Category: Teaching and Coaching


Bridging the Gap

Filed Under: How To Study Jiu-Jitsu, Jiu-jitsu Techniques, Teaching and Coaching, Training Methods
Sep.06, 2007

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 about how to get the most out of drilling. But drilling will only get you so far. There is still a gulf between these static repetitions and using these moves in sparring. Making this connection, being able to get techniques in motion, can be one of the biggest problems faced in learning, especially in the beginner and intermediate levels.

Most leave it up to mat time, experience and determination to solve this. Keep showing up, drill and spar enough and it’ll sort out. That’s as it should be.

But is there an easier, smoother way to do this? Can you engineer and control this process? Make it less mysterious? Can you ease students into it without lowering standards of performance?

I think so. That’s what you’ll about read below.

But before we get into it, there are a few terms and ideas I want to review, since they’re important to understanding this topic.

Aliveness

Whether or not you use (or even like) the neologism coined by Matt Thornton, the concept of aliveness is one of the most important aspect of learning Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu or any combat sports. And while I’m not a fan of making up new words by adding ”-ness” to them, I am willing to forgive it in this instance since the term is very useful for my purposes.

Aliveness tends to be ham-fistedly summed up as “resistance” or “sparring”, but that’s a crude way to look at it. It is more accurately defined as “realistic timing, energy and motion that does not follow a set pattern.” For deeper descriptions and discussions of the topic, you can read What is Aliveness? and Why Aliveness? or watch any number of videos, all by Matt Thornton of the Straight Blast Gym.

If you’re already doing an “alive” art like BJJ, it’s easy to take aliveness for granted. It’s built right. You simply show up at class, follow directions, spar and away you go. Nothing terribly wrong with that.

Where it becomes valuable to understand aliveness is when you want to explore the learning process and refine or improve your training methods. That’s what we’re doing here, so take the time let the idea sink in. Once you grasp the roles timing, energy and motion play in learning, they open up a lot of possibilities for creating new drills and coaching methods.

I-Method

Straight Blast Gym has a few other terms and concepts I’ll borrow. Again, they’re not new inventions, but they never claimed to be. If you find yourself thinking “But that’s what we do already”, you’re probably right. It just happens that SBG used the clearest terminology to describe this process, so I’m going to stick with it for ease of description.

The I-Method is a way of teaching material in stages, each of which is conveniently an “I” word: Introduction, Isolation and Integration. They break down as follows:

Introduction

Teach the technique and explain how it works. Repetitions without resistance until the students understand the move and can do it smoothly.

Isolation

Have the students do live drills that focus on the material they just learned and begin adding aliveness. Work the student up through several levels of difficulty so he grasps how to apply the move against a resisting opponent.

Integration

The students are free to spar and try whatever they want (within the rules) but with the encouragement to incorporate the skills they just learned.

Of these three stages, the one most relevant to our interests (and my favorite) is Isolation. This is what fills the gap between drilling and sparring. “Reps with resistance” as some call it.

Isolation training is a simple idea, which is both good and bad.

The bad is that it’s easy to overlook, undervalue or take for granted. Like how basic techniques get blown off because there’s “not a lot to it”, this concept can get ignored. You may need to take a serious look and put it to use before you appreciate it.

The good is that with its simplicity comes versatility, making it a very powerful learning and coaching tool. With flexible thinking and creativity, you can apply it to almost anything: techniques, positions, transitions, submissions, attributes, strategies and concepts.

Once you’ve got a firm handle on it, you’ll likely find you can use the isolation stage to create drills that focus on skills that are otherwise difficult to develop. You’re able to handpick the material you want to train and quickly come up with a way to drill it against resistance.

To get the most out of this though, it helps to have several more concepts in mind.

Progressiveness

Inherent to the I-Method is the concept of progressive resistance. Each stage naturally builds up into the next. The training partner goes from supplying little more than a warm body to offering limited amounts of resistance and ultimately all-out sparring. This can be divided into further stages of resistance.

