Re-Thinking our approach...

The other night I had a great conversation with a good friend and training partner, and it made me re-think our entire approach of how we are doing, what we are doing. Are we on the best path possible?

I was talking about our membership and how I was finding it a bit difficult to get new people in through the door .We had just run a small advertising campaign and promoted a new beginners course for the January season- with no new sign-ups whatsoever. It was disheartening to say the least and I began to doubt my approach to how I am advertising or attempting to generate interest in the club.

Since we began the Leslieville Jiu-Jitsu Club 6 months ago, we have had what I am assuming is an average problem with most new start-up businesses- how to get more clients through our doors, and how to get our message out there for the public to hear. We are in a bit of a bind because we are operating from within another space. We are sharing space with a Yoga and Pilates studio, so the sign on the outside of the building doesn't have our name on it- which isn't that big of a problem, it just presents a challenge of how to explain how to find us. On the plus side- operating out of a Yoga and Pilates Wellness Centre is allowing us to identify with another side of Jiu-Jitsu.

The emphasis on a more holistic martial art rather than the underground fight club is something that I enjoy, and I believe that it translates over to the feel of our club. We are a bit more relaxed, and strive for 'play' not 'fight' when on the mats. And this was the way to go....or so I had been thinking.

Relaxed...too much?
When we first opened our doors and had the first few trials and students join in, no one had trained anywhere else before. We were dealing with beginner students and beginner athletes. So the idea was to teach classes at their level, and introduce them to a more athletic game as we progressed.

This also made for classes heavy on technical understanding, as the athletic level was lower. The pace of the class was slower, as we spent a bit of time introducing the concepts and walking through the techniques.

The concept behind all this was something which I was introduced to called 'Slow Rolling'. The idea is that through technical but relaxed and slow paced rolling, the body could develop areas of the game that it would not get a chance to experiment  with while under heavy pressure. The rolling is light pressure, slow pace, and with emphasis on technical control. Then we would pick up the pace as we began to drill the exercises.

From the feedback I have heard this was working well for those involved and was enjoyable. However, as we are finding out, you can have too much of a good thing. With only having experimental games there is not enough time spent under medium pressure where the students get to learn what doesn't work. Playing a lazy game and easily falling back into guard all the time is ok, if your guard is awesome and is a real threat. It is not so awesome to be in the habit of giving your opponents easy guard passes and top control because you only know how to go super-light pressure. We need an 'A' game before we work on the 'B' and 'C' games. It's time to let those stones drop...

From time to time we have had some of our friends come by that have trained before, and wanted a more relaxed environment than they had found in other clubs. They enjoyed the technical side of our classes and because they had not been on the mats regularly they didn't mind that the pace was a bit slower.

They also enjoyed the added safety of doing things relaxed and slowly- as in other clubs where the environment is heavily competitive, it can be overwhelming for non-competitors. When you just want to learn, and your partner is having a fight or die attitude, it can be a bit much. I have seen injuries from this mismatch of training values. It is important that the people who train together, have the same desire for pressure and intensity.

Friends in need
Then another friend joined in the club. This time however he was someone who had lots of previous training experience at a few different locations over a couple of years and has also worked with me privately for some time. He knew what he wanted, and he also knew of my technical understanding and enjoys working with the concepts I teach. The feedback I received from him was a bit different than what I was getting from other people- and it drives to the heart of what we do.

His suggestion was to go harder. The learning in class was too much and it therefore slowed the pace too much. Make it slightly more about the fight, and what I think he meant was to have less of the introduction and technical side of the class and more of the figure-it-out-by-doing-it side of the class. The suggestion was interesting but raised a couple of concerns right away.

1) I do not want the club to run its classes as some other clubs I have seen, where a technique is shown or explained briefly followed by the instructor announcing 'let's roll' and having the students figure everything out on their own, in the moment, under significant pressure. I want the students to be able to develop their experimental games as well as their pressure game, and to have all at a high degree of understanding .

