Black Belts: How do you decide what to teach?

[jack36767]

I did it for ten years. I fully agree that teaching clarifies things for the teacher in a unique way, and that knowing HOW to present material to new students is something everyone should learn. I did fine job of it, but as I've said it was a chore I didn't enjoy and I'd certainly be a better introductory teacher if I were more inspired. Teaching other people's kids full-time is my idea of hell.

(Yes, I've taught kids classes and yes, I have kids of my own.)

Lol I can do 5th through college, younger is the chore for me

I also deliberately chose to go into being a school coach over a club coach because I wouldn’t have to be beholden to a certain type of parent.. to be fair, where I’m at any parent involvement is unfortunately much too rare and most welcome too

 

[Foppa21]

My school follows a curriculum, though it's more a positional curriculum than a 'you must practice these 5 moves in this order' curriculum (at least for advanced students. The novice curriculum is very strict). It's helpful because it makes sure that over the course of the year you don't spend too much time on any one position and too little on other positions. There's also competition training which is much more individualized/open to practicing whatever you want in a given position. I really hate move of the day teaching (no offense) because I feel like it makes learning very haphazard and can easily leave holes in students' learning. You can do it with a very small, advanced student body where you can watch what they're doing and tailor the instruction to them (when you're acting more like a boxing trainer than a class teacher), but I feel like it breaks down as a method for teaching larger groups. Especially large groups of novices.

Move of the day is ok as long as it follows a order which a lot of instructors are missing. For example, some will on one day show a armbar from guard and the next day end up showing a collar choke from side control. There's no correlation between the two as such.

If that were me, after showing armbar from guard, the next step is either: 1) other guard attacks/sweeps to transition to, or 2) defence of armbar

 

[Calibur]

I go through a cycle of 6 weeks. Each week covering a position. One week revolves half guard as the core position. Another is closed guard. Another is mount. Open guard covers all the guard variations.

I have to keep it broad because I never know what combination of levels will show up.

The true skill in instructing is knowing how to change the tone between people of various levels of grappling and setting up an environment that all levels can benefit from.

If you wanna know how a technique is done, go to YouTube. If you want to learn how you can apply a technique that can be used on the kind of opponent you're likely to face in a given environment you come to class.

 

[lechien]

I go through a cycle of 6 weeks. Each week covering a position. One week revolves half guard as the core position. Another is closed guard. Another is mount. Open guard covers all the guard variations.

I have to keep it broad because I never know what combination of levels will show up.

The true skill in instructing is knowing how to change the tone between people of various levels of grappling and setting up an environment that all levels can benefit from.

If you wanna know how a technique is done, go to YouTube. If you want to learn how you can apply a technique that can be used on the kind of opponent you're likely to face in a given environment you come to class.

Actually I dig the last part a lot.

My advanced program revolve around twelve guards. ....

But really I am not going too much in detail but teach the basic of each guard ...
.
The most important part is teaching them when to bail out and why you should bail out and transition to another guard.

To think about it, you solved my problem because it should be my next project.

Intermediate program. Learn how to transition from the twelve fundamental program .

It is what I called the grey area. The in between stuff.

The rest like you said can be watched on you tube by five time world champ.

 

[lechien]

Has anyone done it the other way?

I mean my classes are full on Tuesday and Thursday nights.

So I taught an extra class on Saturday to take off the pressure. But it is not working.

I am thinking to turn the Saturday class into the main beginner class which beginner must attend or they can go on the waiting list. My advanced guys don't really train on Saturday anyway. . And then Tuesday and Thursday into open mats. Keep instructional to a minimum and the team rock up and roll.

What do you think?

 

[PointyShinyBurn]

I am thinking to turn the Saturday class into a class. And then Tuesday and Thursday into open mats. Keep instructional to a minimum and the team rock up and roll.

What do you think?

I think it's good as long as people know how to train without instruction. Many Jiu Jitsu players will just roll at an open mat because they're so used to being spoon fed everything else.

 

[dimmyfinster]

Osotogari.

Everything else is a delusion.

