Developing a Grappling game

Martial Arts Training Forums BJJ and Advanced Grappling Forum
1

So last nigh I was teaching the adv grappling class and we were working on some lockdown transitions. We had two guests who seemed to have trained at other areas of the country and had a good understanding on what we were doing. Afterwards I started a conversation with one of them, I might have missed his point, but he definitely missed mine.

IMO I think each individual needs to start developing a game that best works for their body type. He was saying that you come in with what you got and you should learn it all and there will end up being an even playing field. I understand what he’s saying but I wasn’t going to encourage somebody with short stubby legs to develop a heavy guard game based on triangle, armbar combinations. I would develop a reversal game based on trying to regain top control. Am I off on this? What do you guys think? To be clear I think everybody should learn all aspects of the game so that you understand that part of the game in case somebody uses it against you.

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[QUOTE=Omega Supreme;2991590]So last nigh I was teaching the adv grappling class and we were working on some lockdown transitions. We had two guests who seemed to have trained at other areas of the country and had a good understanding on what we were doing. Afterwards I started a conversation with one of them, I might have missed his point, but he definitely missed mine.

IMO I think each individual needs to start developing a game that best works for their body type. He was saying that you come in with what you got and you should learn it all and there will end up being an even playing field. I understand what he’s saying but I wasn’t going to encourage somebody with short stubby legs to develop a heavy guard game based on triangle, armbar combinations. I would develop a reversal game based on trying to regain top control. Am I off on this? What do you guys think? To be clear I think everybody should learn all aspects of the game so that you understand that part of the game in case somebody uses it against you.[/QUOTE]

It’s a sort of conundrum every coach faces. At least I have.

I agree with you, that a (serious) student needs to learn all aspects, but will have to develop his/her own “game” (I hate that phrase) that to move to high intermediate/advanced and certainly elite levels.

It goes along with developing a solid grasp and ability to execute basics/fundamentals, while minimizing mistakes, then branching out from there.

In Judo, part of the problem with developing into elite levels (or even advanced) is the transition from “kiddy judo” to “adult Judo” (adult meaning higher level competition).

Travis Stephens said (at a multi-day Judo clinic/training camp) of his I went to that it takes him minimum of 1 year of intense practice to undo all problems with most young judoka who want to and try to transition to high-performance level of Judo. That’s not reach that level, but to be properly prepped to continue training.

I’ve got short legs, and me trying to do the triangle/armbar thing just won’t work. Yeah, I know how, and the transitions (or did, can’t really train now for months) was just silly. Which is why from Judo my reversal/sweep stuff worked in BJJ, to a certain extent.

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Replace “short stubby legs” with “amputee” in your inquiry, and I think you will start to find the answer you’re looking for.

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[QUOTE=Omega Supreme;2991590]So last nigh I was teaching the adv grappling class and we were working on some lockdown transitions. We had two guests who seemed to have trained at other areas of the country and had a good understanding on what we were doing. Afterwards I started a conversation with one of them, I might have missed his point, but he definitely missed mine.

IMO I think each individual needs to start developing a game that best works for their body type. He was saying that you come in with what you got and you should learn it all and there will end up being an even playing field. I understand what he’s saying but I wasn’t going to encourage somebody with short stubby legs to develop a heavy guard game based on triangle, armbar combinations. I would develop a reversal game based on trying to regain top control. Am I off on this? What do you guys think? To be clear I think everybody should learn all aspects of the game so that you understand that part of the game in case somebody uses it against you.[/QUOTE]
I disagree. Marcelo Garcia and his huge thighs and short stub legs should have just played full guard and left that silly x-guard stuff alone… then maybe he could have accomplished something in the sport. :-p

At a certain point putting lipstick on a pig ain’t gonna cut it. Rocky Marciano trying to be HW fighter that worked from the outside behind a jab for 12 rounds doesnt make sense considering he has the shortest reach in HW history. Leaping in and uncorking thunder puts him in the rarefied aire of undefeated HW Champion. The only one to retire undefeated.

5

Hmm, interesting conundrum. I guess it really depends on the point at which you are going to try and transition to elite level. The thing I tend to tell people is that you need to have the fundamental movements down and good control of your body BEFORE you start trying to modify a technique or develop a “game”. The reason for this is simple. If you cannot get your body to DO the things that you want, and feel the responses from an actively resisting opponent, then you won’t be able to drill intelligently enough to develop a real “game” anyway.

