My Top Ten FREE Online Resources for BJJ

Not everyone who trains Jiu Jitsu is lucky enough to train with an experienced black belt coach and even if you do, you can still benefit from the BJJ content available online.

When I first started training it was at a well known competitive club in London, England and if I’d stuck around, who knows how different things would have turned out.

Instead, after only a few months of training, I found myself out in South East Asia. I read Christian Graugart’s book The BJJ Globetrotter and was inspired to continue living abroad. I realised as long as I could find other people to train with, I could train anywhere and didn’t need to return to the UK just for Jiu Jitsu.

Back in those days online resources were starting to appear more and because I had no full time coach, I was very reliant on them and they helped me a lot.

Eventually I was able to train regularly at a proper established gym with black belts and a full class schedule but I continue to search for and enjoy the various YT channels, apps and websites which have popped up since.

Here are some of my favourite current free online resources.

1. Jordan Teaches Jiujitsu (YT channel & Discord server)

Jordan Preisinger is a Canadian black belt who only started his channel in April 2021, when he was still a brown belt but it’s grown really fast.

His videos are clear and concise, he narrates over rolling footage in a low monotone voice and his videos are filmed and edited really well with onscreen text and graphics.

Plus the content is gold and often immediately actionable.

He also has a Discord server, which has lots of interesting and fun chats with about 500 members at the moment.

2. Teach Me Grappling Coach Brian (YT channel)

Coach Brian Peterson started his channel 10 years ago, which is insane to think about, given where YouTube was back then and where it is now.

He’s a BJJ black belt but he’s a really experienced wrestling coach too so his stuff tends to be more wrestling based and is all nogi.

I love how he explains and demos stuff and I’ve learned a lot from his channel over the years.

3. BJJ Fanatics (Tutorials website & YT channel)

Bernardo Faria and Michael Zenga have created “the world’s most trusted online BJJ store in the world” - their words - where you can purchase tutorials from the world’s best instructors but they also provide plenty of free content to help promote those tutorials.

4. JiuJitsuX / Keenan / Legion AJJ (Tutorials website & YT channels)

These are all channels from Keenan Cornielius and his team at Legion in San Diego where they have a purpose built studio set up for making tutorials for JiuJitsu X with their instructors and also with visiting ones too.

On Keenan’s channel you’ll also find some awesome new content on running a successful gym, if you’re at that point or thinking about it.

5. Less Impressed More Involved (YT channel)

Jake Luigi is currently a purple belt and he does fantastic breakdowns and deep dives which are really insightful.

His website states that he’s all about making education more entertaining and spreading education faster than entertainment.

I think he’s doing a great job of that and I’m interested to see where he goes with this in the next few years.

6. High Percentage Martial Arts (website)

Louis Martin loves data and has watched thousands of matches, collected data and analysed it, detailing the results on his website.

He also has a really interesting video on the Gold BJJ channel (another great channel which almost made my top ten). It’s called Game Theory for Jiu Jitsu - Which Techniques Work in Competition?

You’d be mad not to take a look at the resources Louis has produced and think about how you might apply that knowledge to your training, or if you’re an instructor, to your coaching.

7. BJJ Scout (YT channel)

I haven’t really done any recent research on the identity of BJJ Scout but last time I did it was rumoured to be Keenan.

I don’t really care who it is, the content is always insightful and after a period of quiet, we’ve had several videos on Leandro Lo since his death, which are excellent.

However infrequently BJJ Scout now posts, his content is likely to always be top notch and worth a watch.

8. BJJ Globetrotters in Action (YT channel)

This channel is footage of many of the classes at the Globetrotter camps, and it’s already an extensive library of content.

I’ve only made it to one of their camps so far, but I loved every minute and I’ve been desperate to join another ever since, and will do once the bus I’m converting is ready.

In the meantime I can pretend I'm at the camps by watching this channel!

9. Yoga 4 BJJ dot com (website, app & YT channel)

I’m on a subscription for Yoga 4 BJJ because I love what they do so much and gain huge benefits from access to their entire library but you can make use of a fair amount of free content over on their YT channel.

They have some great warm ups which I use in my classes and also plenty of rehab stuff, so every time I have an injury I work through their programs to get back to normal training as soon as possible.

10. BJJ Mental Models (Podcast & Premium)

BJJ Mental Models is such an amazing resource that I have done a whole blog about them, you can read it here or watch the video review here.

As the name suggests, this podcast from blackbelt Steve Kwan is with a focus on the concepts and principles of grappling. The podcast is free and widely available on most podcast platforms and the Premium content can be accessed for free with a 7 day trial.

We all love free stuff and all these creators hopefully enjoy making their content and most probably make a living doing other things, like running a gym, but making content is really time consuming and can be costly too.

Mostly the free content you enjoy is made in the hopes you’ll contribute to the creator in some way, at some point, whether that’s purchasing tutorials or donating via Patreon, buying some merchandise or in some other way.

If you can’t afford to do that then that’s fine, but you can still help the creators in other ways by subscribing to their channels, liking their videos, letting the ads on their channels run through (they won’t be paid unless the ads are watched for at least 30 seconds) and you could comment on their videos or share them with your friends or on your social media.

All these things, which are completely free for you, will help them reach a bigger audience and therefore reap back some of their costs over time, allowing them to continue making the free content.

N.B. This list is NOT in order of importance to me, just listed as I thought of them.