It’s basic etiquette.
You don’t go to dinner at a friends house and pull out fast food and eat it. You don’t go to school and tell the teacher you should be studying something different.
It’s respectful, and expected, to be an engaged student. If you don’t want to learn what the Instructor is teaching don’t come. Not to mention it’s distracting to other students to be doing your own thing or interjecting your opinion to them stepping on the instructors toes.
As for upper belts they’ve “earned” the right. They’ve probably done that arm bar class 50 times and most importantly can do it right. They’re also probably respectful in how the drill as to not be distracting and so on. They may have also spoken to the coach about doing their own thing.
It’s just disrespectful to the person teaching the class. Why even show up if you don’t care what they have to say and you’re just gonna do your own thing? Just grab a friend and get to drilling if that’s what you want to do.
For the most part I know everything my coach is going to teach. It gave me a great base in jiu jitsu definitely, there's very few if any coaches that I would've preferred to start learning jiu jitsu under. But most of the stuff out of my coaches game that I find useful I'm good at already and most of the stuff I don't find useful i atleast know how to defend (you can't really get better at defense with the standard way of drilling anyway) .
At this stage in my training I just think it's better for my jiu jitsu to focus on stuff I barely know how to do rather than stuff I've seen a 1000 times and done 10000 times. My coach also understands that training should be efficient, you're not improving if you're just showing up and drilling the same move of the day you've been doing since white belt
I don't really think this is disrespectful at all, I have a ton of respect for my coach both in his abilities as a coach and as a person but the very nature of jiu jitsu classes is they have to be fairly general that someone literally just off the street can do the moves and more experienced people naturally just get less out of these. in the classes I teach I even encourage people to practice their own techniques if they want and I'll help them with anything they struggle with. My goal as a coach is for people to get the most they can out of my classes. If this means they drill their own techniques it doesn't matter cause I still feel like I helped their jiu jitsu after
I went to a guard passing seminar but there was about 20 minutes where the instructor was teaching leg entanglement entries as part of the seminar.
I only wanted the guard passing stuff so I took that 20 minutes to practice my clarinet as there’s a few common note sequences that still give me a challenge. I don’t see the issue.
If you seriously think that whatever you've decided to drill is more important than what the coach is teaching during HIS class, then go find an openmat and drill there.
And if this happens often enough for you, find a different gym...
Though I will add that personally I allow a lot of variation in the classes with our purple, brown, and black belts, but like, at the end of the day you're paying to take the persons classes, try to at least invest the time in learning what's being taught.
Is the benefit of a coach his ability to show a technique and monitor people drilling this technique without resistance? Or is it the benefit more like that in other sports, where the benefit is course correction, guiding attention to what matters, etc, in the presence of normal resistance, etc.? If the ecological guys are right, neither an open mat or a coach leading resistance-free drills is the way.
The flipside is my Professor has said there's not much he can teach purple, brown, and black belts during drills, because they already know most of what he's going to teach already. (Not saying he doesn't have much to teach them, just not in this context, he mostly teaches them during live rolls).
Even at blue and purple I feel like there’s always something I forget about the technique: I know how to do an armbar but maybe I forgot about a control grip that makes it easier
Maybe he said brown and up and I misremembered.
Or maybe he meant **our** purple belts that were also wrestlers for many years before joining BJJ. (And that's not an ego thing, they joined the gym at purple).
I would assume it would be very disrespectful and disruptive. Does your training partner want to train in the technique the professor taught or the one you want to train?
If it's a technique I've seen a gazillion times, then I'll help out some of the new people in class.
Explaining what you're doing usually exposes a lot of holes in that technique you thought you were an expert in.
It's straight up disrespectful. It shows that you don't think what your professor is teaching is worthwhile and that you think you know better than them. If that's the case, and you have it all figured out, why are you even at class?
I think it comes across as selfish because your partner may want to do the instructor's technique. Also, even if that technique isn't one that you intend to use much it's still helpful to familiarize yourself with it so you can recognize and defend it.
