Drilling

Drilling in BJJ has become a controversial topic, and I can understand why. Oftentimes when you walk into a gym, you see people going through the motions, not really focusing on what they're doing, not utilizing their time wisely to make their techniques more efficient and effective. This type of mindless drilling is useless, it's ineffective, and it builds bad habits. Personally, I am a proponent of drilling to execute, usually being my drilling partner is work. We hit reps continuously with decent intensity until time is up. Both people are always looking to correct pressure, limb placement, positional differences, and anything else that would make the technique we are working on better overall. When I watch Cobrinha or the guys of AOJ drill it's always very precise and smooth, which is another avenue of drilling, but it requires more accountability as both uke and tori. Without a concept of the realistic execution of the moves, the steps of execution you go through in your mind must be bulletproof to then hit those moves in a less relaxed situation. The branch off of drilling that probably needs to be explored more in a lot of BJJ gyms is specific training. When we teach a position it behooves all involved to then try and execute those things within the same day. By going straight into rolling without parameters, a vital piece of the learning process is missed. I am guilty of this as are a lot of instructors, because people sometimes just want to scrap. I suppose the main point is there is a way to make yourself better through drilling, but it might not be the way you're going about it now.