Method of Drilling (Grippo) vs Method of live & creativity training (Kit Dale)

[David Rosado]

There are people that have great success with mostly live rolling, like Marcelo Garcia. I hate to be a prisoner of the moment and look at the current "hot team" but Atos is leading the way for competition success and all the top guys have insane drilling practices. I think for pure enjoyment, drilling can get old, but every transition or technique that I've really gotten great at has usually been because I was disciplined enough to drill it. I also think that now even winning the Worlds at purple belt is putting you up against people that train like full time athletes, and drilling a huge part of that. If you want to be successful in competitions you pretty much have to drill. You might be a natural or an outlier but I wouldn't bank on that.

I would argue that creativity comes from drilling as well. If you've drilled something into muscle memory, you're just doing it and your mind is more free to spot things in scrambles and transitions. if you're not using as much muscle memory, your mind is having to be engaged more, your mind isn't as clear because you're thinking, so if you can get the active brain out of the process then it will be free to spot new opening and creativity in the middle of grappling.

I think someone that has drilled a passing sequence 10,000 times is more likely to be able to successful improvise something crazy on the fly during a match, over someone that hasn't really drilled.

I agree with this mostly because of the way we trained at 10th Planet Rochester. We drilled entire paths. Before, when I'd just do "creative" rolling, I would have varying degrees of success. It wasn't until I started employing the techniques that we drilled that I really started tapping my partners with more consistency. A few reasons. The obvious one is that you're being taught proven techniques. The second is muscle memory.

And adding to your point, using that muscle memory would allow me to get into position to use the experimental "creative" stuff. But had I not had that foundation, I'd still be pissing in the wind like before.


That said, maybe some people aren't fond of drilling because they only drill limited movements and they feel more productive by simply rolling. That would make sense for them. Personally, I'd suggest they drill more like the 10th planet style.

[John Mejia]

I think in order to be technically sound at a technique you need to drill it.

I think in order to put it all together requires creativity. I think at the highest levels you get guys who do both, and their jiu jitsu is beautiful, it's not regimented and it flows. But without serious practice of the technique, and then live application your jiu jitsu will look very stiff/linear. Just my opinion

[Royce Kim]

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[David Rosado]

BH8VOD0CEAAzeUP.jpg

exactly.

[Mike Nall]

Doesn't it depend on how 'complicated' your jiu jitsu is?

If you're doing basic BJJ in a Gi, just solid basics like triangle, armbar, etc.. it's not that complicated (once you've got the basics down), and you probably can just enjoy rolling and making everything better through that, but if you're doing 'advanced' stuff, like rubber guard or lapel guard or double bagging, etc... you're going to need to drill those things harder to get them into the muscle memory...?

I think this could open a whole other can of worms about what's basic and what isn't. If you go to AOJ you're going to learn de la riva from day 1, where if you go somewhere else you might not. At Cobrinha's you might learn spider guard from day 1, but at Marcelo Garcia's you wouldn't.

When Gianni is talking about drilling, he's for sure not talking about just doing thousands of triangles from closed guard, but more complex sequences. If you check out his instagram you'll see some pretty wild drills like these:

http://instagram.com/p/q20CaJnwfk/
http://instagram.com/p/d5METDnwUb/
http://instagram.com/p/dIJqkjHwXp/

That said, maybe some people aren't fond of drilling because they only drill limited movements and they feel more productive by simply rolling. That would make sense for them. Personally, I'd suggest they drill more like the 10th planet style.

Same here. When I drill I drill a full sequence. So maybe a sweep, pass, back-take, and finish. I don't usually just drill one move by itself.

[Jack LaBarge]

I think in order to be technically sound at a technique you need to drill it.

I agree 100%. But I like this video