Blue belt hub
Building a Game at Blue Belt
Blue belt is the first time you are allowed to have a game — and the first time people punish you for not having one. Start with a knee cut, a collar drag, and a De La Riva that actually scores.
Blue belt is not a catalog. It is the first rank where “I know a lot of moves” starts to lose to “I have two or three things that connect.” You can survive now — or you should be able to. The new problem is that every round resets. You play a different guard each time someone stands, you pass with whatever the instructor showed on Tuesday, and you take the back only when they gift it.
This hub is the public version of the Blue belt daily letter. One move a morning, same rank, no feed. The four techniques below are the ones we would start a game with if we only got a month: a workhorse pass, a seated path to the back, a De La Riva that scores instead of stalling, and a triangle that actually uses geometry.
A typical early-blue round looks like this: you pull a fashionable open guard, they knee-cut you because your far hip was empty, you sit up and play tug-of-war with a collar, they pass again, and when you do lock a triangle it is flat and they stack you. None of that means you are a fake blue belt. It means you do not yet have a pass you trust, a back-take that does not require a huge mistake, or a guard with a finish. Those three gaps are this page.
The game cluster
A pass, a back-take from sitting, an open-guard sweep that stands you up, and a closed-guard finish that uses angle. Not a catalog.
Move of the Day
Knee Cut Pass
Split the guard, pin the far hip, and walk your knee through to side control.
- 01From standing or combat base, get a strong cross-face or far-side collar and a grip on the near hip or pants.
- 02Step your cutting knee over their bottom thigh so your shin splits their legs.
Move of the Day
Collar Drag to the Back
Yank the collar past you, take the angle, and climb onto the back in one beat.
- 01Seated, get a deep same-side or cross collar and a sleeve or tricep.
- 02Fall slightly to your hip as you drag the collar past your shoulder — they should feel like they are diving past you.
Move of the Day
De La Riva to Technical Stand-Up Sweep
Hook the lead leg, off-balance the passer, and stand up on top of their base.
- 01From open guard, wrap your outside hook behind their lead thigh (DLR hook) and control that same-side sleeve.
- 02Second hand on the collar or belt. Other foot on the far hip or biceps.
Move of the Day
Triangle from Closed Guard
Isolate one arm, climb the legs, and finish with angle — not calf strength.
- 01Break posture. Control a sleeve and get their opposite arm across your centerline.
- 02Open, throw your leg over that shoulder, and bite your hamstring on the back of their neck.
Pick a pass before you collect another guard
Blue belts collect guards. The people who start winning rounds collect a pass. The knee cut (knee slice) is the workhorse against most of what you will see at this rank: a shin splits the legs, the far hip gets stapled, the trailing leg kills the underhook, and you walk the cutting knee to side control. You do not smash through both legs. You isolate one.
If they underhook the cutting-side hip, you are about to get swept — kill that first. Look at their far ear, not at the legs you are passing. Chest follows eyes. Loose hips refill the guard. Drill the pin, then the cut. When the knee cut is honest, every other pass you learn later has a place to return to.
Take the back from sitting, not from a highlight
Blue-belt offense often dies in front of a kneeling passer. You square up, you pull, they posture, nobody moves. The collar drag is the exit: yank the collar past your shoulder, make them miss, take the angle, insert the first hook before they recover their base. You are not pulling them onto you. You are making them dive past you.
Same grip family as a sit-up sweep or a single-leg if the drag stalls. Seatbelt before you hunt the collar. The back is the position; the choke is the bonus. If you only attack the person in front of you, you will spend the next two years in a collar fight you cannot win.
Make De La Riva score
De La Riva is an off-balancing hook, not a place to hang out. Sleeve on the lead leg, collar or belt in the other hand, load that foot, force a post, and technical stand-up onto the single they already donated. Blues and purples both leak this when they play DLR passively — hook on, no plan, waiting for the passer to invent a mistake.
If they smash the hook, invert or switch to reverse DLR. Do not die on a dead hook. Keep the sleeve. Stand up on a line past their lead toes, not straight into their chest. That is the difference between playing DLR and scoring from DLR. The berimbolo can wait until the stand-up is boring.
Finish the triangle you already know
Most blue belts already know the triangle shape. They do not know the two details that tap people: hip angle, and hiding the trapped arm. Isolate one arm, climb the legs, shrimp so you are looking at their ear — not the ceiling — and lock the figure-four. A flat triangle is a forearm hug. Point the finishing-side knee toward the mat.
If they stack, do not fight the stack square. Off-angle or sweep to mount and finish there. Closed guard is still a blue-belt position when the passer kneels. The posture break you learned at white is the shared first step; this is the cash-out that uses it.
What not to study yet
A berimbolo as a personality, fifteen open guards, and heel-hook entries before you can pass a knee shield are not a blue-belt emergency. They steal the reps you should spend on one pass and one back-take. If an instructor shows something flashy in class, do the class version — then come back to the knee cut. The letter will get to inversions at purple. This hub stays connective on purpose.
If side control still owns entire rounds, you are not behind — you are under-drilled on survival. Use the white belt hub for the hip escape and the posture break, then return here. Building a game on a floor you cannot stand on is how people stall at blue for five years.
How to use this hub
Read the knee cut all the way through — mistakes, 60-second drill, FAQ — then do the drill after your next class. Next week, add the collar drag from seated. When you start playing open guard on purpose, open the De La Riva. The triangle is the closed-guard cash-out for the days they kneel. The archive has the rest of the blue rotation, including the scissor sweep if you still want a closed-guard path to mount.
New to the room, or bringing someone who is? Start with the first-class guide, then the white hub, then this page. This is not local SEO and it will not pick a gym for you. It will give you a small game once you have a mat. The letter keeps rotating so you are not living in a bookmark.
Still leaking survival? Use the white belt hub. First-class map is in Guides — what to expect at your first BJJ class. Prefer the focused form with Blue already selected? Blue belt signup.
FAQ
- What should a blue belt learn first?
- One pass you trust (the knee cut) and one path to the back that does not require a huge mistake (the collar drag). Add a De La Riva that stands you up, and keep the triangle as the closed-guard finish. Survival holes still get patched on the white hub.
- How many techniques should I study at once?
- Fewer than the seminar circuit suggests. A pass, a back-take, and one guard with a finish is a game. The daily letter is built that way on purpose — one email, one drill.
- Is this gi or no-gi?
- The knee cut and the triangle are both. The collar drag is written with a collar; no-gi uses a neck drag or a wrist-and-tricep snap to the same angle. De La Riva in no-gi keeps the hook and trades the collar for a belt-line or ankle grip. Mechanics transfer.
- I still get smashed in side control. Stay on white?
- Use both. The white hub is the hip escape and the posture break. This hub assumes those show up sometimes. You can stay on the Blue list and still drill the shrimp — the letter will not shame you for it.
Daily letter
Blue belt Move of the Day
One email each morning for the blue-belt rotation: passing, taking the back, and a guard that scores. Same cluster as this page, then the rest of the list.
Prefers the Blue list. Same form, belt already selected.