For me, I find it difficult to maintain the confidence to roll creatively when my cardio is not up to snuff (which it never is after a layoff). When I know my gas tank isn’t going to run out, my confidence and playfulness come back.

I've been focus in that area, lots of funcrional circuit type training and interval high intensity work. I agree with you 100%, fitness is a huge aspect.

I’ve been lacking in confidence since resuming training after 15 months off. Everyone seemed to have more gas in the tank, faster, more technical. I’ve decided to concentrate on improving really fundamental positions. Setting small goals has helped me find small improvements in my game.

I also have a mantra I just repeat to myself when the self doubt creeps in. It’s corny but I keep telling myself to keep on getting crushed until I get crushed less.

Keep at it. You’ll get through it

On march I also had covid and was hospitalized. Had blood clots in my lungs and had to use blood thinning medication for three months. During that time I went back to the mats, just drilling. I suffered a bulging disk in my neck c7. Recovered from that and tore a ligament in my thumb.

To be honest I had days thinking that my bjj days are over. Gladly I have very supportive coach and teammates who are the reason I didn't quit. I'm back to 100% now and received my brown belt yesterday.

This sport attracts weird people who don't quit.

I've been focus in that area, lots of funcrional circuit type training and interval high intensity work. I agree with you 100%, fitness is a huge aspect.

Personally I employ the mental attitude of just making sure I get on the mat. Whatever your doing terrible in work on that with a mature higher belt and do that one thing a couple times with them in a roll. Don’t focus hard or push it but just make sure you do it a few times and then relax. You have been out for a bit and through a lot. Let your mind and body get back on track. Just show up, your brothers and sisters will be there for you.

I think during last 2 years my BJJ degraded enough so I got into the zone where I actually manage to be in a beginner mindset better... Had fun learning tarikoplata for example at a seminar last weekend.

sometime it's good to know that i'm not alone with those kind of "struggles"

I don't understand why everyone talking about cardio for practice. Competition sure the cardio matters...but for practice it's all just efficiency.

My cardio is absolute garbage but I am never exhausted in practice even if rolling "hard".

Age and weight difference are much more of a factor than how much you workout. It's about energy usage for all the muscle groups. Even if your tank for each muscle group is crap if you know how to manage the muscle endurance and not waste each muscle groups energy without reason and purpose you will be fine. The #1 thing is have a plan and strategy a system that connects through everything like a spider web.

For example I am around 210 pounds.
If I attempt a sweep against a tough opponent near my weight that might take out 25% of my right quad tank. So i can try 4 times before imma get my guard past from wasting all my energy in a muscle that my guard depends on.
If my opponent weighs 250 pounds It may take 40% and i can try 2 times.
If my opponent weighs 230 pounds It may take 33% and i can try 3 times.
If my opponent weighs 180 pounds It may take 15 % and i can try 6 times.
If my opponent weighs 140 pounds It may only take 2% and i can try unlimited basically.
Age also effects the scaling as you get older. I am 35 now and at 40 things may be 20% less efficient than now muscle energy wise. At 50 it might be 50% less efficient and so on.

Yes you can workout and try to increase the capacity of your tank in certain muscle groups. But at the end of the day it's better to understand what your tank is and never to red line a muscle group. Each muscle group is basically an engine in a car. Quads, Hamstrings, Forearms, Biceps, etc etc don't red line them unless it's your last option. Know how to switch between the muscle groups using different guards (playing both sides) and tactics offensively and defensively.
When in bad spots don't stress and tense. Relax and keep moving. Keep moving when in bad spots while trying to use the least amount of energy possible.
You can make your opponent waste more energy when he's in a dominant position if your smart than you are in the bad one. If you stay still in a bad spot thinking your regaining energy you wrong. Keep moving.

Don't force things. Being more balanced allows you to take paths of least resistance. Sometimes standing up is less energy then playing guard, sometimes playing guard is less energy. Sometimes going for a sweep is easier or an ankle pick or collar drag and so on. Attack balance and weight distribution over forcing techniques and positions. Any position can be efficient and not use much energy against certain opponents and also any position can be bad and waste energy. Have different strategies for different styles and intensity types.

*****
As far as not plateauing you should always have several things your working on. Things from various positions offensive and defense. And not just that. Different things your working on against different styles. If Im rolling with a big slow guy who might have a good 1/2 guard imma let them put me in the spot right before 1/2 guard. So i can then work on prevention and then escape if prevention fails. 2 for 1. I had like 10 different ideas of things to work on depending on who i was rolling with yesterday. Don't force 1 or 2 things against everyone. Work on something unique thats going to help you the most against each rolling partner.

