The first step to writing a successful gameplan is to start of the right foot and take notes in class religiously (http://bjjengineer.com/?p=203). Second there is no such thing as one gameplan. At the bare minimum you should have 2. One should be a practice gameplan to be executed at class. This is the one in which you will incorporate new techniques you have drilled and will tweak them and polish them on a daily basis until you achieve the results you want. Then these techniques go on to your competition gameplan or your overall jiu-jitsu gameplan (if you don’t compete). The latter gameplan unlike the practice gameplan should be very solid with fewer holes as there is a try and error phase that filters out most of the kinks. You should not change your competition gameplan one month away from an important competition.

Gameplans form part of what we call “Periodization”. An introduction to Periodization can be found on http://bjjengineer.com/?p=167 and http://bjjengineer.com/?p=169. The practice gameplan should incorporate training objectives, a very important aspect of your training and topic we plan to write about in the near future in our Periodization series of articles.

In a nutshell there shouldn’t be a single practice you come in to the academy without a training objective, a technique, or goal that you wish to achieve or perfect in class.

Examples can be:

• Play Sitting Guard: This will allow me to develop a better guard.
• Play Turtle: It will make my back defense better.
• Play inside the close guard of a very dangerous close guard player: This will make my guard openings and submissions defense much better.
• Don’t get score upon. This will improve my ability to shot other people’s game down.

just to name a few…

Make sure that your training objectives include your practice gameplan. Make sure that you have a practice game plan written down and you meticulously revised it and adjusted depending on the feedback you get from your training objectives during your class time. For example, say you tried playing Dela Riva, and figure out that the position of the outside leg made a big difference, then this detail it must be added to your gameplan as follows.

If the opponent goes for _________ try De La Riva Sweep.
- make sure to have the leg at this angle to stop him from ________

A gameplan should be very specific and detailed. Only remove the specific details once they have become second nature and too obvious to even write them. I personally prefer to leave them as they serve as useful reminder of the importance of having fine, and detailed technique.

So how do you write a game plan? I get asked this question very often. Here is a quick template to give you an idea.

Game Plan Template

OPENING

Gi

- establish grips and immediately pulls or jump guard. (Not Specific Enough.)

No-Gi

- look for arm drag single or immediately jump to guard—closed if possible. (Meant to get you started.)

ON THE BOTTOM

THE GUARD

Guard objectives:
- submit /take back/ sweep ( prioritize it)

Make sure to prioritize your objective. If your submissions are better than your sweeps, make sure to make submission from close guard a higher priority and attempt things that will enable you to attack with your strength not your weaknesses.

Gi Guard Series
- Write down the sequence of move you plan to attempt on your opponent (be specific) use arrows to help you visualize the flow. i.e.: - attempt bump sweep to threaten kimura- look for triangle when the guy defends.

No-gi Guard Series
Make sure to also use “if” to account for all the things your exponent my expose you to

“if opponent is _______”
I will do _____
“if opponent is _______”
I will do _____

A game plan is really like an algorithm or computer program ( a loop) in the back of your head that you have memorized, drilled, and internalized until it become second nature. Make sure you have both a gi and no-gi gameplan.

HALF GUARD

Half guard objectives:
- sweep/ submit/ take back/ escape to full guard (prioritize and number it so you know what’s your first option, second, etc…)

Half Guard Bottom Submission Series

Half Guard Bottom Sweep Series

Half Guard Bottom Takeback Series

Half Guard escape to full Guard Series.

The more positions you have thought through in your gamplan the less surprises. Once again be as specific as possible.

ON TOP

THE BACK

Back objectives:
- submit

Grips on the Back

Back Attack Series

HALF GUARD

Half Guard Top Objectives:
- submit/pass/smash opponent/takeback

Half Guard Fundamentals
If there are bad habits that you are trying to get rid of make sure to add them to your gameplan

-Remember to DO
-DONT DO

Write them large so you remember. Little mistakes can always come back to bite you.

Half Guard Attack Series

Half Guard Passing Series

INSIDE THE OPEN GUARD

Objectives of Open Guard Top
- submit/pass/lock down half guard top

Inside the Open Guard (GI)

Inside the Open Guard (NO-GI)

Passing the Open Guard

Finer Details of the Over/Under Pass

One more time…be as detailed as possible. Look over your notes in class.

This template it is mean to get you started and it is incomplete in many ways. Imagine that your gameplan is a PHD thesis that you are planning to turn in, take your time to type it down and make it look professional but at the same time don’t delay it a single day after reading this if you haven’t done it so far. Make sure to have your instructor look it over and write down notes where he will like you to be more specific and give you suggestions if he feels that there are strengths or weaknesses you have overlooked.

Also make sure to film you matches! This is  what competition is all about; getting more feedback from other people you don’t train with everyday to help you get your BJJ better. If you don’t film your matches you are definitely wasting a lot of your time, investment, and commitment to compete. You don’t need fancy camera just one that allows you to see what you are doing right or wrong. Don’t rely on your instructor to film your matches as there might be multiple teammates competing, he may forget to bring it one day, etc…

Finally reads these quotes on planning:

“He who fails to plan, plans to fail”
- Proverb

“Planning is bringing the future into the present so that you can do something about it now”
-Alan Lakein

“A good plan today is better than a perfect plan tomorrow”
-Proverb

“Good fortune is what happens when opportunity meets with planning.”
-Thomas Alva Edison

“To be prepared is half the victory.”
-Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra

“Proper preparation prevents poor performance.”
-Charlie Batch

“When we are planning for posterity, we ought to remember that virtue is not hereditary”

-Thomas Paine

“If you don’t have a plan for yourself, you’ll be part of someone else’s”
-American Proverb

