SUBMETA Review 2023

We test Lachlan Giles’ premium training platform.

SUBMETA is one of the newest online training libraries for BJJ on the block. One of the key selling points of SUBMETA, beyond the pedigree of its founder Lachlan Giles, is that it is structured in a way to help the viewer learn and absorb the content. It does this in a few ways which we’ll dig into in this review.

First impressions

SUBMETA is a well designed online course platform which is packed with courses and videos and no filler. The platform home page lets you resume the current course or video you’re watching, and shows helpful stats about the types of courses you’re watching. From this I was able to see that I’m not focusing enough on escapes, takedowns or passing.

The SUBMETA platform seems to have a vision of hosting courses from multiple creators, not just founder Lachlan Giles. At the time of writing there was also a subscription available for B-Team courses, and it seems like there may be other creators added in future.

Who created SUBMETA?

SUBMETA was founded by Australian BJJ athlete and coach Lachlan Giles. Giles has competed on the world stage successfully, including winning third place in the ADCC World Championship in 2019 and the IBJJF No Gi World Championship.

He’s also a great teacher, and runs a YouTube channel for his gym Absolute MMA St Kilda, where he has plenty of free informational content to improve your jiu jitsu.

Videos and topics structure

Courses and sets

The SUBMETA library of courses is diverse and covers a variety of different topics. Videos are mainly grouped into individual courses and “sets”. A set is a group of courses on a topic logically grouped into levels to help you learn more effectively. Here’s an example of the leg lock set:

As you can see from this example, sets are a great way of jumping into a topic where you may have little prior knowledge or experience.

SUBMETA’s topics

Some of the topics on offer include:

• Foundational beginner videos on key topics like escapes, guard, passing and more. These are great videos for those newer to jiu jitsu, but there’s also plenty of details to improve your game if you’ve been doing jiu jitsu longer.
• Guard videos covering a large variety of specialized guards such as half butterfly, seated De La Riva and Lachlan’s speciality K-guard
• Passing videos which are focused on specific guard types. For example there’s a 1 hour 27 minute course on defeating the knee shield.
• Controls videos which focus on controlling positions such as the crab ride, saddle and fishnet.
• Submissions videos on topics like the kimura, face choke, t-kimura, triangle, front headlock and more.
• Escapes. There are courses on escaping the various positions including mount, back control, turtle, front headlock and defending against heel hooks.
• Takedowns. At the time of writing there’s a small selection of courses for takedowns covering topics like the head inside single leg takedown and the dogfight position. 

Videos and courses are easy to find through the menus, and there’s a search feature which is good at finding a topic.

Video quality

SUBMETA only launched in 2022, and as a result its library of videos are modern and high quality. Each course is broken up into smaller chunks, and loading times are brief or non-existent.

Videos are up to 1080 pixel HD quality so you can see every detail Lachlan mentions, and the video editing is tight. Lachlan also shows details from numerous angles so you won’t miss a concept.

In addition, SUBMETA courses are broken up into smaller modules and videos covering individual concepts, so that you’ll usually never be watching a single video over 5 or 6 minutes long. This is great for helping you absorb information. I found it easy to watch a few videos before class and then could easily apply what I learned in class.

Lachlan’s teaching style

One of the strongest positives to SUBMETA is Lachlan’s teaching style and philosophy. One of the difficulties when starting jiu jitsu or starting to learn a new guard or concept from scratch is that the context is often missing from instructionals. SUBMETA excels in linking what you’re learning to jiu jitsu more broadly.

There are a few reasons why SUBMETA does such a great job at teaching:

1. Context

Courses often start with a brief but useful explanation of where the topic fits in and how it links with other topics.

Lachlan often mentions what other courses, if any, you should have watched first too. He’ll also share his opinion on the strengths and weaknesses of what he’s going to teach which helps you put the topic into context.

2. Exercises reinforce what you’ve learned

There are brief quiz exercises at the end of the modules within a course which reinforce what you’ve just learned. If you get a question wrong you can see the exact part of the video that teaches the concept you got wrong.

3. Teaching style

The teaching style is succinct and mainly keeps to one topic per video.

Price: How much does SUBMETA cost?

SUBMETA currently offers two subscriptions: Lachlan Giles and B-Team.

At the time of writing, the prices were:

• Lachlan Giles (123 courses, 255 videos): $19.95 USD per month
• B-Team (61 videos): $10.75 USD per month

When combined, the two subscriptions are relatively expensive compared to other training libraries at $30.70 USD per month. 

I only subscribed to the Lachlan Giles library and felt like it was valuable enough without needing the second subscription, which brings its $19.95 USD per month to about average compared to competitors.

Verdict

SUBMETA is an excellent online BJJ course library, with hours of high quality instruction to help you improve your jiu jitsu. 

Courses are broken up into smaller modules with exercises to help reinforce your learning, and Lachlan Giles’ instruction is clear, concise and helps you make sense of what you’re learning and how it fits into the bigger picture. 

Rating: 4/5 stars

*This review is not endorsed by SUBMETA. The reviewer paid for SUBMETA out of his own pocket.