#186 Max Bickerton: CLA, Coaching Injana Goodman to Winning ADCC Trials, Game Design for Mount/Back and More

In this episode we chat with Max Bickerton, Head coach of Grapple Collective. We talk about Injana Goodman's journey from a purple belt in 2023 to winning ADCC Trials in 2026, CLA, how Max thinks about mount and back in grappling, and more. Hope you enjoy!

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Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:10

Hello.

SPEAKER_02 0:11

Hey Max, it's Josh from 1-800 BJJ Help. Is this a good time?

SPEAKER_01 0:16

Yeah, this is great. Hey Josh.

SPEAKER_02 0:18

Yeah, I know it's 10 PM for you. You normally sleep a little later, so we've got you for a bit here. Uh and hopefully not too late for you in London. But uh for those listening who have no idea who you are, can you do maybe a quick intro who you are and what you do?

SPEAKER_01 0:30

Sure. Uh yeah. Um so yeah, my name's Max Pickerton. I'm BJJ Blackbell. I'm a gym owner. Um the gym is called Grapple Collective, based here in London. Um been open for just over three years now. Uh, one of the more known gyms in London, I would say, uh, and most known competitor by my gym is calling Jana Goodman. She's about to compete at ADCC Worlds in a few months' time.

SPEAKER_02 0:55

Yeah, congratulations on that. Um, before you we started recording, you were saying you feel like you don't really people don't really know how fast her rise was. And so I'd love to hear the story from the beginning. Like, when did you start coaching her and how long ago was that? And where was she at?

SPEAKER_01 1:10

Okay, right at the start. Okay, so she started training when she was 15 years old. Um and so I was one of the coaches at the gym that I was based at. Um, so I was one of the coaches, but she also did obviously a bunch of other classes. Her brother actually did boxing at the same gym, it was like an MMA gym, and he was the reason why she started. He was like, Oh, you should try this jujitsu thing, like maybe you'd like it. Um, and yeah, oh, she did. Um, so yeah, that's where it all got started. Um and yeah, she was training up until COVID, so she started maybe a year and a half or so, and then COVID hit, no training at all for like two years, and then after COVID, she started training at the next gym that I was teaching at. Um, yeah, and then she went to university, came back to London, and yeah, so it was I think 2021, she got her blue belt, I believe. Yeah, and then 2023 I gave her a purple belt um from Grapple Collective, then and uh yeah, then we opened the gym properly just that shortly after that, and yeah, from there on she's just gone on an absolutely crazy rise.

SPEAKER_02 2:33

That's amazing. Um, I know CLA is a big thing that you've gotten into over the last few years. Uh, how did you first hear about CLA and what made you drink the Kool-Aid?

SPEAKER_01 2:45

Greg Sauders was my first introduction to it. Uh, I had no idea who he was, um, but I saw these videos on Instagram where he was he would always end it. I remember all the videos ended with and stop wasting your time drilling. Um, and like, yeah, they're quite provocative. But like I immediately saw that, like, oh, like this stuff seems really interesting. At first, I just thought it was like a good tool to add to like the coaching toolbox. I couldn't immediately see how it would be possible to do away with the drilling altogether, um, which I think makes sense. I think everyone that gets into it or is interested in it feels like that to start because all we've ever known is drilling, so it's hard to picture anything else. Um, but yeah, I started immediately trying to implement some games into the training. Um, and yeah, I distinctly remember watching the classes, watching the bit where people were drilling, and watching the bits where we were playing CLA style games, and feeling like there's so much more learning happening in the games compared to the drilling. And so that very quickly escalated into less and less time spent drilling, more and more time playing, um playing games. And then when I actually opened the gym fully and we got our own dedicated space, and that was the time that I kind of got all the members together and I was like, look, I have this idea, I want to try it, we're gonna try and do this thing 100%, no more drilling whatsoever. Are you guys okay with me doing it on a trial basis and we can see how it goes? And everyone was like, Yeah, sure, why not? We'll try it. And uh, yeah, we haven't drilled, we haven't drilled since.

