I eliminated warm-ups completely because they just caused people to show up late. When the clock strikes 7:00, I begin teaching and drilling. At 7:45, we go into 30 minutes of positional sparring. At 8:15, they get three four minute rounds with a 1 minute break in between. I have adopted this structure for a number of reasons: (a) teaching three things per class - which are well connected - improves student retention of the information; (b) positional sparring, emphasizing the lesson of the night, adds a heightened learning element to full rounds; and (c) by the time we get to full rounds the people who tend to roll harder (one person's 30% is different from another's) are already tired from the half hour of situational/positional sparring. I cannot take credit for this idea. I stole it from the "crawl/walk/run" class structure used by the military. It has been effective so far.

Interesting ideas, here's how I do it. My fundamentals classes I do a basic warm up with some calisthenics (max 3 minutes) and basic movements. It takes about 10 minutes, its plays into the expectations and skill level of the participants and also it resets their minds from a day at the office to sports. Also there is a lot of value in having warmed up your body for injury prevention, and beginners need this before we start doing drills, games and sparring. With all the other classes I do I do warm ups in the form of some CLA based games relevant to the topic at hand. Lots of movement and clear goals make it the intensity stays where it should be. By the time people enter those classes, they are ready to do these games appropriately.

Hey everyone, I run a small BJJ academy with an incredibly diverse group of members — ranging from 13 to 59 years old, from absolute white belts to black belts, and from competitive athletes to recreational practitioners who have zero interest in competing. Needless to say, structuring a single class that genuinely serves everyone at the same time is a constant challenge. About nine months ago I started experimenting with what I call “30% slow motion rolls” as a warm-up. The concept is simple: everyone rolls at roughly 30% speed — no strength, no explosiveness, just slow, deliberate, technically focused movement. Think of it as a moving positional study rather than a real roll. The results honestly surprised me. Progress that would normally take me over a year to see across the board happened in about nine months. A few specific things I noticed: • Zero injuries during warm-up — none. • Every skill level can roll with every other skill level without hesitation. A 13-year-old white belt can go with a 45-year-old black belt and both get something out of it. • New white belts lose their fear of rolling much faster. The slow pace makes the experience approachable rather than overwhelming. • Everyone — including the competitors — moves with far more control and intention. I was skeptical at first, especially about whether the higher belts and competitive members would find value in it. But even they started reporting that it helped them identify and clean up technical gaps they hadn’t noticed before. Has anyone else tried something similar? I’d love to hear how other small academies handle the challenge of mixed-level classes.