I wasn't sure what subforum to post this in, since it sorta pertains to all martial arts (and learning skills in general); I decided to go for YMAS for the universal appeal, though I am hoping for an at least partially serious discussion.
As the name of the thread may have clued you in, I've recently got to thinking a lot about warm-ups. The reason this has been on my mind is that for the last few weeks, we have had a "guest coach" who teaches class once a week. This guest coach goes by Martin Lavin, a brown belt, multiple gold medalist in the European IBJJF Championships who my coach introduced as "one of the best grapplers in Sweden". The classes I've had with him so far have been fun, and intensely educational; I have no reason to doubt his credentials. What stuck out to me about the way he runs classes right from the get-go, as you may have guessed, has to do with how he handles warm-ups.
To offer perspective, I'll give you a brief overview of how my main coach typically handles things. It's rather typical BJJ fare for the most part; running, rolling, shrimping, the works. After 5-10 minutes of this, we'll drill single legs up and down the mats, do some "lift your partner up, walk a few steps, but him down, repeat" type drills and eventually drill guard passing or something similar. After this 15-20 minute chunk of the class is over and done with, we'll start with some particular techniques and the class just sort of goes from there. The big upside to this, besides improved cardio and all that, is that a lot of this stuff becomes muscle memory very quickly, to the point that even panicking newbies with a month of classes under their belts will still shoot for that single in the stand-up. The transition from warm-ups to the regular class is usually seamless, utilizing different "cut-off points". For instance, we might follow the single-leg drills with drilling Seoi Otoshi (if my Judo terminology is up to snuff) and then spend the rest of the class working stand-up stuff.
Mr. Lavin, on the other hand, dispenses with warm-ups almost (if not actually) completely. Once the clock hits 6 PM, he might clap his hands once and go "Alright, let's get started," and he gets right to talking about what we're gonna be working on this class. He actually gave a reason to this at the beginning of today's class, saying that conditioning drills and running and so on are things that we can do on our free time, and he wants to give us as much "bang for our buck" as possible by allowing us to work on the specific elements of the sport for the entire class. This aside, I am a *very* big fan of how the guy teaches classes; the closest analogy I can give you to describe the approach is like peeling the layers of an onion in reverse.
Today's class, as a perfect example, looked roughly like this:
1. Martin shows how to move around when standing and your opponent is looking to play sitting guard, going into a fairly deep squat and momentarily posting his hands out on his opponent as he draws near. We drill this in pairs, where one guy tries to lock the other into any kind of guard and the other utilizes this movement.
2. He goes over how to deal with getting caught in what he called a "long-distance guard", such as spider guard, De La Riva and so on. We continue the same drill as at step 1, only now using the escapes that he showed us, should we end up in guard.
3. He shows how to properly shrimp and reestablish guard should we get passed into side control or knee on belly. Back to the drill, with this in mind.
4. He shows a few ways to deal with getting caught in open half guard. Same drill, starting from this position; bottom guy wants to sweep, top guy wants to pass.
5. Positional sparring, starting from a few different guards; same principle as above.
6. Free sparring, with the condition that one in the pair start from the sitting position and the other is standing.
7. Shake hands with your training partners and go home.
It might sound dull, but it's fantastic as a noob to get this firmly planted in the back of your head. Despite the lack of the warm-up/conditioning business preceding most BJJ classes, the 80-100% resisting drilling/sparring throughout the class means it gasses most guys out more than the regular classes.
The purpose of this rambling post is to ask what is, honestly, a simple question; are warm-ups important? Is either of these approaches straight-out superior to the other, or do they have pros and cons that deserve to be evaluated for their own merits? I'm especially curious to hear from you coaches/instructors out there, and what you like to do for your classes and why. Peace!
TL;DR: Long BJJ warm-ups; poo or good?
As the name of the thread may have clued you in, I've recently got to thinking a lot about warm-ups. The reason this has been on my mind is that for the last few weeks, we have had a "guest coach" who teaches class once a week. This guest coach goes by Martin Lavin, a brown belt, multiple gold medalist in the European IBJJF Championships who my coach introduced as "one of the best grapplers in Sweden". The classes I've had with him so far have been fun, and intensely educational; I have no reason to doubt his credentials. What stuck out to me about the way he runs classes right from the get-go, as you may have guessed, has to do with how he handles warm-ups.
To offer perspective, I'll give you a brief overview of how my main coach typically handles things. It's rather typical BJJ fare for the most part; running, rolling, shrimping, the works. After 5-10 minutes of this, we'll drill single legs up and down the mats, do some "lift your partner up, walk a few steps, but him down, repeat" type drills and eventually drill guard passing or something similar. After this 15-20 minute chunk of the class is over and done with, we'll start with some particular techniques and the class just sort of goes from there. The big upside to this, besides improved cardio and all that, is that a lot of this stuff becomes muscle memory very quickly, to the point that even panicking newbies with a month of classes under their belts will still shoot for that single in the stand-up. The transition from warm-ups to the regular class is usually seamless, utilizing different "cut-off points". For instance, we might follow the single-leg drills with drilling Seoi Otoshi (if my Judo terminology is up to snuff) and then spend the rest of the class working stand-up stuff.
Mr. Lavin, on the other hand, dispenses with warm-ups almost (if not actually) completely. Once the clock hits 6 PM, he might clap his hands once and go "Alright, let's get started," and he gets right to talking about what we're gonna be working on this class. He actually gave a reason to this at the beginning of today's class, saying that conditioning drills and running and so on are things that we can do on our free time, and he wants to give us as much "bang for our buck" as possible by allowing us to work on the specific elements of the sport for the entire class. This aside, I am a *very* big fan of how the guy teaches classes; the closest analogy I can give you to describe the approach is like peeling the layers of an onion in reverse.
Today's class, as a perfect example, looked roughly like this:
1. Martin shows how to move around when standing and your opponent is looking to play sitting guard, going into a fairly deep squat and momentarily posting his hands out on his opponent as he draws near. We drill this in pairs, where one guy tries to lock the other into any kind of guard and the other utilizes this movement.
2. He goes over how to deal with getting caught in what he called a "long-distance guard", such as spider guard, De La Riva and so on. We continue the same drill as at step 1, only now using the escapes that he showed us, should we end up in guard.
3. He shows how to properly shrimp and reestablish guard should we get passed into side control or knee on belly. Back to the drill, with this in mind.
4. He shows a few ways to deal with getting caught in open half guard. Same drill, starting from this position; bottom guy wants to sweep, top guy wants to pass.
5. Positional sparring, starting from a few different guards; same principle as above.
6. Free sparring, with the condition that one in the pair start from the sitting position and the other is standing.
7. Shake hands with your training partners and go home.
It might sound dull, but it's fantastic as a noob to get this firmly planted in the back of your head. Despite the lack of the warm-up/conditioning business preceding most BJJ classes, the 80-100% resisting drilling/sparring throughout the class means it gasses most guys out more than the regular classes.
The purpose of this rambling post is to ask what is, honestly, a simple question; are warm-ups important? Is either of these approaches straight-out superior to the other, or do they have pros and cons that deserve to be evaluated for their own merits? I'm especially curious to hear from you coaches/instructors out there, and what you like to do for your classes and why. Peace!
TL;DR: Long BJJ warm-ups; poo or good?