This concept of gradual increases can also be applied to the other factors of learning and training, such as complexity, difficulty, athleticism, etc. You want to start low on the scale and ramp up, which each stage building nicely into the next.

Before we get to exploring how isolation training and progressive resistance go together, I want to first illustrate a few points.

Graphs

I have found it useful to visualize the learning process as a line graph, and so I’ve plotted several below. Keep in mind that these are rough approximations but they’ll give you the general idea.

Imagined Ideal

This first graph gives an imagined ideal for how training should run.

Imagined Ideal

The training starts at a zero of complexity, resistance, difficulty, etc. then rises at a steady pace. It starts simple and easy then keeps getting more and more demanding. The dashed lines are meant to show the potential for variation, up and down.

The problem with ideals is how often they don’t translate to the real world. So while this is a useful way to think about teaching, don’t get too hung up on seeking “the perfect” way. Keep it in mind, use it as a guide line, milk it for all its worth, but don’t stress out over it.

Common BJJ

With the “ideal” as our frame of reference, we can now look at how BJJ is normally taught.

BJJ

Training starts low but quickly advances into high levels of resistance. This steep cliff face is usually what makes or breaks beginners, where they have to suffer through it or quit. While it is a ruthless enforcer of natural selection, I blame this for the high attrition rates in BJJ.

There’s an argument to be made in favor of this. Many instructors and students take pride in how hard BJJ is, how it’s not for everyone. It’s a trial by fire and only the best and the toughest stick around. To do it any other way seems like a cop out, especially if you paid your dues this way. Why should anyone else have it easier? We don’t want to lower our standards.

The counter-argument is that BJJ should be for everyone. How is it supposed to work for the smaller, weaker man (like we always hear advertised) if he’s being crushed and driven away by the rougher guys at class? Is “pride” really worth a gym that limps along with just a couple “tough guys” instead of a large student body of normal men and women? But how do you have it so each type of student can train together?

With any luck, intelligent use of isolation drilling, progressive resistance and gradual increasing difficulty can create a training environment where the competitor and the everyman can learn and improve alongside each other.

Gradual Stages

Gradual Steps

Here we fill the space between drilling and sparring with fleshed out isolation training. This is where we give the students a chance to try what they’re learning against a moving person and run them up through several levels of difficulty and resistance before they get to sparring. They can work on their coordination and timing and get a feel for the move before moving to a higher level.

The “steps” up through the isolation stage show how you can use a series of drills (or the same drill in multiple ways) to build up to sparring.

For example, you can simply make them start from the position you’re learning that day and tell them to start at 25%, with the person doing the moves told they can only really try what they learned that day while the training partner moves around but pretty much lets them do the moves. Then tell the training partner to go up to 50% and not let them get it as easily. Then bump up to 75% and get them both really fighting for it. Then finish out at 100%.

The success-to-fail ratio I go by is 7 out of 10, meaning the person should be able to get the move around 7 times out of 10 during the easier learning stages of isolation training. Lower and it’s too easy; higher and it’s too hard. The 7/10 ratio means they’re having enough success to get a feel for the move but still getting realistic resistance (for the stage of learning). If you see someone only getting a move only 2 or 3 times, you should probably lower the resistance or difficulty until they get it, then ramp up once they get it.

Simplicity vs Complexity

The slope of these graphs is affected by many factors—more than I’ll try to pin down right now. Simply think of all of the things that can make training easier or harder.

Two related factors can sum up a lot of variables: simplicity and complexity. These are opposite ends of the same stick (to steal another Thorntonism). You can account for a wide range of skill levels by creating drills of varying levels of simplicity or complexity.

For example, a class full of beginners should probably be kept towards the simple end of the spectrum, not just in what they learn but in the types of drills they do. They’ll most likely lack the sensitivity to go at a lower level of resistance and so (picture the graph here) the difficulty rises rapidly. You can get a handle on this and push the graph back down by limiting them to simpler isolation drills. This way you can worry less about them going ballistic since they’re not allowed to go off into strange or awkward situations (which is when many injuries occur) and their training partner can keep learning.

