How do I keep from forgetting positions I drilled early in camp by the time competition arrives?

Spaced revision. Capture each position as a card after the session, revisit it a few days later, then again a week after. The cadence matters less than the fact that you revisit at all.

IBJJF Season Prep: How to Peak Your Game for the Winter Competition Circuit

TL;DR. The winter IBJJF circuit rewards competitors who ramp on a schedule instead of panic-training two weeks out. Build a 10–12 week prep broken into base, specific, and sharpening blocks, pair each training block with targeted video study, and revise your A-game positions on a repeatable cadence. Keep the last 7–10 days light, confident, and position-focused. Train with a qualified coach for live feedback — this plan structures the work, it does not replace mat time.

The winter stretch of the IBJJF calendar — Pans qualifiers, No-Gi Pans, European Open, and the regional opens that cluster from November through February — tends to catch hobbyist competitors flat. The gym is colder, motivation dips, and most people start "getting serious" about three weeks out. That is late. If you want to peak for a winter tournament instead of surviving it, you need a plan that respects two things: how long real skill takes to install, and how fast it fades without revision.

This article gives you a repeatable structure for IBJJF competition prep across the winter season. It assumes you train 2–4 times a week around a job, not that you can suddenly double your mat time.

Why winter prep is different from a one-off camp

Most competitors treat each tournament as its own panic cycle. The winter circuit is better handled as a season: multiple events, back to back, with no time to overhaul your game between them. That changes how you prepare.

A few things follow from that:

You cannot afford to be sore and smashed for every event. You need a training load that compounds, not one that burns you out by December.
Your "A-game" has to be the same A-game across events. You win by sharpening a short list of positions, not by cycling through new techniques every month.
Video study and revision carry more of the learning weight, because you can't drill eight hours a day on the mat.

The grapplers who do well in a winter season tend to have a quiet, boring routine: they show up, they drill their positions, they film and revise, they taper properly, they repeat.

Remember. A season is a sequence of peaks, not one peak. Protect your body and your enthusiasm for the next event, not just the one in front of you.

The 10–12 week ramp, in three blocks

Pick your target event. Count backwards. Divide the time into roughly three phases: base, specific, and sharpening. The exact weeks shift depending on how far out you are, but the shape stays the same.

Block 1 — Base (weeks 10 to 7 out)

The goal here is work capacity and audit, not peaking. This is when you decide which positions make the trip to competition and which do not.

Train your normal schedule. Add one extra positional sparring session a week if you can.
Audit your game. Pick one top sequence, one bottom guard, one takedown or pull, and two or three submissions you actually finish on resisting partners.
Build a video study list around those positions and nothing else. Scattershot YouTube binges end here.
Review each class the night it happens. A short technique card per session is enough — see our 3-touch revision method for a minimal workflow.

Block 2 — Specific (weeks 6 to 3 out)

Now you drill your positions, not the gym's technique of the week. The structure of a solid camp lines up well with the pre-competition camp framework — six weeks of specific work, hard rolls on the right days, and growing focus on the top and bottom situations you'll live in on competition day.

Positional sparring from the start of your A-sequences. Every round starts in a position you want.
One or two hard rolling nights per week. The rest is drilling, flow rolling, and specific work.
Build a short scouting layer. If you know likely opponents or at least the dominant styles of your division, you can prepare counters — our guide on how to build a BJJ scouting report walks through this without turning you into a video-tape neurotic.

Block 3 — Sharpening (weeks 2 to 0 out)

This is where most people blow their prep by panic-training. Don't.

Volume drops. Intensity on specific entries stays high.
Hard rolling tapers across the final 10 days. By competition week you are doing short, sharp positional rounds, not full rounds against the biggest guy in the gym.
Revision cadence goes up. Every A-position gets revisited at least once in the final week.
The last five to seven days follow a dedicated taper — see our pre-tournament week revision plan for a day-by-day shape — or a two-week taper if you tend to overtrain.

Remember. The last two weeks exist to deliver you to the mat healthy, recognising your positions, and confident. They do not exist to install new techniques.

Weekly structure during the specific block

The hardest week to design is a specific-block week, because it has to balance drilling, hard rolling, video study, and recovery. Here is a shape that works for most hobbyists training 3–4 times a week.

