February 12, 2010
A Drill to Rescue the Armbar from Guard
At a seminar I attended, martial arts legend Dan Inosanto once distinguished between
OK, OK, so there are techniques and teaching methods. How does this apply to you? Well recently I was able to guest teach a class at the school of my friend Ritchie Yip.
Here is part of that class
One of the techniques I wanted the group to work on was the armbar spin-out from guard. This is a very useful move when a bigger and stronger opponent tries to stack and crush you in an attempt to get out of your armbar attack.
But my secret hidden agenda that night was to field-test a different method of teaching and training this technique. I had just come up with a new solo drill. I wanted to see if it would make the spin-out, a fairly complicated technique, easier to learn.
So I made the class do the solo drill, and then we moved on to the technique itself. Within a few minutes everyone - even the new guy with only 3 classes under his whitebelt - was spinning out of the armbar like a seasoned pro.
Not bad for a move that considered by many to be 'advanced.' I've taught this technique before and adding the solo drill to the teaching progression really accelerated the success that everyone experienced. The students learned something that night, but so did I! A big 'thank you' to the boys and girls who were my guinea pigs!
Regardless of whether you're teaching or just training, sometimes the best way to learn a move is to isolate the crux of the move - the most difficult part - and drill it on it's own. A bad workman blames his tools, and a poor teacher blames his students. Finding, creating, and using the correct drills is part of good teaching. The right drill at the right time can work wonders.
If you have something against embedded video, here's a direct link to the solo drill and the actual armbar spin-out on Youtube.
Also, for more ideas about solo and partner drills check out my Grappling Drills DVD, available on this very site!
bookmark this! del.icio.us | Digg it | reddit | Yahoo MyWeb | Google | StumbleUpon
- the techniques used in a martial art, and
- the training methods used to develop those techniques.
OK, OK, so there are techniques and teaching methods. How does this apply to you? Well recently I was able to guest teach a class at the school of my friend Ritchie Yip.
Here is part of that class
One of the techniques I wanted the group to work on was the armbar spin-out from guard. This is a very useful move when a bigger and stronger opponent tries to stack and crush you in an attempt to get out of your armbar attack.
But my secret hidden agenda that night was to field-test a different method of teaching and training this technique. I had just come up with a new solo drill. I wanted to see if it would make the spin-out, a fairly complicated technique, easier to learn.
So I made the class do the solo drill, and then we moved on to the technique itself. Within a few minutes everyone - even the new guy with only 3 classes under his whitebelt - was spinning out of the armbar like a seasoned pro.
Not bad for a move that considered by many to be 'advanced.' I've taught this technique before and adding the solo drill to the teaching progression really accelerated the success that everyone experienced. The students learned something that night, but so did I! A big 'thank you' to the boys and girls who were my guinea pigs!
Regardless of whether you're teaching or just training, sometimes the best way to learn a move is to isolate the crux of the move - the most difficult part - and drill it on it's own. A bad workman blames his tools, and a poor teacher blames his students. Finding, creating, and using the correct drills is part of good teaching. The right drill at the right time can work wonders.
If you have something against embedded video, here's a direct link to the solo drill and the actual armbar spin-out on Youtube.
Also, for more ideas about solo and partner drills check out my Grappling Drills DVD, available on this very site!
Labels: armbar from guard, drills, teaching, training
bookmark this! del.icio.us | Digg it | reddit | Yahoo MyWeb | Google | StumbleUpon
February 04, 2010
Never Satisfied!
Today, at the gym, a young grappler asked me a question he'd obviously been wondering about for a long time.
"How long did it take until you had grappling all figured out?"
I told him that although I started grappling (in the context of Judo) almost 30 years ago, I still didn't have grappling all figured out...
"OK, OK," he replied, "but how long did it take until you were satisfied with your ability?"
"I'm still not satisfied with my ability" was my answer.
Now I wasn't just being coy or deliberately dense. I've been a black belt in BJJ for a while now, and have trained in lots of other grappling systems. But I really am not satisfied with my ability, nor do I have it all figured out. Nor should I be satisfied!
There is ALWAYS something to work on: whether it be incorporating a new technique into your arsenal, or refining a technique that has recently stopped working for you, or working on a weak part of your game.
In fact, I can guarantee that as long as you're still testing yourself on the mat with actual sparring you're always going to have strengths and weaknesses. Pick a random subset of your grappling skills - mount escapes, half guard sweeps and triangle choke entries for example - and it's inevitable that one of those areas is going to be less developed than the other areas.
Sometimes it's reassuring to beginners to know that grapplers, fighters and competitors at the highest level also deal with this! Marcelo Garcia has areas he's weak in (at least relative to the areas that he's great at). Rickson Gracie is better at some things than others. And some aspects of Georges St. Pierre's MMA game lag behind as well.
But always having something that you suck at (or - more correctly - suck at relative to your other skills) is a good thing - now you have something to work on! If you don't know what to work on in your grappling development, then take what you're worst at and work on that! (Often your fastest progress comes from working on your weakest link).
If you're entirely satisfied with your game, and if you don't have any areas that need refining, then you haven't actually reached perfection. You've just stopped growing.
Complacency is death!
"How long did it take until you had grappling all figured out?"
I told him that although I started grappling (in the context of Judo) almost 30 years ago, I still didn't have grappling all figured out...
"OK, OK," he replied, "but how long did it take until you were satisfied with your ability?"
"I'm still not satisfied with my ability" was my answer.
Now I wasn't just being coy or deliberately dense. I've been a black belt in BJJ for a while now, and have trained in lots of other grappling systems. But I really am not satisfied with my ability, nor do I have it all figured out. Nor should I be satisfied!
There is ALWAYS something to work on: whether it be incorporating a new technique into your arsenal, or refining a technique that has recently stopped working for you, or working on a weak part of your game.
In fact, I can guarantee that as long as you're still testing yourself on the mat with actual sparring you're always going to have strengths and weaknesses. Pick a random subset of your grappling skills - mount escapes, half guard sweeps and triangle choke entries for example - and it's inevitable that one of those areas is going to be less developed than the other areas.
Sometimes it's reassuring to beginners to know that grapplers, fighters and competitors at the highest level also deal with this! Marcelo Garcia has areas he's weak in (at least relative to the areas that he's great at). Rickson Gracie is better at some things than others. And some aspects of Georges St. Pierre's MMA game lag behind as well.
But always having something that you suck at (or - more correctly - suck at relative to your other skills) is a good thing - now you have something to work on! If you don't know what to work on in your grappling development, then take what you're worst at and work on that! (Often your fastest progress comes from working on your weakest link).
If you're entirely satisfied with your game, and if you don't have any areas that need refining, then you haven't actually reached perfection. You've just stopped growing.
Complacency is death!
Labels: bjj, sparring, the mental aspect, training
bookmark this! del.icio.us | Digg it | reddit | Yahoo MyWeb | Google | StumbleUpon