Ever wanted to become your very own BJJ coach? Yup, that is possible… But before you get excited, understand that your best bet is to have a trusted coach who’ll guide you through the process of Jiu-Jitsu. It’s necessary to have someone with more experience and knowledge sharing it with you – plus, you need training partners, after all.
With that said, becoming your own BJJ coach is possible; in such a way that’ll enable you to understand Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu in much more depth than it was the case otherwise. And to, therefore, progress faster.
Kit Dale explains how.
BECOMING YOUR OWN BJJ COACH
Kit starts by elaborating how the way Jiu-Jitsu is traditionally taught hurts student progress:
Starting out, because of the way Jiu-Jitsu is traditionally taught, most practitioners rely on people giving the answers to problems, giving the solutions.
I felt this early in Jiu-Jitsu, and I always compare it to my early years in school. I wasn’t a math enthusiast, so I would cheat and copy the answers of the kid next to me. This was all good in class, but when it came to test day I was fu*ked. I didn’t know the answers, because I didn’t know the formula to the equation.Now, the mistake is that a lot of the time Jiu-Jitsu is taught this way. You’re taught to copy somebody else. Coaches will teach you the answers, but not the formula.
And, in my experience, most coaches don’t know the formula themselves, they only have the answers that they were taught. So, it’s more of a handling down of techniques, which makes you reliant on the coach and other people to give you answers to problems, instead of being able to solve them yourself.
Therefore, the key to becoming your own BJJ coach is neutralizing this mistake. Kit explains how to do that:
So, the mistake becomes pretty clear, and hard to naturally break away from: focusing on how to do techniques and just trying to create muscle memory with them… Rather than trying to figure out WHY people use these techniques, why they are appropriate for the positions, and how you can use the why to create many more “hows”.
He gives a step-by-step approach to doing so:
- By using problem solving to solve situations rather than memorized techniques.
- By avoiding using the same techniques, and by also trying to figure out WHY they work.
- Understanding the formulas, concepts, and principles.
In short, you’re basing a solution based on concepts, principles and formulas, rather than memorizing techniques.
Make sure to read the rest of Kit Dale’s amazing insights below:
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