JT Torres is one of the United States' best hopes for becoming the next gi world champion.

The New York native achieved the unthinkable last year: opened and began managing a new school a few months before winning an ADCC world title. And while he didn't do it alone, it's certainly a daunting undertaking for any full-time athlete. 

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How did Torres pull it off? Experience in the best camps in the world like Atos helped him shape his own. And now he's bringing that knowledge to his own school, Essential Jiu-Jitsu. We recently visited the White Plains, NY, academy to get a full breakdown of a day of training with Torres before he heads to Long Beach, CA, later this month for the IBJJF World Championships.

Traditional Warmup

A quick jog around the room, front rolls, shrimping—it's standard procedure at academies all over the world and JT Torres isn't above the basics. See the video below for a full view of the warmup.

Open Drilling

Competition training generally isn't about adding new techniques; it's about refining and honing your A-game into a well-oiled machine. As such, the second portion of the "warmup" process saw Essential BJJ students drill any technique they liked for eight rounds at four minutes per partner. This meant they could work takedowns, sweeps, and passing—whatever they wanted—as long as they pushed the pace and worked up a sweat. 

An athlete works his turtle attacks.

Torres spent an equal amount of time practicing sweeps and submissions from the DLR position.

Positional Sparring

Positional sparring is not fun. It's the grueling repetition of minor battles, the same game of inches that wins or loses matches on the big stage. Starting positions consisted of a standing single leg takedown and a nearly completed leg-drag pass. The objective is simple: take the opponent down (or defend and prevent the takedown) and complete the pass (or re-establish the guard). 

Students would go 100 percent for 45 seconds, switch positions, and then repeat. This happened eight times.

WATCH: Positional Sparring At Essential Jiu-Jitsu

Sparring: 6-Minute Rounds

No competition training is complete without live rolling, and this was the final step in Torres' Worlds camp training session. Six-minute rounds were the order of the day, and athletes were encouraged to pair up with partners close to their own size—six rounds in total.