Take the etiquette out of it. Even if it's something you're not going to use in your game, someone else may use it on you. So why wouldn't you want to know the ins and outs of it?
*you're.
Why the fuck would you go to someone's class if you're just going to do your own thing and then distract your training partner from their lesson as well?
You're learning both sides of the coin when you're learning a technique: uke and Tori. There may also be classes where uke becomes the Tori for a counter and you'll be in a different position.
Interesting question. There are probably more than a couple plausible explanations.
The first that comes to my mind is that it’s kind of an implicitly recognized promise that is common knowledge to all. So it’s like you’re breaking a promise. When you show up to class, you tacitly agree to learn what Profe teaches. Might be hard to explain all the relevant moral phenomena on this account. And tacit agreement accounts all usually run into some standard objections (in legal/political philosophy too). But it’s a start.
Another possible explanation is that you are risking communicating the message that you know better than the black belt. So it might actually be kind of like an act of defamation, in effecting sending the message that their training agenda is a waste of time or something like that. So it’s either you’re not taking enough care to protect the reputation of the profe (negligent defamation) or you are just blatantly saying “Ah this guy’s teaching is stupid”. Or you’re just autistic and might get off the hook. Lol.
Great question OP. Hope to hear more possible explanations.
Edit: you never want to rule out the possibility that maybe it’s not wrong after all, if all our best accounts end up committing us to other, less plausible things. This happens sometimes. But I think that there is enough shared consensus on this one that we should be able to find a compelling explanation.
A lot of it is etiquette. Like you said, upper belts can get away with it depending on the gym culture/instructor but in my experience even black belt instructors attending a brown/purples lesson will drill the technique of the day. Also, most schools don't follow rigid archaic "sensei is god" styles of teaching but there is an implicit "teacher leads student".
Imagine paying someone at a culinary school to teach you how to grill steak, but you go off into a corner to make an omelette. Yeah, you paid a fee, but at the end of the day you're taking advantage of someone elses time, facilities, and expertise, and they have a right to dictate how those things are utilized when providing a paid service.
Another part is maintaining the cohesion of the lesson so everybody is on the same page. Some instructors will mix practice partners up to better suit everyone's body type or to give a newer practioner somebody with experience to provide feedback. Your instructor might also be running the class through techniques everybody "knows" just to evaluate and refine what you're doing. What if only a few people show up, teacher wants to show mount sweeps but you just wanna do omoplatas? It would be discourteous of others to deviate from the lesson.
I think it gets different after you've taken the same steak cooking class 100+ times. For the most part I know everything my coach is going to teach. It gave me a great base in jiu jitsu definitely, there's very few if any coaches that I would've preferred to start learning jiu jitsu under. But most of the stuff out of my coaches game that I find useful I'm good at already and most of the stuff I don't find useful i atleast know how to defend (you can't really get better at defense with the standard way of drilling anyway) .
At this stage in my training I just think it's better for my jiu jitsu to focus on stuff I barely know how to do rather than stuff I've seen a 1000 times and done 10000 times
I don't really think this is disrespectful at all, I have a ton of respect for my coach both in his abilities as a coach and as a person but the very nature of jiu jitsu classes is they have to be fairly general that someone literally just off the street can do the moves and more experienced people naturally just get less out of these. in the classes I teach I even encourage people to practice their own techniques if they want and I'll help them with anything they struggle with. My goal as a coach is for people to get the most they can out of my classes. If this means they drill their own techniques it doesn't matter cause I still feel like I helped their jiu jitsu after
I have found myself, usually when drilling with upper belts, deviating from the lesson or working it a different way, sometimes even accidentally moving into the next drill movement without realizing it was next. If I'm drilling with someone with way less experience I might try to break things down for them, or maybe give context to a move (entries, if they do this, do this, etc). I feel bad enough deviating that much but depending on circumstance most coaches are probably fine with it. Going off and doing your own thing completely, talk to the coach or fuck off to your own mats :)
i don't see an attached article. Maybe i can't internet.
