About

In this episode of Tapped In, Coach David Figueroa-Martinez breaks down why the immediate 5–15 minutes following a Jiu-Jitsu training session is pure gold for long-term athletic and technical development. He shares practical steps on how to reset your nervous system, document critical session details, build gym culture through partner check-ins, and gather real-time instructor feedback before details fade.

3 Key Takeaways

• Reset Your Physiology First: Deep breathing and intentional down-regulation immediately post-class bring your heart rate down, calming the nervous system after hard rounds.
• Document While It's Fresh: Capture three positives and three areas of struggle right after class so you have actionable, accurate insights to build upon.
• Build Culture Through Communication: Checking in with training partners and asking instructors for immediate feedback strengthens community trust and preserves critical technical details before memory fades.

Chapters

• 00:00 - Introduction & The Post-Training Opportunity
• 00:36 - Down-Regulating Your Nervous System
• 01:58 - Down-Regulation Strategies & Establishing Baseline Normal
• 02:38 - The Importance of Taking Post-Class Notes
• 03:40 - Structuring Notes: 3 Wins and 3 Struggles
• 04:22 - Asking Questions & Participating in Q&A
• 05:08 - Checking In With Training Partners & Building Culture
• 06:50 - Seeking Immediate Instructor Feedback
• 07:54 - Conducting a Post-Training Physical Body Audit
• 08:35 - Conclusion & How to Support the Show

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David Figueroa-Martinez

Founder, DFM Coaching Bjj

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Full Transcript

00:00 — Welcome to Tapped In. My name is David Figueroa-Martinez of DFM Coaching, and today we're going to be discussing what to do within that 5 to 15-minute mark after you get done training. This is probably the most valuable time outside of actual instruction and training and rolling and playing games that you're going to have. And many of us miss it. And by the time we try to correct or do some of the other things that we should be doing within that time period, a lot of the details are missed.

00:36 — So I want you to start looking at ways to kind of reset your body and your emotional output. And kind of like, your nervous system is generally most often a little high. It's wired because you've had this fight or flight mode or moments. Your heart rate is up, you're probably breathing hard, your hormones are circulating. Like, you just had this hard, tough workout. And depending on where you are—let's say you were anywhere from that white to blue, purple phase—and you were at a gym with a lot of higher ranked people, you probably are dealing with that a little bit more than the black belt that may have had an easier time. Not saying that they don't have this either, but it's just they're more comfortable with that stressor.

02:38 — So it's super important in general, bring yourself back down to some kind of base normal level. Because again, we've got some things that we need to do. Take really deep breaths, hold, exhale. Find whatever makes you most calm. Some people, they go for a lighter roll, a cooldown roll. Some people go to lift weights. Some people sit on the edge of the mat and just kind of think about some things. Some people get chatty. Whatever it is that brings you down rather quickly, great. I want you to document some things. When you're in the moment and you're in class, I don't see enough students taking notes. I understand it may come off as dorky, it may come off as a little weird. In my opinion, take the notes. I think that's one of the hidden elements of getting better at an art, or anything for that matter, that we're not taking advantage of enough. And again, I think it's because no one's doing it, so the other people don't feel like it's something they want to do or should do, or they don't want to be looked at as weird for doing.

03:40 — But it's really important that we do take notes. Some of us are great at taking notes in the moment. Some of us do a little bit better after the fact. Whichever you do, I highly suggest you take some kind of notes. I want you to—after your mind's calmed—I want you to take down three things that went really well, and then three things that did not go so well. And preferably you can do that in a simple draft in your phone, you can do that in a dedicated journal, like the Practitioner's Journal is one of my favorites, I think it's one of the best ones out there. And take—I wouldn't say copious notes, I wouldn't say a ton—I would say things that you can look back on and understand pretty easily. I've taken notes in the past where I've taken a lot, and it's like, that's too much. I've taken notes in the past where I've done not enough, and I'm like, I don't even know what the position is really. I got the basic levels of what the position is, but I don't know what I'm supposed to be doing. Sometimes I take shitty notes. But take some notes.

04:22 — And specifically, maybe write down the biggest steps or the biggest key takeaways from the instruction. You can also do that for key takeaways of the position overall, and then how you performed in rolls, or the games, whichever you guys are doing. Take away things that you did really well, because it's healthy to kind of balance the things that we're doing well with the things that we're not doing so well. Sometimes we focus too much on the not well. And then take some notes on the things that maybe you struggled with. Those are what you're going to formulate your questions on. Another thing, in my opinion, I don't think enough of us ask questions. I have a Q&A at the end of every class I teach, and I generally get a couple of questions here and there. And it's good that I'm getting the questions, I'm happy when I get questions. But sometimes some people who should be asking questions aren't. And I don't know if it's because they feel like they don't want to come off as dumb or ask that dumb question, but I'm telling you right now: every question that's asked in my Q&As are things that everyone else can take away with, even the higher belts.

05:08 — Sometimes they get reminders. You got a two-stripe white belt who asks a specific question about something and I go over it, and I can tell—"Oh, I didn't know that detail." "Oh," and I can tell by the facial expressions, sometimes even the higher belts are like, "Okay, that makes more sense." Because sometimes we think we know something, and we don't really. We have an idea, but we don't know what we don't know, if that makes sense. So take away three things that we did really good, and then three things that we didn't do so well. I like checking in with training partners. It's something that I was always trying to do or keen on. Sometimes these training sessions are difficult. Sometimes they're hard. Sometimes they're rough. Like, you're training for a competition, you guys are going close to 100%, and sometimes you might knock somebody in the face with an elbow or a knee. Check in with them. Check in, "Hey, you okay? I know I may have elbowed you, my apologies." You may have said sorry in the moment, but checking in with them afterwards is a big plus because, again, they're coming down off that adrenaline dump or that adrenaline spike, and they may not feel great. They might feel like, "Oh, now that everything's calming down, that blow was harsher or harder than I noticed at the time."

