What I’ve Been Teaching These Days (2021)

I teach no-gi on Saturdays.
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(I’m the first person to wish it was gi, but never mind…)
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This is my only teaching slot, and I decided to run these Saturday classes the way I want to run classes.
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So, we hardly do standard warmups, like running around and all those things that will improve your running and warmups, but may or may not improve your jiu jitsu skills.
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I’m not entirely against those standard warmups, though. I think it depends on how much space your mat area has and how much time you have in your session. I also think typical movement drills like shrimping and crocodile walk can be beneficial.
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Being excellent at shrimping doesn’t mean your BJJ is excellent, but I can see there’s often a correlation between how well people do their standard warmup moves and how well they move when they do actual BJJ moves.
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Instead of these warmups that students do at every other class, I’ve been incorporating some games and pair drills to help students improve their balance, timing, and pressure, etc.
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Also, in one hour session, I cover a number of different moves and relevant drills… probably way too many if it’s a one-off class.
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But the thing is, I’m experimenting with this approach where I present a somewhat-minimal-and-complete system to students. This system covers from the initial contact in the standing position to the ground. (“System” may sound scary, but basically, it means a bunch of instructions based on scenarios that are super likely to happen. It can be as simple or complex as you wish it to be.)
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I don’t expect them to master (or even get) any of its components in one go. And we go over the same sequence every week, with a few key details or new moves added to the system from time to time.
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I have some rough ideas about what I want to include in the system, but I haven’t connected all the pieces yet. So, it’s still in progress!
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So far, some of the students commented that they enjoy this approach… and I can see them getting better, too.
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I feel that regular BJJ classes are structured like a grammar lesson or a vocabulary lesson for a foreign language. It’s great if these classes are well organized, but I suppose many aren’t.
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And for beginners, it may feel like instructors are shoving grammatical concepts or new vocabs to students without providing a context of how these grammatical concepts or words are used in a live conversation. As a consequence, the students have to figure out on their own… in the case of BJJ, they might have to make a lot of trials and errors in live sparring.
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My approach is more like giving students some concrete phrases they can use in a specific context.
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Like, when you meet new people in a social context, most of them are probably going to ask you similar questions (e.g. What’s your name? Where are you from? Why did you come here?).
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Or when you go to a supermarket in any developed country, cashiers are almost always going to ask you if you want/need a bag and sometimes whether you have a membership card for that supermarket.
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If you can understand what people are asking and respond to them accordingly, you will look as if you have a good grasp of the language even if you don’t understand the language much.
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They will still have to practice using these concrete responses in a real conversation (or using particular moves in sparring rounds).
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But I think it’s a better start than knowing 5,000 words without actually knowing how to put them together in a coherent sentence.
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Will they be able to “speak” BJJ fluently after going over the same stuff every week for a few months?
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It depends on what exactly you mean by fluency, but I bet they will be able to have moderate success against other folks and get a better overview of what BJJ is like as well as how each move can be connected.
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Let’s see how this experiment goes… and I will report it to you again in the future.