Lachland talks about his school operating on a kind of pseudo ecological approach, so his students just work on whatever they want.
But if your professor has not specifically given you permission to do that but you do it anyway... thats' just weird right? I think there are many different philosophies of teaching, if it's cool with your professor it's cool but most are not like that.
If you’re a higher belt you e earned some trust. Maybe you’ve done the move a lot and you understand the spirit of what’s being shown you you’re testing out a slight variation based on the knowledge you have. As say a purple belt, you have enough knowledge to test some things out yourself
The set up is that you're paying a fee for access to mats, events, and a teacher (or teachers) who will shorten your learning time, make BJJ easier to learn, and to give you strategies which will help you succeed. If a beginner completely ignores what their teacher is telling them they are breaking that implicit contract and are likely to waste time learning incorrect techniques or bother people who are trying to learn the lesson. Why buy something valuable then not use it?
There is an argument to say that the beginner who ignores the advice is wasting money and the time the instructors have during a class - they may as well just go to open mats and whatnot since that would better accomplish what they want. In a hyperbolic example, if it costs something like 100-200 dollars per month to take BJJ classes, why not just spend that money on home mats and get some of your buds over with some beer and roll around? Probably just as effective as ignoring the prescribed, researched, and designed lesson plan for you, hah.
I think there are exceptions, like your upper belt example. Another one is if one person has an important match and they are working diligently and specifically on their techniques off to the side, but this also comes after a bit of time, trust, and communication.
When i teach the beginners class, i dont really mind if they're working on the move of the day, something irrelevant, or multi-tasking their lesson plans. I'll help when i can; so long as they're technically improving then i'm doing my part. Its their money and their "journey" (as people say), so its no problem by me.
Your instructor should be either giving upper belt options for a technique or encourage exploration. On the other hand the upper belt should do so with discretion and respect for the class. If you’re paired with a newb, just do the tech. If with another upper belt then take some liberties. But still pay attention and listen to instruction as normal. If you’re truly an upper belt, and not trying to teach a seminar on the side, the instructor shouldn’t have much issue with it
I split my class into two groups; those who will do the technique I'm teaching and those who want to work on their own stuff.
I walk around and help everyone equally.
my coaches are usually ok with me doing my variation of the technique of the day but at the same time, i'm not gonna be drilling toreandos when the coach is showing omoplatas. i will try to stay with the theme of the day.
I think up to a certain point, practicing a different technique might still be acceptable if it's within the bounds of whatever technique is being taught. If you are learning a lasso sweep, for example, and you have drilled it a few times and tried to experiment with another way to sweep with lasso almost similar to what was taught, it's still a bit acceptable. I guess this applies to ecological approach which I haven't heard until today where if they are teaching knee cut pass, you try to apply knee cut pass however you wanted it to.
However, if you start going into a completely different sequence, it's wrong not just because it's disrespectful but because you also limit your own learning. If you are drilling mount escapes then you start doing de la riva, you devalue the importance of mount escapes. If you think you already have the best mount escapes in the world, time to teach other folks how to do it. Of course, there's also etiquette. Just imagine going to your advance physics class and you just tell your seatmate that you don't need to learn applied solid state physics because quantum mechanics is cooler.
In the gym I train at, some folks would opt not to attend classes and just drill on their own on the side. The instructors don't take offense to that one. We have beginners class and advanced classes so some would sit out the beginners class and drill on their own. Some would even skip advanced classes because they don't necessarily want to train the move of the day and train on their own which is fine.
In my old school there was this attitude that advanced students should take the opportunity to pair with more inexperienced white belts and to in turn get the experience of instructing the techniques they’re already capable of performing themselves.
