Craig Jones is a Brazilian jujitsu Blackbelt with the B-TEAM BJJ team that he also leads. Jones went on the Joe Rogan Experience in May 2024 to promote the Craig Jones Invitational (CJI) competition, an annual BJJ tournament that launched in 2024.
At the one-hour mark on JRE MMA Show episode #157(Video above starts at that timestamp), Jones states he would get instructional videos from sites like BJJ Fanatics and Dynamic Striking–sometimes through ‘alternative’ means–and was essentially self-taught up until the rank of purple belt. He trained for a long time with friends & teammates before he was able to join a legitimate BJJ club.
Learning with Instructionals was effective for Craig Jones, given that at the time he was starting there weren’t many accessible black belts in Australia, whether that be lack of supply, geographical limitations, or financial.
The best way to learn jujitsu is to practice jujitsu at a gym led by authentic black belts.
Studying matches, watching instructional like what you find from BJJ Fanatics, or reading books like the Jiu-Jitsu University written by Saulo Ribeiro, are supplements to training that help, but can be ineffective without the primary pursuit of training Brazilian jiu-jitsu.
It’s like if you want to be a bodybuilder, but instead of lifting weights you take supplements sometimes and watch videos of people working out; you have to do it to get better at it.
Supplements must supplement, not be the main course.
If you have no ability to pursue a primary pursuit, you must find a way. Craig Jones and his friends didn’t have coaches, so they found coaches online and supplemented their training with whatever knowledge they could find.
They wanted to be the best BJJ fighters they could be. They made it work.
Make what you want work out for you.
Notice Jones didn’t just watch tape; they drilled what they were watching in videos, which was probably akin to taking seminars from dozens of different jujitsu styles, allowing The B Team to develop a hybrid style from all of their many influences.
Take in data and convert it to useful knowledge.
Ingested data that is not assimilated does not have value.