Improving take downs in grappling.

[Raycetpfl]

I only have a moderate amount of experience with Judo, but the pace for wrestling and BJJ are totally different. If you wrestle like BJJ you will get owned. If you BJJ is paced like wrestling you will get tapped.

You're not skilled. You have no business making assertions like this. You don't know bjj.

Lets take a step back, and frame the discussion. First, I am most certainly not disrespecting BJJ. In fact I respect it tremendously. The pace is more fluid and requires less power because that is the nature of the submission game.

too broad of a statement. There are many styles but most of the excellent fighters in both are both powerful and fluid. You lack the skill and experience to know this.

You shouldn't teach anyone anything. You're horrible at bjj.

Slow is smooth, and smooth is fast. You don't need a black belt to understand this fact. A lot of wrestlers cannot make this adaptation. When rolling and they get caught I say "slow it down" some do, and if they can learn to fight off their backs they become very good very quickly. A wrestler who make these adaptations develops an extremely strong top game in as little as 6 months.

You aren't skilled enough to make that determination. They would have a strong top game for a white or blue belt. They would still not be "extremely" skilled at much.

In wrestling, for example, if I want an outside single from a tie up I have to move my opponents whole body (to his right) to get him to step forward with his left. I then need to switch levels and explode into the single. Even though I have set up the single I need penetration to pick up the left leg. My whole body, 230 lbs (I lost 10 [pounds, lol) has to come down a foot and a half and shoot in another 2-3 feet quickly if I am to negate his sprawl.

Explode, explode, explode. You are moving much more mass over a much greater distance than you do in BJJ.

leg based takedowns are a part of bjj. Also there are many other instances where speed and power are used along with technique. You aren't skilled that's why you say these things.

BJJ is a subtle game of inches. The difference between a successful move and an unsuccessful move usually does not involve a whole-sale movement of your body, it is a much more subtle and nuanced game.

at high levels all grappling is a game of milimeters.

You can come back from a small mistake in wrestling (which is constant countering and movement from the moment you start hand fighting.)

this is an arbitrary statement. Really hard to call any mistake you can't come back from small wouldn't it?At high levels in grappling you often don't even get to make any mistakes. You have never competed at a high level. You shouldn't make assertion about this sort of thing.

You are more winded by by 3 minutes of wrestling than you are from 5 minutes of BJJ.

I am not winded by either generally speaking.

Don't fall back on personal attacks, insults, vulgarities. All they do is lesson your character. Don't use a one or two person example which is the norm here.
.

Don't make claims about things you don't know about. You're not skilled. You shouldn't talk like you are or you have the ultimate truth.

[goodlun]

What do some of the more experienced members think of found rounds of "toe touches" for a warm up prior to doing takedowns.
toe touches being where you try and touch your partners foot while standing without having your own feet touched, in a free moving sort of way?

[Dr. Gonzo]

What do some of the more experienced members think of found rounds of "toe touches" for a warm up prior to doing takedowns.
toe touches being where you try and touch your partners foot while standing without having your own feet touched, in a free moving sort of way?

So long as it is training you to constantly move your own feet while retaining good stance and footwork, it sounds reasonable.
I might be inclined to tell people to cut angles while manipulating their opponents head/posture to simulate an ankle pick, or do proper shots, rather than risk training them to the habit of bending at the waist and putting their head down in front of their opponent in an out of stance, neither hot nor cold position.
Otherwise I fear that you are training them to give their opponent head snaps and pull downs, or other bad things depending on uniform and ruleset.

[BKR]

Ben..... You haven't you heard? Bjj is slow and has no stand up grappling.

BJJ stole all their stand-up from other combat sports, didn't you get the memo?

[Raycetpfl]

BJJ stole all their stand-up from other combat sports, didn't you get the memo?

Seems like something we would do.

[Dr. Gonzo]

BJJ stole all their stand-up from other combat sports, didn't you get the memo?

Guys like Osvaldo Alves and George Medhi did help the importation of a lot of Judo nage waza back into the BJJ repertoire.
Rolls Sr, Marcelo Garcia, and Carlson Gracie Sr's guys (while preparing for Abu Dhabi's) brought in a lot of wrestling to the BJJ repertoire.

[BKR]

I only have a moderate amount of experience with Judo, but the pace for wrestling and BJJ are totally different. If you wrestle like BJJ you will get owned. If you BJJ is paced like wrestling you will get tapped.

Pace and tempo in in BJJ varies. I know this from personal, on the mat experience with skilled BJJ practitioners. And by skilled, I mean brown and black belts.

There are different strategies/tactics one can use in BJJ, just as in Judo, Sambo, Wresltling. Controlling the pace/tempo of a match is a critical skill in competitive grappling. I'd suppose it is in striking too, however, I'd be talking out of my ass if I made any assertions regarding boxing/MT/et al.

Lets take a step back, and frame the discussion. First, I am most certainly not disrespecting BJJ. In fact I respect it tremendously. The pace is more fluid and requires less power because that is the nature of the submission game.

I don't take your incorrect statements as disrespect towards BJJ. In fact, your respect for BJJ or lack of respect for BJJ does not matter to me.
Fluidity comes from proper training (technical and physical) over time, and has nothing to do with pace. You can be very fast and fluid, or very slow and fluid in movement, or anything in between. I know this from personal experience at BJJ and Judo, as well as soccer and dancing. You are making common statements from early on in the history of BJJ in North America, back when BJJ/GJJ first got into the spotlight because of the early UFC.

We have moved on from then, quite a bit.

