The 'Move Collecting' Mistake Even High Level BJJ Players Make

Ronda Rousey's longtime judo coach says too many grapplers hoard techniques without ever connecting them, a habit that shows up on the mats at every level, including right here in Las Vegas.

A coach who has seen every level of the sport

Justin Flores has been on judo mats since he was eight years old growing up in San Diego, and by his teens he already held national and international titles. He stepped away during high school to wrestle instead, climbed to a number three national ranking, and earned a full scholarship to Nebraska before returning to judo full time. He went on to make a World team, competed in more than 30 countries, and was named the 2004 Olympic alternate for Team USA.

That competitive resume is only half of why grapplers listen to him. Flores spent years as Ronda Rousey's judo coach during her run as UFC bantamweight champion, later served as a head coach for USA Judo's world teams, and today gives private lessons to pros like Keenan Cornelius, with the rest of a well known no-gi team reportedly booking extra sessions with him every week just to sharpen their feet.

The move collecting problem

Flores recently pointed to a pattern he sees constantly, even among advanced competitors: they pick up isolated techniques from seminars and videos but never learn how those pieces connect. He calls it move collecting, and his clearest example is grip fighting, where a grappler reaches for a grip break or a snap down he already knows well even when the position in front of him calls for something else entirely.

Flores frames the problem as a gap between techniques rather than in the techniques themselves. Judo and wrestling drill those connections from day one, building each entry so it flows straight into the next option based on how the other athlete reacts. Plenty of BJJ classes skip that step, teaching a new technique each night without ever showing students how it links to what already works for them.

Why judo and wrestling do it differently

Wrestlers and judoka are taught to find their dominant side and lead with the correct foot before they ever drill a full technique, then build outward from there. A young judoka with a strong uchimata is coached to connect that throw to related foot sweeps, leg attacks, and backup options long before competing, so the throw becomes one branch of a system instead of a standalone trick.

BJJ has historically taught more like a technique library, an armbar one night and a triangle the next, with little instruction on when either should actually appear inside a live roll. Flores argues the fix does not require abandoning gi or no-gi fundamentals, it just means asking a coach to show how a favorite move connects backward to its setups and forward to its follow ups, instead of collecting one more technique that never gets used.

Bringing the fix to the mats near Las Vegas

The lesson travels well past San Diego and the pro circuit. Any Las Vegas grappler, from a white belt still learning to escape mount to a competitor prepping for a local no-gi tournament, can hit the same wall of knowing plenty of moves without a plan for stringing them together under pressure once a partner starts resisting for real.

A useful drill borrowed from Flores' approach is to pick one attack you already hit consistently, whether that is a closed guard sweep or a leg entry, and ask a coach to map out the two or three follow ups for when it gets blocked. That turns a single move into a small system, which is exactly the kind of individualized coaching a good jiu-jitsu class near Las Vegas is built to provide, well beyond what a stack of instructional videos can offer on its own.

5 signs you are collecting moves instead of building a system

Use these as a quick self-check next time you're drilling or rolling, before you add yet another technique to the pile.

1. The finish never comes: You hit the setup for a submission constantly but almost never actually finish it live, because you never drilled what happens after the opponent defends the first attempt.
2. No answer for the block: Ask yourself what you do the moment a training partner stops your favorite pass or sweep. If the honest answer is nothing, that is a collected move rather than a system.
3. Grips that do not match the game plan: You fight for a grip because it is familiar rather than because it actually sets up the specific attack you are planning to run.
4. Every technique lives on its own flashcard: You can name techniques from recent seminars but cannot describe how any of them connect to each other in sequence.
5. New moves before old ones are finished: You keep adding fresh techniques from videos before the last batch is actually working against a resisting partner.

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