Are we drilling the right way? Block vs Random Practice

[trustdoesntrust]

I think "situational sparring" is the best learning strategy I've found. This means that instead of straight positional drilling or outright rolling, you're creating a realistic situation that you often find yourself in (e.g. you just retained your guard and are back to a neutral position with your opponent kneeling) and then "drill sparring" with a predetermined idea of what you're going to do in that situation. So, I might start with my opponent on top of me in side control, then I hit my best side control escape, and on the split I immediately attack a hook sweep. My opponent is resisting but not fighting tooth and nail, while I'm going full speed. I can situationally drill like this for just 10 repetitions or so, and then when I get into this same situation in live sparring or in a comp I will feel what to do instead of just knowing the move I want to do. It's very important, though, that your partner engage with you in such a way that matches the situation-- this is not the same as flow rolling, or drilling progressions against a non-resisting opponent. You're micro-rolling/micro-drilling actual situations, starting right before the situation and ending right after.

 

[Dirty Holt]

I think this works better for beginners or people who do not compete at a higher level and I will tell you why:

In combat sports, when someone is actively using offensive and defensive techniques to manipulate your motor skills, 2 things take precedence over all other attributes, and those are speed and timing.

Hitting a move or counter move against athletes who have mastered the sport essentially comes down to who can hit the move the fastest at the right time, rendering counter offense, defense, and move sequences ineffective because they are behind the window of opportunity.

Gaining speed and timing is absolutely better gained through rote learning and situational practice. Luckily for upper belts, they can force positional sparring on the lower belts during live goes. This is almost like drilling for them.

Where random practice is most useful is developing your arsenal of attacks, counter attacks, and move sequences. Most brown/black belts already have this developed, which is why it is much more beneficial for lower belts. They havent really arrived at a place where they know what they do best in competition.

 

[Badger67]

Automaticity is what you're getting at. It is quicker, automatic, inherent ingrained/learned actions. This is where speed dramatically comes into play as you say for the upper belts/levels of wrestlers etc, since they already have their skills acquired.

 

[Aesopian]

Dirty Holt, that is a good and interesting point. Last year Gianni Grippo did a seminar at my school, and he talked about how he spends more time putting in reps than sparring. He felt this kept him sharp without risking injury as much. I have seen this in other black belts too, where they aren't concerned with the little details of a move (they already know those), but they want to blast out 20 reps to build up their speed, or to borrow the word Badger just taught me, their automaticity.

 

[shades091]

Terrific stuff. Enjoy reading your posts. Thanks for posting.

 

[BJ@LW&WW]

nice post. i think i remember your name from a post you made collecting statistics about gis or something

 

[yetanother]

I think this works better for beginners or people who do not compete at a higher level and I will tell you why:

In combat sports, when someone is actively using offensive and defensive techniques to manipulate your motor skills, 2 things take precedence over all other attributes, and those are speed and timing.

Hitting a move or counter move against athletes who have mastered the sport essentially comes down to who can hit the move the fastest at the right time, rendering counter offense, defense, and move sequences ineffective because they are behind the window of opportunity.

Gaining speed and timing is absolutely better gained through rote learning and situational practice. Luckily for upper belts, they can force positional sparring on the lower belts during live goes. This is almost like drilling for them.

Where random practice is most useful is developing your arsenal of attacks, counter attacks, and move sequences. Most brown/black belts already have this developed, which is why it is much more beneficial for lower belts. They havent really arrived at a place where they know what they do best in competition.

Do you think drilling a move with your training partner behaving differently in each rep (so that you have to make minor adjustments) makes sense?
The whole train ugly website/movement was claiming that instead of doing the exact same thing over and over again you should have to do a minor adjustment every time so train picking the right window of opportunity.
The argue that the drills should be hard that you will even often fail while doing them (looking ugly).
It seems to work on top level volleyball the important questionis how it translates to grappling.

 

[Kalma]

Bager, re your Professor...where did/where do you study ?

Aesopian, great topic...one of my favourite topics in the whole world.

 

[Calibur]

I've actually been running my own experiment this year.

I've always taught unofficial private lessons but this year I've gotten to teach using the I-method to beginners for a long period of time.

The amount of frustration they had was palpable. They just wanted to do some reps and spar.

I think part of the reason why my structure failed (in my mind) is the idea that this group was focused on having fun via relaxing. Not actually winning.

When people REALLY really want to win something, the live drills are obvious. That's why it's such a no brainer in wrestling practices.

Most bjj gyms have a different outlook.

Has anyone who focused on live drilling/the I-method struggled to hold the interest of a group of students?

 

[Aesopian]

Calibur, your experience doesn't surprise me.

