February 15th 2010

Drilling

There are different views on how many repetitions it takes to commit something to muscle memory.  I've been told anything from 100 to 10000 times.  Whatever the real number, drilling is integral to the development, refinement and then mastery of a technique.  I'd say we are still in the development stage, but and last night we spent a good while drilling the arm bar and the closed guard escape.  It was clear that the group is getting to grips with both techniques but as always the concepts behind them - either breaking your opponent's posture or establishing your own posture.

We also had our first 'king of the hill'.  This is where a couple of people stay on the mat and either sweep or submit their opponents.  If they successfully sweep or submit they stay on the mat and the opponent leaves, they are then joined by a fresh opponent whom they must sweep or submit.  If their guard is passed then the successful guard passer takes their place on the mat and the process continues.  We did this for 15 minutes, not too bad for the first time, but I envisage this time increasing quite dramatically over the next few months.  This was then followed with twenty minutes of sparring with everyone clearly attempting to use technique rather than strength or power.  Great stuff, it's hard to believe it's only been two weeks for some of the group.