An idea for another way to train to help prevent and escape bad positions and prevent these plateus:

A lot of people may think to put themselves in bad spots or drill from those positions that their training partners are good at. For example if someone is good at attacking from the back they will train from that spot or if someone has a good closed guard they might start from the closed guard and so on.

Normally if someone is good at attacking someone from the back then they are also really good at taking someones back. And if someone is good from closed guard they also are most likely really good at pulling someone into closed guard.

Also remember that they are already thinking and setting up their plans of attack before they even get you in those bad positions. So just starting from the bad position also effects the flow and timing of everything that is happening in say a tournament at real speed.

Start thinking and focusing on the steps directly before these bad spots. If someone has a really good closed guard and you want to work on getting better at defending that engage or start from their open or 1/2 guard or just trying to pass their guard in general. Try to just hangout in their guard or advance your position slowly from there. Think of preventing them from pulling you into the closed guard to start with and if they do pull you into the closed guard now you can start working on your escapes in a more natural flow. You can do this in sparring or drill it this way but don't just start the drill from a single bad position. Start the drill with prevention in mind and then if prevention fails then work on your escapes and you will be getting twice as much out of your training time and improving your timing and reactions.

*****
Cardio is not the answer for getting better and feeling confident. When your mind is confused or weak the body doesn't matter.
Strategy/planning and becoming more well rounded/balanced and efficient in general with everything is the answer.

Don't focus on winning. Jiu-Jitsu is a brain exercise. You have to make yourself worse in order to get better. If you train at an academy that picks who you spar with every practice this is destructive for creativity and getting better. You need to be able to hit the pause and rewind buttons and not treat every spar like its competition.

I don't think you get the point of this discussion. The point is coming back after a long period is hard. Naturally your cardio is not where it is suppose to be. If someone says working on their cardio helps training then it does.

I had physical changes in my lungs after covid. When I started sparring again after many months it felt like breathing through a straw. I can guarantee you it wasn't anything to do with efficiency, I got manhandled purely because I gassed out. Things are gladly a lot better now.

There are highs and lows in this art. So many different factors that cause them but they all lead to "The Wall".

I'm 53 with a shit ton of physical problems but I just keep showing up and doing my thing.

Not rolling now because my MCL is screwed and going to need to get scoped. (Covid making scheduling a problem here.)

Anyway, I know when I get back to rolling it will be like swimming upstream again. Oh well, It's part and parcel to what we do.

I personally like getting smashed and the frustration of failing when training.

I think that is why I keep doing it.

Of course I like the highs of things just clicking and coming together as well.

It is a never ending puzzle that only shows you snippets of the big picture at a time.

This is supposed to be fun. It’s an escape from your day to day battles. Just keep rolling and learning!

Re-familiarize yourself with the positions and focus on small aspects of the game as you build yours back up. That was the key for me after a 6 month break from sparring. On the side you can focus on your general physical preparedness, that never hurts.

Nailed it! Best answer

This honestly gets me through a lot of tough mental moments. After having covid, just being able to train again is awesome and reminding myself that getting on the mat is the most important thing

The best friends I’ve ever had in my life were the ones who try to break and choke me.

Quote from John Danaher earlier:

"If you could have a superpower…Imagine God came to you one night and declared that he wants to give you an entry level super power - not a crazy super power like Thanos or Superman that makes you into a God - but a genuine human level superpower. He gives you a choice. You either choose the ability to make yourself massively stronger than everyone else on the planet, or you can make everyone else on the planet massively weaker than yourself (so you aren’t any stronger, but you can make anyone in front of much much weaker). Which would you choose? There is definitely a sense in which the first choice is smarter, since if you become much stronger you can apply that new strength to anything - you could use it to fight humans or lift cars or perform tasks that no one else can. The second choice only applies to humans and so would only have value when trying to overcome someone in a match. So in a fantasy world the first option makes more sense. But what about the real world of Jiu jitsu? Is it smarter for us to focus on greater ourselves stronger? Or making our opponents weaker? Well, I strongly urge you to work on both. As athletes we all have a responsibility to try to improve every aspect of our physicality - it’s an important part of performance in Jiu jitsu. However, in the real world there are definite limits on what can be done to improve your strength, speed and stamina. Once you get to a certain level you start to experience diminishing returns on the time invested in training. There is no great difference in sparring against someone who bench presses 400 pounds versus someone who presses 550 pounds in Jiu jitsu. They both feel strong - yet the amount of time and effort it takes to get from 400 to 550 pounds on the bench is very considerable. When it comes to making people weaker however, there are virtually no limits. Small improvements in position, angle, biomechanics,
can severely degrade an opponents strength and overall athleticism and you can keep making improvements forever. We all have a responsibility to make ourselves as strong as we can - BUT JIU JITSU IS MUCH MORE ABOUT MAKING THE OTHER FELLOW WEAKER THAN IT IS ABOUT MAKING OURSELVES STRONGER"

Thank you all for your responses.

