At just 22 years old, Jozef Chen has already carved out a remarkable place in the grappling world. What makes his trajectory particularly striking is that he only started training Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu five years ago at age 14.
From complete beginner to elite competitor in such a compressed timeframe, Chen’s ascent invites an obvious question: how did he do it?
While technical prowess and natural talent certainly play their roles, Chen recently shared three non-technical strategies that have been fundamental to his accelerated development, and none of them involve learning new submissions or guard passes.
Record Your Training Sessions
The first recommendation Chen offered in a recent video is simple: record your rounds.
“I think this really does a great job of making it so that you’re able to actually see what’s happening as opposed to only just trying to remember oh this happened that happened,” he explains. “You get a really great example very solid I mean recording of what happened so you can actually see okay this was the problem that was the problem and then you can try find ways to solve it.”
The value here lies in objectivity. Memory is selective and often unreliable, especially in the heat of a training session when your heart rate is elevated and your focus is divided.
A recording provides an unfiltered look at what actually transpired, revealing patterns and problems that might otherwise go unnoticed. It’s one thing to feel like you’re getting passed repeatedly; it’s another to watch the footage and identify the exact moment your frame collapses or your hip positioning fails.
Engage Your Training Partners in Conversation
Chen’s second strategy involves a social element that many practitioners overlook: talking to your training partners after a round.
“There are a lot of things that you might not necessarily notice that your partner may be trying to do or they might have noticed on you,” he notes. “So I think having a good conversation with your partner post round a lot of times can be very useful, especially if they’re doing something that’s giving you a lot of trouble.”
This approach transforms training from a solitary grind into a collaborative learning experience. Your partner has a unique perspective on the round you just shared. They felt the pressure you were applying, noticed the openings you left, and perhaps attempted techniques you never even registered.
By opening a dialogue, you gain access to information that exists nowhere else, not in instructionals, not in competition footage, but in the lived experience of the person across from you on the mat.
Build a Reflection Practice
The third pillar of Chen’s non-technical approach is perhaps the most demanding: deliberate reflection.
“Any type of reflection I think is very important because that kind of attempt to recall what happened can make things a lot cleare r than they may be,” he says. “If you just engage in a round and you spar and you just leave it be, a lot of times there’s going to be a lot of things that you’re going to miss and some things that are just going to be left behind.”
Chen advocates for active recall, asking yourself pointed questions after training: What happened today? Where are some problems I had? Are these common problems I’m having? What are some ways that I could possibly solve them? He acknowledges that not every answer will be correct, but insists the process itself drives improvement.
He takes this a step further by documenting new concepts.
“When I learned something very new that I’m quite unfamiliar with and I’m like wow I never thought of it this way or I’ve never seen that I’ll usually write it down in my notes on the phone,” he shares. “I feel like that is a really good job of just trying to verbalize and really try to organize the information that I consumed in a way that I can later recall more effectively because maybe you’re like, wow, that was super cool. But if you don’t try to articulate it, sometimes you lose a lot of it.”
A Foundation for Rapid Progress
These three strategies, recording, conversing, and reflecting, form a learning framework that extends far beyond the technical curriculum of any academy. Chen’s early training environment in China encouraged exactly this kind of self-directed learning.
“My coach at the time encouraged me to seek out information by myself,” Chen explained in a previous interview. “Not only just relying on him, but also I was in a position where I could research and figure out new things, but then bring it back and discuss with my coach and teammates.”
That permission to explore, combined with his methodical approach to absorbing and testing new material, allowed Chen to compress what might normally take decades into just five years.
He didn’t binge entire instructional series in one sitting. Instead, he screen recorded short clips, watching three minute-long videos before training to prime his focus. He tested new techniques against less experienced partners first, recognizing that attempting unfamiliar moves against elite opponents would likely result in immediate failure before the technique had a chance to develop.
The combination of insatiable curiosity, rigorous work ethic, and these deliberate non-technical practices has propelled Chen into the upper echelon of the grappling world.
For practitioners looking to accelerate their own development, his advice remains straightforward: “Be proactive in your learning, find the right training environment, and never stop working.”
