I only want to roll because classes are too boring

Again I do think it’s different when you are part of a school team, or when the school is run by volunteers. In that case the athletes are often expected to contribute to the team because they aren’t paying a market rate. But if you are paying a market for-profit rate, I think it’s highly inappropriate for instructors to disseminate the idea that you are nonetheless beholden to them and should provide services accordingly. You aren’t obligated to them, and if they try to imply that you are, it’s a problem. Also creepy.
I understand where you are coming from, and there is a problem within many BJJ schools that instructors do take advantage of students with their position. That's a fact for sure.

I see a BJJ school as a team, all in it together, and helping other people get better is part of getting better yourself, you grow together on a team in my opinion.

I can see why people who think of it as a service rendered and they should be only on the receiving end of benefit would not want to drill with lower belts and help other people because they are there to have fun and get served. Makes perfect sense. Drilling is something that I don't think is usually done right and lots of BJJ instructors suck at making that aspect enjoyable.

Like I said I come from wrestling through school before I did BJJ so I saw a lot of people with shitty attitudes and selfish motivations when I started BJJ and it was kind of a culture shock. And I was lucky enough to wrestle in a great community full of people who were truly kind and generous with their time and energy and I am super thankful for that. When you take the time to help other people get better in BJJ and truly show you care they are thankful and really appreciate it in my experience and there is huge value in that, doesn't have anything to do with the gym owner or instructor.
 
I've posted on here my annoyance with technique/drilling and warmups taking up more and more of class time and rolling being delegated as an "option" after class. I dont like it and still don't. I feel rolling should be mandatory and a good part of the class time is reserved for rolling
That's what put me off grappling. Went to a few classes but felt I was spending as much time doing goofy warmups as I was rolling
 
I don't like dealing with women but they own 100% of the slot c sooooo
 
Don't care how many people agree/disagree, if you think drilling techniques isn't important then I don't really know what else to tell you

you have a shit and selfish attitude that makes you part of the majority outside of BJJ as well, you know are setting a bad example like you mentioned in your post, now you are defensive and want to argue about it and call me a white belt because you think that somehow makes me wrong, have some perspective and be honest with yourself

get off your high horse, because you buy into the whole thing about giving and patience and yin yang and "trust sensei no matter what', it doesn't mean everyone should.

And no, sensei is not always right and that is why I quit BJJ.

Most places I trained at the drilling was not structure, no hierarchy. Just randomly training variations to counters to stuff I would mostly never use.

I do judo instead, now, and I can see the benefits of pretty much all drills. In BJJ most of the drills were a bad return on investment.

Everyone has a different experience so stop taking yourself so seriously.
 
get off your high horse, because you buy into the whole thing about giving and patience and yin yang and "trust sensei no matter what', it doesn't mean everyone should.

And no, sensei is not always right and that is why I quit BJJ.

Most places I trained at the drilling was not structure, no hierarchy. Just randomly training variations to counters to stuff I would mostly never use.

I do judo instead, now, and I can see the benefits of pretty much all drills. In BJJ most of the drills were a bad return on investment.

Everyone has a different experience so stop taking yourself so seriously.

Not on a high horse, read through all my posts, it's just about treating other people the same way I was luckily treated when I was coming up in wrestling, has nothing to do with a sensei

every BJJ school is different, and people train for different reasons, nothing wrong with that, I moved across the country and left the gym I went from white to brown at and now I'm not even training anymore

I guess your advice to TS is to quit BJJ and start training Judo?, I think he could get more out of the technique sessions with a better attitude, he made a thread asking for advice and I gave him my opinion (rather rudely I'll admit lol)
 
Not on a high horse, read through all my posts, it's just about treating other people the same way I was luckily treated when I was coming up in wrestling, has nothing to do with a sensei

every BJJ school is different, and people train for different reasons, nothing wrong with that, I moved across the country and left the gym I went from white to brown at and now I'm not even training anymore

