As I’ve said repeatedly, this journal is a reflection of my personal interests. If there hasn’t been much new material posted, it’s because I’m not working on new techniques. Rather, I’m returning to “old” stuff and working on it again, a process I started months ago.

I’ve also been working on aspects more fundamental than revisiting techniques: the training methods themselves. I’ve been giving a lot of thought to how to train. I want to make the most out of the time I spend on the mats.

In a previous article, I talked…

I have too many goals at the moment. Maybe one of them should be to have fewer goals.

Here’s the grand list:

It’s almost a curse word. It’s the worst part of class, next to warm-ups. You may wish you could skip it and get on to the fun stuff.

Yet drilling is a necessary and important aspect of learning, regardless of how loved it is. You’ve got to build muscle memory somehow.

The disdain for drilling likely comes from what it entails: repetition. To some, this might as well be a synonym for “boring”. And that’s what it is when you approach it as a chore, instead of a valuable tool for improving.

If…

The draw of this journal has been its constant tutorials and techniques. Some of you may have been disappointed lately, with the frequency of updates slowing down and fewer tutorials being put up.

As you may have figured out, this journal is largely a reflection of my personal interests. I only share techniques I use, and I only talk from my experience. So as my focuses change, so too does the direction of my journal.

Maybe I’m merely acting out the predestined mindset that befalls all purple belts, where I look back…

Below is an article by Indrek Reiland of Aliveness Gym Estonia (SBG) on the 5+1 stages of resistance he uses to coach his students. He had originally developed these and written about them before learning about the SBG training methods, but he found that his methods matched up nicely with their curriculum and the I-method in particular.

This articles has been very useful for helping me think of new games and drills when I am coaching, and as a student it has made me think about how to best help my…

I enjoyed reading what Andre had to say about an instructor’s responsibilities, and it reminded me of another piece I had read recently by Cane Prevost of the Straight Blast Gym in Portland, Oregon. He wrote the 8 main points of what he considers responsive coaching. I’m republishing it because I feel others with benefit from reading it.

Responsive Coaching

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about coaching in BJJ. I spend my day teaching High School, so teaching is a huge part of my life. Coaching and teaching has been rewarding to…