SPEAKER_02 4:30

So here we are. When you first started playing around with the games, um, did you just basically copy Greg's games at first? And how did you learn uh and evolve using games and game design?

SPEAKER_01 4:42

Yeah, that's um I didn't cop I must have definitely copied some of Greg's games near the start, but I think that a lot of, if I remember correctly, a lot of the games, at least the ones that I saw, were very um were quite specific. They were usually working towards um either really, really stable dominant positions or submission attacks. So like I remember like working from double unders to bringing the arms to the head and then working for armbars and stuff like this. I think these were some of the really early ones um that that he had. Um and I think at first the stuff that I found easier to gamify was um more like scrambly, like takedowns, fighting to secure sweeps, like like this kind of thing. Um so yeah, I didn't do too much copying straight off the bat because I was still kind of using drilling for some of those things. Um yeah, but I I know even sometimes I would watch, I was still watching John Danaher instructionals. I have like pages and pages of notes from almost every instructional he'd ever done up until about like 2022, probably. Um and so I used to watch instructionals like that and then try to, especially the bits where he says, like, this is like the really, really important bit, I would try to think about how I could create a game around what I'd seen in the John Danner instructionals, um, which is quite funny now, looking back on it, but that's how that was what I did. But yeah, that is what I did to start with.

SPEAKER_02 6:20

Gotcha. And then how did uh Injana feel about the games when you guys started training this way and switching over?

SPEAKER_01 6:27

Yeah, she really she really enjoyed it. Like it well, clearly it's a training style that suits her a lot. I would obviously argue that it suits everybody, but it definitely suits her. Um yeah, she's she really, really enjoyed it. She's she's really highly like motivated and and she's competitive as well. So like it suits her down to the to a tea, to be honest. Yeah. It's funny when she goes to train at other gyms, like even now, when maybe a little bit less, maybe people are a little bit more polite now, but like maybe like a year ago, when she was still incredibly high level, but a little bit more under the radar. Um, like she would go and train at a random gym, and obviously they all start with drilling. And she said they'd all be like looking at her like, like, you are really bad. Like this girl must be terrible, like she doesn't know anything. She'd feel really stupid when she's trying to drill, and then they get to sparring and they're like, What the hell? Like, who's who's this girl? They couldn't like drill like some random, like half guard sweep, but now she's like, yeah, messing everyone up.

SPEAKER_02 7:36

Yeah, I'd love to dive into her story and like just this crazy rise. Um, so in 2023, you gave her her purple belt, and you were just starting to switch over to CLA at the time.

SPEAKER_01 7:48

Yeah, so that was we were quite deep into our like hybrid period and just about to go full CLA at that point. Um yeah, and so at that point in her journey, she um she hadn't done any international competitions. The biggest competition she'd done was the grappling industries, um, and she was getting towards the end of her degree, and so she was able to train quite a lot. She was splitting her time between Bristol and London, and she was going to uni in Bristol, and um, yeah, so the training was really suing her. I managed to start persuading her to do um like some bigger tournaments. That was actually why she got on a purple belt. There was a Polaris contenders um around her weight category um for the women, and they wouldn't let anyone do it that wasn't a purple belt. So I had to give her a purple belt so that she could do that. Wow. And then yeah, she did she performed incredibly well there. Um it didn't go, the result didn't go her way. She lost to the girl that ended up winning it. Um, but she was completely dominating the entire match, and then got caught by the girl rolling through from Turtle and straight ankle luck, like right at the end. But she'd like mounted her multiple times, taken her back, like almost finished her. It was incredibly dominant, and then she just got caught right at the end. Um, and she actually got injured then, and that set her back a little bit. She she wasn't able to train for like I think a couple of months after that. Okay. Then that I think even though she didn't win, I think that kind of proved to her that she was good enough to compete at a really high level because it was a really seasoned black belt that she lost to, and she basically like she showed that she could beat her, even though she lost, if that makes sense.

SPEAKER_02 9:48

Yeah, that must have been a huge confidence booster. Um so after that, she recovers for a couple months. Uh, where does she go from there? And then at that point, what are you working on with her in terms of her skill?

