The BJJ Guide

All about Brazilian Jiu Jitsu

BJJ Instructionals

In the early days, finding BJJ instructionals to learn from was hard. You could learn from books like Mastering Jujitsu by Renzo Gracie or the popular book Advanced Jiu-Jitsu by Marcello Garcia. But those days are long gone, and today, there is no lack of content in the form of videos when it comes to learning Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu.

Bernardo Faria and Michael Zenga created the BJJ Fanatics and started to produce instructional videos with popular BJJ coaches and athletes.

Quickly, with his unique teaching style, John Danaher stood out early and still has the best-selling instructional style today. His student Gordon Ryan, is not far behind with a similar teaching style but with his insights and details added. Nicholas Meregali, who switched to training under John, is also becoming one of the more popular instructors on BJJ Fanatics.

To save time for our readers, we have picked and reviewed some of the most popular Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu instructional videos.

Which are the Best BJJ Instructionals

Different instructional methods will be the best choice depending on where you are in your Jiu-Jitsu journey. We also prefer different teachers’ teaching styles. So, below, we have picked the most popular BJJ instructional videos, covering everything from the fundamentals to the more advanced leglock systems for no-gi BJJ.

John Danaher Instructionals

He is one of the most popular BJJ coaches and has created some of the best instructional videos covering everything from the basics to his famous leglock system. He also has popular videos that cover Jiu-Jitsu training after 40, where he teaches a game suited for students who are getting older. His latest series, Arm Drag, is a new series in which he goes deep into explaining and teaching the most successful moves in BJJ.

His series Go Faster is a must for any Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu practitioner. This series will be your dictionary where you can find all the details about the fundamentals, especially how to escape pinning positions. There is so much valuable information here, and as a black belt, I often go back to watch these series to pick up things I have missed about positions and escapes.

His best-selling instructionals:

Follow the links to visit the page on BJJ Fanatics, or click the review link to read an in-depth review of each instructional.

  • Go Further Faster Bundle
    In this series, John takes you through the fundamentals of Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, which will speed up your learning process. This series will be useful for years as you can use it to look back at things you have missed or details your instructor knows about. This 64-volume instructional will keep you busy for years to come. Learn more in our full review.
  • Enter the System
    In this series, you find the videos that first took off. Here, you will learn the John Danaher leglock system, Kimra, front headlocks, triangles, back attacks, arm bars, and more. Enter the System is another giant library of BJJ techniques, with 48 volumes and an average time of around 1 hour per volume. Read our full review to learn more.
  • New Wave Jiu Jitsu
    Learn the New Wave philosophy of pin escapes. Here, John goes into depth on how to not only escape but also turn it around with escapes leading to offensive positions. Learn to escape and start to threaten your opponent with attacks. The eight volumes cover escapes for all the major pin positions. Learn more by reading our full review.
  • Guard Retention
    It is an important skill to learn. Danaher’s Guard Retention video teaches you how to retain your guard and use frames. You will learn how to retain your guard against the most common passes. But most importantly, you will get a broad understanding of how guard retention works. Read the full review to learn more.

For the complete list and reviews of his videos, please visit our John Danher page.

Gordon Ryan Instructional Videos

Many consider him the GOAT of no-gi Jiu Jitsu and a great instructor who teaches what he uses in his competitions. Gordon Ryans’s videos have become the second most popular instructional videos, just behind Danher.

Their teaching styles are similar, with in-depth details and explanations of the techniques, but with Gordon Ryan. Instead of competing with their videos, most touch on different subjects. I prefer Gordon’s instructionals, as I think he is a little bit faster in explaining things, and everything he says has been battle-tested in his matches.

Systematicly Attacking the Legs is his most popular video, and it comes as no surprise as he first became famous for beating his opponents with leglocks. His influence on the next generation can be seen in no-gi competitions today, where almost every athlete uses leglocks.

Before his time, leglocks were used in competitions, but not as a complete system. With his instructions, fighters have a complete system of leglock attacks and know how to defend them.

His best-selling instructionals:

Follow the links to visit the page on BJJ Fanatics, or click the review link to read an in-depth review of each instructional.