6

Specializing the teaching curriculum to body type (or not),
Specializing to ruleset (or not),
Specializing to uniform (or not),
Specializing to trend or going unorthodox,
Specializing to one side or training to be able to play both sides of the body,
Even whether or not to specialize to opponents who you know your athlete is going to face,
Are all questions coaches and athletes (or practitioners) need to consider.
The one and perhaps only thing that I know for sure, is that there is more than one way to do things.
It ultimately comes down to goal selection.

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[QUOTE=submessenger;2991593]Replace “short stubby legs” with “amputee” in your inquiry, and I think you will start to find the answer you’re looking for.[/QUOTE]

I know a BJJ black belt with one leg amputated, from Montana. He is hell on wheels, and no triangles. Definitely a reverse and stay on top kind of guy, wicked chokes from pins. I learned some cool stuff from him.

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[QUOTE=BKR;2991592].
.

In Judo, part of the problem with developing into elite levels (or even advanced) is the transition from “kiddy judo” to “adult Judo” (adult meaning higher level competition).
[/QUOTE]

What does this entail?

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[QUOTE=Raycetpfl;2991608]What does this entail?[/QUOTE]

If I had a complete understanding, I’d be a much better judo coach. Or at least I’d feel like less of a dunce.

Travis, Pedro, et al., from what I can tell over the decades (literally) have pretty specific ideas about Judo, especially what it takes to make it at elite level. From gripping to moving to throwing, transition, groundwork, etc.

I’ll share my experience, FWIW. Bear with me…
1.) At a fundamental level, kids doing Judo is different than adults doing Judo, due to psychology and physiology. Kids (pre-pubescent and into middle teen, depending on physical maturity/genetics/and level of athletic development. This all obvious, so bear with me. Judoka tend to reach peak around mid-20s (Olympics/WC level), when maximal physical maturity happens. Plus, from what I’ve been told/taught, it takes around 10 years to reach technical maturity from time serious training begins for HP athletes (around 12-14 y.o.a.). So that makes sense in terms of numbers.

2.) Most kids are doing Judo for fun (I’m talking USA now, MMV in other countries). So, playing games, having fun, getting in some athletic developement, not necessarily in any sort of progressive or program-like, thoughtful way. Maybe doing some tournaments, maybe not. This will vary, of course, I’m writing about averages. Now, it’s possible to develop solid fundamentals for kids, but, I’m not so sure a lot of low-level coaches know or care. I think/hope it is getting better, but the USA still does not have any sort organized system for development (as does Canada), or unified coach education system. I know you’ve looked at the Canadian coaching stuff, so you know what I mean.

3.) With that background in mind, again, my take on it, what Travis et al may be getting at.

4.) Grip: How to get a grip, where to grip on judogi. Nothing fancy, just the fundamentals for gripping same side verse same side, and opposite grips. This has to be burned into your system, to where you don’t think about it, it’s automatic.

3.) Posture and “stance”. Are you a lefty or a righty ? Pick one and stick with it, but be able to throw well to opposite side from you “strong” side. Maintain shizenhontai (upright posture).

4.) Movement: Move correctly on tatami, sliding feet, not shifting weight back and forth, maintain your favored stance, no switching feet.

5.) Integrate movement and gripping, at very basic level.

6.) throwing: Fundamental throwing skills. I get hazy here, as Travis went into a fair amount, but the gist was that he starts people off statically to develop “strength in position”, and wants to see total control from static throwing position first. I don’t disagree with him, for sure, and ironically, I USED to be able to perform what he seemed to want to see.
He may have a video out there about it, but I have not seen it yet. There is a difference between throws like Uchi Mata and Seoi Nage in that respect, in terms of body positioning.
He went into great detail about how he does his Ippon Seoi Nage, like, BJJ level black belt level, and I know you know what I mean. So I’m not going to try to repeat that one, LOL.

*Disclaimer: I am not pretending to represent anything Travis said or demonstrated. Like I wrote, I THINK I understand some of it, and that’s about it. He was blowing my mind with his instruction, and watching him do full-on Judo with the bigger, more experienced athletes was simply amazing.

