For some athletes, drilling is just part of the monotony of developing a skill. Most fighters recognize that they’ll need to work a motion hundreds of times before you can apply it realistically in competition, and that thousands of reps is probably necessary for mastery. Not to mention – especially for the fighter – hard “live” training cannot be sustained, and so training must be supplemented with training that isolates and improves specific areas of our games.
With drilling being such a prominent part of training for the combat athlete, it aught to be given our attention on a deeper level – not only to make it for effective (and so develop and refine skills more quickly) – but to make it more fun in the process. Below we’ll outline 7 methods for doing just that:
Drilling as a Workout
Chael Sonnen would never have perfected his takedown technique without THOUSANDS of hours of drilling!
Drilling can be about physical ability as much as it can be about refinement of skills. If you’re working with a technique (or series of techniques) that you understand well and have done many time, sometimes drilling for physical intensity is useful. You could do pushups for that one station of your circuit, or you could drill a double-leg shot and lift quickly and powerfully as possible (which motion is more important to get good at, anyway?). Its a good way to make a workout more valuable.
As another brief tip, drilling works well for warmups. If you need to get reps in with a new technique, you can probably find a partner squeeze some drilling in while you ease into exercise.
Experiment with Variations
Everyone gets tired of doing the same thing over and over – and though drilling looks that way, it doesn’t have to be. While you’re working on a technique (whether its just something you’re interested in or just what’s being taught in class), focus on trying new variations by altering your speed, the placment of your pressure, the details of your grip, the footwork involved. How can you make this technique more effective? How can you make it tighter? Tinker with these details and you’ll find great ways to improve your moves, in addition to making drilling will be more interesting.
Playing the “Dummy” with Experts
Doing the drilling yourself is one road to understanding how it is done right, but a path most people neglect is feeling an expert perform the technique on you. Assuming this person “gets” the technique much better than you, just feeling and watching them perform it will help you understand how it should feel to your opponents when you do it right. Plus, with the expert right there you can always ask questions to make sure your details are dialed in right.
Different Body Types
Different body types pose different challenges when it comes to training; don’t overlook training with different sized training partners to better prepare yourself for any opponent.
As a reality of the game, a fighter will have to learn to deal with different body types. Though most drilling should probably be done with someone of your size (IE: someone you might actually fight in competition) so that you get used to the realistic application of the moves – it shouldn’t all be done on the same person or people with the same build. Pair up with different partners for the same technique if you can, get a sense for how the details might change as you go from someone with a stocky build to someone with a lanky build, and so on.
Decide What to Drill
In my opinion this is where a lot of people go wrong with their drilling. At least to some extent, drilling should be self-directed, is should be focused specifically on which techniques and sequences are most valuable for your long-term development (or your game in general), not on whatever’s being taught in class or whatever was seen on Youtube last week. Though following through with new material in class and even finding cool technique videos online are useful, most drilling should be the most relevant elements of your game that you could work on.
Ask for Feedback
Your drilling partner is an important source for feedback, especially if he’s more skilled that you or if you’re working on a new move or sequence. Ask him to let you know when you do a particularly good or poor rep. Tell him to let you know which reps feel tighter, smoother, etc…, and to give you some pointers on how to repeat your best reps. This not only helps your game tremendously, but gets your drilling partner to actively engage in the details of the move while you drill – which helps him understand and master it as well.
Race Yourself
Tying in with the “Drilling as Workout” idea, using a speed challenge in drilling is a way to make almost any technique fun to drill.
You can do this by simply getting in as many reps as you can within a certain time frame, or getting in a certain number of reps as soon as possible. If you want to take things even more seriously, you can even time yourself and see if you can beat your old record for number of reps in 3 minutes or 5 minutes. Its exhausting but its also a killer workout and method of tracking progress.
So there you have it, these 7 ideas are all easy enough to try out tonight if need be. Keep in mind your choice of techniques, and focus on implementing only one or two of these drilling ideas in any one given practice.
Need to mix things up? Try a few of these strategies at once. By never letting drilling feel like a stagnant exercise – by keeping yourself engaged and learning in more and more ways through drilling, you can make the most of your mat time.
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