SPEAKER_01 10:00

Um, oh, at that point. At that point, I think at that point, she wasn't so much a like focal point. Um, it was so she was working on the same stuff as everyone else in the training room when she was there. At that point, she was still splitting her time between Bristol and London. It was actually probably about that time that she she spent a lot more time with us. So I remember the first she had a match. The Polaris guys were so impressed with her performance that they gave her a match on the on the prelims of the next Polaris. Um, and so she got another really well, like very high-level black belt called Gabby Shook. Um, in that Polaris, which was like one of the next things that she had. Um, she actually lost that match. Like it was fairly close, um, but but she lost it. Um, but again, she just kind of proved to herself once again she's just a new purple belt and she's holding her own with really high-level black belts. Um, so then that was where I was then persuading her to go and try and compete internationally. And so, yeah, so then that year, her first purple barb year was she did the an ADCC trials that was a non-qualifier for women. Um, I think that was her first ever international tournament. Uh she ended up placing second, and she beat um, she beat Sula, who was like the um the favorite for the division at the time, I think. I think pretty much everyone would probably have said that. And she managed to submit her, which was huge. She she wasn't expecting that at all. Um so um, that was a big confidence boost for her. Got all the way to second place there, and then she did Purple Belt, Nogi Euros, and Nogi Worlds, and she ended up winning both of those, um, and like her second and third ever international tournaments, which is just insane.

SPEAKER_02 11:57

Wow. Uh, how would you describe her game? Like, is she more of a generalist? Is she a specialist? Like, what are her big strength areas?

SPEAKER_01 12:05

She's got a very direct game. So her A game is to get on top of you, pass your guard, hold you down, take your back, strangle you. Like, that's if you watch her run at uh if anyone watches her run at ADCC trials, the one that she qualified, she she did that exact thing to literally everyone except for Annie Svensson in the in the final. She took the back, but she wasn't able to finish. But like she still like got the takedown, got past the guard, took her back, and then was close, but wasn't quite able to get the finish. Everyone else, she did exactly the same thing. The takedowns were different every time, the passes were different every time, but the result was the same.

SPEAKER_02 12:51

Wow. From when she from when she was young, could could you tell like that route was always gonna be was gonna become her A game? And did she focus on that the whole time, just sharpening that that game?

SPEAKER_01 13:03

So I would say that even when she was really young and just getting started, she always was more of a top player. Um and she had good guard passing. She's all that was like probably the I feel like everyone kind of has this. They have like one sort of skill set that really emerges early on that like kind of forms a little cornerstone of their game. And that was definitely for her. She was really good at holding people down, and like half guard passing was like the thing that she always was very, very good at. Um the back taking has been a new development, so that was the main focus. Um, pretty much for the whole of last year, we were focused on her improving her back taking and then also working on her like leg lot defense and and counter back takes from there. And so for pretty much the whole of last year, like that was the primary like skill focus for her. And it's been really cool to see that develop because her game has gone from being really good at passing and then sometimes losing the position a little bit, not being able to finish from the back, to now the moment she gets a sniff at the back, she's on it like a backpack and she's finishing almost every time as well. So yeah, if you watch her more her more recent matches, her like back taking is is incredible.

SPEAKER_02 14:26

Wow. Okay. So let's dive into some of the nitty-gritty there with how you develop that that back taking, especially the way you designed games. Um first, how did you decide that back taking was what you wanted to focus on with her for that year?

SPEAKER_01 14:40

So we had like a we had a conversation, and I tried to do this, to be honest, as much as possible with anyone that trains at my gym. Like if people have specific goals, then I want them to tell me about them and I want us to kind of make a plan of how we're gonna get there. Um, and obviously with the competitors who are really going after big goals, that's I think that's really important. Um, so yeah, so it was a conversation that we both had. Um where we the basic idea was let's figure out what are the is the single like one or two skills that we could improve that would have the biggest impact on the results that you're gonna get over the next six months. Um and between the two of us, like we we settled on back taking as the as the main one.

