January 24, 2005
Some Examples of Solo Drills
When solo grappling drills are used properly they can improve a grappler’s coordination, endurance, strength and speed. They can be used as part of a warmup session or to specifically improve aspects of your grappling game.
To start, let’s concentrate on one of the most fundamental solo exercises: backwards shrimping (click here to view the basic backwards shrimping drill in Quicktime video). This is a drill that should be in every grappler’s repertoire.
How many times have you heard the advice “move your hips”, whether you were escaping from a pin or trying to apply a submission? Lateral, or side-to-side, hip movement is critical to a grappler’s game, especially when playing the guard game or escaping from bad positions.
Practicing backwards shrimping (or “ebi” in Japanese) is an effective shortcut to developing efficient side-to-side hip movement. Once mastered, there are many more challenging variations of shrimping to further improve hip mobility on the ground.
An example of a more specialized solo drill is half wall spins (click here to view the half wall spin drill in Quicktime video). Intermediate and advanced guard players often end up spinning and rotating in their guard, both to prevent guard passing and to set up their own attacks. Becoming comfortable with this sort of body position and movement via a drill like half wall spins can improve mobility in the guard when it comes to sparring time.
Now spinning upside down and replacing the guard might not be part of your game – fair enough. But I guarantee that there are other solo drills you can come up with that will help you develop some aspect of your game, no matter what your game is.
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To start, let’s concentrate on one of the most fundamental solo exercises: backwards shrimping (click here to view the basic backwards shrimping drill in Quicktime video). This is a drill that should be in every grappler’s repertoire.
How many times have you heard the advice “move your hips”, whether you were escaping from a pin or trying to apply a submission? Lateral, or side-to-side, hip movement is critical to a grappler’s game, especially when playing the guard game or escaping from bad positions.
Practicing backwards shrimping (or “ebi” in Japanese) is an effective shortcut to developing efficient side-to-side hip movement. Once mastered, there are many more challenging variations of shrimping to further improve hip mobility on the ground.
An example of a more specialized solo drill is half wall spins (click here to view the half wall spin drill in Quicktime video). Intermediate and advanced guard players often end up spinning and rotating in their guard, both to prevent guard passing and to set up their own attacks. Becoming comfortable with this sort of body position and movement via a drill like half wall spins can improve mobility in the guard when it comes to sparring time.
Now spinning upside down and replacing the guard might not be part of your game – fair enough. But I guarantee that there are other solo drills you can come up with that will help you develop some aspect of your game, no matter what your game is.
Labels: training
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January 17, 2005
Three Types of Drills
As some of you might know, I have been editing a new video/DVD on drills for submission grappling and Brazilian jiu-jitsu (subtle marketting alert!). This has led to some interesting online and offline conversations with people on the topic of drills, which in turn has inspired me to write on the topic of drilling.
Almost everybody agrees that drilling is important, but almost everybody defines the word “drills” differently. This, in turn, leads to confusion and a lot of miscommunication when discussing drills and the value of drilling. I think the matter is clarified somewhat if we acknowledge that there are at least three major types of drills:
1 – Solo drills: in solo drills you are practicing a position, movement, or technique by yourself. Some simple examples of solo drills include the penetration step from wrestling and the ‘shrimping’ exercise where you move across the mat using lateral hip movement.
2 - Cooperative 2 person drills: when you practice a cooperative 2 person drill you are working together with the other person to develop a certain motion or technique. Taking turns with your partner drilling the swinging armbar from the guard is an example of this sort of drill.
3 – Competitive 2 person drills: competitive 2 person drills generally require you to accomplish a goal working against partial or full resistance from your partner. A classic competitive drill is to let your partner start fully mounted on you and then try to escape while he tries to submit you.
Like all classification systems, of course, these categories have their limitations. For example there are a few drills that involve more than 2 people. Most drills, however, will fit into one of these three categories. Think about your own training for a moment, and consider whether you use drills or not, and which category they fit into if you do use them.
When I teach classes or workshops I usually use all 3 types of drills. I think that each type of drill is valuable, and I will discuss them each in more detail in the weeks to come.
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Almost everybody agrees that drilling is important, but almost everybody defines the word “drills” differently. This, in turn, leads to confusion and a lot of miscommunication when discussing drills and the value of drilling. I think the matter is clarified somewhat if we acknowledge that there are at least three major types of drills:
1 – Solo drills: in solo drills you are practicing a position, movement, or technique by yourself. Some simple examples of solo drills include the penetration step from wrestling and the ‘shrimping’ exercise where you move across the mat using lateral hip movement.
