What to Study

Most people accumulate instructionals indiscriminately. More material, they assume, means more progress. It doesn't. Seeing breeds familiarity, not mastery.

To get the most out of your time, begin with an honest self-assessment. Where does your game collapse? What are you trying to refine? Answer that, then filter everything else against it.

From there, seek content that targets the specific outcome you want. Not the most decorated instructor, not the most famous; the one whose game illuminates your gaps. Physical similarity matters too. Studying a heavyweight pressure game when you're 150 pounds isn't just inefficient, it's actively misleading.

For match footage, find athletes whose game resembles what you're trying to build. When their approach aligns with your goals, the footage stops being a technique catalogue and becomes a working model of how a coherent game actually functions live.

The question is rarely who is most technically accomplished. It's who can actually reach you. Some instructors are undeniably deep, and yet their explanations don't land. The concepts may be too advanced, or the teaching style may simply be incompatible with how your mind works.

That said, be mindful of distinguishing between an instructor who is not for you and one who isn't for you yet. Some material requires a foundation you haven't built, and without the prerequisite mat time, nuance has nothing to attach to. Set it aside without dismissing it, because down the line, things that baffle you today have a way of filling in vital gaps at higher levels; not because the explanation changed, but because you finally have enough context to receive it.

And perhaps most importantly: watch what you actually enjoy watching. A framework you can hold in your head, and content that makes you want to grab a partner and test it; that's what drives real progress above all else.