Another matwork drill for transition

A few days ago, I put up a video of a matwork drill to practice transition. Even though no one commented on it, possibly evidence of lack of interest in my transition drills, that has never stopped me before.

This next video is interesting - to me - because it shows a situation that happens often in teaching. You have players at different levels. In this case, there are a couple of young players who are pretty inexperienced and there are several more players who have been doing judo, grappling and jiu jitsu for years.




What I do is teach a technique where you throw and go straight into a pin, because as you know if you have read this blog before, I harp constantly on transition, even for six-year-old white belts.

As Aristotle supposedly said,

We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.

So, you may as well start getting in that habit from the beginning. Our young beginning players start out doing the throw into a pin and that is all they do. Fortunately, I have the inimitable Crystal Butts helping with this drill so when we split up she can go with that pair and help them get it down perfectly.

The next part of the drill has an arm bar combination from the pin, followed by another arm bar if the opponent escapes the first one.

So, it is - throw, pin, arm bar, arm bar again.

I am just going to keep putting these transition drills up, so there!

Does disapproving of this photo of Ronda make me look old?

We got the proof copy of our book on Monday. Jim and I got our edits to the editor today. There was not much to change. The editor says it will be available by March 29th at the latest. Maybe we'll luck out and it will be available as an ebook sooner.

It was interesting to me to see the photo they chose for the first page of the book. I didn't include it myself because even for my extremely low bar it seems not quite ladylike enough.

I guess I was bothered by the fact that she had a triangle choke and was sitting on Travis' neck. Not for the first time, though, it was pointed out that I am old and overly conservative when it comes to my daughters.

Ronda's comment was that for God's sake, she wasn't wearing a thong and that's how you do a triangle choke. I can vouch for that because poor Travis kept almost passing out when we were taking the photos. She kept having to - literally - let him up for air.

My husband thought the picture was really cool because she was choking, arm barring him and punching him all at the same time. Since he was the one who threw away her Eminem CD for being too obscene, I guess it is established then. I AM an old lady.

Some matwork drills for fun and profit

The profit you will get out of these drills, I hope, is a development of kinesthetic sense, that awareness of where your body is in space and relative to other objects, like your opponent, and the mat and the out of bounds area.

I do a lot of drills like the one shown below. I stole this idea shamelessly from Sid Kelly.

Players lay at each end of the mat. Then they roll toward the center. When they get near each other they start matwork.

About half of the book, Winning on the Ground, is on transition. My belief is that "golden seconds" happen often in a match. Those are that second when your opponent is not quite ready to attack or defend, the second when you pounce.

Once they are set, it is too late. That's why it can be hard for jiu-jitsu players to switch to judo (that and the fact that the judo rules seem to change every third Thursday of the month).  In jiu-jitsu, and grappling, you can stay on the mat for a long time. In judo, you just get a few seconds and they make you get up. So, how do you practice for that second of transition when 30 times as long is trying to get your technique on someone who is already on their guard?

Easy, you do lots of drills that just last a few seconds, where you practice that split second transition. Notice the drill above only lasts ten seconds.

I have a bunch more drills I'll upload all week. None of them are in the book. That's for our next book. I haven't talked Jim into that yet, so if you want to see another book, you better buy this one.

Yellow Belt Tests Today

I hate those clubs where a student has come to class for three months or six months and then one day the instructor says,

"Hey, Sid and Johnny, come to the front of the class. Now you're yellow belts."

I think there should be an actual test demonstrating your knowledge. People should know what is on the text, practice it and them show they know it. What should you know for your first belt rank? There are some VERY rigorous systems where people say,

"Oh, our yellow belts all know 14 throws, 11 pins and can climb the Eiffel Tower."

As my highly intelligent friend, Bruce Toups says,
A. Those people are lying and
B. What the hell are they trying to do, preserve the sanctity of the yellow belt?

I think people should know several throws that they can demonstrate reasonably well, how to fall, a turnover to a pin and a couple of pins. To document that they know that, I either ask another black belt to come watch the test - which is usually easy in LA where you can find a black belts every mile or two - or, as today, I videotape it and have another black belt watch it with me and agree, yes, those people have progressed beyond the point of complete beginner.

Today, we did yellow belt tests. Mr. Gonzales, history teacher and our school sponsor, and Mr. Sanchez, humble assistant and paraprofessional, demonstrated first to give the middle school students a little confidence after seeing their teachers do it. You can see the beginning of the test here.

My Views on Matwork, Via Facebook

I don't always chat on Facebook, but when I do, I talk about mat work ...

Here is one side of my Facebook conversation

Wrote a book with Jim Pedro, Sr. that will be out March 29th so that is awesome squared

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About matwork. The title is Winning on the ground
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It's for judo, grappling and mixed martial arts. One of our tenets though is that GOOD judo mat technicians beat everyone because they have to pull off a score in such a short period of time.
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Of course, so many judo people SUCK at matwork
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Ha! I think the rules should change so if they do that drop and flop crap you should not only not get a shido against you, you should be allowed to KICK them.

Agility-Ladder-less Agility Drills and Assessment

All teachers should have learned early in their career that periodic assessment is a good thing. Before you teach children multiplication, you give them a ten-minute test on addition. If they haven't mastered multiplication, there is no point in plowing ahead.

 The same thing is true when teaching judo. For many years, I had a problem with teaching beginning students to do forward throws, especially very young kids. One day, I had them do these simple agility ladder drills (I was at a more affluent club then where we could actually afford stuff) and I realized that the kids had trouble with the basic movement of just twisting your body around in the air.

 So, in every class now, from time to time I do some drills like this. Again, we do it in a relay race format, to make sure the students are putting out an effort, plus races like this are a good way to instill a competitive spirit without anyone getting hurt. Since we have no agility ladders, I just put belts on the mat and the students are to go as fast as they can down the line pivoting and then back again. Here is a few seconds in a clip to show you how it looks.

 

Warm-ups and exercises for agility without agility ladders

We don't have a lot of equipment at Gompers Middle School, but we do have a supply of good kids, good support from the school and good ideas. Not having an agility ladder, we improvised, using four belts.

This drill is very simple. Students are lined up in two groups and do a relay race. The first drill, they simply need to step both feet inside, one foot at a time, and both feet outside.

Today, we had worked on a foot sweep to o soto gari (an outside leg sweep). So I thought it would be a good idea to work on a drill that develops your ability to move your feet quickly and with coordination, without crossing them.

Notice the difference between the students who go earlier in the video and the student who goes last. It is his first day. I think the difference between the students illustrates the effectiveness of this type of drill.