Maybe learning offense and defense has different strategy? In a way in offense you know atleast what you are trying to do. In defense opponent is calling the shots and you have to react to opponents moves. Maybe it makes learning different? Or different challenges?

In general I’m used to be more on the defensive especially when rolling with new people I haven’t rolled before. I have this bad habbit of letting people fo stuff because I want to see where it’s going. This usually involves me letting it go too far and getting in trouble

Hi Michael, I roll often the same way. Just wait and feel where they are taking me. To make my rolling more useful or more educating is to be more active. Defence should always lead to an offence. Because it's more fun to my opponent and it opens my game for attacks. It's fairly safe to just defend, but why not give something to your rolling partner too.

So near future I will be more offensive - don't have to submit, but get to dominant positions and unbalance more...get more movement to get better workout...

I mostly teach, so these days a lot of my learning is through teaching. To prep for that, I'll test out lessons in the smaller daytime classes, so I can refine them before the bigger evening classes. I also watch a lot of video, especially Grapplers Guide and BJJ Library, along with rewatching my vids from camp (and Globetrotters in Action).

Since I started martial arts, I've always written up classes over on my slideyfoot.com blog. It started out as mostly write-ups of technique I'd be learning. Since I started teaching in 2011, it has shifted to more of a teaching blog. So, I will often repeat classes, meaning the main bit I update is the 'Teaching Notes' part at the bottom, in order to make the lesson better the next time I teach it.

At camp, I'll always film, reviewing the vids later and also trying to teach the techniques I particularly liked back home.

I've seen some of Rob Biernacki's stuff and absolutely love his teaching! Not familiar with what you mean as to "his theory" though. Can you elaborate?

For myself, I have done well by watching videos or taking things from classes, practiving them a bit with a trainging partner, and thenbegin teaching them. As I teach the same thing a few times over a few different classes, it not only cements it in for my own memory of it, but it gives me a deeper understanding of "why" and "when" to do it, as well as better connections to the rest of my game.

Rob's stuff is generally pretty great.
another thing that hasn't been mentioned here yet: sometimes I have to sleep on it :) Literally.

Rob has a unified grappling theory where we connects his approach. I cannot find a link online but there is a small part
https://bjjmentalmodels.c[...]alignment/

This is like one part of 15 pieces... / concepts.

My brain tends to like being hyper focused on certain things for extended periods of time when learning. I like to know and understand EVERYTHING about the subject that i possibly can.

So for example let's say i want to learn more about the bow and arrow choke the coach just showed. Ill go home and research everything i can about it. proper grip, proper angles, how the choke is actually affecting the persons body (ie is it a blood choke, a crank, a strangle?). This gives me insight on ways to make the choke tighter and more "deadly" so to speak.

Then ill focus on all the different positions you could hit the choke from (technical mount, back control, side control etc).

THEN Ill focus on how to defend the choke. Doing this helps me preemptively trouble shoot how someone might get out of it. Not to mention it also help ME defend it when someone gets me back with it.

THEN ill drill it more next class and try to hit it as much as possible during rolling. Documenting how i failed/succeeded.

Rinse and repeat until I have a strong grasp on the move. Then to solidify it in my brain I try to teach it to someone. Usually my coach so he can correct me when I get things wrong.

I strongly feel that you cant effectively teach something properly without a deep knowledge of the subject. So if I can teach the move in a way someone can learn it. Or better yet (very) occasionally having a trick that coach didnt know, then I know I have a firm grasp on this technique. After this point i like to screw around with the technique and see if theres a way to make it my own. Not that I think I'm making up new revolutionary stuff no one has seen. But more find ways to make it more efficient for my body type/athleticism.

This may be over kill for a blue belt but the subtlety and complexity of BJJ is what made me fall in love with it in the first place.

I just finished reading a book called "The ABCs of How We Learn - 26 Scientifically Proven Approaches, How They Work, and When to Use Them" - by Daniel L. Schwartz, Jessica M. Tsang, & Kristen P. Blair. I found it pretty fascinating and highly recommend it. Although a lot of it seems geared more towards academic learning, almost all of the alphabet translates well to sports, or BJJ.

Below are a few from my notes that really stuck out as applicable:

D is for Deliberate Practice
Deliberate practice is characterized by a high degree of focused effort to develop specific skills and concepts beyond one's current abilities. Deliberate practice improves learning through two mechanisms: Chunking and Knowledge Reorganization.

E is for Elaboration
Elaboration improves memory by making connections between new information and prior knowledge.

F is for Feedback
Feedback should be STUN-R (Specific, Timely, Understandable, Non-threatening, Revisable (for feedback to be effective, people need a reason and an opportunity to adapt))

H is for Hands On
Making sense of abstract concepts through perceptual-motor activities. Occurs when people use their bodies and senses in the learning process.

O is for Observation
Learning by observation involves watching and imitating other people's behaviors and affective responses, as well as vicariously seeing the consequences of other people's behaviors.

R is for Reward
Rewarding a behavior leads people to repeat that behavior. Optimal challenge is another motivator that leads to a state of flow. Flow is the complete absorption in the task at hand, during which people often lose a sense of time.

S is for Self-explanation
Silently talking through expository materials to improve comprehension. A method of self-instruction that involves "talking it through".

T is for Teaching
Teaching improves the teacher's own knowledge. Learning by teaching occurs when people accept the responsibility of teaching others and develop their own understanding so they can teach well.

