A quickie for lunch...

While I eat a quick bite at my desk, I was skimming a few blogs. Aliveness 101 is now part of my required-reading list, right up with Cane Prevost's, even though the latest post is from May 2008. Anyway, here's a useful bit that I need to spend some time thinking about. (Sometimes I think I absorb material better if I have to pick it apart and conceptualize it as though I were going to teach it... it's not a fun game to play, but it does help.) The following is NOT by me... it's snipped from Aliveness 101, SBGi founder Matt Thornton's blog, and it reprints commentary by Cane on an SBGi forum. The original is here about 3/4 of the way down.

"The Posture – Pressure – Possibilities model:

The last drilling concept I will talk about is a newer method of organizing a class that was created by one of the Portland Gym coaches, Cane Prevost. We call this method the Posture, Pressure, Possibilities model, and it is pretty fantastic in its simplicity.

Here is a post that Cane made in our member’s forum http://www.straightblastgym.com/ where he explains in detail this Coaching model:

“I always use the I method exclusively in my classes. I’ll never teach anything in class that students don’t get to try against resistance that same class. I’ve always done that. What I’m doing differently now is that I almost never start with techniques anymore.

I found that it works way better if I build a foundation first. My teaching progression for most classes now is posture then pressure then objective/purpose. In that order.

If I have a particular technique I want to introduce I’ll first find the posture and work that separate from the technique. Then once everyone is good with the posture I’ll add pressure. I try to do an isolation round of sparring for each part.

Once everyone is able to work good posture and pressure I’ll begin to add objective/purpose which for me is often expressed in a technique. That way they don’t learn a technique in a vacuum. They have a foundation to hang it on. I found that doing it this way I get way more students able to use the technique when I isolate it in sparring than I used to. The difference has been remarkable.Here’s an example from this week to illustrate-I wanted to teach some escapes from back mount when top guy has hooks in. Where I started was posture. I showed them how to ball up and protect the neck. The top guy got a harness without hooks and the bottom guy just worked on posture. Once everyone could posture properly I isolated it by having the top guy hold the harness and roll them around a bit. All the bottom guy had to do was keep the ball. After the isolation round I corrected posture a bit and showed them a simple way to remove a hook if the top guy got one in. Then we isolated again. This time the top guy was trying to get both hooks in. If the top guy got both hooks in he “won” and they’d go back to neutral and start over. The bottom guy was just supposed to remove the hooks as they got in and resume the ball.I then went back to isolation stage. I could have taught an escape technique here but I wanted to break it down more and introduce a pressure first. I had them roll onto their side, still in a ball. The top guy has both hooks in. After they roll onto their side I had them remove the bottom hook and sit on the leg, still in posture. No escape yet. I didn’t prioritize which side they rolled to even though there definitely is a better side when the top guy has harness. I didn’t want to give too much detail. I often found that if I give too much detail right off the bat students get lost in the details and lose the technique. Anyway, I isolated again. This time the top guy started with both hooks in and harness.


The bottom guy was supposed to roll to one side and remove the bottom hook and sit on it. I told them to not go farther into the escape yet. I wanted them to stop there.Finally I went back to intro stage and showed the escape from back. I showed them how to slump to prevent the RNC. I showed them how to trap the bottom arm in the harness and to fall to that side. I showed them how to remove the hook and drive their inside shoulder to the mat and use the ground to peel their opponent off their backs. They picked up the technique easily because the isolation we had been doing earlier contained most of the movements for the technique already. They understood the technique because they had a posture and pressure to hang it on. I went to isolation stage and had them escape from back mount when the top guy had hooks and harness. Every single person was pulling it off or making serious threats with it right away. It’s a lot of prep work to show one technique but I can see the results. I know that more people will retain it too.


More importantly the class is taught in a progressive way with the most important stuff first. That way students can turn off their brains when they get full and still leave with useful info. Beginners will remember the posture. Students with more experience may not remember the technique but they will remember the posture and some pressure and they’ll be able to pose a threat with those. More experienced students will remember it all. That’s been my solution to teaching to a mixed room of new beginners to advanced students. I’ll actually tell students in class “OK, I already taught all the important stuff, you don’t have to remember anything from here on out.” I learned that from a beginner. He told me that’s what he did anyway because he just couldn’t retain it all. Other beginners have told me how helpful it is to know they don’t have to try to remember it all. When they come to my classes they know all they really have to know is that first thing I show them. Anything more than that is just gravy. In any case everyone is able to leave with a piece that works for them and everyone improved their back game regardless of experience. Even those who knew everything I showed got better from all the isolation sparring."

I think this is just amazing.

And another bit, same source:

"Some notes on reverse engineering a game:

1- What posture does a move work from?
2- Why does it require that posture?
3- What posture can be used to counter it?
4- How can we drill this counter?
5- How does this translate into my own game? "