Specificity and Scope

People (especially beginners) sometimes have trouble sticking to the isolation drill. They get to fighting and things get crazy and they just keep going. They might get a good position or almost have a submission and not want to give it up. Likewise, someone (often a higher belt) may “fail” at their goal for the drill but keep fighting out of pride, not wanting to “lose” to a lower belt. In any case, they’re missing the point.

This isn’t sparring yet so you can keep them on a leash. Stress the purpose of the drill and the specific positions or skills it is developing so they know what they’re working on. When they start getting into strange positions, have them ask themselves “Is this within the scope of the drill?” Restart if it’s not.

Don’t be afraid to reset the position repeatedly. “Winning” and “losing” isn’t a big deal and don’t give them time to mope or gloat. Just restart and go again and again.

That said, there are times when something unexpected may happen that’s worth letting run out. It may be a new position you hadn’t thought that shows potential. It may be that someone put themselves in a bad spot and you want them to suffer a bit so they know to not do that again. Use your judgment.

More Graphs

Since I became enamored with making graphs, I drew up ones for a few more scenarios.

Traditional Martial Arts

Traditional Martial Arts

Stances, solo repetitions, forms and katas, one and two-step sparring, and highly restricted point sparring. While these can get quite complex and difficult, they don’t involve realistic amounts of resistance so they don’t reach the same level.

Flow Rolling

Flow Roll

Flow (or slow or tempo) rolling is when both training partners agree to spar at a lower intensity. They usually don’t hold on to any one positions for long, feed each other sweeps, hang out in funky positions, release submissions, etc. The idea is (as the name implies) to learn to flow, relax and explore new things. It can be a useful training tool, since it makes for a good warm-up and it’s a safe way to roll when injured. But taken to excess it can lead to sloppy technique and bad habits.

Just Sparring

Just Sparring

This graph illustrates what I consider the biggest problem with how self-instruction is done in clubs and garages. It’s usually a quick and sloppy show-and-tell of techniques from books, DVDs, the internet, etc. then a ton of sparring. While this can be quite athletic and gives you enough experience to deal with someone who knows nothing, it skips most of the learning process.
—-

That’s it for now. Let me know how you’re able to apply this to your training and teaching.

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Goal Setting

Filed Under: How To Study Jiu-Jitsu, Teaching and Coaching, Training Methods
Jul.18, 2007

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

Here’s the grand list:

– Improve my conditioning, endurance and strength. – Focus on generating momentum from my core and using my entire body in unison. – Train transitions instead of just static positions. – Train combinations instead of isolated techniques. – Be fully committed to my movements, transitions and techniques. – Drill the crazy scrambles until I can come out on top (literally or figuratively). – Work on my takedowns and wrestling skills. – Get a mean armdrag from standing, even left-handed. – Use the duck under and Russian 2-on-1 in combination with the armdrag. – Fight to come to my knees and stand up more, especially from under side control. – Make wrestling sit-outs instinctual. – Acquire better base and balance, especially while passing. – Develop supernaturally heavy hips for passing guard. – Build an aggressive guard passing game from standing and knees. – Improve my standing guard breaks from good posture and safety position (AKA stalling posture). – Make the Margarida my money pass. – Fight for underhooks more from everywhere. – Finally get a decent underhook-take-the-back half guard game. – Also work on the out-the-back-door deep half guard. – Refine my core game as I continue to expand it by incorporating new strategies, positions and techniques. – Revisit things I thought didn’t suit me before and see if they do now. – Spot bad habits and eliminate them. – Be aggressive. – Compete in the next Pan Ams.

I could think of a few more, and I’m always coming up with more, but that’s always true. So many spinning plates to keep up.

That’s awful lot of goals. There’s no way of working on them all at once without losing direction. Part of handling that will be consolidating them and seeing which ones fall under the same theme so I can address them collectively.

But I think another part of the solution is to pick certain goals and give myself an assignment to work on them for a certain amount of time. This is to keep me on track, focused on a limited number of goals, so I can progress through each of them in an orderly way rather than jumping around and never devoting enough time and energy to any single one.

