Focus In

 

In every activity, there are those who struggle with their progress. Often, they get discouraged and eventually leave the pursuit.

Conversely, there are a few very simple attitudes and tricks that can improve any serious student’s satisfaction with how things are going.

In this article, a Jiu-Jitsu example will be given as that is my most recent major-learning activity.

First, let me describe how I perform in Jiu-Jitsu. Generally, I know how to perform the skills required better than most of my peer group. I am able to roll on a competitive basis with others much more physically gifted than myself, and who are almost always only a fraction of my age.

I am only able to do this because I am effective at learning what is being taught.

Everybody seems to understand that training more will make you better. Three classes each week would be better than two, but that isn’t what I’m talking about.

We all have lives to fit our learning into, and class schedules that sometimes conflict. Let’s assume that you are able to make it to three classes per week.

Most Jiu-Jitsu classes tend to have two parts to them. The first is what I consider the instructional and practice part, and after that comes free-sparring. Almost universally, the instruction and practice component runs for about an hour.

In that hour, the instructor will explain and demonstrate chunks of material and then the students pair up to work on it. Very typically, there will be about 5 bits of instruction, and 5 periods of practice. This will vary, but most of the instructional parts will last in the neighbourhood of 5 minutes, as will each of the practice components.

So you are at a class, and the instructor calls everybody over. They then explain the first part, and demonstrate it several times, giving tips and explaining pitfalls.

How can you maximize this?

It will be short in duration; about 5 minutes or so. Give the instructor and the lesson every bit of your attention and focus. Fight to keep your mind from wandering. A trick to facilitating this is to not let your physical gaze drift from the instructor.

If you drift, give your brain a smack and refocus. It’s only 5 minutes long; you can do it. Even if you have serious problems with this kind of concentration, do the very best that you are able.

A bonus trick is to refrain from asking a question unless it directly relates to performing the technique as demonstrated.

So now you move into practice with a partner. You have 5 minutes to drill what you have been shown. If you failed to focus during the lesson period, you will already be at a disadvantage. Either way, you need to get right to work on what you were shown.

Don’t engage in small talk, or even in Jiu-Jitsu talk that isn’t about exactly what you need to get going with. Treat your drill time with the same kind of focus that you aimed at the lesson.

Either you or your partner will go first, and then it is the other person’s turn. The order doesn’t matter, but after each repetition, get your pair immediately going on the next repetition.

You don’t have to move fast or anything like that. You just need to perform the movements at an appropriate learning pace, then quickly change roles and keep going; over and over.

With five minutes of time, you should each be able to easily get 5 repetitions done. A bonus tip is that if you focus fully when it is your partner’s turn, you will get almost as much benefit out of that as you do out of your own. You’ll also get used to what if feels like when somebody pulls this particular move on you.

You would be surprised at how slowly some pairs go through their drills. Lots of chit chat, and unrelated discussion.

There also seems to be another common type of training. Many people work well, and with focus, but as soon as they think they’ve gotten the move right, they stop and just sit. They typically have to do the drill about 3 times before they are happy and stop.

That means that in their five minutes they have actually practiced the move correctly exactly once. If your pair took just as long to get it right, and then kept going and completed 5 repetitions per person, you have practiced it correctly several times more than the team content to stop after getting it once.

Then the instructor calls you all back for the next part of the lesson and demonstration. Now you get to rest for a bit if the drill was at all strenuous, and again need to give the instructor all of your attention.

So the class ends, and you stayed focused the best that you could through all of the time that the instructor was teaching, and got maximum value out of your practice time. Let’s say that you have scored 100% on pulling maximum value out of the hour. If you’d let your mind wander during teacher time, and you drifted during 1/10 of it, your hour-value score would have dropped down to 95%.

If you allowed yourself to be a 3-repetition drill practiser, then your 95% grade would slip clear down to below 85%.

Still good, you say?

Now it’s time to roll. You grab somebody who by chance started training on the same day as you, is physically almost identical to you, and off you go. You have even attended all the exact same classes over the last few years. The only difference is that you train at 85% efficiency, while he works at 100% of what he can do.

He’s 15% better than you.

You manage to shoot in an 85% triangle, which he defends with a 100% counter, gets into side mount, and tries a 100% elbow-cup-armbar, which you try and counter at 85%. Can you see where this will end up?

You might not even know why this guy regularly out performs you.

The upside is that you only need to train this way for a hour at time, and only for a few times a week.

Sadly, I’m actually being over-generous regarding how little some people work during drill time. Being somewhat sidelined by Covid, I “attend” a lot of zoom classes. Although valuable in their way, they are nothing like real classes.

One interesting side effect is that I get to spy on people when the instructor has live-class members go off to drill. Some use every moment, but many don’t do much at all. Some immediately go into play mode without doing the actual technique they were just shown at all.

Can’t live without play? After the regular class there is always about a half-hour more available mat time. This is pretty open. Some folks drill or experiment, but most roll.

These rolls can be fast and intense, or mellow and flowing. This is the play built into Jiu-Jitsu.

Is it so very hard maintaining the best focus and work habits that you can during class? I could see how it might be if it were part of a long, drawn-out type of school day. What I am asking is quite an intense brain workout, but it isn’t a day-long activity.

The classes are short and sweet, and chock-full of learning opportunities.