So here is what I think and what I have also discovered over the years, I'm not a rookie at this. I have competed in high level sport for most of my life, professionally and at a national level, not just Jiu jitsu.

Fitness or Conditioning always plays a part. If two people are evenly skilled the fitter guy will generally win, especially as the rounds drag out. Covid will mess your gas tank up, I experienced that for sure.

Technique and efficiency are great to have and as jiu jitsu people we strive for technique with just enough effort to accomplish a positive outcome. But there is an element of strength and condition that will influence that, as you get tired, your technique tends to not be as efficient.

Then we speak to conceptual jiu jitsu and the understanding of levers, think of the lever as your technical ability to lift a person for a sweep or execute that prefect submission. We know for a lever to be effective there needs to be some force on the other end to utilize the levers potential. That force is like our physical attributes or current physical conditioning and strength.

As we get old, things slow down, its just a reality of the situation. Yes, we can do things to limit the losses, but at 44 I can honestly tell you, I'm not the physical force I was in my 20's and early to mid 30's. We slow down, our strength is something I have found can me maintained quite well. That slow down forced some changes in my jiu jitsu game over the last 5 years.

When I started this threat it was more to see what other guys are doing in similar situation, to draw on the experiences of other and compare it to what I was already trying to do. @Mark Moynihan, thank you for sharing those drills with me from your youtube channel, they are great.

Since November I have been trying to find my grove again, this is where it started.
1) Kick start the physical conditioning program - lot of functional circuit training (Body weight, Kettlebell, Movement training, etc.) I don't do conventional strength training, I'm built like a brick at 5'10' and 230 pounds. Below should provide some context

https://www.instagram.com[...]PLF44Tgs0/
https://www.instagram.com[...]Jaz8BtIo0/
https://www.instagram.com[...]5TTyYUyI0/

2) Lots of mat time to reconnect with my game, this is largely where I have battled. All my students have been getting better while I have been off the mats and only able to teach. My timing was just off with my bottom game. @Mark again, I really enjoyed those drills, I did them yesterday in my training session.

3) Maintenance program for us older guys, I stretch for 30 minutes every evening before I go to bed. Flexibility is one area we loose as we get older.

4) Find something fun or new to play with. I don't have an active headcoach that teaches me, I have largely been my own teacher for a number of years and rely on seminars or self study to find things to keep it interesting. (This week I found that and on Tuesday things started to click again. )

Honestly I can say the big game changer, even though I was doing a bunch of stuff already was finding a new jiu jitsu project to dive into for a few months. It's the FUN aspect. Once I'm done I'll teach it to my students and allow them to have those benefits, then it will be onto another project.

I went through similar times several months back. Some of it may be part of the journey in addition to returning after some of the struggles you mentioned. Brown belt certainly pulls no punches. I went through a phase in which I felt like I was degrading and was struggling with people I shouldn't have been. Check where your focus is while you're training, and be sure you aren't distracted or rolling with a singular focus and then expecting to hold your own against people who are throwing the phone book at you. I feel like sometimes, higher belts have a tendency to be unfair to themselves while they're working on specific elements of their game.

I've just recently begun to break through that plateau I was stuck in. Things seem to just make sense right now, and while I know I have a lot of weaknesses to strengthen and voids to fill (a lifelong process, I'm sure) the rolls feel a lot better. Setting traps for people to fall into, controlling where the roll goes, being able to adapt on the fly and improvise sweeps/techniques.

You'll get through this sticking point. It sucks, but there's no secret hack. The only short cut is more mat time. Hang in there man.

I have breakthroughs when I stop caring about it so much. I go to see my friends and have nice time and occasionally I learn something or get my timing back on a technique etc.

For me slumps are usually a mental thing and what I try to focus on is go back to real basics and just have fun training and let go of improvement for awhile.

With Combat sports I have always done much better when I have "fun" than chasing goals