06:50 — Couple of things to consider: One, you're checking in, and that extra check-in goes a long way to building a little bit more culture. And then two, they may have—now that things are calm—have some resentment for the fact that you elbowed them. Maybe you guys train regularly and you guys are always training hard, and that happens quite often between the two of you. Sometimes styles and approaches do that, kind of like in boxing how you have the southpaw versus traditional and sometimes the blows just happen a certain way because of the stances that they're in. Something like that happens in Jiu-Jitsu sometimes. You got two bulls that are going head-to-head, and both like to be in a specific position and both like to be aggressive, you're going to have a few more accidents. And sometimes when those accidents pile up, one of you can feel like, "Oh, this is an unsafe training partner," or "This is a person that doesn't really like me." They may conjure up a bunch of different stories in their head. So going in and checking on your partner—"Hey, tough round, I loved it. Sorry I dinged you, it wasn't my intent. You okay?"—and then having a conversation, and not even specifically about that, but maybe just the training. "Man, you really had me when you started flattening me out when you went to the knee cut pass," or "You almost got me with that bow and arrow choke." And then you guys are going back and forth and you're building that camaraderie, and now they feel like, "Oh, there's a relationship here."

07:54 — That even though there were a couple of misses or mistakes happening, it doesn't feel like something was intentional, because the person's actually coming around you and showing that they care. Training's difficult. Training's hard. We sometimes get in our heads, we sometimes start conjuring up stories of things that may or may not be happening. And those relationships at that moment after training go a long way because it can squash some of that. Sometimes you're going to have training partners that are just down on themselves. Has nothing to do with you. They're just down on themselves because they got got again, or they didn't get off the submission or the sweep that they were trying to work with. And you coming over and checking in and just having a casual conversation about what happened—maybe even giving some feedback, "Hey, you almost had me, but you didn't have your foot in the right spot." "Oh, what do you mean?" And then you guys go over it again. Or I'm the recipient of the failed—I'm the person that tried the sweep and failed, and I come to that person and be like, "Hey, I'm working on this sweep, you always have a way of negating the angle I'm trying to create or the off-balancing that I'm trying to create. What are you doing differently than everybody else?" And then that relationship grows because you're having that conversation with that person, you're exchanging ideas. Let that happen. Be intentional about it, it's a really good thing. It builds those relationships, it builds the unique camaraderie for the academy. It allows people to understand that we're not at odds. We just happen to be training partners, and we have to be quote-unquote "opponents" for that moment, but we're not opponents once the match ends, we're not opponents anywhere else.

08:35 — I like to check in with instructors, at least when I have the opportunity. "Hey, I'm struggling with this." "Hey, what do you think I should be doing? Were you watching at all?" And while I don't do that all the time, occasionally it's a good thing. You get to check in with them because they may have been watching the entire class, and they may have watched your match specifically a bit more, just on the off chance. Getting their feedback in the moment goes a long way because they remember the details a bit clearer. If you wait till the following day, I'm not going to remember shit. If you wait a couple hours later, I may not remember shit. So if you notice that your instructor was sitting in front of you and they were watching, or maybe they were coaching you through something or coaching the other person through something, that's a great time to ask those questions because they're fresh. You don't want to do that all the time, you don't want to take up all their time, but on an occasional moment like, "Hey, what do you think? What did you see here? What was I doing that was off, what was I doing that was good, what could I have done different?" And because it's fresh, just within a few minutes, you can get some really solid feedback on you or what you should have done, or in a lot of cases what you're doing correctly. Sometimes you're not doing anything—you don't need to do anything differently, it's just you need more time and more seasoning in the position that you're in to catch that timing.

The other thing that I want to focus on is check yourself. Check yourself for any skin stuff, check yourself for bruising, check yourself for any injuries. Sometimes we don't notice something until we hit the shower and stuff's stinging, or you changed and maybe you didn't pay attention to yourself when you were changing, you get home and you're like, "I don't know where I got this bruise from." Like, just check yourself over, do a quick inventory. Am I good? Do I have any abrasions, do I have any scratches, do I have any sore spots? Have I maybe—maybe I was in that armbar longer than I should have been, is my arm okay? Check yourself. It's really nothing that most people do to be honest with you. I think it's something we should be a little bit better about. But it's a good thing.

If there's anything else that maybe I have missed that you do, I would love to hear it. I think this is one of those things that like that 5 to 15-minute mark right after class is gold, and we need to maximize that a little bit more. Whether it's asking questions, whether it's writing things down, or recollecting key details—"What was I doing wrong?"—that time period is gold. And once it leaves, and you are at a point where you're three hours later, or you went to bed and you woke up the next morning, or you're in the shower, it's not going to play out the same way in your head. You may have the overall structure, but the key details are hard to remember. It just is.

So if this is something that can help, I would highly suggest doing some of these for you. If you like stuff like this, I would also suggest you sign up for The Blueprint on Patreon. We get into these topics a bit more, they're a bit more personal because I'm taking questions from subscribers, which goes a long way, it's a little bit more intimate. If you liked the episode, please like, subscribe, rate, share. It goes a long way with us, and it really does help out the show. Until next time, thank you so much.