SPEAKER_02 15:28

Well, how did you decide back taking versus like some other because there's so many things to focus on in jujitsu, I feel like. Like how do you whittle it down like from the other end of the side?

SPEAKER_01 15:36

So for me, but what where I came at it from is a combination of I think that I don't think you can be a truly elite grappler or claim to be if you don't have good back taking. Like I think back taking is like the most quintessential submission grappling thing, in my opinion. And so I feel like if you don't, if that's not a really, really strong weapon for you, you're leaving so much on the table. Um, and then on top of that, it also was clear from some of her matches. There was there's not many that she would lose. So, do you think like what to work on to make her better? Often came down to like, well, how could this match have been made easier? Even though you won it, how could you win it more dominantly? Or how could you have finished it like more quickly um or more decisively? And so from looking at her previous matches at that point, that kind of stood out as a clear area. She would often either get attached to the back or have the opportunity to, but it didn't, she wasn't able to finish very often uh from there.

SPEAKER_02 16:51

Got it. Okay, so then you guys decide you want to focus on back taking. Um how do you start to design practice for her and also for a room? It's like, are you mostly designing for her and then the room follows?

SPEAKER_01 17:03

No, so yeah. So for me, I mainly design for the room, especially with the practice itself. I think I always want the individuals to have their own specific goals that are kind of guiding them, especially in the sort of medium term. Um but the practice itself would we tend to design around the room, around the rule set that we're preparing for, if we're all going to a certain competition, which I think, especially for someone like Injana, that works well because I think she would feel a little uncomfortable if it felt like absolutely everything was about her. Some athletes I think thrive in that environment, but I don't really think it would suit her. Um, and it's not really the kind the type of environment that I'm looking to create. I don't think there's anything wrong with it, but it's just not what I want. Um but I think Injana expresses if we think about like game design, this I always kind of like to think about starting with the concepts first or the skills, and then that's I need to decide upon that, and then the game design stems from that. So the thing that I think Injana embodies better than anyone I've ever coached, and I think she's one of the very best in the world at this, is the combination of holding someone down and getting behind them, like using these two threats in combination. Um and so she was already great at holding people down, so it's merging those two skills together, sometimes challenging the skill of staying behind, so not allowing her the option to fall back to top position. Fallback's not really the right word, but um, because if you're really good on top, I think some people don't get as good at back taking because that they don't follow through with it enough to keep chasing the back and they don't put themselves at risk of losing position to develop that skill further. So games where the only way you can win is if you stay behind were really helpful to make her more sticky on the back, essentially, right? Um and so we play a lot of games like around that idea, but then at the same time, I don't want her to lose the thing that's made her so dominant up until that point. And so it's then a healthy mixture of, and I think this is as it would change a little bit the further versus closer we are from competition. We might focus on those like new skills of staying behind and following rotation. And then as we get closer to competition, we want to start combining that with her bread and butter of staying on top. And now, this is also one of the things I really try and emphasize in my program as a whole is using those two things in combination. Like one of my pet peeves as a coach is you know, you like see someone get chester back from Turtle and fall off over the top because they're trying to get the hooks in. Like, I to me, you're giving away so much of an advantage that you worked so hard for. Uh, and I hate seeing it. It it makes me feel so sad to see it. So, a big part of my coaching program as a whole is uh is around creating grafters who are very, very good at using those two in combination.

SPEAKER_02 20:30

Okay, uh this is this is so good. Um, do you have any examples of games, like some go-to games that you used or refined over time that specifically help with this skill?

