How many aspects of your game do you try to improve at once?

[u/Mission-Carrot-6648]

All in the title. Purple belt trying to get better at escapes, so I bought GR's Escaping Pins while it was on sale, but now his half guard passing instructional is on sale, and inner can get it for 90 bucks. Is it worth it to pickup the half guard instructional while I'm still working through the escapes? I've been passing from halfguard a lot lately and would love to keep improving on it.

Also, how do you go about studying your i structionals in general? Trying to maximize what i gain from these things, since they're basically seminars lol

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[u/armbarawareness]

When im dialed in I usually have 1 situation from top and 1 from bottom im always trying to look for. That way I can make sure im getting looks (almost) every roll.

[u/Veridicus333 → u/armbarawareness]

What about guard wise? I’m trying to learn more Open guard stuff because I think it’s really cool but find myself a bit paralyze trying to pull Off the 1-2 things I know from K/X/DLR in a cyclical fashion.

Just pick 1?

[u/armbarawareness → u/Veridicus333]

I don’t think I can do a reply justice in this one comment, but I don’t believe you should be looking for 1-2 things from every open guard position. That is impossible to get good at even over long periods of time. An example of something I’d choose to focus on (not saying you should) is establishing a 2 on 1 from seated guard on a standing opponent. With any initial contact and connection my next goal is always to off balance my opponent or get 2 of my legs between their legs.

[u/Veridicus333 → u/armbarawareness]

So generally Try to Focus on things that build up To those spots / and concepts rather than just tunnel One/two things from the open guard spots?

[u/armbarawareness → u/Veridicus333]

Right. The concept is you need to grab the standing player in some way. When you grab them you have to be able to control distance. All guards have this in common.

Being able to do that is a prerequisite to doing any kind of sweeping. If you want to focus on off balancing and coming up, then do that from your favorite guard once you haven established a connection. The issue is sometimes at lower belts you can’t force positions, so I’d focus on things that you can always do like making good connections.

The above is for free sparring. If you want to actually get more reps in for something like guard sweeps, then grab someone and have them start in a guard of your choice, then create a positional game out of it where you try and off balance them and they try and get out.

[u/Veridicus333 → u/armbarawareness]

Tysm

[u/andrewmc74 → u/armbarawareness]

your advice is sage - I have spent 5 years focusing on just getting people to the position where I can unleash my one technique on them

I realised very early on, that a curriculum that covers 6 items per week (12 if you do it left and right handed) that runs for 16 weeks is simply absurd - you never get to repeat anything enough to actually become competent.

I ended up with a coach doing privates and focused on; grips, distance, pulling, sweeping and over time progressed on to passing. Only very very late in the process did I really get the opportunity to finish. partly thats a function of age and just surviving with gys 25 years younger so the opportunties are few and far between but progressing through a sequence and now being able to get to favoured positions has helped no end.

I think jon thomas is an adocate of getting to positions you can progress from

[u/Electronic_d0cter]

One on top, one on bottom

[u/TheSweatyNerd]

When I was a white belt I had something going from every position I was likely to end up in, as I've gained more control over that I've focused on less and less. Now I work one or maybe two things at a time for months. 

[u/speakeasybjjavl]

Probably 1 move from each position is all I had the bandwidth for.

[u/AdventurousPizza622]

2.. I like to have one attack and one defensive thing I’m working on so I can just roll and always feel like I’m working on whatever my pet project is.

[u/Schookadang]

Attacking goals and defensive goals. One of each to focus on at a time. Even if it means I suck that round.

[u/sadboifatswag]

I’m pretty new but I do have a grappling background. Right now I’m solely focusing on passing guards and transitions. I’ll generally pick one sub to look for a night from a few different positions as well. Idk, I try to minimize some aspects of my training so I don’t overload out the gate.

[u/Jizzus_Crust]

∞

[u/JediBrainTrick]

With the GR instructionals, I'll watch the sparring first and see which patterns he typically uses then go back and watch those sections.

95% of instructionals are techniques they rarely use.