Boris Felcher, who has been training at the Silk Cut Jiu Jitsu Academy since May this year, has found himself really struggling with techniques. “I drill everything at least four or five times,” says the frustrated white belt, “but it’s just not coming together. I don’t think it works unless you’re strong.”

A friend told him about Crossfit. “They told me it would make me really strong. I think for sweeps and stuff you need to be really strong. At my jiu jitsu class we don’t even do pushups.”

His coach, Rupert Flagstaff, understands where he’s coming from. “I just wish he would practice a move for more than seven minutes at a time,” he said wistfully.

Felcher has made up his mind though. “I don’t have the time or inclination to spend 30 minutes drilling a single technique, then another 30 minutes trying to make it work in sparring.”

“Instead, I’ve signed up for Crossfit in another town and will make the one hour round trip there and back twice a week. It’s really expensive and inconvenient but there are no shortcuts to getting good at jiu jitsu.”

“I’ve heard they do loads of pushups and pullups and things with weights, and they do them really fast, too. That should be awesome for my jiu jitsu,” said Felcher.

“The other day in sparring I tried to sweep this purple belt. He just passed my guard then choked me out with some kind of collar thingy. It was at that moment I realised that I need to do more pullups in order to be successful.”

A brown belt had the following to say: “I worked on reverse de la Riva guard for over 9 months, and I still have loads to practice. This guy’s a douche.”