SPEAKER_01 20:40

For sure. So uh if we were gonna start really basic with like new players, I like to I'll have people use the four-point posture itself as a way to resist being held down. Okay, so the bottom player will have a simple objective just to stay in that posture. If you get taken out of it, get back to that posture. And they can be as closed or as open as they want to be, but they need to be in that posture. The attacking player is going to use the threat of holding them down to find opportunities to get attached to the back. So legs wrapped around hips, arms wrapped around shoulders. Um, so this already kind of gets them used to the idea of in that case, it's the threat of holding down to get to the back. You can play other variations where they can win either way. So maybe they hold them flat on their back to get a win, or they secure full back control. Um when I want to start introducing the idea of like following rotation as people get more skilled. I think that's a super important skill to be a really good back taker, but it's more challenging, I would say, generally speaking. And so I like I to me I like to there's this concept of uh like task simplification and that we talk about a lot that's talked about a lot in CLA, which hopefully is quite obvious what that means. And you make tasks a little bit simpler for people to start to get to get used to them and to build skills in that area before you challenge it in a more demanding way. So in the context of following someone's uh trying to roll away to escape, when we're trying to stay on their back, I think this is easy to do once we're fully attached to the back. Like if you have hooks in, seatbelt grip, and they just try and literally spin along the mat, it's not that hard to follow. If they have like no hooks in, this is a lot more challenging to follow. So one hook in to me seems like an appropriate level of task simplification for most people at like a maybe let's call it an intermediate level, where we can start to challenge that skill in a way that that kind of makes sense. And then once they start getting a little bit more used to that, I'd start to get them to work without hooks. So, in that case, then once we start working completely without hooks, that's usually the point at which I would tend to allow the person to win with chest-to-chest pins as well. Because I do think that if someone is absolutely determined to get pinned chest to chest, it can be very hard to take that back. Um, and so I think if we have one hook in at that point, they can do whatever they want, and we just have to stay behind them. And then with someone like Injana, as I might give her the the challenge of staying behind, even if they they try to pin themselves. So, like no matter what, you must stay behind and secure back control. But um, this is like getting very advanced now, uh, in my opinion, because I think that's extremely difficult to do, especially if you're close to being evenly matched with your training partner. Generally, you need you need the threat of pinning chest to chest as well, I think.

SPEAKER_02 24:16

Right. That was such a clear uh progression from the basic foundation up um to develop that skill of getting to the back, maintaining the back. Um how about like the opposite version of like going mixing up top control and back control? Can you paint that same progression?

SPEAKER_01 24:36

Yeah. So the in our like foundations program in general, so I think one of the easiest ways to do it is uh one of our foundations programs, uh for classes, sorry, is focused on back control. And so I think one of the easiest ways to start seeing this relationship is starting from back control. At first, I'll have them just try and stay on the back and the other person try and turn to face, right? And I think usually it's not too hard to make it so that the defensive player can start to escape from there if all they have to do is turn to face. And maybe you can guide them towards trying to get more of their back on the mat to prevent the other person being on their back. And then at that point, I like to introduce a second wing condition for top player, being the mount position. And I always like to emphasize the way I see grappling, mount and back are like two sides of the same coin. We're covering hips and shoulders, maintaining as much torso to torso and connection connection as possible. It's the only difference is in one we're behind and one we're on top. And I think those are the only two forms of positional advantage that we ever have in grappling, or the main forms at least, on top or behind. And so they're two expressions of that idea taken to its maximum. It's just back control is the maximum of being behind, and mount is the maximum of being on top. And so I think that tends to be a good way of introducing this idea. They realize, okay, I have the back, they're escaping, oh, but I still get to mount. And then they win the game by doing that, and they feel like, oh, okay, yeah, I did something there. This is good. So yeah, that's how I do it on like an early stage, and then as we get more advanced, um there's there's so many different ways of doing it, but focusing attention towards mount and back is like the key sort of common theme throughout all of it. So we one we want to head towards those physically certain positions where we are the most dominant. Um, and so you can probably, there's so many different ways you can set it up. Set it up in a way where the start position gives you access to both of those goals, but you're far enough away that's challenging for where you're at right now. That's probably the easiest way to give a general framework, I would say.