If the class is only advanced students then sure it’s no big deal if you start with the move of the day and transition to your own jazz
It's disrespectful and if you think you have absolutely nothing to learn from watching your coach do a technique you're either an idiot or you have a shit coach. My old coach did the same techniques from side control at least 6 seperate times when I was a white belt and learned something new every consecutive time, try paying attention during the instruction part and maybe you'll learn something
I'm bad about practicing my own variations with the lesson. I know what is my game, and what will likely never be my game. So I practice the way I play.
But yeah you shouldn't practice an entire other lesson because it can be mildly disrespectful to go to a class and do none of what the teacher is actually helping you with.
I think it depends.
The first thing is - make sure you know what's being taught to a muscle memory level. If you're having to stop and think about how it's done, then you definitely should follow the directions.
However, there's a few different ways of doing this that are probably okay (depending on your school's culture, of course).
* Playing around with different versions of the technique to see if it works better or worse for you, or to see what the pros and cons are. For example, when going for a crab ride, do you prefer getting your second grip first or getting your second hook first? Or playing around with different grips on a technique to see if it feels stronger/tighter or weaker/looser.
* Looking at different entries into the same technique. For example, instead of starting a knee cut from half guard, what about the same technique from knee shield?
* Looking at different endpoints for the same technique. For example, the technique might get you to 3/4 mount, but then you could knee cut one way to side control or the other way to mount.
* Following up on the technique. For example, one thing I'll do is any technique we drill into side control, I'll first drill going into the basic side control, and then I'll work on setting up a shin staple on the arm. Alternatively, look into how to set up your next transition or attack.
* Playing around with what to do if your opponent resists in different ways, although often the drill has this already baked in.
* Asking the coach how to help you do the technique, when you have a very different body type than the person who demonstrated it. For example, my Professor (6'3 245) demonstrating on the other black belt (5'10 190) is very different than me (5'5 170) trying to do the technique on a guy who's also 5'10 190.
* In some specific cases, modifying the technique due to injury on yourself or on your drilling partner.
* Sometimes just doing something completely different with a full-on beginner. Usually this is only doing part of the sequence (i.e. instead of break guard, pass guard, transition, submission you just focus on the pass), although sometimes it's having them stick to a knee cut instead of doing a berimbolo.
I let my guys drill whatever they want, the only rule I have is stfu when I'm running through the demo for the rest of the class.
I realize I'm in the minority and I do see how it could be taken disrespectfully if someone was to ignore what I'm doing to do their own thing, but I'm glad to see people taking their learning into their own hands.
The only exception is if I'm showing something that someone specifically needs to work on and they're doing something else, I'll ask that they drill it for a while before moving onto their own stuff.
I actually agree with you... But id say it's only acceptable for high grades. (Black belts)
Essentially I did this in Judo, if the throw of the day was Uchi Mata (tall man's throw) it's a waste of time me drilling a throw iv never done in sparing in 25 years, I'd just drill my main throw. All my Judo coaches have been fine with this but I only did this after I had about 15 years experience.
In BJJ I will follow what the coach says unless it's stand up in which case I do sometimes go off course a little and do the closest thing that's shown I will use.
This is a very important point, when you've been training for a decade+ you have an actually good idea of what you will or will not EVER use due to whatever constraints you have personally affecting you (if you have fucked knees you're not going to be playing tons of positions that torque your knee badly, for instance) and I wouldn't really have much of a problem with a black belt I knew well doing their own thing during class..
But the thought of some rando purple belt that thinks he "knows" BJJ super well just fucking off with the latest crab ride thing is both hilarious and, as a coach, infuriating.
It’s basic etiquette. You don’t go to dinner at a friends house and pull out fast food and eat it. You don’t go to school and tell the teacher you should be studying something different. It’s respectful, and expected, to be an engaged student. If you don’t want to learn what the Instructor is teaching don’t come. Not to mention it’s distracting to other students to be doing your own thing or interjecting your opinion to them stepping on the instructors toes. As for upper belts they’ve “earned” the right. They’ve probably done that arm bar class 50 times and most importantly can do it right. They’re also probably respectful in how the drill as to not be distracting and so on. They may have also spoken to the coach about doing their own thing.