2) I also did not want to loose the emphasis on the positive lifestyle and mental/physical benefits from the training. I did not want it becoming overly competitive and being all about the fight. We still need to have a high degree of technical ability and understanding in the classes.

Safe aggression
But these 2 points are a bit unfounded when I listened to him explain further. As we spoke in more length it became apparent that what he was talking about could be achieved without letting go of what is important to me. The suggestion was that by going harder in class, and making the class more athletic we would attract more students.

His opinion is that men, teenagers, or anyone who has apprehension or fear of aggression in their lives come to train to help deal with it. By getting into the wrestling match it supports the reason why people are attracted to BJJ in the first place- the desire or need to experiment with a kind of aggression. The fight response in a safe environment, much like almost every animal does in their social positioning of figuring out who is the alpha for their communities.

When we can do this in a sporting fashion so that it is about the athletic release while acquiring ability in the game, then we can take the emphasis off of the outcome, as it is not important who is the alpha for us. What is important is that we go through the process of the fight. The moral of the story...

Less IS More...

By teaching less in each class and shortening the introduction stage it will allow the students to concentrate on an individual aspect of rolling more fully. With less to absorb we can also allow for more time drilling and rolling rather than going over the technical learning and explanation.

This is different than not being as technical, it is just taking smaller steps to get there. I am to blame for the progression of the club so far, and am now also responsible to implement the change. I think because of my training experiences (which have been mostly seminars) I am used to learning several things at once, and usually in a small span of time. Then taking it back to digest it later- and I now realise that this is how I've been teaching a lot- by teaching a lot.

So we take it back to one concept or technique per class, and drill it like crazy. The fun and enjoyment of the art is in the doing, not in the learning about doing....and by doing more often we then bring it back to all the other benefits that martial arts can bring to the table. The aliveness and general well-being experienced only comes through when we have a high degree of doing in class.

Technical, but strong....

So the way we are moving forwards is really more aligned to where we should have been anyways. I may rethink our workload but I am not rethinking our training completely.

We will have shorter introduction phases only because I am teaching less in each class. Which means that the drilling opportunities will be longer and more frequent. And the overall biggest change is that our rolling time is increased.

In the days where all of my students time is more important than anything else, we have to make the training functional for everyone. When you have the chance to get out of the house, I want you coming home spent and tired. Not just mentally, but  exhausted physically too. I think this was the major thing we were missing and probably due to my own laziness. So we are going to go harder, to make us stronger in the game- we are not going to become a fight club.

So the new side of our training....is actually an old idea

This gives me the perfect chance to implement some of training models that I've been thinking on for years. I was going to wait until we were in our own space before bringing them all in, but there is no reason why I shouldn't start now with what we have thus far. So new concepts are probably more aligned with my old concepts of running the club- controlled and heavy focus on a specific area of the game or technical component during the free roll.

The base of our classes will be on this free roll concept, with technical instruction layered in on top. This reminds me of an open group I used to help run downtown and then in the east end under the name of TAP-Toronto Submission Fighting Group (You can view an old article from the Toronto Star Newspaper about the group. And on that note- look for the return of the TAP Group soon in our new location).

It was an environment where there was only free roll classes. It was up to the students to educate themselves outside of the training and work on their own, all the time. It was fun, but in reality- everyone in the group could have progressed much more quickly or fixed mistakes in their game with a bit more formal instruction. But it was super popular and attended regularly. We are getting back to this- except we are adding in the  drilling with set parameters, the area missing from the open group.

There will be specific days and times for instruction on particular areas, and we will have a general Q+A session each time we get on the mats. I am going to have structure to the program, so those of you looking for the old group will find something familiar, and those of you looking for guided instruction will find that as well.

Upcoming for this year with the club, we are going to be hosting guest instructors for seminars, other local clubs to have rolling days with, field trips to gyms as a club to roll with them, tournaments for those that have interest in competition. Lots upcoming, so keep in touch and let us know how you're liking it.

Leslieville Jiu-Jitsu Club