I think my favorite part about this class structure is how quickly we are able to move into the action. The students are actively rolling within the first 5 minutes of class. When we have new students joining us their pods quickly get them up to speed and the integration seems to be seamless.

One of the major complaints about day 1 was the lack of tasks for top player. Most found it either boring or impossible to hold mount for 3 minutes. Which I completely agree, but I do think its an important skill to have. I would argue that most black belts would struggle with this task, when formatted this way. It’s extremely frustrating for the top player, as soon as the bottom player forces a positional change the drill repeats itself and top player is again asked to just do nothing. So today I’m giving them more options. Options that will increase the fun, but will ultimately lessen the lesson.

Game 1: Top player is the active grappler. They will stay on top for 3 minutes while the bottom players rotate in upon completion of the rep. The goal here is pretty simple. Top player can maintain mount for 3 minutes or top player can make a transition to the back and secure back points. Bottom player needs to make some form of a recovery. For this game side control and north south both count as a win for the bottom player. I want to encourage the students to not accept a position. So I’m going to allow the game to continue during transitional positions. So if bottom player forces a positional change then top player has 3-5 seconds to recover mount or back mount before the rep has ended.

Discussion: Lots to discuss here. Primarily understanding control vs advancing. When we have our opponent mounted we should prioritize maintaining a dominant position until a submission or the end of the match. The only improvement being taking the back. Every other position is a move backwards. Our opponent will rarely make an escape in one movement, we learned this in our side control blocks. Escapes are the result of a combination of movements leading to a powerful position. So our priority as a top player is to continuously break down the building blocks of an escape. As much as I’d like to advance to the back or attack a submission, I always have to deal with the escapes first. So the game becomes, stop the escape, advance towards our goal, stop the escape, advance towards our goal. We are constantly fighting this battle.

The goal for the second game is this: stay on top at all costs. If you are going to lose the rep, just make sure you stay on top, going from mount to being under our opponent is the worst way to lose, so make this your priority.

Game 2: In this game I’m going to allow submissions from the mount player. Same format as game 1, 3 minute rounds starting from mount. Top player wins by advancing to the back, finishing a submission or maintaining mount for 3 minutes. Bottom player wins by recovering a substantial guard, forcing a side control position, or standing up.

Conclusion: The team did exactly what I had hoped. I saw more students losing from a topside position and very few people being reversed. This is huge. I want my students to have a strong, dangerous guard, but for now they need to understand the importance of staying on top. In our brief submission block we covered armbar and arm triangle from mount and, as expected, I saw these submissions attempted in the rounds. Overall this second game saw a lot of action, a very fast pace and some great jiu jitsu. The reps were hard fought and they lasted much longer than the previous attempts which means they were not accepting positions and fought through them until a clear win. This is everything I could ask for. The students are crushing it. I have two more classes with the team before I take a 3 week trip back to the U.S. Luckily, we will have Lea to jump in and take over my classes while I’m gone. So I’ll be able to speak with her and update the blog.