Full 18 Lesson Plan for SBG’s World Head Quarter’s Foundation Program (Only available to SBG Business Group members)

Why a Foundations Program?

If you teach Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu or MMA, then you know, the vast majority of your students will quit within the first 30 days. This has been accepted as just part of the process. It’s not. It is a failure on our part as teachers and coaches.
It’s easy to make strong people stronger. Taking weak people and helping them to become strong, that’s not just harder to do, it’s also, much more rewarding. This BJJ Foundations Program is designed to do just that.
By systematically walking brand new students through 18 specific lessons, each designed to teach them crucial principles of BJJ and self-defense fighting skills, you help lower your drop out rate, and bring this beautiful art to more people. Best of all, by providing a context early on, through these planned classes, you won’t just keep people longer, and bring BJJ to those who need it most – you’ll also help accelerate the learning curve of every student in your academy, strong, weak, young, old, athletic or otherwise.
Our Foundations Program is great for every-body. So join SBG on the journey, and rest your Jiu-Jitsu on the most solid foundation possible – well done fundamentals.
Note: As time passes these lessons will be revised and updated – at SBG we’re always evolving and perfecting. But you won’t be charged twice. As we make changes, they’ll be added here, at no additional charge. Thank you, and welcome to SBG.

Please watch with Introduction to the Foundations Program, which helps detail why, and how, this program should be utilized. Then proceed lesson by lesson, 1-18. 

Lesson 1

Lesson 1 BJJ Principles 101, the headlock escapes. One of the most important lessons in all of BJJ, there are so many core principles of connection, leverage, posture, and movement contained within this lesson that it’s nothing less than pure gold.’

Lesson 2

Lesson 2 is Dealing with the bum rush – how to stay on your feet and finish the fight with a standing choke. The lesson then proceeds into closed guard, and one of the most effective sweeps in all of Jiu-Jitsu. Fundamental principles of base and connection are the focus here.

Lesson 3

Lesson 3 is Picking up from lesson #2, this lesson starts at mount, shows you how to stay on top of a bigger, explosive opponent, and ends with taking the back and finishing with a choke. There are so many key details here that so frequently get skipped, this is one lesson that cannot be missed.

Lesson 4

Lesson 4 is a built on lesson #3 with the MSA principle, we move into the details that make a good armbar “good”, and finish with a course on escaping mount – the forgotten details of the umpa escape are the emphasis here, and they will take your mount escapes to another level.

Lesson 5

Lesson 5 We get into the epistemology of Aliveness, and SBG’s ‘I’-method in more detail here, and we focus on the five ranges of fighting from guard bottom, breaking posture by destroying your opponents base, and defending against punches. If BJJ for fighting and self-defense is an interest for you, then this important lesson is a must see. We end with closed guard bottom, and the three pressures and three grip breaks that define the game.

Lesson 6

Lesson 6 is Picking up where lesson #5 leaves off, we get into defending against the ground and pound moves, can openers, head grabbers, neck crankers, and the art of taking the back from guard bottom are all detailed here. If you every have to use to survive a fight against a big, angry attacker, this lesson may save you.

Lesson 7

Lesson 7 We move on to closed guard top here, demonstrating why it’s structure not strength that creates leverage in BJJ, we go step by step through the key points of base, posture, and and framing, for the top athlete. We also go into one of the most common mistakes people make when playing guard top, and show you how to avoid it. We finish with a solid way to open the closed guard, without having to stand up.

Lesson 8

Lesson 8 We move back into guard bottom and go through the details that make some of the highest percentage sweeps in all of Jiu-Jitsu. We then go into some rarely shown posture breaking techniques that make it virtually impossible for an opponent to stand up when inside your guard. This information will forever change how you play closed guard.

Lesson 9

Lesson 9 We continue where we left off in lesson #8, and build on it with more sweeping options for when your opponent stands up in your guard, and then we move into one of the most important fighting lessons there is – standing back up, without getting hit on the way up. Each detail of the technical stand up, the principles that create the leverage, are fleshed out.

Lesson 10

Lesson 10 Picking up from lesson #9, we are now back on our feet. We use the one standing defensive move we teach all students at SBG Headquarters, the helmet. This is followed by the mechanics of a solid bodylock takedown, designed to work against bigger, stronger people. Details the help you prevent getting sprawled on or choked on the way in are shown, and the lesson ends with settling into mount, killing the arms from mount top, and acquiring the pretzel grip.

Lesson 11

Lesson 11 We review takedown to mount to escape to open closed guard – then we get into guard passing. We use three fundamental passes in order to show passing under, over, and around the legs. We talk about the details of weight placement, connection, taking away space, hip movement, and settling in to a solid crossides top game.

Lesson 12

Lesson 12 Picking up where lesson #11 left off, we discuss the five stages of the passing game, and move into a heavy crossides top game. How do you kill frames? How do you keep your opponent flat using just your weight? How do you use all of your mass, for maximum, efficient effect? All of this is detailed out.

Lesson 13

Lesson 13 After a review of the material from lesson #12, we get into the details that make for a solid straight armlock from crossides top. We then show the correct way to mount from crossides, connection with your foot into a low attached mount are emphasized here, giving solid control on top. The lesson then moves into a deep, very hard to counter, fully connected shoulder lock from mount top. If you’ve had people escape your shoulderlocks before, this lesson may change that.

Lesson 14

Lesson 14 gets us into escape. Lessons include keeping your arms safe, making space using your entire body, applying your underhook in such a way as to gain maximum leverage, and how you escape by moving underneath your opponent, instead of trying to move them.

Lesson 15

Lesson 15 is picking up where lesson 14 left off, we talk about using your feet in order to get your guard back, the three types of hand positions on bottom, we then get into the art of escaping by getting to quarter position. Rarely shown details related to the strongest grip, and most efficient way to turn over your opponent – taking you from crossides bottom straight into a guard pass – are shown.

Lesson 16

Foundations Lesson 16 We begin by reviewing the key points from lesson 15, and showing how to drill it, the Aliveness way. And then, for the first time in this series, we get into the foundations of a solid, MMA/fighting style, open guard. Details include clearing your pant leg grips, defending the double under pass, and defending the knee over pass. These details are a must for anyone looking to improve their open guard.

Lesson 17

Foundations Lesson 17 is where we start to put it all together. We takedown, open, pass, sweep, and stand back to our feet. Then, back at standing, we show the armdrag to back take, an SBG staple made famous when Conor McGregor took Mayweather back repeatedly. If you wondered how he did that so easily, watch this lesson.

Lesson 18

Lesson 18 Is our final lesson, #18, ties everything together, and put us back to where we first started, at headlock escapes. We then get into the mechanics behind a head and arm escape, where your arm is trapped. The mechanics of the roll here constitute a crucial motion that’s vital for your BJJ. It ends with a review of lesson #1, taking us full circle.