I’ve taught jiu-jitsu for over 5 years, and I’ve only just started using AI to come up with lesson plans – I don’t know why I didn’t think of this sooner!

(Image credit: Shutterstock/Miljan Zivkovic)

I’m always looking for ways that AI can help me in my life, but for some reason, it has never occurred to me before that I can get it to help me lesson-plan my Brazilian Jiu-Jitu (BJJ) classes, but it’s been an absolute godsend.

I’ve been teaching BJJ for over 5 years now - it’s a great way to stay in shape that challenges both your mental and physical abilities. Some people compare it to human chess.

However, having to come up with lesson plans that are fresh and interesting each week can be a real hassle. In fact, it must be the same problem faced by anybody who teaches any sort of exercise class – you need a way to organise the information that you want to teach that keeps it feeling fresh and new each time.

That’s when I decided to ask ChatGPT and Gemini to come up with a lesson plan for each class. The results can be a bit hit-and-miss, especially when it comes to it getting the wrong technique names, but overall, they’re good enough that, combined with my existing BJJ knowledge, I can tweak them to save myself a lot of time each week.

Lesson plans for everyone

We have a general theme for each month at the BJJ academy where I teach. For example, it is half-guard (a position in jiu-jitsu) this month, so I asked Gemini and ChatGPT, ”I need to teach a BJJ class tomorrow on half guard (which can include butterfly half guard). Got any ideas on what to teach?”

In response, I got a whole lesson plan, including three technique options to teach. It all looked good, but when I dug under the surface I could see that some of the techniques it talked about were named incorrectly, or at least the name didn’t match the description of the move it had given me.

But this is where you can use the power of AI to double-check. I asked the AI to “show me a video of technique 1”, and both AI chatbots found three videos of the technique in action, which was really helpful for pinning down what move it was actually referring to.

BJJ armbar. — An armbar performed from the guard. (Image credit: Shutterstock/Miljan Zivkovic)

Knowledge and experience

Of course, none of this takes away from your knowledge and experience. You still need your actual expertise to teach the class.

I’ve got a black belt in BJJ, so I can adapt what ChatGPT was suggesting to make all the techniques flow together, and I know how to do them all already, but having a starting point to give me inspiration is a great time-saver and helps me think outside the box. It stops me from getting into the trap of just repeating my favorite techniques.

It’s also worth noting that AI models on the paid-for plan provide a much more detailed analysis of techniques. For example, using ChatGPT 4o on the ChatGPT Plus plan provides a much more detailed lesson plan than you get on the free tier.

If you run any type of exercise class, then I'd recommend giving AI a go at creating a lesson plan for you. Whether it’s boxercise, yoga, or pilates, I’m sure that you’d find something useful in an AI-created lesson plan that you can adapt.