You can’t tap anyone during practice. All of your training partners are taking you down at will. Lower ranks are catching you during sparring. Training slumps suck! If you’ve ever had this experience you know slumps can be extremely frustrating and very demoralizing. Slumps come in many shapes and sizes and are caused by many different factors. Let’s examine a few of the more common reasons for your funk!
Overtraining
Sometimes you hit a slump because you are overtraining and are burned out. In this case it is best to just take some time off and relax. Take a week! You’ve earned it! Go to dinner (possibly at Lou’s Pizza in Old Forge). Watch a movie (something awesome like Steel Magnolias). Read a book (like The Jiu-Jitsu Bum by Chris Campion, available on Amazon). Take a mini vacation with that special someone. Do anything that isn’t jiu jitsu. At the week’s end you will find you are back on the mats feeling better than ever.
Undertraining
Your slump may be caused by the fact that you haven’t been training often enough or hard enough. In this case you need to get your ass in gear and up your training! Get off the xbox. Step away from Facebook. For holy sake stop watching YouTube! Get to the academy and just train; it is amazing what happens when you do!
One Trick Pony
Maybe your game has become stale. Perhaps your training partners have all figured out your favorite techniques and the counters to them. Prescription? Start working on a new techniques and build a different game or find new setups for the techniques work for you. Remember why you fell in love with jiu jitsu in the first place – discovering all the cool ways you could submit a person!
Old Dog, New Tricks
Is your game is all over the place, lacking direction, purpose, and focus? Are you are trying so many new and different techniques that you have become lost in the forest and unable to see the trees? If this is the case for your rut it’s time to get back to the basics! Concentrate solely on the positional hierarchy of jiu jitsu. Take the idea of submitting your partner out of your sparring session and look to only improve your position every step of the way until you take the back and gain dominance! Then let your partner escape and begin anew. In no time the funk will be washed away and you will feel invigorated in your training.
Diagnosing a slump isn’t hard, just be honest with yourself. Pinpoint what is causing the slump and follow the prescribed method of fixing the funk!
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About The Author:
Jeff Reese, Gracie Jiu-jitsu black belt, has had the honor of learning from two generations of Gracie family members including Royce, Royler, Rodrigo, Rolker, Ralek, Rener, and Ryron; he teaches at Gracie NEPA in Scranton, PA.
