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How to Remember BJJ Techniques: Stop Forgetting What You Drill

You drilled it twenty times on Tuesday. By Saturday it's gone. It's not you - it's your system.

By Sedric Louissaint, jiu-jitsu brown belt & founder of iVenza • July 16, 2026 • 7 min read
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BJJ Combat sports Training log
Illustration of connected technique notes forming a knowledge network

Do the math on a normal BJJ schedule: three techniques a class, three classes a week, call it forty-five weeks a year. That's four hundred techniques shown to you annually - and if you're honest, you could demonstrate maybe a tenth of them on demand. The rest evaporated somewhere between the fist bump and the parking lot.

Getting better at jiu-jitsu is less about seeing more technique and more about keeping what you've already seen. As a brown belt who's forgotten more sweeps than I care to admit, here's the system that actually works - and why the notebook most people start (and abandon) fails.

Why you forget (it's not you)

Drilling encodes a motor pattern into short-term storage. Without retrieval - without your brain having to pull it back out - it decays on schedule. Two findings from learning science explain almost everything:

  • The testing effect: recalling something strengthens memory far more than re-seeing it. Re-watching an instructional is comfortable and nearly useless; trying to recall the steps before checking is uncomfortable and works.
  • Spacing: one revisit tomorrow, one this week, one this month beats ten reps in a row today. Your brain keeps what it repeatedly needs.

The car ride home is where technique goes to die. The system below is just a way of scheduling retrieval before the decay wins.

Step 1: Capture the same day - two minutes, four lines

Same day, before bed at the latest, in your own words:

  1. Name and position. "Knee cut counter, half guard bottom."
  2. The two or three steps that actually matter. Not all nine - the ones the move dies without.
  3. The one detail the coach emphasized. There's always one - the grip, the angle, where the weight goes. That detail is usually the entire technique.
  4. What it connects to. "Off the underhook; if they whizzer, go to X." Connections are how techniques become a game.

Thirty seconds of video helps enormously - you (or your coach) doing the move once, shot on your phone after class. One clip of yourself beats an hour of saved instructionals you'll never rewatch, because it captures the version your body actually learned. (House rule: ask before filming anyone else.)

Step 2: Organize by position, not by date

Here's why the chronological notebook dies: you don't think in dates when you roll, you think in positions. "It's week 34" is useless information when you're stuck in half guard. File everything under the position or system it belongs to - closed guard, half guard, back control, mount escapes - so the index matches the way the game actually presents itself.

Then tag the chains. "From here, I have these three options; if they defend with X, I'm into Y." A technique filed alone is trivia. A technique filed in a chain is a plan.

Step 3: Retrieval is the actual training

  • Ninety seconds before class: read your last note from the position you'll likely work. That's spaced retrieval hiding as a warm-up.
  • Pick one technique to hunt each rolling session. Not five. One. Chasing it live is the highest-quality rep there is.
  • Count what you hit live. What you pull off in sparring is yours; what you only ever drilled is on loan. Tracking live hits versus drilled reps tells you which is which.
  • Explain it to someone. Teaching a technique to a training partner is the strongest retrieval event available. If you can't explain it, you don't have it yet.

Build depth, not breadth

The advice every good coach gives eventually: fewer positions, deeper. Your notes will show you your real game - wherever they cluster, that's your A-game; develop it on purpose. The empty sections are either homework or a deliberate "not my game" decision. Both are fine; only unknowingly empty is a problem.

This is exactly what the iVenza technique library is. Capture a technique in two minutes - typed notes plus your own video - filed by discipline and position, searchable, with live and drill counts logged per session so you know what you actually own. Start free.

When the coach runs a curriculum

If your gym shares lesson plans digitally, treasure it - import the class into your own library and log the session against it, and your notes inherit the coach's structure. If your gym doesn't, your notes are the curriculum. Either way, the rule stands: the athlete who writes it down owns it; everyone else is renting.

FAQ

Should I take notes after BJJ class?
Yes - same day, kept short. Two minutes and four lines: the name and position, the two or three steps that matter, the one detail your coach emphasized, and what the technique chains to. The point is scheduling retrieval before normal forgetting erases the class.
How should I organize my BJJ notes?
By position or system - closed guard, half guard, back control - never chronologically. You think in positions when you roll, so the index has to match. Tag connections between techniques so chains emerge, and keep it searchable.
Is filming techniques after class worth it?
Thirty seconds of yourself doing the technique once, shot on a phone after class, beats hours of saved instructionals - it captures the version your body actually learned, and you will actually rewatch it. Ask before filming training partners.
Why do I keep forgetting techniques I drilled?
Because drilling encodes but only retrieval retains. Without recalling a technique later - notes review, hunting it live, explaining it to a partner - it decays within days. Short same-day notes plus spaced revisits and live attempts are what move a technique into long-term memory.