Just had my first class...

[GriffinQ]

a few nights ago. A friend of mine trains at Jeff Gordon's Mixed Martial Arts Academy in Gaithersburg, MD, and he got me a 1 month trial at the place for their BJJ and Judo classes. I've never done either before, but I wrestled for my senior year in high school(Im18, just graduated) and I did TMA's when I was younger. Compared to wrestling practice, which was 3 hours long, versus this hour long BJJ (w/ Gi) class....I dunno, things feel a little rushed. Brief warm up, straight into lessons on techniques, then drilling, and then a little time at the end to roll. I heard that there's usually more than the 10 minutes we got to roll, but even so, does 3 or 4 techniques being taught and then drilled in about a 40 minute span sound like alot? or am I just being a whiny bitch, who has to adjust to a new training style? Any advice is appreciated haha, I'd like to hear some opinions before I become a paying member.

 

[blfdgrappler]

IMHO, it sounds like a pretty balanced class. Three or four techniques is probably a good number -- just enough to be challenging/keep everyone's interest, but not enough to melt your brain. If you are drilling them after the instruction, even better. It seems to me that the rolling time could be a little longer (at least, I prefer to go longer). You might ask around to see if every class is like that or if there is an open mat day you can come in and just roll. Are there other schools in your area you could try out to compare? Regardless, I think you should stick with it.

it = jiu-jitsu in general; not necessarily that school.

 

[Snowman3459]

Your rolling time could be longer. My gym usually does about 3 techniques and 20-25 minutes of rolling.

I don't think 10 minutes is enough to get decent practice in.

 

[GriffinQ]

IMHO, it sounds like a pretty balanced class. Three or four techniques is probably a good number -- just enough to be challenging/keep everyone's interest, but not enough to melt your brain. If you are drilling them after the instruction, even better. It seems to me that the rolling time could be a little longer (at least, I prefer to go longer). You might ask around to see if every class is like that or if there is an open mat day you can come in and just roll. Are there other schools in your area you could try out to compare? Regardless, I think you should stick with it.

it = jiu-jitsu in general; not necessarily that school.

Oh don't worry haha, I've wanted to do BJJ for a long time, the only issue was money until now. I have no intention of giving it up. And there are a few other gyms in my area, but they're all either prohibitively expensive(Yamasaki Academy) or don't have a schedule that fits my needs( Evolve Academy).

[QUOTE/] My gym usually does about 3 techniques and 20-25 minutes of rolling.

I don't think 10 minutes is enough to get decent practice in.[/QUOTE]

Yeah I'm used to a much greater amount of free rolling aside from drilling and learning techniques. As I said, I'm used to a 3 hr wrestling practice/daily, and a good hour of that was free to work on any techniques we want/prepare for matches.

 

[platfox]

I've trained at a similar school where the class is only an hour long. I hated it. We had to rush off the mat at exactly 1 hour so that kickboxing could start.

Now I go to a school that has an hour of bjj (20 minute warmup, 40 minutes of technique) plus 2 hours of open mat. Plenty of time during open mat to drill what we learned, drill techniques students bring to class on their own, and spar until we can't walk.

 

[mweaver123]

I think that division of class time is pretty standard...keep in mind that your own school might even vary slightly from time to time. You might get more rolling time and less techniques next time, for instance. Best of luck with the training!

 

[blfdgrappler]

I am fortunate in that my BJJ classes are two hours long.... plenty enough time for warmup, drills (old stuff/warm up), technique/instruction, more drills (new stuff), and plenty of rolling. Although, we vary it up, depending on how we feel as a group or if we have a tournament, seminar, or testing coming up (we are small, and our instructor is cool). Some days we do nothing but technique/drilling with no rolling. Other days, we roll all two hours. Some days we do nothing but conditioning. It just depends. I think it helps to vary class up some.... keeps it fresh.

Only ten minutes for rolling would suck! My sympathies to you if that's how it stays. Still, good luck with your training. All the best to you!!!

 

[SLaKKJaW]

Sounds normal. Jiu-jitsu classes don't usually place focus on conditioning. If you want that, you'll usually have to work on that in your own time.

Rolling time should be longer than 10 mins tho. If I don't spend a good 30-45 mins rolling, I don't feel like I got much of a workout.

If there is open mat after class, take advantage of it and try to encourage your teammates to stick around for it too.

 

[GriffinQ]

Thanks alot for all the input you guys have offered. Hopefully there's more rolling time in my future classes. And to clear it up, there are open mat times, theyre just either a few hours before the class times that fit my schedule, or theyre an hour or two afterwards, and I have college classes late at night, so again, doesn't fit my schedule. I'm sure I'll figure out a solution haha. Just gonna need to juggle some stuff around,

 

[Kyle 18]

four techniques during the class sounds about right but only ten minutes of rolling doesn't seem like enough. Where i train we have open mats three days a week for an hour after the class and about thirty minutes after class on non open mat days.

 

[zinndawg]

four techniques during the class sounds about right but only ten minutes of rolling doesn't seem like enough. Where i train we have open mats three days a week for an hour after the class and about thirty minutes after class on non open mat days.

i pretty much stopped going to beginner class for this very reason. It's unfortunate because I want to continue going over the basics, but the rolling time is terrible. If you go to class 2 or 3 times a week, like most people, that's only 20-30 minutes of actual live training. The advanced classes offer about 45 minutes of rolling time plus open mat afterwards.

 

[bjjysf]

Hey man I train at Jeff Gordon's too. We usually roll for over 20 min and a bunch of guys stick around for open mat time all the time. If you came last week classes were a bit different because we were preparing some of the guys for the tournament this past weekend.

 

[GriffinQ]

Hey man I train at Jeff Gordon's too. We usually roll for over 20 min and a bunch of guys stick around for open mat time all the time. If you came last week classes were a bit different because we were preparing some of the guys for the tournament this past weekend.

Thanks for putting that. I'll be coming to a few classes this week, so hopefully we get to roll a little more

 

[mtruitt76]

3-4 techniques a class is too many, but it is pretty standard practice. We do one stand up technique and one ground technique each class and typically the same techniques are taught for two classes.

Also we will stay with the same positions for an extended period of time. For example we will do top half guard for a month and then do bottom half guard for a month with specific training involving that position. This is a much better way to learn BJJ but, only a few places teach this way.