I guess your advice to TS is to quit BJJ and start training Judo?, I think he could get more out of the technique sessions with a better attitude, he made a thread asking for advice and I gave him my opinion (rather rudely I'll admit lol)

no I am not advising TS anything, just telling my story.

in my personal experience, there tends to be a certain way that drills work in BJJ and it also was not to my liking, while for some other people it seems to be great.

just telling TS that yes, BJJ drilling is sort of particular IMO...
 
no I am not advising TS anything, just telling my story.

in my personal experience, there tends to be a certain way that drills work in BJJ and it also was not to my liking, while for some other people it seems to be great.

just telling TS that yes, BJJ drilling is sort of particular IMO...

I also mentioned that many BJJ instructors don't go a good job of making drills fun, which I think they can be if done right, but also it's difficult to run a class that will be optimal for a white belt and a purple belt like TS, BJJ schools are money making operations like Zankou mentioned and that creates an atmosphere where you are expecting a service rendered for fees paid and consider yourself a customer first so you are not coming to class to help other people you are coming to receive a service, often times you will have BJJ instructors take advantage of students who are highly motivated to earn belts and favor and they end up paying money just to do the bidding of the sensei

BJJ schools tend to dumb down the classes and technique sessions for the beginners as they are the primary source of income for schools, not to mention if your instructor is Brazilian chances are he has lost motivation to really push students to their limits and teach the high level stuff because it is more difficult for him and most students don't want to be overly challenged like that

I am also sharing my personal experience and mentality when it comes to training and it was molded in a wrestling room in which the team dynamics and coaching and community are very different than the average BJJ academy
 
Drilling is absolutely important for BJJ. People don't like drilling much due to 1) lack of discipline, Just wanting to work on what they want or 2) don't have a desire to improve.

They rationalize this by saying it's not fun, or they dislike drilling something they'll never use. But if you have a good instructor who knows what they're doing, not all of what you're doing will be fun. As a blue belt/new purple belt, I thought I knew what I needed to do to get better and what I wanted to work on. Until one day my instructor made us drill flying triangle and flying armbars for 2 weeks and nothing else. Training was 2 hrs long, we literally showed up and drilled flying armbars/triangles for an hour then rolled non stop for the next hour. I thought, I will never use this stuff and it's dangerous, I'm wasting my time drilling this. For the next few competitions and even years later, I've hit flying armbars/triangles without even realizing I wanted to do them and finished with them in competition due to muscle memory from drilling them so much. Even up to brown belt, most practitioners that don't drill nor show up for warm up have shitty movement. They suck at moving their body efficiently and this makes it so hard for them to learn new things that involve movements out of their element. I get purple brown and even black belts that come to my school to train its me and their movement is terrible and something as simple as getup to the knees suffers, they can't perform them well.

When I was still a brown belt, much less a purple belt, did I know what I needed to do to get better? I thought I did but my instructor put me in my place quickly and hammered down new concepts and made me drill that stuff till it sucked. He's shown me many things that I thought would never translate to my game and made them into strong A game material for me making me drill a lot and didn't let me just show up and roll all the time. Just like when you attend college, you don't tell the professor what you think needs to be covered so you can learn and improve, you shut the f**k up and listen and practice what they present you. You don't show up to BJJ class and tell the instructor what you need to do to improve.

There's nothing wrong with wanting to show up and just rolling all the time, but don't hide that behind "I want to improve." If you want to improve, you roll a lot but you drill a ton also. If You don't want to drill because its boring, again that's completely fine and nothing is wrong with that and you do want to "improve" but You just aren't willing to do what is necessary to improve.

Reading most of these posts here, it seems to me many of you are just shitty students whining. Not all and I don't know your individual situations, but what comes off from being written in the posts it seems that way. I can also understand if you have an instructor that is just checked out and doesn't give a shit what you guys drill, that really is an unfortunate situation in those cases.