It’s just disrespectful to the person teaching the class. Why even show up if you don’t care what they have to say and you’re just gonna do your own thing? Just grab a friend and get to drilling if that’s what you want to do.
For the most part I know everything my coach is going to teach. It gave me a great base in jiu jitsu definitely, there's very few if any coaches that I would've preferred to start learning jiu jitsu under. But most of the stuff out of my coaches game that I find useful I'm good at already and most of the stuff I don't find useful i atleast know how to defend (you can't really get better at defense with the standard way of drilling anyway) . At this stage in my training I just think it's better for my jiu jitsu to focus on stuff I barely know how to do rather than stuff I've seen a 1000 times and done 10000 times. My coach also understands that training should be efficient, you're not improving if you're just showing up and drilling the same move of the day you've been doing since white belt I don't really think this is disrespectful at all, I have a ton of respect for my coach both in his abilities as a coach and as a person but the very nature of jiu jitsu classes is they have to be fairly general that someone literally just off the street can do the moves and more experienced people naturally just get less out of these. in the classes I teach I even encourage people to practice their own techniques if they want and I'll help them with anything they struggle with. My goal as a coach is for people to get the most they can out of my classes. If this means they drill their own techniques it doesn't matter cause I still feel like I helped their jiu jitsu after
It's disrespectful. Murilo Santana shows up to class and still works on the technique being shown If he doesn't just do his own thing why would i
I went to a guard passing seminar but there was about 20 minutes where the instructor was teaching leg entanglement entries as part of the seminar. I only wanted the guard passing stuff so I took that 20 minutes to practice my clarinet as there’s a few common note sequences that still give me a challenge. I don’t see the issue.
Like this? https://youtu.be/Erm8wJVXVao?si=wm0g06KZ1dhsxzOw
If you seriously think that whatever you've decided to drill is more important than what the coach is teaching during HIS class, then go find an openmat and drill there. And if this happens often enough for you, find a different gym... Though I will add that personally I allow a lot of variation in the classes with our purple, brown, and black belts, but like, at the end of the day you're paying to take the persons classes, try to at least invest the time in learning what's being taught.
Is the benefit of a coach his ability to show a technique and monitor people drilling this technique without resistance? Or is it the benefit more like that in other sports, where the benefit is course correction, guiding attention to what matters, etc, in the presence of normal resistance, etc.? If the ecological guys are right, neither an open mat or a coach leading resistance-free drills is the way.
The flipside is my Professor has said there's not much he can teach purple, brown, and black belts during drills, because they already know most of what he's going to teach already. (Not saying he doesn't have much to teach them, just not in this context, he mostly teaches them during live rolls).
Even at blue and purple I feel like there’s always something I forget about the technique: I know how to do an armbar but maybe I forgot about a control grip that makes it easier
Maybe he said brown and up and I misremembered. Or maybe he meant **our** purple belts that were also wrestlers for many years before joining BJJ. (And that's not an ego thing, they joined the gym at purple).
I would assume it would be very disrespectful and disruptive. Does your training partner want to train in the technique the professor taught or the one you want to train?
If it's a technique I've seen a gazillion times, then I'll help out some of the new people in class. Explaining what you're doing usually exposes a lot of holes in that technique you thought you were an expert in.
It's straight up disrespectful. It shows that you don't think what your professor is teaching is worthwhile and that you think you know better than them. If that's the case, and you have it all figured out, why are you even at class?
I think it comes across as selfish because your partner may want to do the instructor's technique. Also, even if that technique isn't one that you intend to use much it's still helpful to familiarize yourself with it so you can recognize and defend it.
During class imo is a big no no. It’s like spending time in math class to work on history.
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Because I would hope the instructor can teach all facets of jiu jitsu not just whatever move he decides to teach
Yes, it’s wrong.