  • Systematically Attacking the Legs
    If you are into no-gi, this Gordon Ryan instructional is the one to start with. Gordon reveals his leglocks system in a great step-by-step instructional, with the last volume being live rolling footage where he comments on the live roll. This adds great value to the video, and seeing it live with Gordon explaining it simultaneously taught me a lot. Read the full review to learn more.
  • The Pillars of Defence
    If you like leg locks or not, you must still be able to defend against them. In the Pillars of Defence, Gordon teaches how to escape and counter the various leglocks and positions. This is an essential skill in today’s modern no-gi Jiu Jitsu. Get more details in our full review.
  • They Shall not Pass
    In this 8-volume instructional, Gordon Ryan will boost guard skills and teach you not to let your guard get past. Learn to stop knee cuts, torreando, stack passing, and more. A great part is the gym footage he shares, showing how he uses his teaching techniques. Read more in our full review.
  • Systematically Attacking the Guard
    If you aim to improve your passing game, why not learn from the best? 10 hours on, Gordon Ryan’s approach to guard passing, he shares how to deal with common guards and get past them. For more details, read the full review.

Please visit our Gordon Ryan page for his videos’ complete list and reviews.

Trending BJJ Fanatics Videos

Which videos are the most popular in 2024? On BJJFanatics.com you can see which instructionals are trending based on sales. I usually check out that page once a month to see which videos are the most popular.

To no surprise, these two instructors are at the top: Gordon Ryan’s Systematically Attacking the Guillotine and John Danaher’s new series Master the Move: The Armdrags.

Another popular video is the Daisy Fresh Blue Belt Curriculum, which has its own YouTube Channel with almost 50,000 subscribers and famous student Jacob Cough, who has won several fights at Who Number One and is also competing in ADCC 2024.

Then, among the top videos, we find the MG Back Attack System by Marcelo Garcia. Who is considered one of the greatest BJJ competitors of all time. In this video, he explains how to attack the back best when playing GI.

Of course, we also find videos by one of the most talked-about names in Jiu-Jitsu this year, Craig Jones, who is not afraid to steer up the putt. A few years back, he split with John Danahers old team, the Death Squat, and together with Nick Road, Nicky Ryan, and Keith Car, created the B-Team. In 2024, he decided to create his competition with a million dollars in prize money, the Craig Jones Inventatinals. The date for the invention is the same day as ADCC 2024. This has led some athletes to compete for the higher price money instead of the higher hour to win the ADCC. All the talk about him has also increased his videos’ popularity, and now his bottom game bundle is trending on BJJFanatics.com. He recently visited the Jockos Podcast on YouTube where he talked more about this new competition.

How to Learn From Instructionals

Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu is a martial art that emphasizes live sparring, where you apply techniques live under pressure and learn how different opponents react. This is why BJJ has become such an effective art where you can apply the techniques. But to learn how to apply a technique, you must first learn it and understand the mechanics of the technique.

Then, to apply them to seasoned opponents, you need to have a deeper understanding of the important details of each move. Adding all the details to a move at first is often too overwhelming, so the best approach is to understand the main mechanics first and then add more details to make a move more effective.

The best way to learn from Brazilian Jiu Jitsu instructionals is to learn bit by bit and take notes. Then, when training or drilling, incorporate what you have learned from the videos and bring your notes so you can quickly look back at what to work on. Most importantly, it is not to try to learn all at once; add details to techniques step by step.

Another way to learn from videos is if you have mats at home and a training partner who wants to join. Then, you can follow the instructions from the live videos, pause the videos, and drill the moves.

Many instructors agree that one thing that stands out with students who progress faster than their peers is the students who work live on moves that they have just learned. Most students learn something during a class, and when it’s time for sparring, they fall back to the moves they are already good at, but to progress faster, you should always work on new moves and make the things you are not good at better. It is the same when you learn from instructional videos. The most important is to pick things to work on during the next training session.

Is it Worth Spending Money on BJJ Instructionals?

Taking private classes is one option to progress faster in your Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu journey. And if you consider paying an hourly rate for privates, then the instructional videos are cheaper. On the plus side, if you go for the high-quality BJJ instructional series, you can go back anytime to check details and learn new moves. After 12+ years of training in BJJ, I still return to learn more from instructionals. So they are a great resource of knowledge you can keep with you for a long time.

So the answer is, Yes, I think it’s worth spending money on high-quality instructionals that cover a large part of the BJJ system. But I do not think learning only one technique is worth spending money on. It’s better to use YouTube videos explaining a certain move.

BJJ Instructional Summary

Two coaches stand out regarding Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu instructionals: John Danaher and Gordon Ryan. Their content is the best option for getting a complete view of Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, and you can use their videos like a library that you can go back to many times to find new details to work on.

We also talked about how to learn from instructional videos and whether it is worth buying them. If you learn from them correctly, they will speed up your progress, and you can return to them at any time to pick up new details to work on.

Visit BJJ Fanatics

Related Reading