So you see a BJJ black belt (Rayce) and myself (a 3rd degree black belt in Judo and blue belt in BJJ), AGREEING all the damned time about grappling in general, principles, concepts, techniques, plus there is Murphy, a black belt in BJJ (not sure how many stripes) and a 3rd degree black belt in Judo, who is on the same page with us all the time as well. Rayce and Murphy have been around a lot more wrestling than me, but I HAVE wrestled everything from high school state champs to D-1 (and above, in one case, in a big judo tournament).

You had your little "troll" in YMAS, but here we are in a technical discussion, so you will be required to offer proof of what you assert or claim to be true. We are all here to learn from each other.

You are confusing explosion/explosive movement with pace and tempo. I suspect the wrestling coach is making mistakes common to wrestlers who have no or very little experience with submissions. They do the same stuff that gets them tapped because they don't know a damned thing about submissions. I've taught wrestlers Judo, and they make mistakes that lead to getting subbed. All The Time. But they CAN learn quickly, as you point out correctly below.

Slow is smooth, and smooth is fast. You don't need a black belt to understand this fact. A lot of wrestlers cannot make this adaptation. When rolling and they get caught I say "slow it down" some do, and if they can learn to fight off their backs they become very good very quickly. A wrestler who make these adaptations develops an extremely strong top game in as little as 6 months.

You are describing the learning process. Drilling starts off slow, and gets faster as skill level increases, that is normal, and has nothing to do with wrestling. You'd do the same thing in wrestling or Judo. It's not the pace, it's the lack of experience with submissions. So yeah, slow down and pay attention, but, that does not mean they have to be tree sloths when doing BJJ after they develop more skill and stop sticking their necks and arms out to get trapped.

In wrestling, for example, if I want an outside single from a tie up I have to move my opponents whole body (to his right) to get him to step forward with his left. I then need to switch levels and explode into the single. Even though I have set up the single I need penetration to pick up the left leg. My whole body, 230 lbs (I lost 10 [pounds, lol) has to come down a foot and a half and shoot in another 2-3 feet quickly if I am to negate his sprawl.

Apropos of nothing?

Explode, explode, explode. You are moving much more mass over a much greater distance than you do in BJJ.

We are talking about groundwork, not takedowns, right? You just used an example of a takedown, one in fact that has to cover quite a bit of distance horizontally and vertically.

BJJ is a subtle game of inches. The difference between a successful move and an unsuccessful move usually does not involve a whole-sale movement of your body, it is a much more subtle and nuanced game.

You use your whole body regardless. Framing, position, angle, grips, timing, recognition of opportunity, etc., all matter in both wrestling and BJJ and Judo et al, standing and on the ground.

You can come back from a small mistake in wrestling (which is constant countering and movement from the moment you start hand fighting.)

Hand/grip fighting happens on the ground and standing, same concepts/principles apply. Going from gi to no gi changes that a bit, but same concepts are used.

Small mistakes (mental and physical) are what get you beaten in high level grappling. Sometimes big ones, too !

You are setting up all these false dichotomies, really, really amazing.

You are more winded by by 3 minutes of wrestling than you are from 5 minutes of BJJ.

L.O.L ! That all depends on a LOT of factors, and is an over-broad generalization on your part.

[BKR]

What do some of the more experienced members think of found rounds of "toe touches" for a warm up prior to doing takedowns.
toe touches being where you try and touch your partners foot while standing without having your own feet touched, in a free moving sort of way?

It's fine as part of a warmup, especially if you are going to be doing ashi waza. I like to do larger solo or partner movements of the same sort of throw I have in the lesson plan as well as part of sport-specific warmups.

But that's just me.

[BKR]

So long as it is training you to constantly move your own feet while retaining good stance and footwork, it sounds reasonable.
I might be inclined to tell people to cut angles while manipulating their opponents head/posture to simulate an ankle pick, or do proper shots, rather than risk training them to the habit of bending at the waist and putting their head down in front of their opponent in an out of stance, neither hot nor cold position.
Otherwise I fear that you are training them to give their opponent head snaps and pull downs, or other bad things depending on uniform and ruleset.

I was thinking more along the lines of foot touching foot, not hand to foot.

In the case of changing levels, it might get a bit messier.

[BKR]

Seems like something we would do.

Steal shamelessly, give credit where credit is due, it's all good.

[NeilG]

Slow is smooth, and smooth is fast.

More accurate to say that practising slow helps you to get smooth, and being smooth lets you be fast. None of that precludes going fast once you are capable, and moving fast often lets you get something done that would get stopped going slowly.

[goodlun]

I was thinking more along the lines of foot touching foot, not hand to foot.

In the case of changing levels, it might get a bit messier.

Murphy has it right, though a lot of what he says seems to happen as one is still allowed to snap down peoples heads and the what not.
Of course it does help to do it with people that already have the appropriate body movements down.

[BKR]

Murphy has it right, though a lot of what he says seems to happen as one is still allowed to snap down peoples heads and the what not.
Of course it does help to do it with people that already have the appropriate body movements down.

Accidental head butt much ?

The foot to foot one I thought you were describing is good too.

You can put clothes pins on the uniform in various places and make a game out of it to snatch them away. Do it in pairs, then have the whole class run around the tatami. Whoever ends up with the most pins wins.

We also do that with bandanas tucked into the belt or collar, or loosely tied around the arm, ankle, knee, wrist, etc.

[goodlun]

Accidental head butt much ?

Not as much as you would think, but then again I guess it really depends on the total level of spaziness involved.

The other drills sound like fun, and some of them certainly have a familiar ring to them like something from my childhood.

[BKR]

Not as much as you would think, but then again I guess it really depends on the total level of spaziness involved.

The other drills sound like fun, and some of them certainly have a familiar ring to them like something from my childhood.

Correct, mostly for kids, but you would be surprised what I have to resort to to teach non-athletic adults or teenage noobz. Even reasonably coordinated adults get better if you throw in some games.