7 methods to drilling and adding new techniques to your BJJ (Part 4)

Alright, now that the Pans are over and I am ready to continue on in this series. In this post we will talk about training with a less skilled partner and how to make the most of it in regards to further developing our technique. When rolling with a person who is less skilled than you, what should you do? Should you beat them mercilessly over and over again or play around with different techniques you’re improving? Well. . . both. There is always going to be a need for the people under you to feel the pressure and to be pushed by a more experienced BJJ player. This helps shed light on weaknesses in their game that you are able to exploit. During hard competition training sessions where the environment has to be tough to prepare someone for a match this is also helpful.  However, it is also beneficial to work on specific techniques and in essence use your less experienced partners as active drilling partners. This is the style of training we will focus on for this post since this series is about developing new techniques for your game. We will call this Restrictive Rolling.  Again I will stress, I am not writing about anything that is ground breaking. Instead this series is just reminding you of ways that you can train deliberately and with a purpose.

Restrictive rolling against lesser skilled training partners

When trying to develop techniques and build them up, every bit of exposure with the moves and position is huge. Each successful or failed use of a technique inches you closer to mastering it.  With this in mind I find it valuable to use people that I exceed in experience as active drilling partners, a sort of testing ground for new techniques.

I’ll explain what I mean. 

I am a black belt and if I roll with . . . let’s say. . . a blue belt. I can certainly put the “brakes” on their movements and grind them with pressure till I submit them. Over and over and over again. Now like I said previously, this is sometimes necessary but certainly not always. I find it mutually beneficial when I work towards very specific movements and techniques and at the same time giving my partner a chance to attempt something. For example, if I am working on getting to back mount. I will fight furiously to find a way to my partners back. I will avoid finishing them in any other position even if the opportunity is there to get to the back. Once I get to the back I will let them escape so that I can find a way to regain the back position again. This allows for my lower belted training partner chances to attack and practice their escapes. Another example is I will let my partner pass my guard and get to a dominant position. I will make them fight for it but eventually (as long as their technique is good) I will let them pass my guard. Once they have secured a good position I will them work my way out of it. These are just two examples but obviously you can do with this almost any situation or technique.

 

The difference of restrictive rolling opposed to situational rolling which we talked about earlier, is that you do this during full rolls where everything is fair game. This has the potential to make it more difficult to get to the desired positions and use the techniques. Since during a full roll, your partner may not give you the necessary openings you need for your techniques. While this is more difficult it has the ability to make you better at finding your way to the positions. Essentially as the name implies, you are restricting yourself to a very specific group of techniques or positions regardless of what your opponent does.  

 

Benefits of Restrictive Rolling with people less skilled than yourself

  • Allows the lower belt to work with techniques as well, rather than getting smashed the whole time.
  • Gives you more exposure on the techniques you’re perfecting in a live setting.
  • Since your partner is less skilled than yourself, it allows you to mentally relax in unfamiliar positions you’re working on.
  • Helps you find new ways to get the same techniques or positions.
  • If you are a higher belt or in an instructing position, it allows you to see possible weaknesses the lower belt has. Which you can give them advice on.

 

So the next time you are rolling with someone whom you know you can beat. Give them a break and help yourself improve. Throw your “A game” and ego to the side for a bit and try and play with techniques that you are either not as experienced with or still perfecting. The partners will appreciate the ability to work on things and you will gain valuable experience with the moves you’re implementing into your game.

Good day as a coach

Today my student Justin did a fantastic job. He submitted every opponent in his division en route to a gold medal at the Pans. He earned a gold last year as a white belt and continued the success with a gold at blue belt. I’m super proud of him.

(Here is a picture of myself and Justin)

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Also, Paul from my friend Dave Reilly’s gym down in Tucson took gold as well. He did a great job with his top game.

(Here is a pic of Paul and Justin)

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7 methods to drilling and adding new techniques to your BJJ (Part 3)

Back to passive drilling!

So now that you have been doing reps of your techniques and you’ve also been doing some situational rolling you have probably become much more comfortable with the position and techniques you are trying to use. Along with being more comfortable you have also probably hit some snags during training. When I say snags I mean that you’ve experienced someone countering or defending your techniques.  Maybe you go for a pass and your opponent brings his legs in to counter, or maybe you go for a triangle and the person shoots their head and body up to deny you the lock. Whatever it is, these situations can prove aggravating and unless you address them your techniques will be somewhat ineffective.

A solution

Once you encounter problems and the moves stop working by themselves, its time to move onto chain drilling. Wrestlers would be familiar with this as chain wrestling. This is where you do repetitions, much as we talked about in part 1, but instead of drilling them as standalone movements you will combine them with other techniques. Thus creating a sequence that will prepare you for possible obstacles you may face when executing your moves.

Here’s how to do it

  • Take a move that you are using but are having some problems with. (i.e a counter, defenses, etc)  
  • Next consult with your instructor or research a solution to your problem.
  • Once you have the technique you need to combat the issue you’re having, drill it just like you would any other move. Just perform it as part of a sequence with the other techniques.

