Years ago, I got to know Mel Bruno, one of America’s judo pioneers and a leading coach of his era. Mel had an extensive background in both judo and wrestling and he gave me some of the best advice I ever heard. I was a young athlete and coach in judo and sambo at the time and Mel and I were discussing the most effective ways of training judo athletes. He said; “Teach them judo, but train them like wrestlers.” What he meant was that you should not only train with intensity, but also train with purpose. Mel’s advice was that I should teach good, skillful judo and use the performance-based methods of training that are used so effectively in wrestling. Every training session, practice or workout must include effective drill training along with an effective level of randori (going live or practice matches) training. Use your time wisely as an athlete and a coach and don’t waste any precious training time while on the mat. You have only a limited, specific amount of time each day or week when you are on the mat, so use it wisely. Train hard, but also train smart. Mel told me that as a wrestling coach (and as a judo coach) he included plenty of drill training time for his athletes and this made the difference between the “tough guys” and the champions. Since that time, I’ve tried to follow Mel’s advice and I’m glad I did.

Drill training is used to develop skills in any situation where learning takes place. In a grappling sense, drill training is used to teach and reinforce skill, fitness, confidence, aerobic fitness, anaerobic fitness, overall strategy and specific tactics. Drill training is a useful psychological tool for a coach as it instills a desire on the athlete’s part to continually improve.

Drill Training is Concentrated Learning

Drill training is what I call “concentrated learning.” What I mean is that drill training takes a specific action, movement or situation and focuses in on it entirely. If you want to develop a specific skill, you can use a drill to work on it. Drill training is the controlled repetition of any movement and the athlete can use it to reinforce a pattern of behavior or movement to improve his performance in that specific skill, technique, tactic or physical situation (such as strength or cardio training).

Drill training eliminates, to a great extent, the goofing off that can take place in a practice session. Through intelligent drill training, the athlete can learn skills more easily and the coach can regulate time better, avoiding boredom in practice. Drills can prevent a team from going stale because drill training provides a variety of situations in training.

Really, just about any situation in any sport or self-defense can be drilled on and should be, for that matter. Drills can be used to teach new skills and maintain and reinforce already-learned techniques. A drill can be designed for about every facet or grappling movement or action and reaction. Drills can be done either static (where the partners don’t move a great deal such as in “static” uchikomi or repetition training) or can be done in moving situations.

There are two major types of drills that will be discussed in this book:

1. Fitness Drills

These drills and games are used to improve cardio fitness, strength, flexibility, coordination, agility or other physical attributes. They also can be used to toughen up athletes and get them used to the rigors of hard training and hard fighting. For this reason, fitness drills are useful for both physical and psychological improvement.

2. Skill Drills

These drills emphasize the teaching or reinforcing of skill, technique, strategy and tactics. Athletes work on specific skills or moves with varying degrees of cooperation so that an instinctive behavior in a skill or specific technique is accomplished. With this in mind, there are 2 types of Skill Drills:

A. Closed-ended Drills:

These teach or reinforce specific behavior. This is also called a “fixed drill” and the athlete must work on a specific skill, game or exercise repeatedly to develop that skill into an instinctive reaction. A good example of this type of drill is Uchikomi (Repetition or Fit-in Drills) where an athlete performs many repetitions of a specific skill or technique and gets the benefit of developing that technique so that it is second nature to him.

B. Open-ended Drills:

These are drills where the athlete is often presented with a basic or specific situation and he must adapt or react to it using his own methods or already-learned skills or tactics. A classic example of this type of drill is randori, or free practice, which is a fighting drill, and will be discussed in the next paragraph. But, there is a specific variation of Open-ended Drills that are situation or fighting drills and this leads to the following:

B1. Situational Drills or Fighting Drills.

These drills emphasize learning, reacting to and developing what to do in a specific situation using “real world” skills, movement and behavior. You can develop realistic drills by carefully observing situations that come up in actual matches or situations (or self-defense situations). A good example of a Situational Drill is to place an athlete in a specific situation and make him fight out of it. In MMA training for example, the coach can put an athlete up against the cage (or in a corner if they are training for a fight in a boxing ring) and have his training partner place him in a specific situation. His job is to fight out of that predicament. The coach can have the training partner offer varying degrees of resistance and realism and the coach should emphasize the correct tactics or skills to use in that situation. Another example of a Situational Drill is to place one grappler in his opponent’s guard and the job of the bottom grappler (the one in the guard position) is to keep the top grappler from getting out. The athletes can go varying levels of resistance and the coach should make it a point to coach the athletes on the correct technical skills and tactics to use when in this situation.

Often, the value of drills will overlap so that a drill that is primarily a skill drill will often have value as a fitness drill or situational drill. When listing the various drills and games in this book, I placed the drill in the section where it’s primary function is, but remember, drill training is very real and very physical, so most every drill has benefits in all areas of development.

Drills can be performed in ideal situations or realistic situations. A coach can use a drill to teach instinctive behavior with both athletes cooperating 100% with each other. I often use this type of “Skill Drill” in training athletes. A good example is the “Spinning Juji Drill” where the athletes work on their Juji Gatame (Cross-body Armlock). One partner does the spinning application of the cross-body armlock and his partner offers no resistance. The athletes either do this is sets of 3 repetitions each for a set amount of time or I time one athlete and he does as many good repetitions as possible in the time allotted. What this does is reinforce an effective skill and teaches the athlete performing it to do it instinctively. The old saying “Good practice produces good results” is true. Doing a skill correctly over and over again reinforces it and makes it an instinctive behavior.

Drills can be changed so that one athlete offers 100% cooperation or 100% resistance. I recommend that coaches vary the cooperation levels when conducting drill training to accurately copy what may actually take place in a real situation.

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