Most people reading this train in Jiu Jitsu and as such know that enough training is never enough, if you have caught the BJJ bug you want to be on the mat all the time. The family atmosphere of most academies and the constant challenges and growth we experience make our BJJ training some of the most rewarding times in our life. However, the reality is that everyone has one reason or another that keeps them off the mat more than they would like. This may be due to down time due to injury, recovery/rest days, work commitments or looking after our families (or any of many other distractions that are otherwise known as "real life"). It is probably no secret that as you get older these factors play a larger role in your life. It maybe that as you get older you start a family which comes with it's own responsibilities, or perhaps our careers become more demanding. Another reality is that once you get beyond 30 your body takes longer to recover from intense training and injuries are much slower in healing. In my own case I have a beautiful family with diverse interests and needs and have a full time career outside of BJJ. Not to mention being involved in the management of the academy also takes time that may otherwise be spent training.
The last year or so has forced me to think seriously about how I get the most of my limited training
time, because unlike the 10 or so years that came before, my training
time has become more limited. I have been searching for ways to maximise
my training time through the use of more efficient training, to
"leverage" better results from my training time. This, I believe, is
what BJJ teaches us; to apply the principles we learn on the mat into
our broader thinking. BJJ teaches us the concepts of leverage and of
maximum effect from minimum effort, so it makes sense to apply these
principles to the learning of technique and not just to the techniques
themselves.
I have come up with a few ideas that help me to achieve my goal of improving the efficiency of my mat time, such as:
The great thing is that you can achieve all of these things simultaneously by training the right way. The interesting thing is that this article started it's life not being about maximising training efficiency, but about the parallels between several techniques that I have been teaching recently. However, as I started to thrash out a rough draft I started to realise that there were so many parallels that it was really better to step and speak about the broader concept. That said, I have chosen to highlight a few movement concepts that apply across a range of techniques, some are obvious parallels, others less so, but all are similar. I have listed the movement concept first with description and then I will list some different specific techniques that use them.
Rocking Chair – The first principle I call the "Rocking Chair" because the movement involves rocking the body forward and back or side to side on the butt without changing the position of the legs in relation to the body. So if the movement starts with he thighs at 90° from the torso then as you rock forward or back that posture is maintained. The most common example of this is seen in the Butterfly Hooks Sweep where the opponent is swept through the power of the entire body moving in unison as opposed to a 'kicking' motion with one leg as can be seen in this example. Various forms of spider guard also utilise it such as Kurt Osiander's "Butterfly Sweep" (one of my personal favourites) and Jeremy Arel's "Leg Weave Sweep". A favourite of mine is where these two sweeping styles meet through the utilisation of this principle in Michelle Nicolini's Shin Block Guard, which can be seen from about 0:50 in this one of BJJ Scout's brilliant videos.
Movement Angles – Perhaps a more obvious example of a movement concept is the creation of angles in guard. We teach all of our beginners that the secret to completing either a triangle, armbar or omoplata from the guard is in creating the right angle. Specifically we are referring to the angle we shift our bodies to in relation to our opponent. For a triangle this approximately 45°, an armbar it is 90° and for an omoplata it is 180°. The important thing is that hip movements we use to achieve this are the same, it is only the rotation that varies. So in principle training one technique entry assists with training them all.
These are two common concepts that apply in many techniques and highlight my point well. There
are of course many more, but I feel that these are sufficient for now. I
did consider discussing inverting from guard and how it could be
applied to spin through triangles, berimbolo or helicopter sweeps, but
this isn't my area of expertise and would only be repetitious. One other
area that I considered discussing was on passing and the fact that all
guard passes into three 'families' of passes, however I think that this
is a broad enough topic (and one that I am interested enough in) to
warrant it's own future article.
In the meantime, stay safe and train SMART!
The last year or so has forced me to think seriously about how I get the most of my limited training
time, because unlike the 10 or so years that came before, my training
time has become more limited. I have been searching for ways to maximise
my training time through the use of more efficient training, to
"leverage" better results from my training time. This, I believe, is
what BJJ teaches us; to apply the principles we learn on the mat into
our broader thinking. BJJ teaches us the concepts of leverage and of
maximum effect from minimum effort, so it makes sense to apply these
principles to the learning of technique and not just to the techniques
themselves.I have come up with a few ideas that help me to achieve my goal of improving the efficiency of my mat time, such as:
- Learn to see jiu jitsu in terms of concepts not individual techniques
- Train jiu jitsu movements not specific techniques
- Recognise useful parallels between different techniques
The great thing is that you can achieve all of these things simultaneously by training the right way. The interesting thing is that this article started it's life not being about maximising training efficiency, but about the parallels between several techniques that I have been teaching recently. However, as I started to thrash out a rough draft I started to realise that there were so many parallels that it was really better to step and speak about the broader concept. That said, I have chosen to highlight a few movement concepts that apply across a range of techniques, some are obvious parallels, others less so, but all are similar. I have listed the movement concept first with description and then I will list some different specific techniques that use them.
Rocking Chair – The first principle I call the "Rocking Chair" because the movement involves rocking the body forward and back or side to side on the butt without changing the position of the legs in relation to the body. So if the movement starts with he thighs at 90° from the torso then as you rock forward or back that posture is maintained. The most common example of this is seen in the Butterfly Hooks Sweep where the opponent is swept through the power of the entire body moving in unison as opposed to a 'kicking' motion with one leg as can be seen in this example. Various forms of spider guard also utilise it such as Kurt Osiander's "Butterfly Sweep" (one of my personal favourites) and Jeremy Arel's "Leg Weave Sweep". A favourite of mine is where these two sweeping styles meet through the utilisation of this principle in Michelle Nicolini's Shin Block Guard, which can be seen from about 0:50 in this one of BJJ Scout's brilliant videos.
Movement Angles – Perhaps a more obvious example of a movement concept is the creation of angles in guard. We teach all of our beginners that the secret to completing either a triangle, armbar or omoplata from the guard is in creating the right angle. Specifically we are referring to the angle we shift our bodies to in relation to our opponent. For a triangle this approximately 45°, an armbar it is 90° and for an omoplata it is 180°. The important thing is that hip movements we use to achieve this are the same, it is only the rotation that varies. So in principle training one technique entry assists with training them all.
These are two common concepts that apply in many techniques and highlight my point well. There
are of course many more, but I feel that these are sufficient for now. I
did consider discussing inverting from guard and how it could be
applied to spin through triangles, berimbolo or helicopter sweeps, but
this isn't my area of expertise and would only be repetitious. One other
area that I considered discussing was on passing and the fact that all
guard passes into three 'families' of passes, however I think that this
is a broad enough topic (and one that I am interested enough in) to
warrant it's own future article.In the meantime, stay safe and train SMART!
No comments:
Post a Comment