I wake up to the sound of birds chirping.

I yawn, twist my neck, and get out of bed pain-free.

I dreamt of winning the ADCC World Championship and cementing myself as one of the best grapplers alive.

Everything is perfect. I’m not stressed. Life is easy.

Bliss.

Wait a second…

BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP

My alarm goes off and blasts me awake. My stress-free dream is over, and I’m back in reality.

Reality where I’m 7 weeks away from the biggest jiu-jitsu tournament that I’ve ever competed in. Reality where my whole body constantly hurts from the onslaught of world-class jiu-jitsu that I get hammered into my brain every single day. Reality where I’m training at one of the biggest gyms in the world and rolling with multiple time ADCC vets every single day.

Reality where, to be honest, the whole thing is a little stressful.

Let me get you up to speed.

My name is Chris Wojcik, and I’m a BJJ black belt training out of Austin, Texas, at the B-Team.

I was born in London, England, and I grew up and started training jiu-jitsu in the Chicagoland area. I got my black belt from Jeff Serafin in 2022.

For the last 3 years, competing in the ADCC World Championships has been my main goal in jiu-jitsu. It’s what inspired me to move to Austin about a year ago. It’s what made me quit training in the gi.

I finished in the top 4 in 3 Trials in the last 2 years, and there was a dropout in the 88KG division of this year's ADCC, so I was one of the first in line to get in.

In jiu-jitsu especially, it can be really hard to create opportunities for yourself if you don’t come from a big gym (which I didn’t until this year), so when I got the chance to compete at ADCC, I jumped at it and I’m all in preparing.

Here’s what a typical training day looks like for me:

When I was a white belt, I read a lot of daily training routines from professional grapplers. I was obsessed with learning about who I wanted to become.

Some of the routines were good, some were not, and all of them were difficult to replicate. I’ve had to build my own training routine based on my “ideal day”.

I’m training a bit differently than normal for ADCC, but the truth is that I’ve competed in hundreds of grappling tournaments in my life and I think it would be unwise to reinvent the wheel too much.

I typically wake up around 8-8:30 am, have a coffee, write in my journal, have a light breakfast, and do some writing. Sometimes, I’ll also watch old matches during this time. It’s kind of my quiet, safe time.

I train every single day at noon in our competition training at B-Team, which is run by Dima Murovanni who was brought to help our room get prepared for all of the major competitions this August. Training consists of a task-based game for a warm-up, technique, positional rolling, and live rounds.

The main thing I’m working on when training for ADCC is wrestling, but that takes many forms. It’s not enough to just set the timer and wrestle. Typically, we do specific wrestling rounds, like starting with various ties, takedowns, and other wrestling positions. You go until a score under ADCC rules. One of my biggest goals for the ADCC camp is to develop my finishing on my takedowns.

Training typically is about 1:45-2 hours long, and it is hard. One of the benefits of having Dima in to run our training is that he moderates volume and intensity. Today is meant to be a lighter day, whereas tomorrow will be more intense.

After training, I shower, eat, and probably have more coffee. Usually, during this time, I’m pretty tired, so I’ll relax, read a book, and do social media/email stuff.

In the evenings, I either rest, lift, or go drill. I generally don’t roll hard a second time during the day. 3 days per week, I lift weights. 2 nights per week, I either go back to the gym and do a tape study or drill. If I’m feeling burned out, I just rest and hang out with my girlfriend and watch a movie.

The “Olympics of Grappling”

Even though there have been a few pullouts of ADCC this year, it’s still one of the most stacked ADCC Worlds ever. There are dozens of incredible athletes and the divisions are extremely tough.

Check out the complete 2024 ADCC World Championships roster here

At B-Team, we have at least one athlete in every men’s division, and pretty much all of the returning champions are competing as well.

For me personally, ADCC is hands down the biggest challenge of my grappling career.

I’m working with a lot of different jiu-jitsu minds from all over the world, the training room that I’m in is at an insane level right now, and everyone is only getting better.

My biggest goals over the next 7 weeks of training are to:

• Improve my cardio for possible 15-minute matches at ADCC Worlds
• Work on my scrimmage wrestling (as a former butt-scooter, it’s a neverending battle)
• Manage my workload and stay healthy

There are dozens of sub-goals that I’m working on as well, and I’ll talk about those as we get closer to the tournament, but I wanted to give a high-level overview of how I’m training and what this event means to me before we get into specifics.

Competing at ADCC has been a dream of mine for years – even long before it became my goal 3 years ago. I remember being a 20 year old blue belt and watching the 2017 Trials and the 2017 Worlds on Flo.

Then again in 2019, and then again in 2022.

This time, I get to compete myself. 

Over the next 7 weeks, my goal isn’t just to get in good shape or build new skills (these are things that I work on every single day), my goal is to become the most focused, healthy, and mentally strong version of myself. Getting an opportunity to compete in something like ADCC doesn’t happen to every grappler, and I want to make the most of the opportunity.

Competing at this level is not just about jiu-jitsu, it’s about being a high performer.

The goal of the training camp is not just to get me better, it’s to get me (and the rest of the room) ready to perform.

Read more from Chris at TheGrapplersDiary.Substack.com 

Watch BJJ On FloGrappling

FloGrappling is the streaming home to the best Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu events and news coverage. FloGrappling is the streaming home of: 

• ADCC
• IBJJF
• WNO
• Fight to Win
• And more!

Join The BJJ Conversation By Following FloGrappling On Social

• Follow us on Twitter @flograppling.
• Follow us on Instagram @flograppling.
• Watch us on YouTube.
• Like us on Facebook.