Teaching Game-plan - 1st 12 months ...

Instructors often ask for advice on how to approach teaching beginners .. ie: What to teach and what order to teach it in ...

There are as many ways to approach to teaching of BJJ as there are ways of teaching people how to play chess. There is no definitive method - but i will outline the method that I most commonly use - and I have acheived very good results from it:

FIRST RULE: Do NOT have them wrestle! They don't have skills yet - so by exposing them to wrestling right away - it can only lead to a negative experience - then they will quit training. So hold off on that score for a bit!

START BY: introducing them to the Fundamentals (in my world - these are a very specific 4 drills and 24 techniques: Once they have these Fundamentals 'roughed out' - and can execute them without prompting - non-stop - then they are ready (and qualified) to start grappling/wrestling/rolling.

THE NEXT STEP:
Once they have started grappling - it then becomes time to take an 'organic coaching' approach. ie: deal with the problems that the students are having - as they arise out of the sparring. This will be diferent for every student - and thats's why the approach at this stage cannot be an overly structured approach. It's problem solving time. Contiinue with this until the student feels 'comfortable' and no longer 'lost in the chaos'.

AND THEN: we are ready to start developing a 'specific game' for the student. My advice here is to develop a game that suits the position they tend to find themselves in most often.
ie: if they are on the bottom - work a Guard gameplan; if they are in Side Control a lot of the time - then work a an attack gameplan from side control.
But bit by bit - develop 'mini' gameplans' in most common positions - from both defensive and offensive persepctives. this will take some time - and should see you well through the first two years of training.

That is a very good and 'tried and true' methodolgy that has worked very well for me for a long time now.

I hope it helps.
best wishes all,
JBW

Comments

Popular Posts