SPEAKER_02 27:12

Interesting. Um, can you get a little bit more specific then now with like getting advanced, uh kind of like you did with the previous example with the turtle? Yes, maybe just to give some ideas. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 27:23

So if the basic turtle game is they um they have to just simply stay in a four-point and protect themselves from uh giving up fullback control. You could have that as a continuous objective for the bottom player, and that gives the top player all the time in the world to practice breaking them down, seeing the way their resistance to get back up opens up space to secure fullback control. The next level up, I would say, is I then want to give the bottom player a way to win. We would keep them in that four-point posture, but while staying in that posture, they can fight to put the other player back in front of them. Okay, so I think that's a good way of saying that gives you the option to either like turn back in and grab the legs, underhook, whatever, or the the other one is like the person falls off when they try and take the back, and you're now they're now in front of you. This is a win. Okay, so this may say slightly more challenging, but still very manageable for anyone that's not brand new. Uh and then moving on from there, then we could start adding win conditions for the bottom player, such as uh like they could start incorporating the idea of seated posture. So if they can get seated facing their training partner, this is also a win. So now they're not restricted to just staying in that four-pointed posture. We could start to introduce the idea of standing, and then I like this where the bottom player doesn't win if their back is on the mat. Right? So this keeps that relationship alive between holding down and getting behind. Um, it gets a little bit more challenging then as you get start to then I guess you just start to introduce the uh the idea of guard, and you could have it where I personally don't like it where like any guard wins, because I feel like so. I would normally do it something like both knees have to be in between their torso and your torso. So you can be on your back, but only if you have both of your legs protecting your torso. So this would allow things to continue from half guard, and whether you just say chest-to-chest contact, holding them down, past at least one leg is a win, back control is a win. We can shift the emphasis towards whatever skill we want to highlight. So, and one thing I think's interesting with this is it might make sense that whatever skill you want to highlight, you make that win condition easier because then more people are gonna go to it. But what I notice a lot, and I actually do it the opposite more often than not. Um, so for example, you could have holding someone's back on the ground is an easier way to win than a full back control. But when you set those two win conditions from, let's say, a turtle position, if the bottom player is really, really resisting, they always have the option to turn away. So when they're back, when they don't want to lose and their back starts to get held on the mat, they have to turn and there's another opportunity to take the back. And so I think that having the easier win condition be on the aspect that we're trying to emphasize less forces stronger reactions away from that from the defensive player, and so highlights it for the attacking player. And so we could do the opposite if we wanted to prevent or make someone who is really wary about turning their back and really allow us to pin them chest to chest, then we could make any chest to back, and I do this in passing games a lot. We pin them chest to chest, past the legs, or we even could make mount the objective, but any chest to back pin wins. So, like, yeah, one nice example where I use this idea is a game that I design around um what I would call dynamic pinning. So we would start in like a typical side control, and the top player's objective is to achieve as many different types of pin as possible, or five in total. So side control on one side, side control on the other side, neon belly one side, neon belly other side, mount. So that's like five in total. They've got to work their way between them. Almost I I picture it like collecting coins on a video game. Um and but if at any point they connect Chester back, that's five points immediately. Okay, so this, although that would seem like, oh, well, they just get towards the back, it makes the bottom player so resistant to that that it makes the other options more available. Um, and so yeah, that's like a nice example, I think, of of how I would emphasize things the opposite way around so that we can focus on a certain type of skill.

SPEAKER_02 32:33

Wow, such a good example. And how is how is Injana adapting and relating to the all these different games and progressing um at the time?

SPEAKER_01 32:43

Yeah, she's it's just incredible. I feel like I think this is such a simple concept, right? On top or behind, but it's something that I've really emphasized so much in our training program for quite some time now, and it's really, really cool to see the way that she he, I think she just embodies it so well. Um, if you go and watch some of her matches, like you'll see so often that she's like in total, she gets the girl to turtle, they try to roll through, she like hops over the top, she's still chest to chest, they turn again, she follows, she follows. She's like a like a wet blanket that they just can't get away from. Um and yeah, she's unbelievable at it. Um and then on the other side, if you watch someone try to hold her down or stay behind her, that's an absolute nightmare. Um, part of that is like she she has incredible like spinal rotation, so staying behind her is like insanely hard because she's not only like she has a great physical attribute there, and she's really well trained in in using it very, very well. So, yeah, if I can't think of a single time I've seen someone maintain chester back with her in in competition, actually ever, I don't think. I might be overlooking something, but yeah.

