I've been on this martial arts kick (see what I did there?) for about 14 months at this point. This is not including the few weeks I did TKD when I was 10. The MT or BJJ classes are roughly structured as follows:
- Warm up, get heart rate up
- Short Stretch
- Drill (or combos on bag/mitts/pads)
- Sparring
I'll talk about BJJ first. It occurs to me that there are many ways that classes are conducted. Douglas Lima runs a (as I've been told) traditional class. That is, when it's time to train, we generally start neutral and just go at each other. This was FRUSTRATING as a new white belt, and still can feel very frustrating now. The decision tree for making things work and having to feel the position and react as things happen is obviously critical for mastery. However, for a beginner it is a recipe for getting frustrated and confounded by options. When Douglas was in Brazil training, Raphael trained us. We did a lot of positional sparring. I feel like my game improved in a very compressed time frame. The decision tree was forced down to a branch, with fewer decisions, and so I felt like I could concentrate on the game from those positions. I feel like I had an accelerated learning curve during this time.
When we do just train, I will try to make my mind up on what I want to work on that day (has been guard retention and positional control recently) and if I find myself in that position, I'll do my best to achieve my goal.
In Muay Thai, we don't do ANY 'positional sparring'. We never do a day of say 'jab only' or 'body shots only'. So if I'm going with someone who I am either better than, or on par with, I'll try to pick a move to work on. It might be body shots, inside leg kicks, entering the clinch, or whatever. It's just about getting reps, just like in jits.
I recently have really wanted to increase the number of punches in my combos, body shots, and work on defense and getting out of the pocket when I'm getting pushed on.
I think it's a good way to break out of the loosely structured sparring and get repetitions in new technique.
Just found this from Paul S. on TPI " There are 3 stages to experiential learning via Aliveness. 1) Intro stage. This takes about 5 minutes. The technique is introduced by the numbers, so to speak. This is as dead as we want to be but minimal time is spent here. 2) Isolation. This is drill phase. We drill the technique against progressive resistance using drills specifically designed to optimize the technique. 3) Integration. We integrate the technique into our overall game and work it against a fully resisting opponent."
Keeping myself in step 2 for as many reps as I can during step 3 is what I'm trying to do.
When we do just train, I will try to make my mind up on what I want to work on that day (has been guard retention and positional control recently) and if I find myself in that position, I'll do my best to achieve my goal.
In Muay Thai, we don't do ANY 'positional sparring'. We never do a day of say 'jab only' or 'body shots only'. So if I'm going with someone who I am either better than, or on par with, I'll try to pick a move to work on. It might be body shots, inside leg kicks, entering the clinch, or whatever. It's just about getting reps, just like in jits.
I recently have really wanted to increase the number of punches in my combos, body shots, and work on defense and getting out of the pocket when I'm getting pushed on.
I think it's a good way to break out of the loosely structured sparring and get repetitions in new technique.
Just found this from Paul S. on TPI " There are 3 stages to experiential learning via Aliveness. 1) Intro stage. This takes about 5 minutes. The technique is introduced by the numbers, so to speak. This is as dead as we want to be but minimal time is spent here. 2) Isolation. This is drill phase. We drill the technique against progressive resistance using drills specifically designed to optimize the technique. 3) Integration. We integrate the technique into our overall game and work it against a fully resisting opponent."
Keeping myself in step 2 for as many reps as I can during step 3 is what I'm trying to do.
Good observations Mark. The first BJJ place I trained at was like your traditional class. We just got together and rolled. I found this frustrating as well. From that placed I progressed on to other schools that did a good combination of drilling and rolling.
ReplyDeleteOne of the Muay Thai drills I enjoyed at my current gym was a round robin drill. Generally we did it with 5 guys with one guy in each corner of the ring. Each corner would be a designated technique. The 5th guy would work his way around through each corner. Usually the 1st corner would be hands only, 2nd corner kicks only, 3rd corner clinching only and then the 4th would be everything. Great drill.
That is a great drill. I wonder if they would integrate that into our class. Our boxing coach, Jamal, does stuff similar to that from time to time. But I don't usually take his class because I only have so much time in the day to train. I may switch to his class to get my hands up to par after a while.
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