The Man-Alive Grappling Curriculum

The Man-Alive Martial Arts grappling and Jiu-Jitsu classes follow a rotating schedule of covered topics. I really enjoy the idea of a reoccurring lesson plan, as it allows me to really look at positions and options multiple times from other angles. Each time I teach an idea, I learn a bit more myself, so even teaching the same thing twice -it is never the same.

There are no secrets in training. I'm happy to share our way of doing things in an effort to bring the community together. If you'd like any further explanations of what we do, please email me. Enjoy.

Friday, September 3, 2010

Top Game Month Begins - Fundamentals

Last night was the start of our Top Game month. That's right, September is fully devoted to the top game. In this first class of the month, I reversed how we usually do things at the club, namely Thursdays are usually our Technical days and Sundays are usually our Fundamental days -but not this week.

So we started this week and month off with the top game focus. Namely we began our introduction of the SOJ cross-sides ideas, but again we were very light on the detail of technique, spending all of our time on the details of the Fundamentals of the top game in general. I was trying to pass along the progression of when the top game fits into your guard pass, and when the defenses need to be in place to shut down the escape routes. As almost always whenever I am teaching, I can hear my own coaches in my head as I review the lessons learned from them, and in turn pass along the lessons as I have absorbed them.

Class started with general warm-ups in the way of line drills of shrimping and other movement exercises across the mats. Sometimes we run, sometimes we move in drills, sometimes we slow-roll. Today we did line drills for a couple minutes. Then we proceeded to the real warming of our Ju-Jitsu, and began light guard surfing drills incorporating 4 of the call-out pressures against an open guard. The bottom opponent's task was to hold the open guard, and reacquire guard if it is passed. We were going at 50%, meaning in pace and tempo, as well as grip strength. If either opponent attempted to break a grip, or step out of a hold, or re pummel for position, they should be able to achieve their goal without having to escalate the tempo and pace or speed of the match. It is more about using angle and timing to stay ahead of your opponent in the drill. The top person was reacting to the call out from the coach, and attempting to adjust as fast as possible (meaning change to the pressure being call-out, not in term of speed) to move with the new pressure.

As we were working through the drill, I noticed a couple of different ways in which we were adjusting to the call-outs. One observation is that upon hearing the new call out, the student would have quite a lag in changing to the new pressure. Some of this lag-time could be attributed to processing time. Needing to hear the call, recognise what the call meant, orienting to the new movement mentally, and then giving the directions to the body to move as desired. In a beginner athlete this process takes time, in someone who has been training their body to take commands from the brain, much less time is required. Take a look at athletes adjusting within the split seconds of their sport to get the win. In our case, even if some of this lag-time was attributed to mental processing, what we were observing in class was also the effect of waiting for a perfect time to change pressures. The drill is supposed to allow the student to witness the effects of changing pressures rapidly or frequently. Creating combinations that they otherwise might not put together themselves. We corrected this after speaking about it, so the students were changing the pressure when they heard the call, attempting to not wait until they felt good about the change but responding more rapidly. This is when the second of our observations came about. The students although they were now changing pressure more rapidly, were in the habit of re-setting, and moving back to a place where they started the drill from as the transitioned to the new pressure. Instead of using the combinations of pressure to advance their position from where ever they found themselves, they would reset and use the new pressure to try to advance their position from the beginning, then reset and use the new pressure. This was corrected by again, drawing our attention to it, and by also changing the pressures more frequently, using more call-outs. I think in the future with students who have never experienced this drill I will bring attention to these details before we begin, maybe these reactions are all my fault as a coach.

Warm-up over, we reviewed our guard passing fundamentals with no resistance. A plain walk through of the steps along the way. we began at the feet/leg passing the open guard, so our first step was keeping the legs open (opposed to opening the legs). As we went through the steps of passing the guard, it also introduces the first motions of our Fundamental Top game. Stopping the bottom person from pulling guard again, and attaching to the upper body, in this case we were using the cross-sides position with attention to the cross-face. During our walk through, we were stopping at each step along the way, and drilling a quick isolation round at that position, then moving to the next step and drilling for a moment. We were able to progress right through to Holding position in this stop and drill manner. Once there, we took it back to guard passing, and did a walk-through of the complete guard pass to top game holding position. And then we drilled the top game a little more completely, using all the steps along the way in motion, without stopping until cross-sides and holding position.

Wow, an hour and a half went fast today. See you Sunday...

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