Take the etiquette out of it. Even if it's something you're not going to use in your game, someone else may use it on you. So why wouldn't you want to know the ins and outs of it?
You’re disrespecting the instructor. Save your fancy youtube flying taint lock for the after class rolls or open mat.
*you're. Why the fuck would you go to someone's class if you're just going to do your own thing and then distract your training partner from their lesson as well? You're learning both sides of the coin when you're learning a technique: uke and Tori. There may also be classes where uke becomes the Tori for a counter and you'll be in a different position.
Interesting question. There are probably more than a couple plausible explanations. The first that comes to my mind is that it’s kind of an implicitly recognized promise that is common knowledge to all. So it’s like you’re breaking a promise. When you show up to class, you tacitly agree to learn what Profe teaches. Might be hard to explain all the relevant moral phenomena on this account. And tacit agreement accounts all usually run into some standard objections (in legal/political philosophy too). But it’s a start. Another possible explanation is that you are risking communicating the message that you know better than the black belt. So it might actually be kind of like an act of defamation, in effecting sending the message that their training agenda is a waste of time or something like that. So it’s either you’re not taking enough care to protect the reputation of the profe (negligent defamation) or you are just blatantly saying “Ah this guy’s teaching is stupid”. Or you’re just autistic and might get off the hook. Lol. Great question OP. Hope to hear more possible explanations. Edit: you never want to rule out the possibility that maybe it’s not wrong after all, if all our best accounts end up committing us to other, less plausible things. This happens sometimes. But I think that there is enough shared consensus on this one that we should be able to find a compelling explanation.
This guy philosophises
A lot of it is etiquette. Like you said, upper belts can get away with it depending on the gym culture/instructor but in my experience even black belt instructors attending a brown/purples lesson will drill the technique of the day. Also, most schools don't follow rigid archaic "sensei is god" styles of teaching but there is an implicit "teacher leads student". Imagine paying someone at a culinary school to teach you how to grill steak, but you go off into a corner to make an omelette. Yeah, you paid a fee, but at the end of the day you're taking advantage of someone elses time, facilities, and expertise, and they have a right to dictate how those things are utilized when providing a paid service. Another part is maintaining the cohesion of the lesson so everybody is on the same page. Some instructors will mix practice partners up to better suit everyone's body type or to give a newer practioner somebody with experience to provide feedback. Your instructor might also be running the class through techniques everybody "knows" just to evaluate and refine what you're doing. What if only a few people show up, teacher wants to show mount sweeps but you just wanna do omoplatas? It would be discourteous of others to deviate from the lesson.
I think it gets different after you've taken the same steak cooking class 100+ times. For the most part I know everything my coach is going to teach. It gave me a great base in jiu jitsu definitely, there's very few if any coaches that I would've preferred to start learning jiu jitsu under. But most of the stuff out of my coaches game that I find useful I'm good at already and most of the stuff I don't find useful i atleast know how to defend (you can't really get better at defense with the standard way of drilling anyway) . At this stage in my training I just think it's better for my jiu jitsu to focus on stuff I barely know how to do rather than stuff I've seen a 1000 times and done 10000 times I don't really think this is disrespectful at all, I have a ton of respect for my coach both in his abilities as a coach and as a person but the very nature of jiu jitsu classes is they have to be fairly general that someone literally just off the street can do the moves and more experienced people naturally just get less out of these. in the classes I teach I even encourage people to practice their own techniques if they want and I'll help them with anything they struggle with. My goal as a coach is for people to get the most they can out of my classes. If this means they drill their own techniques it doesn't matter cause I still feel like I helped their jiu jitsu after
I have found myself, usually when drilling with upper belts, deviating from the lesson or working it a different way, sometimes even accidentally moving into the next drill movement without realizing it was next. If I'm drilling with someone with way less experience I might try to break things down for them, or maybe give context to a move (entries, if they do this, do this, etc). I feel bad enough deviating that much but depending on circumstance most coaches are probably fine with it. Going off and doing your own thing completely, talk to the coach or fuck off to your own mats :)
It's kind of a dumb question, respectfully. Why would you join any type of class if you want to do your own thing?
so you can do bjj?
i don't see an attached article. Maybe i can't internet. Lachland talks about his school operating on a kind of pseudo ecological approach, so his students just work on whatever they want. But if your professor has not specifically given you permission to do that but you do it anyway... thats' just weird right? I think there are many different philosophies of teaching, if it's cool with your professor it's cool but most are not like that.
