BJJ Specific training is great for improvement

I love specific training for BJJ and I see it as the key for improvement. I am going to tell you what I do to make the most out of my training session by improving quality when increase quantity is not possible.

Disclosure:

• what you’ll read here is my opinion based on my knowledge of the time of writing.
• you should always try things yourself and come up with your conclusions.

My background in sports and BJJ start

I started BJJ in Late 2013, immediately after the end of the soccer season. I also did Muay Thai, kickboxing, and Boxing in 2012/2013, at the same time as soccer. Before martial arts, I played soccer my whole life, since I started to walk. When I started on BJJ, the most transferable soccer skills I brought across was the specific training system.

In soccer, you don’t play a full pitch match every training session. Most of the training sessions are small segments of the game or specific situations. Here are some examples: drill short passes, penalty kicks, crossing drills, corner kicks, high ball control, ball shielding for 1 minute, short pitch games with two touches allowed. Maybe once a week have a game in a full pitch, 11 on each side.

My favorite soccer drill was to take on one defender, dribble and shoot to the goal. I repeated this so many times and was able to perform the same moves naturally during the matches.

The BJJ training in almost every academy

In most academies, you do 10–15 minutes warm up, drill some passing guard, or something equivalent. Then the instructor shows a position and one variation. Let’s take the Lasso guard sweeps for example. The instructor definitely shows you how to get to the Lasso guard — it can be a challenge sometimes to get to your desired guard. After that, you do the famous “two each side guys”, with or without a Brazilian accent. The last thing is the fun part: sparring! Probably the reason everyone is there for!

Here is a question for you:

During real-time sparring, how many times are you able to perform the two Lasso sweeps you drilled at the class minutes before?

If your answer is zero or near this number, I am going to tell you what I do.

This is why I believe if you do real-time drills, starting with the Lasso guard, sweeps are limited to the two you have just learned, you’ll become better for sure.

Some could say in a real fight, you need to get into the Lasso first. Sometimes this is the hardest part. Well, let's drill this specific part too. You could drill pull open guard and your goal is to get into Lasso guard no matter what. The goal of your training partner is you to prevent you from getting into the Lasso guard. If you achieve your goal, you win! Then start again from standing position, pull guard. Repeat 100 times.

We had similar drills in our competition class. On a regular basis, you may not have time to practice this during class. That’s where your friends come in handy.

I used to catch up with my friend Yuri Marques, go to an academy with mats available, and do those drills. Sometimes, we drilled for 4 hours in one day. Yuri introduced me to jiu-jitsu and I am going to write another post about that in the future.

Let’s go to specifics

We have a competition class every Tuesday. Sometimes we do short and specific training. For example, 1–2 minutes in a position, if you escape, you go back to the starting point. It could be passing guard only, start on guard 50/50 and get out, start inclosed guard with a broken posture. Your goal is to restore posture, stand up and open the guard. Another good drill is to start from the back and escape while the partner tries to submit. There are so many different possibilities. This is definitely the best way to develop in my opinion.

You don’t have this kind of specific train session every week. So how can you make that happen for you?

Training smart

I usually have two priorities:

1- practice what the instructor showed that class of what he/she is showing that week (Not that cool flying berimbolo you saw on Youtube).

2- execute my training plan. I always have a training plan. I know exactly what I am going to work on that day or week. During warm-up, I look around and select in my mind all my sparring partners. I usually experiment with lots of techniques. For example, I am currently working on passing guard and control the hips. I select some flexible white or blue belt with a very good guard and spend 5 minutes trying to pass the legs and control the hips. If I achieve my objective I win, otherwise, I lose (lose precious time). I allow a guard recovery and go back to my specific asap! There are only 5 minutes! I keep repeating the same thing and don’t need to tell anyone I am doing specific training.

How white belts are helpful for your development

You drilled the insane “two each side” with a dead dummy. Now it’s time to do sparring. Make your training with white belts specific. You’ll surely be able to get to the Lasso guard and practice control first. Once you can get to the Lasso and control, you can try with the ones on your level (purple belts in my case).

Something I do offer is to find out what are my training partners' strengths. We had one blue belt Per L which had the impassable flexible guard game. Not enough, he started to play worm guard. That was awesome to see someone starting on BJJ over 40 and demonstrate outstanding skills in less than 2 years of training. As you might already guess, my training sessions with him was simply put me into his worm guard and try to pass. It was getting harder and harder to get side control. I had to revisit my goal. My new goal was to break or get out of this worm guard. If I achieve that, I go back to the worm guard until the roll ends. This is how I make my training specific and don’t need to tell my training partner what I am doing.

Summary

You should always practice what your instructor is showing. It is also very beneficial to put some structure on your training. You should identify areas you to improve. Eventually, you should train your full game or train like a competition where you control and progress positions. Remember training is a place to get better, not to win or lose.

Call to Action

Talking about a gameplan, go ahead to check out the BJJ flowchart online tool. You can build your gameplan like a flowchart, add details to positions, and links to videos.

If you have any questions or comments, please find me on Twitter:
Tweet to @LeonardoBrAu