I Went To The Jiu Jitsu Gym That Never Drills

I took a class at Standard Jiu Jitsu, a gym where they never drill yet have high-level competitors. I did not expect them to train the way they did.

CODE: JOSHRICHBJJ

[jtom]

I think the, "I do/don't drill" is semantics. Playing a game means your drilling a concept. High end drilling is essentially positional sparring, since you're going to want resistance. So games are just positional sparring with more freedom.

[MrTresto]

So they're doing situational training with mini-games (in other words, a more elaborate form of drilling) rather than mindless movement drill without variation. Yeah that's better. So they are drilling, just drilling better.

[TerryCaber]

My school recently adopted this method of teaching and I gotta say I love it. I’m a person who watches tons of tutorials and I could break down how to do an omoplata but if you asked me to do it in a roll it wouldn’t happen. This method really helps by limiting a roll to simple objectives with tons of creative ways to accomplish them. It’s absolutely improved me more than drilling ever has.

[ABomm]

Coming from a wrestling background, it was very common to do 'situational wrestling' where we would simulate scenarios like the single leg finish at 100%. There would be like 10 sets of 15second sprints.

However, for wrestling I still think that drilling is necessary for learning since many moves have so many moving parts that you need to focus on individually, which is hard to do during live 100%.

[danielt]

I think different people respond differently to different types of training. Danaher for example found major success by breaking down moves to exact concepts and going through theory, where as over people just drill tones till they can do shit automatically. I can definitely see this working for a certain amount of people

[AxaFin]

I think this somehow makes you focus more on objectives which in turn has a bigger likelihood of putting you into the "flow" mode. You eliminate unnecessary things about techniques and just focus on the grappling itself and manipulating your training partner. This seems like a path into the right direction.

[SpiralBJJ]

I’m a BJJ Black Belt that’s been training for over 14 years, learning about Ecological Dynamics and the Constraints Led Approach has made training and coaching fun again.

I wanna do more with less and I like how Greg is trying to distill everything, I feel it allows me to better develop my intuition and become a more creative problem solver.

It’s good to be skeptical and have criticism but at least check out Rob Gray before writing this all off as, “It’s just drilling with a different name”.

[everydaychristianapologeti]

I love this. One of the things I hated about drills, was that it was tiring as hell, and didn't seem to produce fruit. When drilling there was next to no resistance and, yes, you can get the move down (with no resistance). But as soon as we rolled, you not only got the resistance and the inability to repeat what you had just mastered. But your partner already knew what you were trying to do, so they went out of their way to block it, knowing you were only going to approach it the way it was drilled a half hour ago. I hated drills for that reason, and progressed mostly during rolls and experimenting with movement within that session. I love what you're doing and wish I could join your gym.

[danielashman]

Thoughtful video. Thank you for sharing.

[aicemen]

This is great content! It should be spread out more, I have ADHD and learning through mini games is something that I wish was more implemented... Never seen a gym focused on this. Im no teacher (purple) but I have a few friends who are very new to bjj and I was using this kind of games instead of positions to help them understand the concepts

[OdinsHallsBrazilianJiuJitsu]

Love this approach to teaching! I throw in stuff like this all the time

[Verinius]

This is very educational for me! Thank you so much for making this video!

[markzuckerberg]

I'm a brown belt. Drilling sucks. I wish I went to this school. When I teach classes, I try to incorporated as much "live" training in the classes as I can. Some good Ideas in this video.

[jimmie]

In wrestling we call that situational drilling. Where basically you start in on the beginning of a technique and then work to finish it. Instead of starting from standing neutral position where you are face to face with a partner. For example you start in on a single leg. You already have a one of your knees up and one of your knees down, along with your hands locked around your partner’s leg. Coach will either start the clock or your partner taps you to initiate the countdown on when to begin the situational drill. Once you begin you’re able to work on finishing the single, rather than shooting from the neutral position to get to your partner’s leg to finish. We do this with any move because it eliminates the time wasted when someone is working to get to a setup for a move and gets you to have a match type/competition like feel to it depending on the amount of intensity that’s output by both you and a partner. Typically we would go by percentages like coach would say “defensive guy put X amount of effort in defending” against the person on the offensive side of the move; or go balls to the wall on both guys to get a live feel of the technique.

[danInRealife]

love this video! you seem to put good content out more frequently than others. i appreciate it very much!

[Jesse-qkwn]

I wish my gym taught this way. The games look fun

[jmurrayathletics]

Interesting concept, seems like a mixed approach might have the most benefit

[TheMightyMcClaw]

I dig it. One of the biggest strengths of grappling arts has been there emphasis on live training and autodidactic learning models, and this doubles down on both.

[Gunnar-Peterson]

I think more of this training makes more sense, I never liked drilling. When you're drilling you're doing the same thing over and over again under perfect scenarios, real life never works that way. Most of grappling is those in between moments and movements

[lcb]

That's awesome, love when I get independent confirmation on things! Much of my training is this concepts-based gamified approach, yet still have a place for old school drilling with beginner students who prefer to learn that way.