Basic classes moved to different timeslots. This gives us more matspace during busy fundamentals classes and reduces the amount of people in the changing rooms after fundamentals. On Saturday we added another fundamentals class at 8 in the morning. We swapped the evening classes from Monday...

Today we had a seminar with Caio Terra, who is a twelve time black belt world champion. One of the highlights of the seminar was the promotion of Joonas, Sev and Pat. We now have two new black belts and a new brown belt at the BJJ Lab.

We added more morning classes to our schedule. There are now BJJ morning classes available on Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and Friday. We have both gi and nogi classes in the mornings. The morning classes have been slowly growing and we are looking forward to see that trend continue. It's a lot...

We added additional classes to our schedule. There are now BJJ morning classes available on Tuesday and Thursday. Another addition are the basic course classes. These replace the beginner classes that we used to offer (which was only 3 distinct lessons). The basic course curriculum is 5 weeks...

We had an amazing 2 day seminar with the 2 multiple time black belt world champions Caio Terra and Mikey Musumeci. We learned a lot about the Berimbolo and how to take the back from the De La Riva guard. Thanks a lot for coming and sharing those amazing positions and details with us.

We had a great time at the Europeans this year. Werner earned second place after fighting some hard matches. Sevi got 3rd place and decided to sign up for the open weight (no weight limit) as a light-feather. What a maniac (it went about how you would expect :D).

Today we were hosting a women's open mat at the BJJ Lab. Thanks to everyone who showed up. We are really happy with the turnout. Let's do this again soon!

A small group of competitors travelled to Lausanne to compete in the SJJA Lausanne Open. We finished the day with two gold and a silver medal. You can see a few highlights in the videos below. 

For our third episode we have Alex Brooker on the podcast again. This time the topic is mental training. Sadly we were short on time, so hopefully we will be able to revisit this topic again in the future and dive a little deeper into it. 

Another podcast episode is up. This time we have Alex Brooker on as a guest. He trains a lot of pro athletes in ice hockey and other sports and is going to share some of his knowledge with us today. 

We are trying something new. Here is the first BJJ Lab podcast episode. In the future we will try to cover a large variety of BJJ related topics and hopefully we will also get some interesting guests on the podcast. For now it's on youtube only, but we will work on a better podcast delivery...

For some reason BJJ practitioners love to obsess over how much time they have spent at a given belt and about how much time it takes to earn each belt. Using a calendar to assess these things is easy, but how much sense does it really make? Just because two people have been training for the same...

Our coaches spent last week at the Caio Terra Academy in San Jose to learn from the 12 time world champion himself. Every year all the affiliate coaches meet at HQ to learn the newest jiu jitsu developments and exchange ideas with each other. BJJ is always evolving and it's very important to...

For a long time the BJJ Lab has only offered adult classes. But with our new location in Zürich Oerlikon we are now able to offer BJJ classes for kids in our schedule too. We are starting with a 5-8 year old group, but we are looking to expand that in the future. If you have an older kid that...

We had the pleasure of hosting Rudson at the BJJ Lab for a seminar the day after he won the 2019 IBJJF European Championship in the medium-heavy black belt division. He did not only share all his best moves with us, but he also allowed us to film his 50/50 armbar that he has used many times to...

We are changing our schedule and adding new classes for 2019. One addition is the Monday fundamentals lunch class with Joonas. With three lunch classes per week you will now be able to experience the whole fundamentals curriculum during the working, even if you never come to an evening or...

Congrats to Samuel and Gabriel. Both were recently promoted to blue belt. Everyone has a different BJJ journey. Some people can only make it to training once or twice per week, while others come to training almost every day. Both Samuel and Gabriel are in that second group and they have...

Everyone who starts BJJ (or any other sport) will go through the four stages. Knowing about them will make your journey as an athlete easier. It will give you some context of what you are going through and it will give you an idea of what you should focus on. If you are a coach, you can use this...

Last Saturday, Stephan was promoted to blue belt. Stephan didn't start training with us, he started his BJJ Journey at another academy in Zürich. Changing academies when you have been training for a while is never easy, especially if you have been training for a while at your original...

