Below, you will find my notes summarizing and reflecting upon the stand-up grappling practice that I led at Fit Factory Jiu Jitsu, 3814 Boyd’s Creek Highway, Sevierville, TN on March 4, 2024.
Our second wrestling session is in the books
We continued to build the foundation of the practice in a similar vein to last week, with a few key additions.
Key #1, we established an initial framework for levels of resistance.
Level 1, the defender merely attempts to maintain balance and posture with no attempt to escape or counterattack.
Level 2, the defender now also has the option to escape.
Level 3, the defender is permitted to escape and/or counter.
Key #2, people were given agency in choosing the level that suited them.
Rather than tell people to work at a certain level for a certain time, everyone was encouraged to structure their training according to their needs.
As the roles of attacker and defender were swapped back and forth and training partners were rotated, the attacker was given priority in choosing the resistance level.
Defenders were encouraged to modulate their intensity to meet the needs of the training partner which helped people with less skill to still find success.
What it looked like in practice
I began by showing the group the two primary standing positions I am currently exploring 1) the single underhook and 2) the 2 on 1 arm grip (various grip configurations). The intention was to give people something ready to work if they didn’t already have their own projects, but the group was encouraged to explore the positions of their choosing.
We broke out into groups. Attackers chose their starting grips and the level of resistance and got to work. I found “I go 3, you go 3” to be a good rep scheme for resistance levels one and two. This is a good spot for getting powerful reps without becoming so fatigued that you become sloppy. Then you can rest when you’re on defense (but not really).
For resistance level 3, since this is functionally sparring except one person gets a head start, I found “I go, you go” to work best. We played where an escape or a score by either player resulted in a reset where the person who had previously started with the preferred grips now has the other person’s preferred grip on them. We were able to maintain a very good pace. Fast paced and tiring, but high quality due to no opportunities to stall or handfight indefinitely from neutral.
Looking ahead to next session.
I think we can continue to refine the drilling framework. I expect that as people become familiar, preferred training modes will reveal themselves and I hope to see some innovative new ways to get meaningful reps.
I will encourage the others to start doing some homework so that they can come prepared with setups they want to try. Ideally we’ll have the opportunity to workshop a wide variety of techniques and people will feel empowered to share the moves that are working well, or seek the group’s help solving situations they can’t quite figure out on their own.
. . .
I put in A LOT of good work tonight and I am excited to see where this somewhat irregular approach to training leads.
Good Hunting,
Charles