Day	Mat work	Off-mat work
Mon	Gi class + positional rounds from your A-position	Short review card of the night's technique
Tue	Rest or mobility	Video study on a position already in your game
Wed	No-gi class + hard rolling (controlled)	Capture 1 technique card from the session
Thu	Rest	Light cardio; revise last week's cards
Fri	Drilling-focused class, positional sparring	Scouting notes on bracket styles
Sat	Open mat — specific rolls, not ego rolls	Weekly review: what landed, what didn't
Sun	Full rest	Light revision only; no new material

Adjust the days to your real schedule. The point is the pattern: drill days, hard day, specific day, open mat, rest, with revision stitched in on off days.

Video study without the YouTube spiral

Most competitors watch too much tape and remember almost none of it. The fix is not more discipline — it's a different workflow. Watch with a specific question in mind, extract one usable detail per video, and put that detail somewhere you'll see it again before training.

A practical rule for the winter season:

Each week, pick one position in your A-game.
Watch one or two instructional segments or match breakdowns on that position.
Produce one technique card per segment: steps, key details, common mistakes, and the moments in the video that matter.
Revise that card before the next session where you'll likely hit the position.

That's the loop BJJ Memo was built around — paste the YouTube URL, generate a structured technique card, file it under the right position, and revise before you roll. The point isn't the app; the point is that passive watching stops being study the moment you don't capture anything from it.

How to maintain between events

The winter circuit's real test is what happens between tournaments. If you deload for a week after an event, lose two weeks to travel or illness, and then try to re-sharpen in ten days, your game regresses. The fix is a maintenance mode:

Keep training 2–3 times a week in the recovery week, but drop intensity.
Keep your revision cadence identical. The cards don't take a week off.
One short positional sparring block per week keeps the A-game warm.
Save new techniques and experiments for post-season. Mid-season is for sharpening what already works.

If you compete across multiple IBJJF events in a short window, this maintenance block is what carries you from one to the next without regression. Grapplers who treat the season as one long sharpening phase, rather than a stack of panic camps, show up fresher at every event.

Remember. You can only sharpen what already exists. Build the game in the off-season; refine it during the circuit.

Common prep mistakes

Adding new positions in the final six weeks. You won't finish them on competition day. Stick with what already works and sharpen entries.
Testing yourself in every hard round of the final two weeks. All that proves is that you can get tired. Save intensity for specific sparring from your positions.
Over-watching tape. If you can't name three details from this week's video study, you watched too much.
Ignoring sleep and weight. They do more for your gas tank than any extra drill session.
Training through pain to "not lose the camp". Train through pain and you'll miss the event. Work with your coach to adjust.

Frequently asked questions

How many weeks out should I start preparing for an IBJJF tournament?

For a hobbyist, 10–12 weeks is a comfortable ramp that includes base, specific, and sharpening blocks. If you only have 6 weeks, skip the base block and treat the first weeks as a condensed specific phase — a structure like the 6-week pre-competition camp handles that cleanly.

Should I taper for a smaller IBJJF open the same way as a major event?

Yes, roughly. The volume cut can be smaller for a one-off local open, but the principle holds: pull hard rolling back in the final week, keep drilling and specific sparring, and revise your A-positions.

How do I handle multiple winter tournaments close together?

Treat the first one as a sharpening peak and the rest as follow-ups. Deload for a few days after each event, maintain positional training and revision between events, and avoid introducing new material mid-season.

Can video study replace mat time during a winter camp?

No. Video study multiplies what mat time teaches you; it does not replace it. If you had to cut one thing in a busy week, cut video — not training.

What's the single biggest mistake competitors make before an IBJJF event?

Trying to add techniques instead of sharpening the ones they already have. Competition day belongs to your A-game, not to the move you learned last Tuesday.

How do I keep from forgetting positions I drilled in week 2 of camp by the time competition arrives?

Spaced revision. Capture the position as a card after the session, revisit it a few days later, and again a week after that. The specific cadence matters less than the fact that you revisit at all — any grappler can confirm how fast details fade without it.

Build the camp, then revise what you build

A structured winter IBJJF prep is mostly boring. You pick an event, work backwards, protect your training block, drill your short list, taper properly, and revise what you learn so none of it leaks out before you compete. The surprise isn't that this works — it's how few competitors actually do it.

If you want a frictionless way to capture what you drill and study across a 10–12 week camp, BJJ Memo turns the YouTube instructionals you watch into structured technique cards you can file by position and revise before every session. Build your A-game library once, revise it through the winter circuit, and arrive at each tournament recognising positions instead of inventing them under adrenaline.

For real feedback and safety, train with a qualified coach at a legit academy — BJJ Memo helps you remember and revise, it does not replace mat time.

Last updated 2026-10-22.