Drilling is central to success in jiujitsu. With an art this detailed, you simply have to repeat the core movements thousands of times to train your body. As Roger Gracie famously advised, you shouldn’t drill a move until you get it right — you should drill until you can’t get it wrong.

There are several great sites and articles and videos out there with specific drills. I’ve written about the solo drills I do when no one is around to train with.

That’s not the point of this post, though. It’s very common that I see new white belts making mistakes in terms of drilling method: either they treat it like sparring, or they race through the  details, or they make other simple errors that are going to impede the learning process.

These are understandable mistakes — they’re new, for one thing. Also, sometimes new people see upper belts doing drills that are more appropriate for experienced people. Drilling should never stop. Red belt legends still drill basic moves.

It’s a lot easier to implement good practices than to correct errors. So let’s go over how I like to drill myself, and how I suggest you learn jiujitsu through drilling as you move up through the ranks.

DRILLING NEW MOVES

What I’m about to describe is the way I would prefer all the new white belts I work with drill moves. But it also applies to upper belts who are seeing positions or details for the first time: the way we process information, it’s important to take it slowly and precisely when we see it at first.

When your instructor shows a move in class, pay close attention to all of the details — especially the details your teacher says are the core of the move. Practice the move with your partner, and do so without resistance: our bodies are trying to learn something brand new, so it’s important we get it right without resistance before we try to succeed with resistance (that’s what sparring is for).

Drill each step of the move discretely, and slowly. What I mean by that is, if there are three steps to the move, drill step one slowly and carefully, being sure to get all the details right. Then drill step two slowly and carefully. Proceed this way through the whole move.

Of course, when we’re sparring, things aren’t going to go perfectly. We aren’t going to be able to go through each part of each move slowly and carefully. But by drilling that way, we’re making our movements smooth and fluid, and by making our focus on the details, we’re maximizing our chances of success during real-world situations. Drilling is the  laboratory where we prepare for sparring.

Jon Plyler, a terrific black belt under Royce Gracie, once made a remark that always stuck with me. When he saw black belts drilling a move they were learning new details on, they’d, all drill silently, repeating the detail over and over. If your goal is to be a black belt and to be a good one, it’s solid practice to emulate that.

That’s the last thought I’d leave you with on the basics of drilling: no one learns a move by doing the move without resistance three times.

Don’t do the move three times, or five times, or for a minute, and then stop to talk to your partner about how you feel about the move. This is your time to improve, and you should maximize it. Drill until your instructor tells you to stop.
DRILLING MOVES YOU KNOW WELL WITH AN EXPERIENCED PARTNER

Once you get a blue belt, and you have a few moves in your arsenal that you feel reasonably confident with, it might be time to start ratcheting the pace up a bit. This can also help make your drilling time cardio time, since you can get a sweat up.

The way I like to do this is to pick a partner with some experience and do two-minute rounds where I drill a move of my choice over and over again for two minutes, the clock goes off, and then we switch.

A great example of this is the torreando / bullfighter pass. It’s a dynamic pass that requires smooth and coordinated footwork. This includes the ability to switch sides you’re passing to in the moment — and doing it, say, 50 times in a row on each side is tiring. I get my grips and keep them, and just pass as many times as I can during the round. Then, my partner takes a turn.

This is also the place where resistance starts to be OK. Sometimes I’ll ask my partner to give me a certain amount of resistance (say, 20-40 percent). I don’t want it to escalate to the level of sparring, but sometimes it’s nice to have a simulated realistic response. That’s the key, a realistic response — and that’s why you have to pick a partner that understands how to simulate a real response (i.e., an experienced partner).

 

DRILLING “CHAINS” OF MOVES

In life and in jiujitsu, things don’t always go well the first time. If you’re able to sweep everyone on the first try every time, good for you, but that’s not my experience. That’s why I like to drill chains of moves — progressions of techniques where, when my opponent defends, I react to the defense with a transition. The importance of being able to transition can’t be overstated, and this helps with that.

When drilling chains of moves, start with the moves you know best. If you drill a series of moves that you’re mediocre on, you may ingrain bad habits — and those probably aren’t going to be the moves you go through in competition as well.

Here’s how an example of this drilling series looks in practice: I begin with a double under stack pass. My drilling partner shrimps out to one side as a defense. I use this to transition to the single under (traditional) stack pass. My partner stiff-arms my hips to prevent my passing to that side. I use this to transition to the smash pass / leg staple pass on the other side.

Like the previous example, I like to do drilling rounds of several minutes. I’ll do one chain for two or three minutes, then my partner will do a chain of his or her choice on me.

Again, this is a good drill for partners with some experience, because you have to have a partner that understands the defenses (and they can use this drill to sharpen their defenses as well). Transitions are super-important, and you can see why this type of drilling matters: it enables us to take techniques we know, and move smoothly between them.

These are far from the only ways to drill, but they’re the three categories of drilling that have worked best for me over the year. If you’re new, hopefully this gives you a sense of the proper way to drill (in my opinion, at least). If you’re not new, hopefully this gives you some template ideas of how to organize your own drilling.

The moves you do may be different than the moves I do, of course, but you should be able to plug in your favorite techniques pretty easily. And maybe you drill radically differently than I do: I’m always looking to hear about other ways of doing things, so let me know.