This is pretty much just a modified version of part 1. I consider the first post to be about introducing a move into your repertoire. This post is more about refining the techniques or adding to them after you’ve used them. Lets face it, you have to use a technique before you can be sure about the kind of problems you will run into.  Consider this type of drilling as the next stage of a moves progression.

 

Benefits to chain drilling

  • Further develops the techniques you are trying to build up.  
  • Develops solutions to problems you are having during live training.
  • Allows you to combine multiple movements for a dynamic BJJ game.

Thanks for reading!

7 methods to drilling and adding new techniques to your BJJ (Part 2)

So I personally categorize drilling into two different types, active and passive. I consider practicing any sort of drilling where my partner offers no resistance as passive style drilling.  In my last post I talked about performing repetitions of a new move to get introduced to them. Now, let’s move on to our first method of active drilling which will help make new moves usable against resisting opponents.

Fear   

It can be hard to break a new move out into a full rolling session. Sometimes you don’t get into the proper positions to use it and sometimes personal fear can prevent you from using it. For example, if you are too worried about being trapped under a tough guy’s side mount after a pass, then using a new guard technique can be difficult mentally. You’ll be too worried about using the new technique for fear of having your guard passed and being squashed under the person’s top pressure.

 

Remove the fear with Situational Rolling

This is where we will get into Situational Rolling. Now I am sure you have done this before in class with your team mates, but I’ll explain my idea of it so that there isn’t any confusion.

I consider situational rolling to be where you put yourself into a position that you are working on and having clear ideas of what you plan to accomplish. Then roll somewhere between 50-100% and actively attempting to achieve your goal in the position. For instance if you are trying to add a new half guard sweep, then start in half guard. From there do pass/defend and sweep/submit. Meaning if you sweep from half guard then you restart back in the same position. Meanwhile your partner will try to defend against your attacks and try to pass your guard. If they pass, restart back into the half guard.

I know it has personally helped me a lot over the years. One example is that I used to be very susceptible to triangle chokes. To fix this I would passively drill triangle escapes and I would also drill prevention techniques to stop the triangle before it starts.  After the drilling I would do situational rolling. Starting in a loose triangle I would try to escape using the techniques I had been drilling and my partner would try to lock it up and finish me. If I escaped the triangle we would restart back in the same position. If my partner finished me then we would restart again.  This was brutal but it really paid off. Within a few weeks of doing this I was able to relax a bit in the bad situation of being caught in a triangle and I became much better at escaping the submission.

 Tip: When doing situational drilling, make the rounds short. Shorter rounds will make you and your partner push the pace and go after the techniques you are practicing.

So give it a try. The next time you are at an open mat or have some free mat time with a partner. Try and do some rounds of situational rolling from a position you are working on. Again the idea that I am trying to get you to think about in these posts is not just training hard, but training with focus and purpose, and situational rolling is a fantastic way of doing this.

I hope this post proves helpful to you. To recap I put a list of benefits below.

Thanks for reading!

 

Benefits of situational rolling

  • Will remove some of the mental anxiety from rolling in new and uncomfortable positions.
  • Helps build the sensitivity necessary for proper control of the position.
  • Works as a great continuation of your repetition drilling.
  • Can help build up weak areas of your game.

7 methods to drilling and adding new techniques to your BJJ (Part 1)

So you are a Brazilian Jiu-jitsu practitioner and you are looking for some ways to nail down different techniques and movements. Well there is no secret to improving in BJJ, its hard work. However there are different methods of training deliberately and with a purpose, which can yield results more efficiently.  Now I am not saying that these are the only effective techniques to drilling and incorporating new moves into your arsenal but they are some that have helped me.

So lets get started!

Method 1 : Doing Reps

This is the most common form of adding a new technique to your repertoire and this is pretty much always the starting point for a new technique. Your teacher shows you something or you see a video and start performing reps of the new technique. Doing reps is a corner stone to training that cannot be ignored but keep in mind you need to perform massive amounts of reps before the technique is effective. So 20-30 during a class typically doesn’t cut it. Unless you’re very adept at the position already the move will be a bit shaky

During my private lessons when students want to implement a new game plan I track down the amount of reps we perform during our lessons and then I have them report back to me if they are executing the techniques successfully during rolling.  100-350 reps of a move will make that movement comfortable for drilling while 700-1000 seems to increase mat effectiveness during rolling and tournaments. Anything above that is only going to continue to build the speed and timing of the movement.  Don’t perform all these reps in one sitting. Instead do them in spurts over time, meanwhile attempting them during rolling sessions

  • Tips when adding techniques to your game.
  1. Drill new moves slowly so that you hit every important detail and don’t slop up the technique. Speed will come over time but every time you perform a sloppy rep your body is building bad muscle memory.
  2. Drill the new techniques in segments broken up over weeks. Squeeze out 40 reps after class or come to an open mat and warm up with a 100 reps with a partner before rolling.  Doing the techniques over a longer period of time will give the moves time to “simmer” and be absorbed by your body.
  3. Try to execute the new techniques during your rolls. This will only further enhance the learning process of the techniques.
  4. Always consult your instructor!

Matches from the IBJJF Chicago Open 2013

Finals match from the Chicago Open.

Matches from the IBJJF Chicago Open 2013

Semi-finals match from the Chicago Open.