From the next two months, for better or worse, I will work on:

– Traditional and deep half guard with the underhook. – Standing passes and the Margarida in particular.

How I’ll do it:

– Drill these any chance I have, such as at open mat and before and after class. – Do progressive resistance isolation drilling/sparring of each. – Pull half guard all the time. Switch to half guard from my other guards. – Always stand to pass.

Setting these specific goals doesn’t preclude several of my other more general ones, such as getting the underhook more, always trying to come on top, staying aggressive, etc. These broad goals apply to the specific ones.

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Drilling Isn’t A Four Letter Word

Filed Under: Drills and Exercises, How To Study Jiu-Jitsu, Teaching and Coaching, Training Methods
May.21, 2007

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 you drill like a robot, you’ll no doubt find it dull. You’ve got to invest thought into the activity to truly benefit. While I can’t promise it’ll make drilling any more fun, I think I can give helpful advice on how to make it more meaningful.

These are the questions I ask myself when drilling to keep my mind active.

Hips Always

The hips are king. Practically every technique and skill in BJJ (or any sport or physical activity) is built around the hips. You can never go wrong by analyzing what your hips are doing.

You may be surprised to find how many moves come down to the hips. A collar choke or a guillotine may seem to be all in the arms, but the setups don’t work and real leverage doesn’t come until you know how and where to use your hips.

Examples


Is my hip movement smooth enough?
Is my hip placement correct?
Did I rotate my hips far enough?
Are my hips heavy enough?

Gross Motor Skills

Moving outwards from the core, you can look at the next largest elements of the technique: what are your limbs is doing?

Try paying attention to each limb individually, making sure it plays its role to the fullest. Look at them altogether and see if they’re working in sync. Tie this into the last point and see if and how each limb contributes to your hip movement.

Examples

What is my left arm doing? My right?
What is my left leg doing? My right?
Did I move each in the proper sequence?
Which limbs are moving my hips?

Posture and Grips

Closely related to your hips and limbs are your posture and grips. They are the other defining characteristics of a position and its techniques.

Make sure you’re starting in proper posture. Make sure you’re grabbing the right spots at the right times.

Examples

Am I in proper posture?
Are my neck, back and hips in proper alignment?
Should my back be straight or bent?
Where does each hand go?

Underlying Concepts

Every technique is built on fundamental principles. Once you grasp the technique, you can try to reverse engineer it. What is the most basic reason it works? Use what you learned earlier by analyzing the hip and limb movement, etc. to reflect on this. Try to reduce it to its essence.

Look at the physics involved. Think of the technique in terms of patterns and flows of movements. Think of it in terms of space, weight, supports and levers.

Look at the anatomy involved. Why did you use each part of your body the way you did? Why did you manipulate his body like that?

Look at the strategy involved. What was the advantage of what you did? What was the disadvantage?

If the moves you’re learning form a series, look for unifying principles between them. How does this move relate to the last?

Examples

How does this sweep attack their base and posture?
How does this armlock compare to others ones?
Crossing their arm makes them extremely vulnerable.
A guard pass is when my hips pass the line of their hips.

Finer Points

With all of the major components of the technique down, it’s time to develop your attention to detail. Accuracy in seemingly minor details can make the difference between “okay” and “highly skilled”.

Refine your understanding of the technique. Make mental notes of the little things. Try to spot something you missed before. Discover nuances.

Examples

I should grip just above the elbow, but no higher or lower.
My posture is stronger if I turn my elbows in.
I actually make it harder if I escape my hips too far.
Do I like claw or pistol grip more for this?

What If?

Once you’ve got the mechanics down, and if you have time, try asking what if? and troubleshooting the technique.

It can be just as valuable to know how not to do a move. By “breaking” it and observing what happens, you can gain greater insight into the technique.

Try doing a repetition where you purposely leave out a step or don’t do it as well as you should have. Compare this with a properly done one.

What if there are several equally valid ways to do a move? Test each and see what you find.