Implementing all of these best practices in a "for the consumer" class is an issue I am still working out. One of my upcoming posts will be about how I've been using random practice in beginner classes (and I have used the I-method for years), but it's something I'm still always trying to better implement.

People like to say if you wanted to create the best BJJ competition team, you would train them like college wrestlers. That is true. You see this level of training in the top BJJ camps.

Unfortunately, if you wanted to have a commercially unsuccessful school and scare away everyone but athletic males ages 18-25, you would run BJJ classes like a college wrestling camp.

An instructor needs to tailor classes for his students. If your bills are paid by a bunch of 30-40+ year old recreational hobbyists, you aren't going to do well forcing them into intense, randomized practice that were designed for young athletes who will never quit and may owe their scholarship to playing the sport.

Even if you're not interested in paying bills through teaching, and even when you have fairly serious people to train with, you can have people who aren't interested in isolation training to the degree of specificity or intensity that "best research" call for. Most people just want to try out a some cool moves, roll a few rounds, break a sweat, then shoot the shit and go get a burrito.

That has been my experience running open mats throughout the years. Few people want to put in the focused study and practice of thoughtful isolation training. The best you can get out of them are some rounds of positional sparring, but even then they just want to spar in a looser, unfocused way. There is a place for that, and I used to do it until I realize it wasn't the quickest way to improve.

But like you said, people are doing this to relax, and maximizing results is not relaxing. I'm not saying they are wrong, since people can have all kinds of reasons for doing BJJ, but it lends itself to a certain approach that clashes with mine.

Sorry to leave you on a cliffhanger, but I will talk about using the I-method in group classes in my next blog post. Anyone from a SBG school will be able to tell you about it too.

 

[dimmyfinster]

I think this works better for beginners or people who do not compete at a higher level and I will tell you why:

In combat sports, when someone is actively using offensive and defensive techniques to manipulate your motor skills, 2 things take precedence over all other attributes, and those are speed and timing.

Hitting a move or counter move against athletes who have mastered the sport essentially comes down to who can hit the move the fastest at the right time, rendering counter offense, defense, and move sequences ineffective because they are behind the window of opportunity.

Gaining speed and timing is absolutely better gained through rote learning and situational practice. Luckily for upper belts, they can force positional sparring on the lower belts during live goes. This is almost like drilling for them.

Where random practice is most useful is developing your arsenal of attacks, counter attacks, and move sequences. Most brown/black belts already have this developed, which is why it is much more beneficial for lower belts. They havent really arrived at a place where they know what they do best in competition.

interesting, good post.

 

[Uchi Mata]

I don't even try to implement in regular classes. I run one TD class in which I do it a little, but mostly I train this way myself during drilling sessions with at most 2-3 other people.

 

[DrJitsu]

I mostly I train this way myself during drilling sessions with at most 2-3 other people.

Two questions:
1. At what skill level do you think setting something up like this is important. It doesn't seem like 3-4 white belts doing this would be productive. Sometime during blue?

2. How do you get these people together? I find it hard to gauge who is willing to do this kind of work. And then it's like asking someone out on a date. Should I pass them a note? (J/k... But seriously..)

 

[Uchi Mata]

Two questions:
1. At what skill level do you think setting something up like this is important. It doesn't seem like 3-4 white belts doing this would be productive. Sometime during blue?

2. How do you get these people together? I find it hard to gauge who is willing to do this kind of work. And then it's like asking someone out on a date. Should I pass them a note? (J/k... But seriously..)

1. Late blue/early purple, personally I think it's necessary in most normal schools to progress past purple skill wise.

2. I fell into it training for old guy worlds, I let it be known that I wanted to get extra sessions in and got a key from my coach, and from there I just organized it with individual guys. It was usually just me and one other dude, though later it became a more formalized class.

 

[ThatBJJGuy]

I wrote this post about isolation training/positional sparring 8 years ago and it seems to have help up well, but SBG takes most of the credit for that since I'm mostly sharing their perspective:

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

 

[jack36767]

get that SBG nonsense out here

Are you trolling? Serious question no sarcasm whatsoever. This is all good training principles regardless of source that most good wrestling coaches have been doing for years even decades...

EDIT: Always look at the underlying principles when studying or evaluating something like this

 

[youngsteinel]

Are you trolling? Serious question no sarcasm whatsoever. This is all good training principles regardless of source that most good wrestling coaches have been doing for years even decades...

EDIT: Always look at the underlying principles when studying or evaluating something like this

I believe in the ancient Olympics they did progressive resistance, walking around with a calf or some other animal as it grew. Too lazy to Google it, but what I am trying to say is that's good stuff. I love motor learning and development, great thread.