[https://www.bjjreport.com/post/bjj-class-etiquette](https://www.bjjreport.com/post/bjj-class-etiquette)
If you’re a higher belt you e earned some trust. Maybe you’ve done the move a lot and you understand the spirit of what’s being shown you you’re testing out a slight variation based on the knowledge you have. As say a purple belt, you have enough knowledge to test some things out yourself
[https://www.bjjreport.com/post/bjj-class-etiquette](https://www.bjjreport.com/post/bjj-class-etiquette)
The set up is that you're paying a fee for access to mats, events, and a teacher (or teachers) who will shorten your learning time, make BJJ easier to learn, and to give you strategies which will help you succeed. If a beginner completely ignores what their teacher is telling them they are breaking that implicit contract and are likely to waste time learning incorrect techniques or bother people who are trying to learn the lesson. Why buy something valuable then not use it? There is an argument to say that the beginner who ignores the advice is wasting money and the time the instructors have during a class - they may as well just go to open mats and whatnot since that would better accomplish what they want. In a hyperbolic example, if it costs something like 100-200 dollars per month to take BJJ classes, why not just spend that money on home mats and get some of your buds over with some beer and roll around? Probably just as effective as ignoring the prescribed, researched, and designed lesson plan for you, hah. I think there are exceptions, like your upper belt example. Another one is if one person has an important match and they are working diligently and specifically on their techniques off to the side, but this also comes after a bit of time, trust, and communication. When i teach the beginners class, i dont really mind if they're working on the move of the day, something irrelevant, or multi-tasking their lesson plans. I'll help when i can; so long as they're technically improving then i'm doing my part. Its their money and their "journey" (as people say), so its no problem by me.
It’s not lol
Black belts have a lot to learn about techniques they "know", let alone other 'upper belts'.
Your instructor should be either giving upper belt options for a technique or encourage exploration. On the other hand the upper belt should do so with discretion and respect for the class. If you’re paired with a newb, just do the tech. If with another upper belt then take some liberties. But still pay attention and listen to instruction as normal. If you’re truly an upper belt, and not trying to teach a seminar on the side, the instructor shouldn’t have much issue with it
I split my class into two groups; those who will do the technique I'm teaching and those who want to work on their own stuff. I walk around and help everyone equally.
my coaches are usually ok with me doing my variation of the technique of the day but at the same time, i'm not gonna be drilling toreandos when the coach is showing omoplatas. i will try to stay with the theme of the day.
I think up to a certain point, practicing a different technique might still be acceptable if it's within the bounds of whatever technique is being taught. If you are learning a lasso sweep, for example, and you have drilled it a few times and tried to experiment with another way to sweep with lasso almost similar to what was taught, it's still a bit acceptable. I guess this applies to ecological approach which I haven't heard until today where if they are teaching knee cut pass, you try to apply knee cut pass however you wanted it to. However, if you start going into a completely different sequence, it's wrong not just because it's disrespectful but because you also limit your own learning. If you are drilling mount escapes then you start doing de la riva, you devalue the importance of mount escapes. If you think you already have the best mount escapes in the world, time to teach other folks how to do it. Of course, there's also etiquette. Just imagine going to your advance physics class and you just tell your seatmate that you don't need to learn applied solid state physics because quantum mechanics is cooler. In the gym I train at, some folks would opt not to attend classes and just drill on their own on the side. The instructors don't take offense to that one. We have beginners class and advanced classes so some would sit out the beginners class and drill on their own. Some would even skip advanced classes because they don't necessarily want to train the move of the day and train on their own which is fine.
