Depending on how I am feeling and what I want to do in a particular class, I will usually balance drilling techniques with progressive resistance with wide open sparring.

Sometimes though, the drills will evolve into their own little battles as students work hard to escape or counter a position during the Isolation phase. This is where I think we make the most measurable progress, compared to just shaking hands and fighting. My students have gotten a lot more technical because I force them to work on their weak points as opposed to always playing their favorite game.

Keep in mind, that drilling should not remain static but should include progressive resistance.

How do you all balance sparring and drilling?

Fletch,

Since I am usually the guy just learning, often times when I roll in an open class you start doing the drills like you said, but I talk with my partner (who is usually more skilled than I am) and after we go over postitional stuff guard to half guard and whatever techniques they are trying to stuff in my thick head....I generally say, ok lets go for it and increase the resistance.

This is done gradually, it doesn't do me any good if the guy is bigger and badder than me to keep tapping without me knowing what's going on and trying to learn to defend.

So, usually my partner will allow me some postional change...if he is in guard, and I am trying to basic a choke without setting it up and allowing for him to pull me into a triangle, well the understanding is that he pulls me down hard enough to let me know he could go for it, but explains my mistakes.

Then we do it again and again and again, but eventually he won't be so gentle and I won't be so stupid. In this way, you increase intensity continually but gradually, with the understanding that we aren't trying to clobber each other (or at least I won't get clobbered)...so I can learn.

If I get out of something he is trying to pull on me, I know I did it and it wasn't him releasing me. Otherwise you might question how you escaped, if the intensisty isn't there.

The biggest problem I had to get over was being too aggressive, to my detriment. I got tapped quickly, but learned little.

So intensity...but with communication and an understanding of how "hard" we are going to take it.

-B

Great post. A valuable insight into what should be happening in alive training.

Too many people have misinterpreted it to mean that you are always going all out, beating the crap out of each other.

Very nice.