SPEAKER_02 34:07

That's a that's amazing, super impressive. Um tactically speaking, when you're designing you know that that class, like how long are your classes, how much time like you guys decided you wanted to focus on back and mount and the transitions, but you're not doing that. I'm not I'm guessing you're not doing that for the full hour every day. Like, how are you sprinkling it in and balancing it with the other parts of Juju C?

SPEAKER_01 34:28

Yeah, so I have a different approach in in all of our different classes. So right now we have kind of three, three different types of class essentially. So we've got our foundations class, and that one is designed for brand new people. And my goal there is to give them an experience of what grappling is. And so the structure of that class is we start at the submission and we kind of go backwards in time from there, and slowly start to allow them to combine chunks of those skills together until they kind of work their way. The final game should be one that starts. Um it's gonna start with some sort of like peripheral connection that we use. Our people don't like the word periphery, do they? Well, we'll start at some some sort of connection where we're like away from our training partners torso, and then they work to work their way sequentially towards the submission based on what they practice throughout the class and resisting against that. Um so that kind of whatever we do in the foundations class is trying to build us to playing that big game at the end where they're not quite full sparring, but it's like a close version to that, only focused on the top, the topics that have been focused on in that class. Um, the mixed levels class, which is like the general class for the most of the members at my gym, that one we do uh three topics one standing, one ground, and one submission topic. So very similar to what Greg Saudis does, but slightly different in that it was actually one of my students when I first started implementing this approach, he came to me and he said, we don't do as many submissions anymore. Because I think it to me, I find it, especially the SOP, found it a lot easier to game, to gamify everything else except the submissions. Because things get a little bit more predictable, I guess, when we get to submissions. And so it feels like just starting in an on-box and trying to finish it, like doesn't necessarily feel like, I don't know, it's as useful. Um so that may really made me think, and there was also a conversation I had with Greg as well, where we're we were just talking about the if the goal of the training is to focus attention, surely we should be focusing attention towards submissions because that's the type of grapples that we want to create. This was like my sort of premise, anyway. And so, kind of what my students said to me had me starting to think, and then yeah, conversation with Greg cemented it even more. But yeah, it made me want to make sure that any class that anyone ever comes to, they're always focused on getting to some sort of submission hold. Um yeah. So yeah, so that forms like a general uh one, and I I use that framework because I don't trust myself to kind of be even-handed in mixing all the different topics together, like evenly. So I have a syllabus that I follow, which just tells me like on for the next two weeks, this is the standing topic, this is the uh ground-based topic, and this is the submission topic. And we have seven in total. So every 14 weeks we refresh back to the start again. And the final group that I have, sorry if this answer is too long, but um the final group that I have is is like our competition uh like team training, which happens in the mornings. So people who are either like pursuing jiu-jitsu full-time can have flexible enough work that they can come. Um so the numbers are a lot smaller, um, and the people are a lot, everyone that comes to that, I treat it like they're there to get better at grappling. They're not just they're not there to have, they might be there to have fun with their friends, but that's secondary. Um and so those sessions are a little bit longer. Our normal classes are one hour, these are an hour and a half, and sometimes the way I do I've changed the structure of that a number of different times. Um we kind of go between um like for ADCC, we did a different each day was focused around a different part of the rule set. So I I see ADCC as like almost three separate um rule sets in the same match. So we'd have a day that was based around sub-only, we'd have a day that's based around the points period, and we'd have a day that was based around overtime. And we'd emphasize the skills that I felt were most important for each of those three like time periods. Um, so sub-ony was a lot of leg blocking, leg locking and back taking. Um, points was a lot about like guarded engagements, and then overtime is a lot about a lot about wrestling. And there's a little bit of crossover there as well. Like the back taking kind of comes into all of it, but there's a very different relationship between leg locking and back taking than there is between like wrestling and back taking. Um, so that seemed to work really, really well. We did those three, and then we had one day that was match simulations. So we would go, I actually love this one. We would come in and I wanted to make it as close to the competition as it could be. So we've come in, I wouldn't tell them what to do. Everyone has to get themselves warmed up. The session starts at 10:30. I think it was 10:48 was the time that was agreed upon. At 10:48, we go live. You must make sure that you are prepared to go live at 100% at that time. It's your job to get yourself ready. And then we would do full ADCC rounds. Um, and I even like to have it where for that specific one, where if you lose, like let's say you get submitted, the round is over. Like it's done. You wait and you go, you go the next time. Um, so that was really, really good. And then we have one extra day for troubleshooting. So those would be the days where we we would sort of either someone might have missed one of the days and they might try and fill that gap. Um, more often than not, it would be we're gonna work on the things that have cropped up throughout the week.

