I was recently asked to write a blog about mindful instruction and how to appropriately coach/teach those who don’t wish to compete or have other limitations. With more than a decade of experience in the classroom as a school teacher, I can offer a few insights into how and why we run things the way we do at Academic Grappling. Simply put, the key is to meet each student where they are.

Not everyone who comes into our gym does so with an innate ability for Jiu-Jitsu. In fact, that’s a pretty rare thing in any gym. Most of us have to learn things through detailed instruction that has been scaffolded out for us to understand. Which leads me to one of the things that I believe sets Academic Grappling apart from most other Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu gyms: Personalization.

Personalization simply means knowing the reasons our students want to train, and then helping them progress towards those goals. Meeting students where they are is all about putting students at the center of learning, and doing our best to ensure that all grapplers have equitable access to knowledge and learning opportunities. So how do we create an environment that is beneficial to all? How can we engage the competitor, the casual, the self-defense focused, the socializer, etc. without neglecting anyone?

Here are just a few of the specific ways we do exactly that:

Student-led Activities

Student-led activities are a great way to promote grapplers finding and sharing their skills, gifts, and insights with one another. At least once every week during warm ups, I will have students show their partner their favorite technique from a specific position and then practice it together; afterward, they learn their partner’s favorite technique from the same position and they will then practice that one too. 

I also provide what I call “laboratory time”. This is when I give students a “problem” or a general goal, and some unstructured time to solve said problem together. As we are currently learning guard passing all month, one problem that often arises is overcoming our opponent’s gi grips in order to even begin passing. Before I turn them loose to problem-solve, I have been front-loading a few general concepts for grip breaking (changing angles, lateral movement vs circular movement, etc.). This gives the class a general idea of what to look for and try out, but ultimately, it is up to them to apply those concepts at their own pace, and find what does and does not work for them specifically.

A Safe Place to Fail

Laboratory time also gives everyone a safe place to fail. When we try new things while live-rolling, it can backfire on us in a major way. If I just learned a triangle choke and then tried to pull it off in sparring and failed, my partner likely moved into a dominant position and I miss the opportunity to practice that triangle choke again unless we just happen to end up there again by accident. 

However, if I teach a triangle choke and then give the class the goal of finding entries for the choke for their laboratory time, they suddenly have multiple opportunities to practice that triangle from a variety of positions. If they fail, they learn what didn’t work and they have another opportunity to try without having to worry about losing position, getting tapped out, or experiencing the stressors of rolling. In education, this is often called think-pair-share. I give students a problem to think about, they have an opportunity to experiment and compare thoughts with their partner, and then we debrief as a class to see what we learned.

The Zone of Proximal Development

This is a phrase that is frequently thrown around in the world of education, but at its heart, it simply means that as the coach, I am teaching things just barely outside of my students’ comfort zones. Jiu-Jitsu is much like weightlifting in the fact that we want to reach a certain point of ability quickly, but attempting to skip the small goals in pursuit of a major one ultimately holds us back. As an example, if I were to teach a class how to invert, I would show them what it looks like first, but then I would break it down into smaller, easier to achieve movements. So even if students end up not being able to perform the full technique, they have still learned appropriate movements and know what to work on. So in the same way a person has to work their way up to a 400 lb squat, we may have to work our way up to inverting via the practice of smaller movements individually.

Along the same lines, I am not going to have an inversion be the first thing a person learns. Even if the class on inverting is a student’s first class, they will learn positions and simpler techniques before they jump into the more advanced lesson.

One thing that I have found to be effective is mindful pairings of students who I believe can learn from one another. For example, when a new, inexperienced grappler joins the gym, I usually won’t partner them with the most experienced person on the mats in that class. Instead, I have found that grapplers with just a little more experience tend to be best. Slightly more experienced students more freshly remember how overwhelming it can all feel being new, so they tend to help more recent grapplers recognize what techniques are within reach. An added bonus of this method is that students who normally don’t have an opportunity to teach others are able to examine why they do the techniques the way they do, and explaining it to someone else is often just outside of an individual's comfort zone to begin with. This provides a growth opportunity for both partners.

Reduce Distractions

The gym can be a very distracting place. During the summer, the fans are loudly blowing at full force, music might be blasting through the speakers, and many nights, we share the mat space with a boxing program. For learners with difficulty focusing on instruction, this can be a very difficult environment to learn in.

And though no solution is perfect, there are a number of things we can do in order to help overcome distractions. For example, I will only play music from the speakers during warm ups and rolling. I also situate myself so that my students are facing away from the boxing class. If the fans are too loud to hear, we turn them down. 

But that’s just limiting the distractions. For students who still struggle with focus, I check for understanding throughout the lesson by asking questions about what I just demonstrated or asking if anyone needs to see it again or feel it done to them. When grapplers break off to drill the lesson, it creates a movement break to refresh attention and provides more think-pair-share opportunities to enhance learning. I also circulate around the room to see who needs clarification, which is especially important for those who struggle with maintaining attention.

Low-pressure Rolling

This one is important for everyone, but especially for newer grapplers. Stress kills our ability to learn. There is no shortage of research in regards to this; when our fight or flight response is activated, we essentially become incapable of learning until we have decompressed from that stress. New students who are just beginning to roll will experience more stress than anyone else on the mat. As their coach, it is my job to ease them into it.

When I roll with inexperienced individuals, I am not looking to submit them, or dominate them, or show off to them. Instead, I try to offer mild resistance and put myself into a position in which they can work whatever techniques we just learned during that class. We are very fortunate that almost all of our members are on board with this method, and everyone tends to help ease the more recent grapplers into live rolling.

This is also where progressive resistance comes into play. While I may take things very easy when rolling with a brand new person, I am not going to offer the same ease to everyone. I try to make my rolls match the abilities of the person I am partnered with in order to force them to reach just outside of their comfort zone, and into the zone of proximal development.

As students begin to associate Jiu-Jitsu with low stress, their ability to endure the situational stress of rolling actually begins to increase. When it no longer feels overwhelming, it gets easier to try new things and be more assertive, even when met with resistance. But just like the analogy of the frog in the pot, we have to increase that resistance gradually to avoid turning Jiu-Jitsu into a major stressor, and in turn hamper learning opportunities. That doesn’t mean you can’t submit your partner or achieve a dominant position; it simply means we need to be mindful of our partners, gauge their stress levels, and act accordingly.

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This short list is not all-encompassing. A good teacher or coach will always be putting thought into how they treat and teach their students. They will always be looking for ways to improve. During my decade as a school teacher, I was able to learn and refine many of my teaching methods, but I am still learning too! And that endless learning is a huge part of why I fell in love with Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu in the first place. I truly believe that meeting students where they are at is a major key to developing a love for the sport, and maximizing a person’s ability to learn.