Examples

What happens if I don’t rotate my hips enough?
What if I’m lazy with this leg?
What if I grip over here instead?
What if I do this first?

Perfect Practice Makes Perfect

Consciously try to improve each repetition. Make each one better than the last. Don’t be happy with a sloppy technique. Seek perfection.

This can take a lot of self-discipline. You’ve simply got to stick to it. It may not be the most exciting part of training, but it can be very rewarding, and I think you’ll find it’s worth it in the long run.

That Said…

No amount of static drilling will make you good by itself. You’ll eventually reach a point where you won’t be benefiting as much as you could, and it’s time to move on.

The problem most people run here is having their beautiful technique falls out the window as soon as they spar, which is why my next piece will be on bridging the gap between drilling and sparring.

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How Much Do You Really Need?

Filed Under: BJJ Concepts, Drills and Exercises, How To Study Jiu-Jitsu, Teaching and Coaching, Training Methods
May.08, 2007

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 on my time as a blue belt and see how wrongheaded I was for collecting techniques instead of refining them. But lately, I’ve been returning to “old” techniques, working over all the details, and trying to increase their potency.

And it’s been one of the best things I’ve done in a long time.

Perhaps because of this, I’ve been worried about what people are actually doing with all of the information on this journal. My concern is that they’re getting lost in the euphoria of learning new techniques, or that they’re just collecting techniques for the sake of collecting them, but not putting in the work needed to improve their game or effectively incorporate new moves.

Because of this, I think it’s time to bring more attention to how to learn, not just what to learn.

I confess. I consume inordinately large amounts of BJJ information and techniques: dozens upon dozens of books, DVDs, magazines, blogs, forums, online tutorials and more. This is in addition to regular instruction. Its my nature to dig into a subject, compile research and compare data from different sources.

Do I recommend this for everyone? No.

For most, this is a sure way to suffer from information overload.

The only way I can handle this much intake is by balancing it against an equal amount of mat time. I train 5-7 days per week (including open mat), get to class early and often close up for the night. This isn’t to brag, but to give you a point of reference for comparison.

The average person with commitments like a full-time job, a family, bills, a social life, etc., gets in 2-3 classes per week. For them, sinking as much time, effort and thought into BJJ as I do isn’t possible (or advised). Should they also try to squeeze in watching and reading instructionals?

I’ll bet that if you’re going to regular classes under a qualified instructor (which, alas, not all of you are), you don’t really need much else. It’s nice and can be pretty helpful, but it’s not going to make or break you.

The best grapplers I know personally hardly study outside of normal classes (if they do at all). I suspect the vast majority of elite competitors don’t watch too many instructionals either. They all just put their heart into training and have superb teachers.

Even with all my extra mat time, I reach a point of “information saturation” where seeing more techniques won’t mean anything. There was a time when I could sit and watch an entire “BJJ A-to-Z” style instructional. These days I am only interested in ones on specific topics and techniques (lately the brabo choke).

The real value of instructionals to me is in troubleshooting and exploring certain aspects in depth. They can supplement your instructor but they cannot replace him.

I’ve talked with Eduardo, my instructor, about the abundance of BJJ media we have today. While he thinks it is for the best, he also feels something is now missing because of it. What he said stuck with me and I’ve given it a lot of thought.

When he first started, the instructor was only source of knowledge. This made you value each individual class and technique. You committed yourself to learning every move, since you couldn’t simply look it up again later; each lesson was invaluable since you couldn’t get it anywhere else.

Today, someone can go to class and be taught a move, and instead of taking ownership of it, he can think “Oh, I’ve seen this already” or “I’ll just watch this again later.” Their overexposure to techniques makes them mentally lazy. They see a fundamental move and find it mundane. Nevermind that they’re terrible at it—it’s just not as cool as the stuff they see online.

The point is not that instructionals are bad. Sometimes you honestly do need to review books and videos, and by being able to draw from multiple sources, students are less likely to have their instructor abuse his status. There may be topics that your instructor doesn’t address enough for your liking. The lesson is to be judicious in how you use these resources.

