Take a minute right now and think about your day so far. For most of us we woke up, maybe showered, brushed our teeth, ate breakfast, went to work, ate lunch, went home, ate dinner, trained jiu jitsu, went back home, and then went to sleep. Pretty normal day right….What I didn’t point out was all the transitions that I made during the day. Walking to my shower, driving to work, driving to jiu jitsu, etc. Without these small or big transitions, my day would not flow smoothly.

Most of us don’t even think about transitions in jiu jitsu because we just do them without thinking. Recently at 10th Planet Van Nuys we have been working on becoming more cognizant of these transitions. As we drill these transitions I am beginning to see how important they really are. Each transition offers a mini battle that must be won in order to get to the finish line and get the submission.

So how can we get better at these transitions? Drill drill drill! One way that we have been focusing on improving our transitions is by using backwards design. We have been starting at the finish line and then slowly moving backwards until we reach the starting point. By doing this we are able to identify which transitions we need to work on. Once we identify our weak transitions, we start to drill and drill! Our goal is to eventually become masters of these transitions and become masters of the move.

Tomorrow we are going to look at one of the moves from our curriculum this month. Make sure to check tomorrow’s post because we are really going to break down why transitions are key to success!