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Hopefully if you are serious about BJJ, you have added a supplemental strength training or conditioning program to your Jiu-Jitsu schedule. We will refer to your conditioning program as your strength training program (we will explain why shortly). Here are some very common strength training programs.
Bodybuilding: Stop doing this!!!! Bodybuilding programs are mainly concerned with muscle size and in BJJ muscle size will only get you in the wrong division and possibly affect your range of motion. For BJJ, we need to develop explosiveness in our movements. Bodybuilding exercises are slow in nature (slow speed of contraction) and have very little application to BJJ.
High Intensity Training (HIT) or Crossfit Style Workouts: HIT programs are much better than Body building, but not the most effective method for enhancing your BJJ performance. While recommended for beginners, it might not be the best choice for a professional jiu jitsu athlete.
Pros: Mental toughness, quick gains in strength
Cons: Not properly planed, athlete does not peak on important dates, athletes tend to lose strength and endurance as season progresses.
I personally believe that because of the fun nature of HIT programs they a good way to get BJJ beginners involved in extra-curricular training. Mental Toughness is a very important aspect of the sport and this training system helps develop it in some areas. As the beginner wants more training to win higher level competitions, the HIT program should be replaced with a Periodization of strength program.
Here is where the BJJ student needs to decide whether they are interested in competitive goals. If they are not, HIT training will keep you in great shape.
Olympic Weightlifting: Ok now we are getting somewhere. Olympic weight lifting does develop overall body strength and power, but, unfortunately, it is based upon moves that may not necessarily strengthen the muscles primarily used in BJJ. Nevertheless, Olympic Weightlifting its a much better alternative for serious competitors than Bodybuilding and HIT programs.
Note: Some Olympic Weight Lifting exercises are great for BJJ, but not all of them.
Power Training throughout the year: Usually consisting of explosive bounding exercises and strength training exercises throughout the year. This is also a step up from HIT, and Body building and possibly better than Olympic Weightlifting programs. This training program allows for athletic fitness to improve throughout the year, but it is likely that the athlete’s rate of improvement will not to be ideal for big competitions (rate at the highest). Also, Power is a function of strength. Power= Force (strength) * Velocity(speed) over time, so in order to improve Power one must focus on strength and speed at one point.
Periodization of Strength: Absolute best, also the hardest to execute correctly because it’s cumbersome. There is a lot to be understood and applied. It is based on the specific physiological requirements of the sport and must result in the development of power and muscle endurance. Periodization of Strength its also concerned with planning a season that allows the athlete to reach peaks at the major competitions.
Now that we understand how Periodization of Strength is different and better than other Strength Training Programs lets begin to devise a successful system.

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OK, its 3:10 in the morning and I can’t sleep. Why?  Something is bothering me in the back of my head, the paranoia  of currently not training enough and visualizing my opponents training twice as hard, the dates March 27th,28th, 29th and June 4th, 5th, 6th, and 7th resounding in my heads. Feeling like if I missed the bus once again. By now some of you have figure out what is bothering me. I feel I am ten pounds to heavy ten pounds to heavy ten pounds too weak and that I am running out of time, and life circumstances are piling up that will keep me from adequately preparing for the Panamerican and World Championships of 2009. Now I have the competitor that beat me in the quarterfinals last year in my head ( not a good memory) and how much ground I have to make to be at his level in 4-6 months.  Let me also mentioned than in one month I’ll be 24 and the urgency to accomplish certain goals is on the high.Before we go on with this article let me say that I am responsible for not adequately preparing myself before, for not having a plan, for not adjusting my priorities correctly in the previous years. I hope we can put an end to a career of bad planning with what follows.

I have been doing some research about a topic that many are familiar with but few follow. I am talking about “Periodization.”‘ I started researching this topic a couple of wweks back after speaking with my coach about how good Crossfit was and if I do more and more of it I will achieve my goals. Blah, Blah, Blah…Don’t get me wrong, I love the circuit training workouts from Crossfit, I consider these workouts tons of fun, but back then my coach mentioned that Periodization training has been scientifically proven to be more effective that random circuit training workouts. Now keep in mind that him and I at that point ( and still are ) very inexperienced in this topic.

In a nutshell he mentioned that it doesn’t make any sense for a baseball pitcher to do Olympic lifts that may affect his throwing speed ( look at Mark Marguire, he can barely throw) and on the same token in BJJ we should focus on exercises that help our BJJ. I was like that makes a lot of sense, so that same day I ordered from Amazon.com the following two books from where most of my research its being taken:

Both Books add up to 700 pages! I had just embark myself on a long journey on the subject. Lets begin with the basics and I warn you that since this is our first attempt at making sense and designing a periodization regimen for BJJ it will need to be polished and re-polished many times, but always remember a plan is better than no plan and we have to start somewhere. Lets begin with a definition.

Defining Periodization

Scientist’sDefininition:

Periodization: Theory and methodology of training.

Athelete’s Definition:

Periodization: The Art and Science of Planning a Successful Season

This science depends on the advancements on like: Anatomy, Physiology, Biomechanics, Statistics, Test and Measurements, Sports Medicine, Psychology, Motor Learning, Pedagogy, Nutrition, History, Sociology , etc… and in order to improve on our training methods therefore not only must we apply Peridization principles but stay on top of advances in those areas and observing the information currently available. Pretty much our goal is to set a seasonal plan and to improve on it through measurements and keeping upto date with improvements being made in each of those areas.

At this point I will begin only speaking about periodization  with regards to its application to BJJ.  In our next article we will discuss different Strenght  Training Programs , their pros and cons, and why periodization leaves them in the dust.

Here is the following article:

Understanding Strength Programs

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