The Power of Drilling

Connection Rio Crew surf outing with Master Sylvio Berhing. Picture by Hywel Teague

 
Brief week in Review
The time is flying by down here in Brazil, new faces have arrived this week and friends that have been down here our entire trip have gone home. Unfortunately this week I didn’t get in as much training as I would have liked because I had a few important things I had to get finished up. While I didn’t make it much into formal classes I did get a lot of reps in outside of class.



Hard sparring with Connection Rio's Dennis Asche.
Picture by bjjpix.com

Dennis’ class was, as always an intense training. What I really enjoy about the class is that it is the perfect blend of functional drills, technique, and live rolls. He (Dennis) pushes each person to find their niche and develop it into a strong game. With me being a wrestler at heart Dennis pushes me to always pick up the pace, remain in the offense, and initiate scrambles. Sometimes this is easier said than done, especially when you roll against another offensive player such as Dennis. This week however I was bound and determined to take the offensive to him. Time started and I gripped Dennis’ lapel and ripped it down waiting for his reaction so I could shoot for a takedown. Instead Dennis wrist locked me and made me tap…all in about 15 seconds. Well, they say BJJ is all about humility. The rest of the roll was great and intense with a flurry of scrambles, and fast paced rolling. The other rolls all went good, though I tweaked my knee a bit defending a sweep. Though it was nothing serious my knee was stiff and a little tender for a couple of days. During this time I spent time on the mat drilling passes and takedowns, breaking them down and focusing on the little things that make them work. Also this week I got some great mitt work in with Austin, who is from Canada. After second his second trip to Phuket Thailand, he went home for three days and headed down here to Brazil to train with coral belt Master Sylvio Behring down at X-Gym. It felt good to work my boxing, plus mix some more mma minded striking to takedowns in. Speaking of Sylvio Behring in addition to being a coral belt he is also an avid surfer, and on Friday morning a big group from CR headed down to Barra Beach where we met Sylvio and spent the morning surfing (or at least trying to). Nicole was a natural at surfing. She got up on the board and road a wave on her first try and had continued success. I didn’t take to it quite as fast. It was however a very fun time and I hope to be able to try it again soon (Nicole is sold on surfing, and now wants a board). I rounded out the week with a run to ship rock, cutting 3 minutes off my time. Even though the run is exhausting, I enjoy being pushed both mentally and physically. The best part of the run though is cooling down on top of ship rock. Over looking Barra, hearing birds, insects and water running off rocks it really sets things in perspective and allows me to enjoy where I am and think about where I want to go in life. This week Nicole accompanied me and has her set time mark and I think she is going to try to run to ship rock once a week as well.


Drilling Heel Hooks with Dawud at the in house training session with Edson Diniz.
 photo by bjjpix.com

　
The power of drilling

In my wrestling career drilling was essential my success, looking back you would be hard pressed to find a practice that didn’t involve some sort of drilling exercise. In order to progress we must be able to internalize and master the techniques and concepts that we learned. I believe that in the U.S. there is a large focus on drilling and repetition of new techniques, with sparring coming in closer to the tail end of the session (not to say that there isn’t hard sparring). In Brazil, while techniques are drilled, I feel like there is a greater emphasis on the live rolling. Down here the idea of gameness and love for competition fuels a desire to live roll for hours (seriously just go to a Brazilian open mat session and you will see black belts rolling the whole time with smiles on their faces). A balance between the two is ideal, because not only must you internalize technique, but you must also be able to hit these techniques while someone is resisting, or trying to bring the offense to you.

“I fear not the man who has practiced 10,000 kicks once, but I fear the man who has practiced one kick 10,000 times.”-----Bruce Lee


Being involved in martial arts and combat sports we are exposed to a vast quantity of techniques in a relatively short amount of time. Down here people generally train 5-8 times a week. If you learn two techniques per class that’s 10-16 a week, totaling 40-64 new moves a month! Unless you are some sort of prodigy, learning a new technique and practicing it for 15-20 minutes then rolling live isn’t enough time to internalize the technique. Within a week of learning and practicing that one move from last week most likely one of two things happened either 1. You forget the move entirely or 2. While you might remember the jist of the technique you may forget a small yet key part that is necessary to finish the move.

