How the Curriculum Works

The fundamentals curriculum is a 42-week rotating cycle. There is no “Week 1” that everyone starts on. You join wherever the cycle happens to be, and it repeats. You’ll see everything eventually.

The Structure

Every fundamentals class follows the same four-part format:

1. Warmup (~2 min). Light movement to get your body ready. Nothing complicated.
2. Evergreen game (~8 min). A recurring game that runs every week regardless of the main topic. These keep you engaged with the big categories of grappling (guard play, guard retention, pinning, standing) even when the main topic is something specific.
3. Retrieval (~10-15 min). A game revisiting something the class worked on a few weeks ago. This isn’t review for the sake of review. Retrieving something from memory after a delay is one of the most effective ways to make learning stick.
4. Main topic (~35-40 min). The week’s primary lesson. A coach will introduce a concept, then you’ll practice it through games that get progressively more complex.

The Topics

The curriculum covers every major area of grappling:

• Guard (playing from your back): half guard, butterfly, X-guard, DLR, closed guard, and more
• Guard retention (keeping your guard when someone is trying to pass it)
• Pinning (controlling from top, escaping from bottom): mount, side control, back control
• Passing (getting past someone’s guard): headquarters, leg weave, under-the-legs passing
• Kneeling (the scramble positions): turtle, front headlock, dogfight
• Standing (takedowns and wrestling): single leg, rear body lock
• Submissions (finishing): kimura, armbar, triangle
• Leg entanglements (leg lock positions): straight ashi, saddle

Every topic is taught from both sides. Mount week covers maintaining mount from the top and escaping mount from the bottom. You’ll always practice both perspectives.

How Topics Repeat

Some topics appear more often than others. The positions you’ll encounter most as a beginner (half guard, turtle, back control) show up three times per cycle. Others show up twice or once. The most critical survival positions get the most reps.

The evergreen games fill in the gaps. Even when mount isn’t the main topic for weeks, you’re still playing pinning games every week that keep those skills fresh.

What This Means for You

Tip

It’s normal to feel like you missed something. You didn’t. The cycle repeats, and each time through you’ll pick up things you missed the first time. That’s how the system is designed to work.

You don’t need to “catch up.” A student who joins at Week 25 gets the same quality of instruction as a student who started at Week 1. The curriculum doesn’t build linearly from easy to hard. Every week is designed to be accessible to someone seeing the topic for the first time while still offering depth for students on their second or third pass.

The topic articles are your reference. Each topic in the curriculum has its own article that covers the core mechanics, concepts, and coaching details. You can read ahead, review after class, or use them to study positions you’re curious about. They’re in the curriculum section of this hub.

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See Also

• Curriculum schedule for the full 42-week topic list
• Curriculum articles for deep dives into each topic