About This Episode

In this episode of Tapped In, Coach David Figuero-Martinez shares his evolution from the early days of dial-up internet and chat rooms to navigating the modern social media landscape as a 45-year-old black belt. He dives into practical strategies for transforming your social media feeds from a source of distraction into a powerful training tool that accelerates your Jiu-Jitsu progression.

3 Key Takeaways

• Train Your Algorithm: Your social media feed is entirely under your control. By aggressively filtering out toxicity and engaging only with positive, technical, and community-building content, you create a healthy virtual training environment.
• Utilize Categorized Saved Folders: Instead of mindlessly scrolling or saving techniques into a generic folder, organize clips into specific playlists (e.g., passing, takedowns, leg locks). This turns short-form content like YouTube Shorts and Instagram Reels into an easily searchable, bite-sized instructional library.
• Avoid "Technique Distraction": One of the biggest pitfalls of modern BJJ content is jumping from one cool move to another. Stay disciplined by only saving content that directly supports your current training focus, your students' needs, or your upcoming curriculum.

Chapters & Timestamps

• 00:00 - Introduction & Coach David's Online History
• 00:54 - The Evolving Social Media Landscape
• 01:19 - Building a Global BJJ Community
• 02:27 - Curating Feed Content & Training Your Algorithm
• 03:40 - Setting Boundaries: Muting and Blocking Toxic Behavior
• 04:26 - Supporting the Community Online
• 05:07 - Sourcing Technical Feedback & Solving the Octopus Guard
• 06:06 - Organizing Your Saved Folders and Playlists
• 07:11 - Short-Form Clips vs. Long Instructionals
• 07:56 - Structuring Curriculum with Constraints-Led Content
• 08:33 - Guarding Against BJJ Overload and Distraction
• 09:25 - Summary & Final Takeaways

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David Figueroa-Martinez

Founder, DFM Coaching Bjj

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00:00 - David Figuero-Martinez: Welcome to Tapped In. My name is David Figuero-Martinez of DFM Coaching, and today we're going to be discussing how to actually use social media in the best way possible. Uh, some feedback or some background. I am probably going to be 45 by the time this comes out. I have been online since dial-up, which is a little embarrassing, dial-up, MSN chat rooms, ASL, um, AOL—like way back. I've been online for a really long time in one capacity or another. When I was a white, early, early blue belt, I was blogging. I've enjoyed online for different things. And, of course, that online space has changed. It was Myspace, Facebook, IG, Threads, Reddit. It's a bunch of different places and they all have their kind of unique vibe depending on what you're looking for. And you really have to make some decisions on what spaces you want to be into and which ones you just want to neglect.

00:54 - David Figuero-Martinez: If I was going to give any feedback right away, it's going to be social media and online presence can really be a huge benefit. I have enjoyed my circles with certain people. I've helped out certain people who I have never met in my life. I have gotten feedback and fantastic advice from people I've never actually met in my life. I've connected with people and then met them later on through Jiu-Jitsu camps or uh, some kind of Jiu-Jitsu event that was going on. So I have a pretty broad circle of people that I'm kind of cool with, and then there's like an inner circle that I genuinely like talking to regularly. People in Toronto, people in Michigan, Kentucky, LA. And so for me, it's been— it's a lot of fun. I enjoy specifically Threads. I don't necessarily enjoy Reddit, for example. I'm on Reddit as least as possible. I'm on IG quite a bit when I'm posting stuff or you know, a flyer that needs to go out or whatnot.

01:52 - David Figuero-Martinez: Uh, but for the most part, the social media that you decide to be in really is your decision. You don't have to be in any of them, you don't have to be in all of them, you can be in whatever ones actually fit your circle and what you're going for. Um, you need to train or you need to train the algorithm to be what exactly you want it to be. If you have a habit of diving into things that are a little bit more toxic, that's what you're going to see. If you're someone who loves food, that's what you're going to see. If you're someone who's into Jiu-Jitsu a lot, that's what you're going to see. If you're into politics, that's what you're going to see. You are in full control over the algorithm when it comes to your feed. There is really— they want you to stay there, they want you to enjoy the time or connect more.