Let’s take a quick look at an ideal way to learn a new technique:

You are taught a technique and drill it. If you’re lucky enough to have a good teacher, you’re give a chance to isolate it with positional sparring. Or you may need to show initiative and try it in sparring.

What’s important is you go for it, regardless of whether or not you succeed. No matter how clumsy your attempt may have been, you thought of it and tried it. This plants the seed in your mind. The next time it comes up, you’ll think a little quicker and do it a little smoother. Repeat this enough times and suddenly you’ve got skill.

Now let’s see how misusing instructionals can pervert this process:

You find some interesting techniques in a book or online. You glance them over and make a note to try later. At class, you’ve got your attention split between what is being taught in front of you and the half-forgotten tutorials floating around in your head. When sparring comes, you drop whatever the day’s lesson was and fumble to piece together something else entirely.

Add to this the potential for the tutorial to be by an awful instructor, or to have been shot poorly, or it being a crumby gimmick. Why ruin your own learning process for it?

Again, don’t misinterpret this to mean that you shouldn’t try material from outside your school—I’m all for that. Some of my favorite moves are ones I picked up from the internet, magazines and DVDs (again, like the brabo).

What I am saying is you need to be smart about how you do it. Spoiling a class for yourself just so you can go for the clichéd “Newest Technique from Brazil” is a waste of time and money, to say the least. There are better ways to learn these moves.

Personally, I set aside the material I want to learn and wait until I have extra time, such as an open mat, to work it over. Then I try to approach it in an orderly fashion. I have to avoid indulging myself by testing out a ton of new moves. That can be a lot of fun, but it doesn’t actually improve my performance. I’ve got to have the self-discipline to properly drill each technique and limit myself to a reasonable number.

I’ll go into specifics of how I learn these techniques at a later date. For now, it’s enough that you’re thinking about this in a general sense. The topic of how to learn is an important one that deserves careful thought.

Ask yourself if your performance is improving by collecting instructionals and techniques or if you’re just gathering clutter.

Feel free to send me your answers.

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5 + 1 Stages of Resistance

Filed Under: How To Study Jiu-Jitsu, Teaching and Coaching, Training Methods
Nov.21, 2006

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 training partner learn.

How to act as a training partner to help your partner learn

Stage 1 (Introduction 1)

This is the stage when you as a training partner help the one learning to learn the technique by not giving any resistance at all. You are as dead as a dummy. Even when he leaves out some details that make the technique work, you do not resist. Using the scissors sweep as an example, despite not pulling your weight on top of himself to do the sweep, you still let yourself be swept.

This is the first part of the Introduction stage. It´s only needed with complete beginners, and even then only a couple of times with each technique. It´s needed just to get them to understand where the grips should be and where their limbs should be.

Continuing our scissors sweep example, the left knee goes in across the stomach and the right foot touches the ground. The right hand grabs his left hand and the left hand grabs his collar or back of the head. If a beginner does that for 2-3 times and gets a little feel and understanding of his limbs and the grips, he doesn´t need that stage anymore.

This stage is not needed for guys who have a basic understanding of the game, but the stage is still helpful for teaching slower people or complete beginners to understand just where the limbs go, the grips and the body mechanics.

My own experience shows that it´s sometimes useful to let them do the technique a couple of times like this, so they get an understanding how it works. Otherwise some guys tend to for example switch the grips for the sweep or do it to the wrong side or etc.)

Stage 2 (Introduction 2)

This is the Stage 2 of Introduction phase. Now you as a partner still do not give any resistance, but you do not help the other guy do the technique. By this I mean that when he doesn’t do it completely right, you do not let it happen. For instance, when he doesn’t pull your weight on top of him and do a good scissor movement then you will not let him sweep you—instead you correct him by saying “Pull my weight on top of you and then do the movement… Very good… Correct. Now let´s do it again.”

This should be the way everyone with basic understanding should start learning (or in this case helping your partner to learn) the technique.

This is the technical repetition stage where the most important thing is to understand the mechanics of the technique and how it works and from what situation to use it, as well getting the body mechanics right.

