There's probably no one right answer for this, but I'm grappling (chortle) with the problem of training frequency and how it relates to progress or lack thereof. Can you get "good" training twice per week? (more detail on what I mean below)
I'm a 10 month white belt. 33 years old, family with 2 young kids and busy/stressful job (physician), church activites, research and teaching obligations etc but I really enjoy BJJ. Thus far I've been going 3 days a week fairly consistently, which is ending up being ~5 hours a week, by blocking time in my schedule and sticking to it, more or less no matter what comes up I go to class. Problem is that it might be hard to sustain going 3x/week - juggling everything is just getting hard to deal with; I decreased my weight training to only one day per week but even then it is hard to swing. 2 days a week, I could definitely see.
I realize that to achieve anything of value requires sacrifice and committment. Thus far I've learned a ton and am seeing real improvement and am seeing progress in ability to successfully use techniques in live sparring, and if anything I am even more enthusiastic about it than when I started. I want to do BJJ long term. The question is, how much of an impact does going down from 3 times per week to 2 times per week have in terms of progress? If it's just an issue of taking (for example) 20 years to become a legitimate blackbelt and increasing that to 30 years from now, then maybe that would be ok. My fear though is whether 2 times per week is enough to gain and retain information, and whether it would be more like 20 years to NEVER and I would get stuck at blue belt level or something like that from not training enough.
What is your guys' experience and observations? Can you get good (relatively - not mundials champion or anything) only doing BJJ twice per week for about 3 hours per week (not including looking at videos, drilling at home etc) if you do it consistently year after year, as in some day far off reaching legit blackbelt level, or does it it require a good deal more? I've read about guys who got pretty good - even black belt level - going 3x/week who were very consistent and dedicated to progressing.
In summary, while I have no delusions of being a mundials or ADCC champion by ANY MEANS, I would still like to get legitimately good, what you'd expect from a given belt (to be a good blue belt, purple, brown and then someday a legit black belt) and wonder if this is feasible on 2x/week. On a related note - for the other direction (for those training a LOT) - is there a point where training more doesn't really contribute to more rapid progress, or at least not proportional to time expenditure?
Purple belt now, almost 6 years of training. Still training 3x/week for the most part. To make progress consistently I really feel like I need 3x/week - twice per week just doesn't seem to do it over the long haul, I've had periods when I was training less than 3x/week (like...erm...right now - need to get back on horse) but that frequency really makes a difference.
