John Frankl Seminar Review
photo credit: Eric Knight of Modcom
Yesterday I headed down to the new ModernCombatives location in Fremont. It opened relatively recently, has some great mat space, and more importantly, the usual SBGi vibe of just cool people wanting to have fun. If you have ever been to an SBGi gym you know what I mean. If you haven't, do yourself a favor and hit one up sometime. I am always super impressed.
A few times a year John Frankl returns to the US from Korea where he is a University Professor (and bjj blackbelt). Every time he lands on domestic soil I make sure to find some time to train with him. He is not only a genuinely nice person, but one of the best instructors around. He also has a well rounded game with deep experience in MMA as well. However, the focus of the seminar this past weekend was groundwork.
After years of attending seminars, some good and some bad, I usually see three types - I think of it like a spectrum. On one side is uncoordinated (often fancy) techniques, the middle is techniques that flow together as a unit(usually one position), and the last is techniques that all illustrate a single principle in various ways. John's approach was the third. The power in this model is that there is less to remember. I always forget about 75% of what I see at a seminar (in terms of the small details), so a principle based approach gives you less to remember, and in a way, enables you to teach yourself later by recalling the concepts as opposed to things like grips or foot positions.
I'll also note that the middle approach of taking one position and connecting a few techniques is very powerful as well. In fact, Matt Thornton taught this way in Berkeley last year with a series of knee drive passes - I found that very useful as well. The only seminar style I don't like is the disconnected list of moves, or more commonly referred to as "cool stuff I like to do". You'd be surpised how much that happens.
On to the seminar....The principles John focused on were as follows:
- Empty Space (create it, put your opponent in it)
- Hip Movement (sometimes a little bit makes all the difference)
- Diagonal Base (posting, becoming light, and moving your hips)
For each principle, we walked through, and practiced, several techniques to illustrate the point. Doing the techniques helped me clean up some small errors that have been forcing me to work way too hard, or worse, lose certain positions.
Another very powerful aspect of what he showed was how "advanced" techniques actually have the basics embedded inside them. They are the core of everything. A simple example is standing from X Guard. You stand using the old school self-defense standing in base. If you haven't put that "basic" into your game then you'll always have trouble getting up in X-Guard. Just demonstrating again that the basics are the foundation for a reason.
John also summed this up another way, using a variant of Pareto's Principle. In his words, 90% of what you use every day comes from 10% of what you know. Conversely, what you need in 10% of the situations takes 90% of your time to learn. So both from a time management perspective and from an instinctual, reactive perspective, focus on that 10% - the basics. This is a theme I have heard from good teachers everywhere and I can't hear it enough as I am tempted by new dvd sets almost weekly.
Lastly, I rolled a bit with John (see photo). The thing I like about rolling with people of his caliber is you get to feel the precision of their movements. Everything has purpose. He moves with conviction because he knows exactly what he wants. His reactions are always one step ahead because he knows where the game is headed. Tight, constricting, precise and very, very quick hip movement. The great ones almost snap in and out of positions. You can really tell immediately how good someone is by this feeling alone. It's inspiring to say the least, and something I need to think about as I roll.
Thanks to John for sharing his insights and I hope everyone can train with him next time he is out.
Paul