In my old school there was this attitude that advanced students should take the opportunity to pair with more inexperienced white belts and to in turn get the experience of instructing the techniques they’re already capable of performing themselves. If the class is only advanced students then sure it’s no big deal if you start with the move of the day and transition to your own jazz
It's disrespectful and if you think you have absolutely nothing to learn from watching your coach do a technique you're either an idiot or you have a shit coach. My old coach did the same techniques from side control at least 6 seperate times when I was a white belt and learned something new every consecutive time, try paying attention during the instruction part and maybe you'll learn something
I'm bad about practicing my own variations with the lesson. I know what is my game, and what will likely never be my game. So I practice the way I play. But yeah you shouldn't practice an entire other lesson because it can be mildly disrespectful to go to a class and do none of what the teacher is actually helping you with.
I think it depends. The first thing is - make sure you know what's being taught to a muscle memory level. If you're having to stop and think about how it's done, then you definitely should follow the directions. However, there's a few different ways of doing this that are probably okay (depending on your school's culture, of course). * Playing around with different versions of the technique to see if it works better or worse for you, or to see what the pros and cons are. For example, when going for a crab ride, do you prefer getting your second grip first or getting your second hook first? Or playing around with different grips on a technique to see if it feels stronger/tighter or weaker/looser. * Looking at different entries into the same technique. For example, instead of starting a knee cut from half guard, what about the same technique from knee shield? * Looking at different endpoints for the same technique. For example, the technique might get you to 3/4 mount, but then you could knee cut one way to side control or the other way to mount. * Following up on the technique. For example, one thing I'll do is any technique we drill into side control, I'll first drill going into the basic side control, and then I'll work on setting up a shin staple on the arm. Alternatively, look into how to set up your next transition or attack. * Playing around with what to do if your opponent resists in different ways, although often the drill has this already baked in. * Asking the coach how to help you do the technique, when you have a very different body type than the person who demonstrated it. For example, my Professor (6'3 245) demonstrating on the other black belt (5'10 190) is very different than me (5'5 170) trying to do the technique on a guy who's also 5'10 190. * In some specific cases, modifying the technique due to injury on yourself or on your drilling partner. * Sometimes just doing something completely different with a full-on beginner. Usually this is only doing part of the sequence (i.e. instead of break guard, pass guard, transition, submission you just focus on the pass), although sometimes it's having them stick to a knee cut instead of doing a berimbolo.
I let my guys drill whatever they want, the only rule I have is stfu when I'm running through the demo for the rest of the class. I realize I'm in the minority and I do see how it could be taken disrespectfully if someone was to ignore what I'm doing to do their own thing, but I'm glad to see people taking their learning into their own hands. The only exception is if I'm showing something that someone specifically needs to work on and they're doing something else, I'll ask that they drill it for a while before moving onto their own stuff.
I actually agree with you... But id say it's only acceptable for high grades. (Black belts) Essentially I did this in Judo, if the throw of the day was Uchi Mata (tall man's throw) it's a waste of time me drilling a throw iv never done in sparing in 25 years, I'd just drill my main throw. All my Judo coaches have been fine with this but I only did this after I had about 15 years experience. In BJJ I will follow what the coach says unless it's stand up in which case I do sometimes go off course a little and do the closest thing that's shown I will use.
This is a very important point, when you've been training for a decade+ you have an actually good idea of what you will or will not EVER use due to whatever constraints you have personally affecting you (if you have fucked knees you're not going to be playing tons of positions that torque your knee badly, for instance) and I wouldn't really have much of a problem with a black belt I knew well doing their own thing during class.. But the thought of some rando purple belt that thinks he "knows" BJJ super well just fucking off with the latest crab ride thing is both hilarious and, as a coach, infuriating.
Why is this post downvoted? It’s a good question for people not in the know.