already know mount is the most dominant spot on the mat; this month is about how you climb into it. We work the entries and transitions that take you there on the move, before your partner can settle. By the end, mount stops being a place you luck into and becomes a place you steer toward.
Open guard isn't just something you have — it's something you build as the action unfolds. This month is about constructing it on the way in and using it to off-balance and sweep to the top, connecting the hooks and frames from Year 1 into live, moving sequences. The goal is a bottom game that's always hunting the reversal.
Taking the back is great; taking it while everything is moving is the skill. This month is about hunting the back from transitions and the work on top of turtle that gets you there, then keeping it once you're locked on. Earn the back in motion and the finish takes care of itself.
Back to half guard from the bottom, now with the connective tissue. This month is about recovering to your strong structure and turning it straight into a sweep — going from stuck under pressure to on top and attacking in one motion. Same frames you learned; now they reverse the position.
We revisit bottom side control, but Year 2 isn't about new escapes — it's about timing. The whole month is learning to read the pin turning against you a beat early and moving before it locks, so you escape with initiative instead of just surviving, and where you go from there is up to you. Beat the pin to the punch and the bottom stops being scary.
This month the pass itself is the entry. We treat opening and passing the closed guard as the doorway into your whole top game — break it open, stay safe through the danger, and arrive on top in control. Get through the guard cleanly and the rest of the match is yours.
Back under mount, now with a stopwatch running. This month is about timing — feeling the position degrade and escaping before it's fully locked down, while you still have space to work. Survival is the floor; the goal is to be gone before they ever get comfortable.
We come back to passing the open guard, now as the entry into your top game. This month is about engaging their legs, taking their frames, and passing through into a dominant position on purpose — the work that turns standing over their guard into being in side control. Patience, pressure, and a clear destination.
Back to the worst seat in the house — your back taken — but now we focus on timing and staying calm under fire. This month is about defending the finish and escaping early, before the position is cemented, reading the danger and moving on time. Master this and almost nothing on the mat will rattle you.
The final month brings the half guard top game full circle: pass through, then finish. We connect the stabilizing pin and passes to the submissions waiting on the other side, flowing from control through the pass into the finish as one sequence. Two years of positions, tied together into a game you can actually use.
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.