02:51 - David Figuero-Martinez: So if you get triggered and what triggers you is anger, then that's kind of what you're going to see on social media. If you're someone that's there for like Jiu-Jitsu technique and building and having conversations with people about MMA and basketball, football, or whatever it might be, and they're healthy, that's what you're actually going to see, too. I go through weird phases where my algorithm changes where it's all Jiu-Jitsu, then it's someone sends me something about cats, and it turns all into cats. Someone sends me something about introverts, and I'm a massive introvert, and I start getting a bunch of those. So it changes based on what I'm interacting with, and that's, my opinion, the key detail when it comes to understanding what social media could be for you. You have to train it. You have to start liking things that you're going to feel positive about.

03:40 - David Figuero-Martinez: For example, I'm big on leadership, supervision, and that kind of niche, so I get a lot of that. I get a ton of that. I get a ton of that, Jiu-Jitsu, MMA, I do get some politics. Um, but you know, I get a lot of funny shit that I love listening to or watching. My feed is a little bit of everything, but for the most part, it's enjoyable. It's not this whole toxic environment where I just hate going to it, so I enjoy interacting with people. So you're going to have to train it. You're going to have to understand what you're liking, what you're responding to, what you're sharing so that it starts giving you that feedback that you actually enjoy. Do not get sucked into echo chambers and other weird shit. Um, I regularly unfollow people that are rude. Every once like recently I got a guy who just decided to respond to something that he really had no interest in. I was talking about black belts and Jiu-Jitsu, and he just decided to come on there and shit all over Jiu-Jitsu. Like, why are you here? What was the point?

04:47 - David Figuero-Martinez: So when I respond to things, I'm usually pretty respectful. I don't like going past a certain line. I generally do not name-call at all. I really want to keep a certain environment in what I'm doing. And I am quick to block, uh, hide comments, it's my speed— my feed, I get to do with it what I want to do. So those people who come in and they just want to shit on Jiu-Jitsu or shit on belt system or whatever, or have really aggressive views about certain aspects of Jiu-Jitsu, I don't need it, I don't want it. So I consistently just mute and block, have no problem doing so. Start building a little community within that space that you're in. You're going to start having interactions with similar people that you like, similar people who have views like yours, that want to see you grow and you want to see them grow.

05:37 - David Figuero-Martinez: Anytime I see a a post of someone's getting— someone who got a stripe or a new belt, or they won a medal or they competed and maybe it didn't go the way they wanted, I like and comment. And I comment and I congratulate— I don't even know these people sometimes. "Congratulations, um, love to hear that you're doing well, love to hear that you started Jiu-Jitsu." Because in essence, we're representatives of that community, and we want those people to have a circle like the one you have. So I go out of my way to speak to those people, I go out of my way to uh, to have discussions with the people that I know regularly, that I see posts regularly. It's fun for me. It's a little community outside of quote-unquote real life, and it's enjoyable. I get so much feedback. The other day I went— a couple of weeks ago, actually, I was having issues with octopus guard.

06:29 - David Figuero-Martinez: And I just put a post and I said, "Anyone who's playing octopus guard, I have a few questions, I'm having these issues, how do I work around this?" And I got like three or four different responses from people, "So you should be doing this," or "You're forcing it, don't force it because this will happen." And they gave me fantastic feedback. Next time I was on the mats, I was putting it into practice, and I was getting past the hurdles that I was— that I was having, and that was because of that online presence. I don't always have necessarily people that I can go to. Octopus guard is a really niche response or a guard or a technique, I don't have a lot of people that play that right now. So that gave me an out and an avenue to ask questions and to get feedback and be like, "Hey, so what if this happens?" They'll give you feedback.