I gotta get back to work, to much paper piled up, plus there is a bigwildlands fire burning towards my ex’es and kids’ house up north.

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In my opinion, at my level (amateur) the correct approach is for the coach to teach everything at the same level, then people will naturally come to prefer this or that technique, and to develop a “game”.
At agonistic level, athletes are supposed to know what their favorite moves/game is, and the coach should tailor training to the specific game of the athlete.

We are speaking of a different kind of instruction and purpose: group instruction VS personalized, learning a martial art VS developing counterstrategies against specific opponents etc.
In a self defense / street fighting class, for example, the second approach doesn’t make sense because there are too many variables.

I base this on my Judo experience, I think that in striking this does not exist or at least is much less relevant, as striking is less situational.

The problem is that in Judo, for example, starting with an high collar grip creates completely different situations than starting with a double sleeve grip, with a level of difference between the two that isn’t marched by differences of stances in striking.

If we compare training to having a map of combat, grappling is like a maze where you have to know every nook and cranny of the specific local place where you end up more often, but this makes sense only when you already know where you tend to end up and have control over most variables.
Striking on the other hand is like a well ordered set of roads where however you are supposed to drive extremely fast.

11

I have a fairly stocky build, but the triangle and the armbar are my A game under white belt ibjjf rules. You just need to get there differently I think.

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I certainly think everyone should have a strong fundamental understating of well lets say the fundamentals.
That should include a number of concepts, positions, standard (even not so standard submissions), and takedowns/throws.
That is different than developing a game plan.
Ones game plan should certainly reflect what they are physically and technically capable of.
I believe that John Danaher wrote or talked about something to this effect, he expects his beginner students to have a certain mastery of fundamentals before moving on to forming a game plan.
Though I could be confused as to where I picked that up that from.

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I also believe that in most academies, the fundamental issue is much deeper than whether to encourage people with different body types to focus on certain positions.

The more important, but related issue is the fact that most schools do a shitty job of coaching altogether. Most BJJ schools are ran by teachers, not by coaches. This is mostly dictated by the for-profit status of most BJJ schools. It becomes more like a classroom. More about giving everybody a learning opportunity and less about developing individuals to become high level competitors.

My kid trains at a school with a bunch of solid black belt instructors. Family atmosphere and all that. The advantage of that is that they’ve built one of the best kids and teens programs around because the friendly atmosphere is conducive to a shit ton of training partners who compete and they feed off of each other. But they’re not really developed as athletes by their coaches. Not really. He gets real coaching at wrestling and honestly, his Judo coach is much better at coaching an individual than any of his BJJ coaches.

Some BJJ schools have legitimate coaching, but I’d say they are few and far between. I’d say if you are at a school and nobody is helping to guide the overall development of your game, then you’re at a school with shitty coaches. If nobody is mentoring you and guiding your progress, you have shitty coaches. If you are at a school where “coaching” consists of making a few corrections to your technique and/or yelling at you while you’re competing, then you have shitty coaches.

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[QUOTE=ghost55;2991692]I have a fairly stocky build, but the triangle and the armbar are my A game under white belt ibjjf rules. You just need to get there differently I think.[/QUOTE]

I would never say it’s impossible, regardless of how one is built. And at a fundamental level, triangle and straight arm bar are, well, fundamentals, and there are ways to work with/around physique.

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[QUOTE=Devil;2994356]I also believe that in most academies, the fundamental issue is much deeper than whether to encourage people with different body types to focus on certain positions.

The more important, but related issue is the fact that most schools do a shitty job of coaching altogether. Most BJJ schools are ran by teachers, not by coaches. This is mostly dictated by the for-profit status of most BJJ schools. It becomes more like a classroom. More about giving everybody a learning opportunity and less about developing individuals to become high level competitors.

My kid trains at a school with a bunch of solid black belt instructors. Family atmosphere and all that. The advantage of that is that they’ve built one of the best kids and teens programs around because the friendly atmosphere is conducive to a shit ton of training partners who compete and they feed off of each other. But they’re not really developed as athletes by their coaches. Not really. He gets real coaching at wrestling and honestly, his Judo coach is much better at coaching an individual than any of his BJJ coaches.