V is for Visualization (Flowcharts and mindmaps)
Drawing a spatial representation helps organize ideas and information. Visualization is a useful strategy for discovering structure and organizing information efficiently.

W is for Worked Examples
Worked examples involve demonstrating step-by-step how to complete a procedural task. Worked examples build on observational learning. Worked Examples extend Observational Learning (Chapter O). Through observation, people can learn to imitate another person.
Worked examples are for EARLY LEARNING. Deliberate Practice (Chapter D) is for ADVANCED LEARNING.

The book also has an index of common problems with learning and provides the learning methods that fit best with the problem. For example, some that are common questions I see from people in jiu-jitsu:

1. Failure to connect ideas - E S T
2. Hitting performance plateaus - D F
3. Unmotivated - B R Y
4. Failure to Apply Learning - A C J Q
5. Low Confidence - B Y

@Aaron Parham. Very good find.
Do you see that principles are at use at your gym? Can you give an example of a situation where the ideas of the book are working already?

Yea, some of them. I'm not an instructor, but I can see some of these at work.

But, for me personally, being aware of them helps me with how I learn. The 2 I'm focused on right now are Deliberate Practice and Visualization.

V: Visualization - I like to mindmap things/systems. I'm not inventing anything new, I just like to organize what I know/do well and it helps me find areas to work on. For example, I have a side control map that is based around trapping the far arm. I have 3 different ways I like to trap it. Branched off that are common reactions; not every single reaction, but just the ones that will trigger the next move (they are flat, turn into me, turn away). Then, I'll focus on a branch at a time and explore how to get there and details of the technique.

D: Deliberate Practice - this one kinda goes hand-in-hand with what I do with mindmaps. For years, all the way until brown belt, I'd go into training and just want to roll. I finally realized that when rolling, I had a fixed mindset (focused on performing and not losing) instead of a growth mindset (focus on learning, fail in order to learn, seek more challenges). The mindmaps helped me go into practice with a goal and stay focused without my mind reverting back to habits I had already created. I also read The Power of Habit recently, and made it a habit not to take drill time for granted. Stopped pairing with people that just want to socialize and made it a habit to take advantage of every minute to drill techniques.

One of the mechanisms of DP is chunking, which they break down into 2 phases: Proceduralization and Automatization.
PHASE 1: Proceduralization - verbal control and explicit memory retrieval to guide the steps needed to execute the task.
PHASE 2: Automatization - eventually the steps become procedures that do not need conscious, verbal guidance to execute. The micro steps become a "chunk". During this phase, the chunks link into sequences that fire off automatically.

When you roll, be aware of which techniques you do automatically based on a trigger from your opponent, and which ones take more focus and maybe a little self-talk in order to go through them. Those are the techniques that are still PHASE 1 techniques. Drill those until they be automated.

I tried to use a reward to motivate my to run more often. I promised myself that I can enjoy 1 cl of very good whisky for each kilometer of running. It worked for a while, but now I'm about 12 c behind on my whisky. maybe I'll catch up later in the evening :-)

My first traditional jujitsu Sensei always said, "You are a cup. Martial arts will fill the cup, some will run out, and that's ok. Every class, it will overflow, just be sure that you come with an empty cup." I've taken it to have a dual meaning. First, it's OK if you don't remember everything, just take what you can hold. Second, if you want to retain anything, have an empty cup, be open to learning and new ideas and concepts. He was also kind of a character, so maybe he just made it up to make us think he was deep. Who knows.....

What if learning was like corona virus? Knowledge needs to be connected some how and it infects the knowledge that is close and understandable?

Marcelo Garcia makes a point that everything you learn needs to be connected. Learn moves that are close to each other and can be compined.
Following the corona virus metaphora - maybe you need also to take your time to dealing with the new knowledge and let it sunk in. It's easier to remember when you kind of know it well enough. You don't forget skills you have practised to so many times that you can do almost "automatic".

At my age the it's still fairly easy to learn new things, but challenge is not to forget previously learned faster than you learn new. Like learn one move and forget two others...

Ah, btw, forgot to mention, I visualize/do imagery with stuff I'm working on before I fall asleep not every day but maybe every other day?

I do something alot and try it from all imaginable angles
and also try to get it done to me alot so i can try all kinds of escapes
im mostly focusing and feeling while all that happens

i also dissect things mentally
thats how i cam up with inverted triangles by myself shortly before i got my bluebelt
i had learned triangles and just thought about all possibilities you could apply the principle of a triangle
so in theory i realized theres gotta be triangles upsidedown and also from the back etc etc...
and then i saw it all on the internet and thought yes just how i imagined...

also generally internet is a good source for tech

the first 3-5 years or so are hard as usually you havent really grasped anything anywhere even close to the essence of what jiu jitsu is and its hard to even reason properly about things during that time, you can happen to get caught up in so many misconceptions.
so i would reccomend learning alot whats already there during your first years be it from the internet or your coaches knowledge or anything but things that are solid and clear and true like for example a danaher dvd.
and maybe trying some stuff out and generally thinking alot about things but dont get too sure of your conclusions yet

as more years pass you will have alot of priciples in your blood and soul and then it gets much easier
you can then do whatever you want basically,
its kinda like solving math equations, problem comes up you try and solve it with what you got in your head

How do I learn...

Slowly, very slowly.