07:11 - David Figuero-Martinez: Uh, I have this real big habit of creating saved folders. I find it incredibly useful. When I find a technique, save it, and I don't save it just as like BJJ. On Instagram and on YouTube, I create playlists or folders and I, if someone's like passing a certain way, I throw that in that in that passing folder. If I find people who are doing really good takedowns for Jiu-Jitsu that are like, you know, masters-friendly, I throw those into a a specific folder. Leg locks, I put of those into a specific folder. And it allows me to catalog these techniques that I'm interested in, so that when I come back, I can find them a lot quicker. Every once in a while a student will ask me about something and it'll be like, "Yeah, I'm having the issues with this pass and this, this and that, and..." and I remember, "Oh, I just saw something recently, I saved it." And I can send it to them.

08:05 - David Figuero-Martinez: This has become so useful specifically when I'm trying to learn like a specific type of game. I was learning octopus guard like I mentioned. I created an octopus playlist. And I was adding things that I thought were from people who had really good setups and really good maybe series of videos, I was throwing them into there. So then before class, I was studying them, I was putting together— I didn't make any notes necessarily because I I felt comfortable enough to watch the short clips and then make decisions on how I wanted to approach that during training. So then I I got into it and I I find that it's sometimes more useful than buying an instructional. Instructionals are great, they can be expensive, and sometimes because the instructional the way they're laid out, they're friendly. Uh, you get a Danahier one, you're you're going to have to wade through quite a bit. But because it's YouTube, and sometimes they're YouTube Shorts, I got this plethora of techniques inside specific folders where I'm not spending 20 minutes, I can get to the meat and potatoes and understand the basic concepts of things within 3, 4, 5 minutes.

09:12 - David Figuero-Martinez: So there's easily digestible when I go just before class or I'm getting ready to leave home or I I just got to the parking lot and I can— I have a minute to look at some things. I find it super useful. It forces me to kind of take note of what I'm doing because it's not— one of the downfalls of social media is that you get bombarded with so much shit. This, I can actually organize in a certain way so it's beneficial for me when I want to review it. I don't throw everything in there. I'm pretty selective of what I'm doing. If I think it'll benefit one of my students and I can think about them specifically, or if it's maybe a series of techniques that I want to start teaching in the relatively near future, I make a little folder. If like I have a folder specifically for constraints-led games, I love those. I try to make my own but sometimes the other instructors just have— they have it locked because they do it all the time. So then I start throwing those in there, so when I get around to next month we're going to be playing a lot of games, I can go review those and put those together in a way that's more beneficial for the class that I'm teaching and the dynamics of who I'm teaching, and then understand it better.

10:13 - David Figuero-Martinez: So I find it incredibly useful. I do not throw everything into these folders. If it's not for me, if it's not for my students, and it's not something that I'm going to end up teaching, I maybe I repost or I I share in a story, but I'm not throwing it into the folders because that's material that I'm going to end up using at some point. What else? Try to— try to understand that this is stuff that you're in control of, that is reliant on you, that you need, that you can get the benefit out of, and it's not some other way of like weirdos getting into your space and ruining your energy. If there's any of that going on, delete, block, get rid of, set boundaries. And you don't want to get addicted to social media necessarily, and you want to like you don't want your life to be hindered by the things you want to do.

10:58 - David Figuero-Martinez: But overall, I for me, I think it's a massive benefit if you can use it as a tool and not get distracted. So often, students get distracted by, "Oh, I'm working on this specific technique, but I saw this other technique on my reel and I want to start doing that." And then I just I drop what I was working on, and I start playing with that, and then a week or two later, the same thing happens, and now I'm— I got like three or four half-built systems in place that don't really lead anywhere and don't really benefit me. Don't get distracted. That's one of the biggest issues with social media right now, you just get distracted with everything, and you want to do everything, but you just do not have the viable time to do that. You don't— you just don't. I don't have time to learn everything, so I prioritize the things that I feel are going to be most beneficial to me, the game that I play, most beneficial to the students because maybe they're playing something that I don't normally teach or they're showing an interest in something that I should develop.