Why we've stopped drilling and use the Constraints Led Approach

Scalability

The Constraints Led Approach gives us the opportunity to increase or decrease the amount of difficulty, complexity, and intensity of each part of our training. So if we have a large size, skill, or age, gap we are able to alter the constraints to give each student the correct level of challenge for that training session. The better players can already do this with their own training by putting themselves in worse starting positions during rounds, or adding in their own constraints to increase the challenge of a position. But when you are the much smaller or less skilled player it can be difficult to get value out of (positional) sparring. At Counter Grappling, instead of static drilling, we play games that are slices of the whole of jiujitsu. Then we can alter the goals or starting position of the game for students who need more, or less, of a challenge to get the most out of the training session.

The Constraints Led Approach also allows us to practice jiujitsu in a live but controlled way. The entire class then, can be active and physically challenging. At Counter Grappling, we start classes with lower intensity, continuous games to get our bodies warmed up, and then we increase the intensity and complexity through the rest of the class. This way, we can feel like we have exercised/trained/done something physical and at the same time improved our grappling. Our classes can be shorter, and students can quickly become conditioned to the demands of jiujitsu. In the past, we had left too many sessions (where we practiced a sport!) without getting a sweat on, if we did get enough sparring at a session it took hours as we would fit in warm ups and static drills before any alive practice, and then the amount of injury and aches from repeatedly warming up, cooling down drilling, and then jumping into intense rounds was too much, especially in the gi, especially in winter. The way we train now is removing these problems. Training using the constraints led approach is challenging, and doing all of our practice against an uncooperative partner is physically demanding, but that is what we want when we are training a (combat) sport. This is why we are here. We use the Constraints Led Approach to get what we want out of practice without the wasted time. Drop in and train with us if you want to see what it's like first hand. Leave 'CLA' in the comments, and we can send over the resources that we've used to implement this approach at the gym.