 

[Uchi Mata]

Move of the day is ok as long as it follows a order which a lot of instructors are missing. For example, some will on one day show a armbar from guard and the next day end up showing a collar choke from side control. There's no correlation between the two as such.

If that were me, after showing armbar from guard, the next step is either: 1) other guard attacks/sweeps to transition to, or 2) defence of armbar

That's not really 'move of the day' then. You're following a logical progression. 'Move of the day' means the coach just shows up and shows whatever the hell technique he feels like, though admittedly the term is not as descriptive as it could be.

 

[Balto]

Has anyone done it the other way?

I mean my classes are full on Tuesday and Thursday nights.

So I taught an extra class on Saturday to take off the pressure. But it is not working.

I am thinking to turn the Saturday class into a class. And then Tuesday and Thursday into open mats. Keep instructional to a minimum and the team rock up and roll.

What do you think?

I do it this way. I think you'll find it's way better.

Best thing you can do is stop thinking of it as "BJJ class" and more of it as "BJJ practice." Stop having your students focus on "learning" and instead focus more on "practicing."

You should be able to give your students in 10-15 minutes enough instruction to last several months. It just takes that long for them practice to it properly. What do you do all the rest of the time? You act more like a coach than an instructor. You walk around, reinforce the good things, correct the bad things, etc. Just polish off the edges.

Imagine you had a brand new guy come in. The normal curriculum based approach is to take him through a bunch of different things real fast to give him some sort of base. Like spend a day or two each on mount, back, side control, top closed guard, bottom closed guard, top open guard, bottom open guard, top half guard, bottom half guard, turtle, standing, etc. As you can see it's overwhelming.

After a few months of this, the guy might FEEL like he knows more about BJJ. He can probably regurgitate your instructions to another white belt in a lot of these positions. But when it comes to roll, he still sucks from just about everywhere.

A better approach is to just show the guy closed guard. Explain what it is, give tips on how to hold it. Show him how to break the posture. Show a basic recovery to closed guard from bottom half guard or maybe the mount.

And then that's it. That's all the instruction you need to give the guy for at least a month. It only takes 10-15 minutes to give him a little private on that stuff and then he's set.

Let him practice the rest of the month. Let him drill guard recovery and posture breaks with his partner. During rolling, tell him his goal is to get closed guard and just hold it as long as he can. For a 1 month white belt this should be pretty challenging so he'll have his hands full just doing that.

You watch him and give him real time feedback. When he gets his guard passed, you explain quickly how he can stop that next time. Then let him go again.

This isn't even as boring as it seems because in reality nobody is going to do just what you say and nothing else. We all know white belts love to teach other white belts so he will get shown different stuff by his peers. That's fine. He's also going to YouTube stuff and try it in rolling. That's also fine.

But just act like a coach and keep him focused on maintaining closed guard for a month or so. You will get good results. Then suddenly a month later, you have a white belt who is actually able to hold closed guard consistently against resisting opponents. This gives you a solid base to work from, not some theoretical knowledge of a bunch of positions.

Then for the next month, you teach him 1-2 subs and 1-2 sweeps from his closed guard in like 10-15 minutes again. The rest of the training is reminding him of what you showed (he will forget), reinforcing the good reps, correcting the bad ones, etc.

You could easily manage ten or so students this way in a class. If you have more than that per class, I'd recruit one of your senior guys to be a coach this way too. A head coach usually needs some assistants. That's normal too.

 

[Coconutwater]

I think one thing these classes are missing is the standup. It's always teaching the ground technique, but once tournament starts you're fucked. Everybody starts standing up. Unless of course you have a wrestling background or you did some side training.

Even the “Stand up” portions like the needed intensity required. Most people are normal folks with jobs so you can’t commit 100% to takedowns etc..

It’s not like when I wrestled in school and everyone was competing so you go 100% intensity or near that, 85%.

 

[Foppa21]

That's not really 'move of the day' then. You're following a logical progression. 'Move of the day' means the coach just shows up and shows whatever the hell technique he feels like, though admittedly the term is not as descriptive as it could be.

I still do. Maybe call it "randomised move of the day"