What is better for your overall development? I hate drilling moves at this point (I've been training 8 years)and prefer to roll. I think I'm improving at the same speed as before but it's hard to tell (I'm one of the better students at my school). Which do you think helps more?
I think that the first few years (5 years at least) drilling is much more important. After that it varies from person to person. If you are the kind of person who keeps trying techniques and someone who works a variety of techniques (not just their strongest moves) when rolling without worrying about getting tapped then you can get away with drilling a little less. For people who use their A-game when sparring because they like to win, they need to drill techniques as much as possible if they hope to use them successfully down the road.
I really enjoy live drilling.
For example all I have to do is pass someone's guard but that person has to stop me. once I pass or get swept we restart the drill and alternate if you want.
I don't drill. If I need to work on a new move I simply roll with someone less experienced and/or not as athletic.
I think drilling is important because it 'fine-tunes' your technique. When you pull techniques off against a fully resisting opponent you tend to not pull it off with 100% technical accuracy. That's not to say it doesn't work, but many times you tend to use gross motor skills and strength where finer motor skills and leverage are what you need.
I think drilling is what 'brings you back' to doing the technique with 100% accuracy and preserves the integrity of the technique as you progress, otherwise your technique tends to 'degrade' a bit as you pull it off over and over in all-out live matches.
Just my $.02
What Davide said. That's helped me more than just rolling or doing repetitions of techniques. Although, Morango said that Royler used to make them do 50 repetitions back in Rio.
I like to do both, I have to agree with the above statement that drilling is the most important, but with that said I think a good combination of the two helps.
I enjoy positional sparring a lot and I think that is when I see the most improvement of my game. For an example, we will do three rounds of someone just getting out of mount with three different partners.
I don't know how everyone else's classes are formatted, but I love drilling during the warmup. People typically just go through the arm bars, triangles, oma platas and then just sit and wait for instruction to begin. I make sure I get a good partner that is also intent on learning and drill different sweeps, passes, etc. Drilling is very important imo and it has really helped me with my game. We also have open gym on saturdays at the gym I go to, and it's very seldom that I actually roll during open gym. I get 1 or 2 buddies to drill with me for a few hours...really works wonders for your game.
I think both are equally important. Each has different goals AND each actually compliment the other. So, in my view, I don't see one being more important or better than the other.
I use drilling to prepare for sparring and use sparring to adjust my drilling. I like call to this relationship the drill - performace connection.
Funny I had a conversation about this the other day with my friend.
I honestly think they are both important but when you get to the level that you are shaping your own game then rolling becomes the part you need to focus on more to make sure you aren't drilling techniques that aren't going to help you.
I still drill just not as much
Static drilling is important for building coordination and fluidity.
Dynamic drilling (with a limited scope) is where the bulk of skill development happens.
Rolling helps to spot areas of low awareness or weak areas. Rolling with lower belts or smaller, weaker partners can be used as dynamic drilling because you can force them back to the same area over and over.
Rolling is typically the most FUN, and that's one reason people prefer it and hope that it's the best training method, but really: when have FUN and SKILL DEVELOPMENT ever been the same?
boboplata - "when have FUN and SKILL DEVELOPMENT ever been the same? "
sex
Well played, sir...
You win...you always do!
3 important phases of training-
Intro- Here's where you learn a new technique and spend a bit of time doing dead reps. Not too much time though.
Isolation- Here you try the technique against progressive resistance. This is drilling stage. You are trying to accomplish a very specific goal and your partner is resisting. You are getting lots of reps in. Difference is that your partner is giving you trouble so you can feel the technique as it would be applied in a real role. A good training partner will give you enough resistance so that you have some success but are working hard to get it.
Integration- Here you roll trying to pull off the technique in the full delivery system whatever that is. All techniques and the full scope of the delivery system are available at this point.
That's the SBG way and I'd never do it any other way....
Far too much emphasis on drilling imo.
^^^ I disagree.
Have you ever noticed that the same people who say "Just roll! Just roll and you'll get better!" are also the people who say "It should take at least 10-15 years to get a black belt"...?
it depends on the person. if a person hates drilling, but loves sparring then he will learn little while drilling as he might shut his brain off and approach drilling with a negative attitude, thus creating a self-fullfilling prophecy.
another person may have the opposite experience. yet another person may like both and learn from both.
imagine any other sport where they only played the game instead of practicing. Football, baseball or basketball for instance......never practice just suit up and play.
How about boxing? Never hit the bag or pads, never practice footwork or shadowbox.....just lace em up and bang. LOL. Anybody who thinks drilling is a waste of time is an idiot. Repetition is the mother of skill.
drilling is under emphasized if anything.
I think everyone needs reps and drilling, but i also think it is more important to the least athletic type of person.