2 - Cooperative 2 person drills: when you practice a cooperative 2 person drill you are working together with the other person to develop a certain motion or technique. Taking turns with your partner drilling the swinging armbar from the guard is an example of this sort of drill.
3 – Competitive 2 person drills: competitive 2 person drills generally require you to accomplish a goal working against partial or full resistance from your partner. A classic competitive drill is to let your partner start fully mounted on you and then try to escape while he tries to submit you.
Like all classification systems, of course, these categories have their limitations. For example there are a few drills that involve more than 2 people. Most drills, however, will fit into one of these three categories. Think about your own training for a moment, and consider whether you use drills or not, and which category they fit into if you do use them.
When I teach classes or workshops I usually use all 3 types of drills. I think that each type of drill is valuable, and I will discuss them each in more detail in the weeks to come.
Labels: training
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January 08, 2005
More Sleeping
This week I’m going to continue exploring sleep and training a little bit more.
I have recently started re-reading a great book called “The Sleep Thieves: An Eye-Opening Exploration of the Science and Mysteries of Sleep” by Stanley Coren (published by The Free Press in 1996). In this book Dr Coren reviews many different studies and experiments analyzing our need for sleep, including the relationship between athletic performance and sleep.
Here are some of the highlights that come up again and again in every study:
Yes you read that correctly: 9 to 10 hours of sleep per night. I find this interesting because we all assume that the gold standard is 8 hours. Even if you were sleeping 8 hours each and every night you would probably STILL be sleep deprived.
The take-home message is that there is no guilt or shame in sleeping more, or having that mid-day nap. Try to do it: your body and spirit will thank you for it.
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I have recently started re-reading a great book called “The Sleep Thieves: An Eye-Opening Exploration of the Science and Mysteries of Sleep” by Stanley Coren (published by The Free Press in 1996). In this book Dr Coren reviews many different studies and experiments analyzing our need for sleep, including the relationship between athletic performance and sleep.
Here are some of the highlights that come up again and again in every study:
- That in western society most people are chronically sleep deprived
- That sleep deprivation has a negative effect on health, mood, learning ability, athletic performance, and many other important factors
- That the more you exercise you get, the more sleep you need
- That the optimal amount of sleep for regular people is 9 to 10 hours per night.
Yes you read that correctly: 9 to 10 hours of sleep per night. I find this interesting because we all assume that the gold standard is 8 hours. Even if you were sleeping 8 hours each and every night you would probably STILL be sleep deprived.
The take-home message is that there is no guilt or shame in sleeping more, or having that mid-day nap. Try to do it: your body and spirit will thank you for it.
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January 02, 2005
"The First Part of Training is the Sleeping"
I had a nagging sinus cold for most of December. Right after Christmas, and just in time to ruin New Years Eve, this sinus cold was replaced by a wicked little flu that totally knocked me out. In the midst of all this illness and contagion I was working hard on lots of individual projects, including preparing an interview I did with Marcio Feitosa, the head instructor of Gracie Barra in Brazil.
When I listened to the interview again I was particularly struck by something I’d missed the first time. Marcio said:
"You might have a good training routine worked out, but listen to your body. If you didn’t sleep well this week then you can’t do as much as you did last week. The first part of training is the sleeping. If you don’t sleep you can’t do anything, unless you are using chemicals and steroids."
There it was, in black and white. In my mad attempt to get everything done I had been burning the candle at both ends, staying up too late and getting up too early. My month of illness was my body’s not-so-subtle reminder that I needed more sleep and more rest. I’m not big on making New Year’s resolutions, but I hereby resolve to get more sleep in the next month, because I am sick and tired of being sick and tired!!
There is a certain irony in the fact that I have been preaching the importance of sleep and recovery for years; I even wrote a whole article on the topic of overtraining (www.grapplearts.com/Overtraining-Article.htm). Don’t you hate it when someone else points out that you should take your own advice?
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When I listened to the interview again I was particularly struck by something I’d missed the first time. Marcio said:
"You might have a good training routine worked out, but listen to your body. If you didn’t sleep well this week then you can’t do as much as you did last week. The first part of training is the sleeping. If you don’t sleep you can’t do anything, unless you are using chemicals and steroids."
There it was, in black and white. In my mad attempt to get everything done I had been burning the candle at both ends, staying up too late and getting up too early. My month of illness was my body’s not-so-subtle reminder that I needed more sleep and more rest. I’m not big on making New Year’s resolutions, but I hereby resolve to get more sleep in the next month, because I am sick and tired of being sick and tired!!
There is a certain irony in the fact that I have been preaching the importance of sleep and recovery for years; I even wrote a whole article on the topic of overtraining (www.grapplearts.com/Overtraining-Article.htm). Don’t you hate it when someone else points out that you should take your own advice?
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