Stage 3 (Isolation 1)

This stage correlates with beginning of the Isolation stage. You as a training partner start to get some Aliveness into the training, such as in the form of a drill.

In this stage you as a partner do not have your own goals yet, but you are in an alive drill, not letting him just exercise the sweep in a dead manner. You do not let him just pull your weight on top of him, you try to break the grips, get him moving and so on—but you do not have your own goals, e.g. passing the guard.

This could be called one-sided isolation. The most important thing to understand about this stage as a training partner is that you have to act in accordance to your partners size, technique and experience. You are supposed to help him learn in an alive manner, but not fight back at all cost.

A better example might be top or bottom game drills. For top drills, the top guy has a goal to dominate and move; the bottom guy (the training partner for this article) is only trying to get his partner to move—not to escape but to get the correct posture and make his partner fight for the top control. In a bottom drill, the bottom guy has the goal to escape, while the other one is just moving and giving alive resistance but not with the goal to dominate or hold the other one down.

Let´s take double leg takedown drills from some punching or focus mitt drills as another example. In this stage, the one guy has to finish the takedown according to his partners resistance, but the other guys goal is not to sprawl or defend. The only goal is to make his partners life harder with moving and presenting different energy (pressure forward/falling back) for finishing the double leg.

At this stage drills are tremendously effective for getting the techniques learned in Introduction to work in an alive manner, yet in a way that allows the one doing the techniques to practice it without being afraid of the partner ruining his training. The partner is not killing the learner’s objectives to learn. This helps everyone and creates better training partners overall.

Stage 4 (Isolation 2)

This is an advanced Isolation or two-sided isolation stage. You begin from a position, such as the scissor sweep position with neutral grips, and both have a special goal. In this case, it is to get the scissor sweep and to pass the guard. Both partners go at a selected ratio of technical resistance they choose together from 10-100%. After one side manages to complete his goal they restart again from the specific position. You as a training partner have your own goal and also learn as you’re helping the other to learn to defend your goal and achieve his own by alive training.

For instance, one can work the double leg (or both can shoot depending on the drill) and the receiving end will give his effort to defend/sprawl and get to a better position. Or one has the goal to dominate from the top (side control, modified scarf hold or mount) and the other tries to escape.

This is the phase where most of the real training occurs.

By the way, I believe that differentiating—Isolation 1 and Isolation 2—has tremendously helped my ability to create drills and get the point across.

Stage 5 (Integration)

This is basically technical sparring. You can start from an isolated position (making it a sort of Isolation stage step) or on the knees or standing up.

Partners (or coach) choose the intensity from 10-100%. You can give or have different goals, like passing the guard or getting a submission, but it´s basically sparring with a technical emphasis. The difference between isolated positional training in this stage and the previous Stage 4 isolation training is that partners do not have a single specific goal but rather an overall goal (like tapping the other guy out) or personal goals they set themselves (like working on their escapes) or to integrate newly learned techniques into ones game. In my opinion, this is how most sparring should be done. You as a partner help the other guy learn by technically sparring him; help him learn to defend and attack and so on. This is technical sparring at a choosen intensity level—it´s not a competition or a deathmatch.

The integration at this stage comes more from a personal mindset like “Today in sparring, I am gonna drill only guard passing and top game.”

These are the five stages of resistance that you can give to your partner while learning techniques and fighting.

And the + 1 Stage

This is the stage when you stop being a training partner. This is all-out sparring, fighting and competing where you use whatever means you can (if in a competition or in the gym then according to the rules; if on the street then by any means and so on). You use strength at this stage also and are probably just trying to get the other guy tap by any reasonable means, which makes this different from the technical sparring phase. You stop being a training partner in the sense that you are supposed to be there to help your partner and yourself learn. Instead you have your own goal that you have to get using any agreed upon means available.

This type of training is good on some occasions but problems occur when people switch from any previous stage (especially Stage 5) to this stage during training when they should not. There is a higher risk of injury and other problems.