Nobody in any other combat sports just show up and "spar" all the time. In BJJ it seems to be the only martial art where people just want to "roll" or spar. imagine doing boxing, muay thai, mma, etc and just showing up and sparring every session. That would suck and you'd improve extremely slow. Even wrestling you don't show up and go live every session, so much drilling is involved.

Just my rant and observations as an instructor
 
TS has adopted A.I.'s wisdom and philosophies:

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You're not drilling right if you're not getting a little bit better every time you drill.
There's SO many things to focus on, from movement efficacy, speed, details, grips, feeling your partner's weight shift, possible counters and mitigating those counters. No one in the world is a 100 / 100 in every component (except maybe Marcelo Garcio).

The drilling time is akin to spending time in the lab. My brain is constantly trying to fine tune the technique and tying up loose ends. I'm not just repeating techniques, I'm being mindful.

Sparring time is time on the field.

Both of them together is what makes BJJ so successful, and.... well BJJ.
 
I am also sharing my personal experience and mentality when it comes to training and it was molded in a wrestling room in which the team dynamics and coaching and community are very different than the average BJJ academy

I do understand that and I greatly respect that. I imagine American wrestling teams as very united and solidary, almost like a military unit, and also where mental toughness is very encouraged. I think helping out with boring stuff is part of mental toughness, in a way.

We are not in disagreement, since we obviously agree that a BJJ club is a totally different world. I would like to add "with its fair dose of charlatanism", but that would be unnecessary ITT. ;-)
 
I actually think people don’t necessarily disagree that much in this thread. Drilling is an essential part of getting better, and I don’t think anybody is claiming otherwise. But at the end of the day it has to be about what makes you keep coming back. Everything else is secondary.
 
I actually think people don’t necessarily disagree that much in this thread. Drilling is an essential part of getting better, and I don’t think anybody is claiming otherwise. But at the end of the day it has to be about what makes you keep coming back. Everything else is secondary.
Agreed.

There are three kinds of people in this thread.
1) Those who enjoy BJJ but have become bored with drilling <------ me
2) Those who drill because they want to improve whether they enjoy it or not
3) Those who believe that drilling is an absolute necessity and anyone who doesn't want to do it is a shitty student who doesn't deserve to train.
 
Drilling is absolutely important for BJJ. People don't like drilling much due to 1) lack of discipline, Just wanting to work on what they want or 2) don't have a desire to improve.
.....
Reading most of these posts here, it seems to me many of you are just shitty students whining.
.....
Just my rant and observations as an instructor

You might think of us a shitty whining students, but I'm not a high school kid trying to make a wrestling team. I'm a man with a family paying $150/month to train who has put in 6 years of work to reach a point where I can say that drilling sucks and I don't want to do it anymore. Guess what, you (as an instructor) would gladly continue to accept my money and not say shit about my approach.
 
You might think of us a shitty whining students, but I'm not a high school kid trying to make a wrestling team. I'm a man with a family paying $150/month to train who has put in 6 years of work to reach a point where I can say that drilling sucks and I don't want to do it anymore. Guess what, you (as an instructor) would gladly continue to accept my money and not say shit about my approach.
Go to your instructor and say this to his face, instead of being an internet though guy.
 
There are three kinds of people in this thread.
1) Those who enjoy BJJ but have become bored with drilling <------ me
2) Those who drill because they want to improve whether they enjoy it or not
3) Those who believe that drilling is an absolute necessity and anyone who doesn't want to do it is a shitty student who doesn't deserve to train.

I like drilling just useful stuff from world champs not some useless random shit.
 
Go to your instructor and say this to his face, instead of being an internet though guy.
We talked about it last night. He said that my situation is not rare and he's had many students go through it. He drills a lot, but he competes a lot. He suggested that I run an extra open mat each week so I can continue to train frequently if I don't want to do as many regular classes.

My response was intended for someone else, which you obvious misinterpreted or couldn't understand.

Sincerely,

Internet tough guy
 
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