What do your warm ups look like at the moment? Lots of running, Hip Escapes, and loads of front rolls?
Well, if that’s the case… Kit Dale thinks that what you’re doing is sort of useless.
And he has a much better approach, not just to warm ups, but also to improving in Jiu-Jitsu as a whole.
Here is what he had to say in a recent interview with BJJEE:
The current model sucks for many reasons.
Firstly, having a warm up that adds little to no value to the students.
Doing Hip Escapes and front rolls are unrealistic when it comes to actual rolling and the mechanics of how things work.
So what would Dale change when it comes to warm ups?
Here’s his take:
I would utilize the warm up time for the students to develop a skill set in jiu-jitsu, while getting warm.
So, I would create some kind of problem solving game that helps them develop skill and get better at jiu-jitsu, while getting warm for class.Then everything from then on it will be about getting them to think for themselves and not giving them the answers.
He explains the biggest mistake BJJ coaches make:
The biggest mistake I see most coaches make is teaching the HOW instead of the WHY.
They try to teach by showing their students a technique, then get them to drill, drill, drill until it becomes muscle memory, expecting their students to be able to apply it in live rolling.
Unfortunately, this is very unrealistic and it’s a bad way of learning.It teaches their students to wait for the answer, and it also confuses their muscle memory since half the practice they spend rehearsing things with a cooperating partner and the other half (or less) they spend trying to perform on a partner that is actively trying to stop them.
Again, Dale emphasizes the importance of learning problem solving:
I would make every single aspect of training LIVE, to have them develop their problem solving skills.
I would structure the training with task based games that allow them (depending on their level) to solve problems that are suitable for each student, developing skill and knowledge that way.
As they get better I would make the problems more difficult, or add more and more variables to the problems at hand.
Then get them to solve them over and over again.That’s the way I would teach them, so that everything they do encourages critical thinking and coming up with solutions.
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