But of course this type of training must be done too to prepare for competitions or to create an environment similar to self defense situations (in MMA or self defense drills).

I hope that the article has helped you to assess your training and understand it a little bit better.

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Responsive Coaching

Filed Under: How To Study Jiu-Jitsu, Teaching and Coaching
Nov.21, 2006

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 me in so many ways. I’ve been thinking about a way of coaching I call responsive coaching. All stuff that’s been said on here many times before. Don’t know if anyone is interested in this discussion but it is of interest to me and I thought I’d share some conclusions I’ve come to. I’d like to hear any additions people would make to the list.

1. Have a plan.

Make sure you come into the gym with something specific to work. Sometimes you can wing it, but you will be a much better coach with preparation behind you.

2. Throw out your plan.

I’ve found that many times I need to do just that. Responsive Coaching requires that you adapt as necessary on the fly. There have been many times for me that partway through a class I realize I need to head in a different direction. As a coach I realize that I need to have the flexibility to see that and make adjustments as necessary. Last Monday I was working some plata stuff off the rubber guard. I quickly realized that people were doing some weird stuff with the plata. I dropped the rubber guard part and isolated the plata. Still they didn’t get it so I dropped the plata and went to the entry to the plata and the hip movement. We ended up doing a few different versions of a hip movement drill instead of the lesson I had planned. It was cool to be able to do that and it turned out to be a much better lesson than if I had stuck to the game plan.

3. Test everything!

The I method for me is my most important teaching tool. It has a built in bullshit meter. When I go from introduction to isolation with students I know right away if what I showed them works or not. I find this crucial. If I see problems in isolation stage I know that I either didn’t show the technique correctly, students are doing the technique incorrectly, or it is a bogus technique. I’ve had all 3 problems.

4. Don’t have all the answers.

One of the best teaching moments I’ve experienced in the gym was at one of Matt’s BJJ classes. At the end of class a student asked Matt about a new technique he found. He wondered if it was a legit technique. It wasn’t. Instead of telling him that he had the student try the technique over and over on different opponents. After repeated failures he asked the student why the technique didn’t work. The student knew exactly why. Finding teachable moments where it is possible for students to answer their own questions are golden. It creates active rather than passive learners which is huge.

5. Teach things you know differently from things you don’t know well.

I used to thing I had to only teach what I know well. I’m finding out that I can have some good teaching and learning sometimes by working something that is new to me and the students. You just have to do it in the right way. With techniques that I know well and have pulled off countless times I have a good library of do’s and don’ts. I know where someone will try to counter and how they are likely to do it. I can work this in to the lesson and watch for it in isolation stage. With new techniques however I don’t have that experience to rely on. What I find I have to do is show it as best I can in introduction stage and do some pressure testing in isolation. After a couple of rounds of isolation I can start to see some of the ins and outs and begin to draw some conclusions about the technique. I’ll often spend some time asking students what was working and not working for them with the new technique. I get some great insights that way. The point of it is that we are working much more from a collective experience rather than from my collected experiences. Often times I find some great new techniques or new applications that way. Many times I find a new bogus technique. Either way it’s all good.

6. Don’t always be the expert.

Don’t be afraid to say I don’t know. I’ve found in my life as a teacher and a BJJ coach that saying I don’t know when I don’t has gained me much more respect than making it up or trying to cover for my lack of knowledge. People spot a bullshit answer right away. Once you break that trust it’s hard to get it back. We need to dispel the myth anyway that the teacher/coach is the person with all the answers. Not knowing the answer can be a great teachable moment and an impetus to find out the answer together.

7. Give away all your best stuff.

All those tricky sweeps and cool submissions that you hit all the time- give them out. Show the counters. I used to be afraid that if I gave out all my good stuff I’d have nothing good left to give out. Or somehow everyone would start killing my game. What I’ve found is that it motivates my game and keeps me from being stagnant. As long as you are actively coaching and learning you won’t run out of stuff. Won’t happen.

8. Roll with everybody.

Tap often. Don’t make a big deal about it. Don’t kill the new guys. Demonstrate how to be a good training partner.

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