Technique Cramming Solutions

There is a crunch coming.

It won't be here until the middle of April, but it will be have a significant effect on how we do things at our Jiu-Jitsu academy. The good news is that April is still 8 months away.

We used to go through a body of curriculum that contained a total of 60 techniques, along with their variations, in a 81 week cycle. That meant we covered each of the 60 items in an average of just over 4 hours of class time.

Now, in addition, we have a second level of technique to cover. That means 120 techniques. Besides more to cover, the amount of time to cover it all has been reduced to 54 weeks, down from 81. That has all conspired to change the average amount of time for each technique down to 1 hour and 21 minutes.

This is a huge change, but it is still working very well, even though some of our newer Blue Belts describe it all as feeling overwhelming. I would say that there is no slack left at all.

In April, we will be incorporating a further 60 techniques into the cycle. The number of weeks to cover it all will remain at 54. That will bring our average amount of class time for each of the 180 items down to 54 minutes.

About a year after that, the number of techniques will go up again, reducing average class time per technique down to 40 minutes. That's crazy, and it will just keep getting worse.

A logical short-term solution would be to add in some more weeks of training. We work on the curriculum in bundles that each get two weeks of time. If we added in a third week, that would increase our 54 week cycle into one of 81 weeks. Strangely enough, that is exactly how much time the cycle used to take when we did it the old way.

That would change the 54 minute crunch that's coming in April quite a bit. The average time per technique would increase to 1 hour 21 minutes. Strangely, that is exactly how much time we currently spend on each technique, and at that pace, things seem to be OK.

When the next level after that kicks in, the pace would be exactly 1 hour per technique, which could be too tight, but still far better than the 40 minutes we were looking at.

The only way I can see it working beyond that would be to switch from the current total-coverage system into one more similar to what is done at the Gracie Academy in Los Angeles.

They don't have 120 techniques like we currently do, or the 180 that we are facing in April, or the 240 of the year after. They literally work on thousands.

Like us, they also do theirs as a cycle broken into little bundles. Like I suggest would be better for us here starting in April, they invest 81 weeks on each time through the cycle.

I have been at the Gracie Academy when they worked through several of these bundles. Mixed in with everything else, there was some of the material we cover here, but not all of it.

They cover as much as they can in 3 weeks, and then move on; the idea being that the other stuff will eventually get covered in later repetitions through the cycle. They try to provide something for every one of a dozen levels, even if they can't do it all.

So my ideas are to add more weeks, and eventually to give up on the idea of being able to cover everything each time through the cycle.

Tawha thinks that perhaps we could divide the class into two groups, without adding weeks. If we are a big enough group by April, that might make sense, too.

Perhaps the newer people would work on the first levels of material, and the more experienced work on the higher-level stuff. The only problem with that is that our instructor would have to do twice as much teaching.

We are sort of doing this informally right now. The first two levels get addressed in the regular class, but the new, third level won't be rolling into the mix until April. To get ready, our instructor wants to work through the stuff as much as he can ahead of time. Therefore, we have an extra class once a week just to work on level three. This is optional, and most people don't attend, but there is a little core of regulars.

Doing this only adds one hour to our instructor's workload, but gets the higher material out to those who want it.

Most likely no one of these suggested methods will do the trick. Probably it will have to be a mix of several, along with other things that have not yet suggested themselves.