Think back to some of your first experiences in your art, chances are the first week you were completely lost, struggling through technique that seemed near impossible, and now seem elementary. For instance in BJJ one of the first movements learned is shrimping out; so your first class you learned it, and it was clunky and awkward. The next time you went to class you now knew what shrimping was, but you probably couldn’t remember all the fine points your instructor told you and you again felt clunky. Overtime drilling the shrimping motion to warm up and in sparring it began to flow more naturally and felt like second nature. This isn’t because a magic switch was flipped at a certain time and you new all the keys to shrimping, rather it was due to repetition. If you were to have learned shrimping and hardly ever worked at it and never focused on perfecting it you would never climb the BJJ ladder.

How to Drill
Drilling is about much more than just hitting a move. It’s about working a move in a way so that in competition (or live sparring) you will be able to correctly execute it. While coaching we had a saying, ‘practice doesn’t make perfect, perfect practice makes perfect’. It does you no good to work a move half assed or cut corners, because when push comes to shove, half assed doesn’t cut it. When you first begin to work a technique you have to break down each little part and make sure you doing it right. In the beginning it is a slow process, but as your muscle memory picks up the movements you will be able to practice the move at a faster pace. As with everything you must crawl before you walk, and walk before you run.

Being a good partner in drilling is just as important as working technique. You have to give your partner a “good look”. You can’t be a “limp noodle” falling over and offering as much resistance as a feather in the wind. Conversely, the focus is on getting better at technique so you don’t want to be going all out and prevent the person from being able to hit a move correctly. Your job is to hold good position and give realistic pressure and feels so that your partner can work the techniques in the most beneficial way possible.

Once you get techniques down, you must continue to drill these techniques because in this case the quote “if you don’t use it, you lose it” is true. Since these techniques are already internalized you can drill them at a faster more intense pace, but never so fast that you lose technique. This hard drilling is a workout of its own and will not only aide technique, but also build strength and stamina. The biggest benefit of this hard drilling is that if you can hit moves perfectly under fatigue in practice you will be able to hit in in the intense realm of competition.

Injury Prevention
Drilling and practicing techniques also helps stave off unwanted injury. While accidents can always happen, your chances of injury is much higher in live goes and sparring. The toll only sparring can take will drain you not only physically but mentally as well, leading you to total fatigue. Stepping back and focusing on technique can workout soreness and clear the mind as well, helping to rejuvenate you. This great quote from legendary wrestler and coach John Smith says it all:

“Drilling is the key to wrestling success and to longevity in the sport. Drilling has to become habit forming. Drilling wasn’t natural for more, I’d rather just go in a room and spar hard. I just wanted to shake hands and go! But drilling has to take place for you to get better. I couldn’t do a better leg lace or gut wrench without breaking down the move, seeing how it works, studying it and drilling it, over and over and over.

That’s when you improve your techniques. Someone who doesn’t spend time doing that and drilling isn’t going to improve. For longevity, drilling is very important, if you want to stay in the sport for many years, then you have to stay healthy. Constant sparring and live goes can beat your body up pretty bad. After the world championships, I would drill for three months, with very little sparring. That’s when I got better, and I also stayed injury free"” The people staying here at CR have taken the necessity of drilling to heart. Everyday someone is going into the gym early or stepping on the mats here at the house to get extra reps in. With the many different people here it is a great way to drill technique with variety of people ranging in size and strength. In fact as I am writing this I am preparing to throw on the gi and drill some technique with Nicole, Dawud (from Canada), and Austin. Like I said above, perfect practice makes perfect!