I don't think many coaches spend that much time trying to figure out what the really key ideas of any given move are. They show a move, give a couple of caveats ('don't do this when your partner is on his side and not flat on his back'), and then go straight to repetition. One of the things I like most about John Danaher as a coach/analyst is that he spends a ton of time trying to figure out for every move he teaches what are the 2-3 things you have to do to make it work, and that's what he concentrates on in his teaching. I'd take that a step further and say that you really need to couch moves as part of a general strategy in a position to really aid retention, something that (ugh) Lloyd Irvin always did really well with his beginner curriculum. Personally, I don't think about teaching beginners moves, I think about teaching them mini systems in various positions that are executed by being able to perform a very small number (2-3) of related moves. I find it's much more effective to give folks a notion of what they're trying to do and then teach them how, technically, to do it than it is to just show them a bunch of moves and let them try to figure out the goal themselves.
Danaher doesn't seem to spend a lot of time explaining stuff. I think that's the key to using this method: you have to distill what you're talking about down to a very small number of key points and just teach those. You look at someone like Ryan Hall: obviously he's spent a ton of time breaking down technique and figuring out the best way to do things, but he hasn't spent any time (as far as I can tell) trying to figure out how to convey those learnings in a parsimonious manner. He just talks, and talks, and talks, and it's really easy to lose the thread of what's actually important.
Let's say you're teaching side control to noobs. You think it's important to block the hip and get a knee high under the armpit. You can either just say 'the two things you have to do here are block the hip and get a knee under the armpit, here's how you do that' or you can say *why* it's important to do those things which takes a lot longer. My feeling is that the 'why' isn't actually that important for white belts, and is largely a waste of time, and also what takes the biggest chunks out of class time. What you want to do is convey the cues as directly and simply as possible and then have your folks spend a lot of time practicing hitting those cues as soon as they get into the position. It actually requires a lot of self discipline to teach this way, because it's easy to go too deep and spend too much time talking when most of that knowledge would go way over the heads of your audience.
Concepts and strategy are two different things, right? My view is that people spend way too much time on concepts, which are largely useless below at least purple belt (even though everyone likes to talk about them), and not nearly enough time just telling people what to do in specific positions. Strategy sits between raw technique and conceptual theory but it seems to be largely ignored at lower levels by most coaches. Maybe that's just me.
In my humble opinion, and this is based off coaching everything from first year freshman/sophomore inner city kids to nationally ranked High school kids with DI offers/commits is that a balance of “concepts”/techniques is needed, and the ratio changes based off the
type of practice and the experience level. That being said, I tend to very much so focus on positions and positional cues before concepts when teaching
For example, teaching kids that for almost every shot, good position= Hips in/underneath you, head up, back straight and elbows tight. Gives you cues that let them both adjust when you call them out and let “them” self correct quickly (something very underrated). I’ve had kids learn how to knee slide on extended shots just because I told them to get their hips in. Or on top, be on your toes driving so hard shoes should be torqued, crossface pinkie is right above the elbow etc etc
You don’t have to explain the scientific reasons WHY this is important until later.
When I do teach concepts like the “clock theory” for pinning/turns. I tell them, run the half, bar etc to 130 or 1030. And usually don’t go into why until later after they’ve tried it a few times and/or making corrections after a competition. The focus IMO for beginners, is them getting as many “correct reps”
as possible before anything else
Or another concept, “high man wins scramble” I honestly don’t show or teach “scrambling technique” at first, I put them in weird positions (back to back, side by side flat and in base, with or without far ankles etc etc.) and tell them “high man will win” and do live goes from there for 10-15 seconds
And in addition to not going into “concepts” too much at first. I’ve learned (the hard way lol) to not focus so much on every detail at first, but on positions like I said earlier. Too much detail creates too much thinking and hesitation at first
However, I don’t have a problem with guys like Ryan Hall, you need both types of teachers