Some BJJ schools have legitimate coaching, but I’d say they are few and far between. I’d say if you are at a school and nobody is helping to guide the overall development of your game, then you’re at a school with shitty coaches. If nobody is mentoring you and guiding your progress, you have shitty coaches. If you are at a school where “coaching” consists of making a few corrections to your technique and/or yelling at you while you’re competing, then you have shitty coaches.[/QUOTE]

That happens at Judo as well. YMMV, depending on the emphasis of the program.

So what you are describing is (besides the profit motive to keep people around…to excel at competition is another level of training) “recreational” versus “competitive” type of training.

So, for example, Judo Canada has different “tracks” for people, a elite/high performance track, coaching/reffing tracks, etc. Most other major judo countries will have the same sort of set-up, up to and including world/olympic level competition.

BJJ just does not seem that overall organized, due to lack of a true international governing body system, plus, mostly for-profit business model.

BJJ started that way, Judo didn’t, especially in the USA.

I’m sure there are some BJJ schools/academies that offer excellent coaching, but there isn’t really a unified system for training coaches, as far as I can tell.

edit- Glad to see you didn’t drown in the storm, BTW !

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[QUOTE=sweats;2994376]Never thought I would say it, but I agree with Devil.

Sent from my SM-G920V using Tapatalk[/QUOTE]

Devil is quite often a thoughtful and insightful poster.

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[QUOTE=BKR;2994379]That happens at Judo as well. YMMV, depending on the emphasis of the program.

So what you are describing is (besides the profit motive to keep people around…to excel at competition is another level of training) “recreational” versus “competitive” type of training.

So, for example, Judo Canada has different “tracks” for people, a elite/high performance track, coaching/reffing tracks, etc. Most other major judo countries will have the same sort of set-up, up to and including world/olympic level competition.

BJJ just does not seem that overall organized, due to lack of a true international governing body system, plus, mostly for-profit business model.

BJJ started that way, Judo didn’t, especially in the USA.

I’m sure there are some BJJ schools/academies that offer excellent coaching, but there isn’t really a unified system for training coaches, as far as I can tell.

edit- Glad to see you didn’t drown in the storm, BTW ![/QUOTE]

Interestingly, the BJJ team or affiliation organizations that do invest a lot of time teaching their instructors how to teach are often regarding as “McDojos” by large chunks of the BJJ community.
It’s hard to watch, sometimes, the BJJ community in-fight and getting in their own way.
There is a constant push-pull between the thug element, the no pedagogy element, and then the groups that actually try to be professional and institutional but also carry the for profit model which kind of makes everyone else suspicious, (or jealous when their revenues are known to be large), sometimes rightfully so.

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[QUOTE=WFMurphyPhD;2994386]Interestingly, the BJJ team or affiliation organizations that do invest a lot of time teaching their instructors how to teach are often regarding as “McDojos” by large chunks of the BJJ community.
It’s hard to watch, sometimes, the BJJ community in-fight and getting in their own way.
There is a constant push-pull between the thug element, the no pedagogy element, and then the groups that actually try to be professional and institutional but also carry the for profit model which kind of makes everyone else suspicious, (or jealous when their revenues are known to be large), sometimes rightfully so.[/QUOTE]

Let’s face it though, a heavy emphasis on competition isn’t going to be a highly profitable/high cash flow type of business model, for the most part. The “McDojo” type of model is going to bring in a lot more steadily paying students with deeper pockets. There is a movement afoot in American judo to go that direction, being the for-profit business model of “judo for everyone”. If you follow the judo coaches connection bookface page you know what I mean.

The intersection of for-profit, and having a highly organized program would not be without pitfalls, I imagine. People pay their money and want their cookie (belt), eventually…

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[QUOTE=BKR;2994392]Let’s face it though, a heavy emphasis on competition isn’t going to be a highly profitable/high cash flow type of business model, for the most part. The “McDojo” type of model is going to bring in a lot more steadily paying students with deeper pockets. There is a movement afoot in American judo to go that direction, being the for-profit business model of “judo for everyone”. If you follow the judo coaches connection bookface page you know what I mean.

The intersection of for-profit, and having a highly organized program would not be without pitfalls, I imagine. People pay their money and want their cookie (belt), eventually…[/QUOTE]
The Riddle of Belts,
Like the Riddle of Steel…

//youtu.be/wgN1sLcAQnw