At the end of our fundamentals class on Tuesday, Matthias was promoted to blue belt. Congratulations! Many people who start training jiu jitsu use the blue belt as their main goal. A black belt seems like an unrealistic goal when you start. But the blue belt, even though achieving it still...

Congrats to Philippe. He was promoted to blue belt during our Tuesday fundamentals class. Even though he spends a lot of time on Youtube to learn random techniques, he still made the effort to learn the fundamentals. As described in our blog post about the belts of BJJ, this is an important...

We have a busy week behind us. The BJJ Lab moved to our new location at the Hagenholzstrasse 65 in Zürich Oerlikon. To celebrate our reopening, we organized a free workshop with the 12 time world champion Caio Terra. It didn't stop there, we also had Caio teach a few of our regular classes in...

Place the right side of the gi over the left and fold your belt in half. Place the middle of the belt against your belly button. Wrap both ends around your back and bring them back to the front Bring the top end around and behind the other belt layers. Pull everything tight. Bring the top end...

White Belt In the beginning, focus on the fundamental positions of BJJ and learn how they are connected. In the beginning sparring can be very confusing, it helps if you can recognize where you are and where you want to go to. Once you know the positions, learn the techniques from the...

The blog has been quiet for a while. We were busy behind the scenes and now we are finally able to announce that we are moving to a new location! Our location in Seebach has served us well and it has allowed the BJJ Lab to grow from a small group of people to the BJJ academy that it is...

Congrats to Julio. He improved a lot over the past few months and got promoted to blue belt tonight. It is a bittersweet day because Julio is leaving Zurich soon. We will miss him and the whole BJJ Lab wishes him all the best for the future.

Today, Dani was awarded his blue belt. He has a very busy schedule, but still manages to train regularly and he even competes a few times per year. That takes a lot of dedication. Congrats Dani! Even if you live a very busy life, you can still find time for BJJ as Dani shows us by example. You...

Congratulations to Nick. He earned his blue belt yesterday from our coach JB. A lot of people think that they don't deserve their blue belt after they got it. This happens at all belt levels, but a lot more at blue then the others. When you start out as a fresh white belt, a blue belt can look...

Congratulations to Ene, he won first place in the blue belt adult nogi division of the IBJJF San Jose Open last weekend. He is spending a few weeks at the Caio Terra Academy to learn as much as possible from Caio Terra, Yuri Simoes and all other other excellent teachers and competitors...

When you first start BJJ, it's easy to get better. You learn new moves and improve after every class. But just showing up to class does not work forever. From my experience, most people hit a wall sometime as a blue belt. They stop improving and it is often the reason why people quit at blue...

Last night Sevi was promoted to brown belt. He has been with the BJJ Lab since the very beginning. When Sevi started with BJJ he got beaten a lot because he was small and weak. He is still small and weak, but now he has the technique to beat bigger and stronger opponents. Now that Sevi is back...

Last night Joonas received his purple belt from our coach JB. Joonas is always drilling and trying to improve his jiu jitsu. But more importantly, he is always helping other people too. The purple belt is about more than just learning a few moves. You have to be able to connect different moves...

Patrick is back in Zurich after two weeks of training at the Caio Terra Academy in San Jose, California. He participated in the yearly association camp and is back with a lot of new details and techniques, ready to share them with all the members of the BJJ Lab. Don't miss training during the...

Patrick is currently in San Jose for the yearly Caio Terra Association camp. He competed in the brown belt master 1 division as a middle weight and took two gold medals home. He closed out both is own division and the open weight division together with his teammates and won all his three...

Congrats to Minh who was promoted to blue belt. He did not just show up to class, but really studied jiu jitsu. He always asked a lot of questions, took a lot of notes and was drilling every open mat.

Congratulation to our new blue belt Laura! For us in the Lab it is not only about the performance on the mats, it is also how you grow outside of the mats and we are really glad about how Laura grew to such a great adult. Teen years are over now the next steps with the blue belt! Laura won her...

We had a great day at the Munich Open. We showed up with 15 competitors and 11 of them took a medal back home. Big thanks to everyone who supported the team before and during the competition. Preparing for a competition is a team effort and a lot of people helped out even though they were not...