Let's
get thing straight. I am not awesome at Jiu-Jitsu, but neither do I
suck.
Must of rolled a hundred times at the Gracie Academy down in LA with people my own level. I was better than some, and others were better than me; all just as It should be.
I'm proud of that, as the vast majority of Jiu-Jitsu people are half my age.
As an ancient roller, there is no way that I can match most opponents with strength or endurance. I have to husband my physical resources, and use them in short spurts; resting, while picking my shots. I have to be more technically skilled in order to seize the initiative and set up quickly for submissions.
Most of the time I'm on the bottom, hopefully with my opponent in my guard. Often they are not and I have to make the best of a bad situation. All the while I have to remain calm and economical.
I think what I currently need the most in order to improve is work on escapes, and sweeps.
My plan is to analyze just what generally useful moves along that line would help me the most, and drill extensively on those few movements. After that, the plan would be to drill, and drill, and drill. Then it might be time to re-analyze, perhaps change things up a bit, and return to more, massive amounts of practice.
Geoff Colvin makes a convincing argument in his book, Talent is Overrated, that this single training method is responsible for most or all of the high achievers our society has ever produced.
This isn't how most people practice. Let's look at a typical week for Blue Belt training around here. There are 3 one-hour classes. In those 180 minutes, perhaps a third is devoted to instruction, and the remainder to practice. Of the 120 practice minutes each week, half goes to each participant. The other half goes to the partner.
So there are about 60 training minutes per student, which is then split up among the 5 to 10 movement techniques worked on. That equates to only 6 to 12 minutes devoted to each technique.
How good can you get at something in 6 to 12 minutes? What if you added another hour of practice, and devoted it all to the single most-applicable technique? What if you could identify a single, trainable component in all of the week's many techniques and devoted your extra hour to that one component? Clearly, that single extra hour per week would be a significant way to improve.
That's the basic idea, anyhow. In my own case my extra practice will be going towards the area I've identified I would see the most benefit from rather than something from a week's lessons.
So where would the time come from? I already do it, sort of. We have 2 sessions a week called open mat, when the facility is available for any student to work on whatever they want. I am always there, but the time has been getting taken up with helping other students, light rolling, or just chit chat. It can hardly be called practice at all. I need only look at open-mat time to reclaim two serious training hours.
That could be two hours a week going into sweeps and escapes. I just might become a very annoying person to roll with.
Must of rolled a hundred times at the Gracie Academy down in LA with people my own level. I was better than some, and others were better than me; all just as It should be.
I'm proud of that, as the vast majority of Jiu-Jitsu people are half my age.
As an ancient roller, there is no way that I can match most opponents with strength or endurance. I have to husband my physical resources, and use them in short spurts; resting, while picking my shots. I have to be more technically skilled in order to seize the initiative and set up quickly for submissions.
Most of the time I'm on the bottom, hopefully with my opponent in my guard. Often they are not and I have to make the best of a bad situation. All the while I have to remain calm and economical.
I think what I currently need the most in order to improve is work on escapes, and sweeps.
My plan is to analyze just what generally useful moves along that line would help me the most, and drill extensively on those few movements. After that, the plan would be to drill, and drill, and drill. Then it might be time to re-analyze, perhaps change things up a bit, and return to more, massive amounts of practice.
Geoff Colvin makes a convincing argument in his book, Talent is Overrated, that this single training method is responsible for most or all of the high achievers our society has ever produced.
This isn't how most people practice. Let's look at a typical week for Blue Belt training around here. There are 3 one-hour classes. In those 180 minutes, perhaps a third is devoted to instruction, and the remainder to practice. Of the 120 practice minutes each week, half goes to each participant. The other half goes to the partner.
So there are about 60 training minutes per student, which is then split up among the 5 to 10 movement techniques worked on. That equates to only 6 to 12 minutes devoted to each technique.
How good can you get at something in 6 to 12 minutes? What if you added another hour of practice, and devoted it all to the single most-applicable technique? What if you could identify a single, trainable component in all of the week's many techniques and devoted your extra hour to that one component? Clearly, that single extra hour per week would be a significant way to improve.
That's the basic idea, anyhow. In my own case my extra practice will be going towards the area I've identified I would see the most benefit from rather than something from a week's lessons.
So where would the time come from? I already do it, sort of. We have 2 sessions a week called open mat, when the facility is available for any student to work on whatever they want. I am always there, but the time has been getting taken up with helping other students, light rolling, or just chit chat. It can hardly be called practice at all. I need only look at open-mat time to reclaim two serious training hours.
That could be two hours a week going into sweeps and escapes. I just might become a very annoying person to roll with.
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