SPEAKER_02 41:14

Wow. So intentional and very, very well planned, it sounds. How do you balance in Jana's big focus of the back taking and staying on top in that relationship with then where does she fit in? Does she go to the mixed classes or only the comp classes and week by week, day by day?

SPEAKER_01 41:29

How does she fit all that in? That's a really good question. Well, her schedule has changed a a bit like now, and so that those competition team training sessions, we've only introduced them Monday to Friday from the start of this year. So that was for the ADCC trials camp. So our trials was in uh like mid-February, and so we had as soon as everyone actually got back to training in January, from then uh until the trials was was that ADCC camp the way I just described. Um before that, she was training a lot more in the in the general classes that we have. Um and so that would I think things have things got a lot better. Like she very much enjoyed having the competition team training. It was actually something that we discussed after the world championships. So we had the worlds in December and then started the ADCC trials camp in January. Thing was on the plane back from Worlds, where we were like, I was like, should we train every day? Like, should we do a comp team training? Do you think people will come? And she was like, Yeah, we should do that. Like, that would be really good. And it's what it worked out really well. Um, so yeah, I think that's been much, much better for her, especially as she's gone from strength to strength, because her training with a hobbyist at this point is just not really doing that much for her, and even the intensity that she needs to bring to her training, it's not really appropriate for her to be doing that with someone that's just there to have fun.

SPEAKER_02 43:08

Right. I was gonna ask about that and partner selection. You know, a lot of women have trouble finding good training partners. How do you uh solve for that challenge if you guys have that challenge at all?

SPEAKER_01 43:20

Yeah, um, it's always a challenge. Um the first thing, well, it's been one of the founding principles of the gym that we want to be in inclusive space. Um, and so I've been very fortunate along my journey that like I've come into contact with some really, really high level women grapplers. And so it's we've always had really strong women coaches uh from the moment the gym uh started all the way through to now. Um so Fiona Mortel was our like first uh woman that we. Coaching at the gym, she's kind of been like a mentor for Injana. Um, Fiona was the first person I awarded a black belt to. Um, I have a lot of respect for her, and she's a fantastic coach and a fantastic role model, especially for women in the sport, and so that helped a lot. The way we structured the gym in general is intentional to get women training. So that that helps to some extent. We have a few more women than we have more women than most gyms have, but the women are still in the minority, even with all of that. Um I think creating a culture of safe training is really, really important. Um, because a lot of the time, one of the so, like, for example, I notice a lot of a lot of women grapplers gravitate towards close guard. And I think a lot of that is because they don't always feel safe with their training partners, and closed guard is a place where you can kind of hold someone back, and at the very least, you can stay safe there, and and I think that's part of the reason why so many women gravitate there, because they're forced to train with men, and and potentially sometimes in a not 100% safe environment either. And so you're gonna go to the safest possible route. Um so I think creating that safe environment, making it clear that everyone can choose to roll with whoever they want, anyone can refuse to roll at any point to never have to explain themselves. All these things help a lot. And then once you get to like Injana's level, I think maybe that's the culture of the gym as well. Because I guess you also need to manage a lot of well, everyone has egos, but from what I see in jujitsu, it seems to most like most commonly be like male egos that end up causing like injuries and and harm. Um, and so keeping that in check um is important because if someone rolls with Injana, like they're at all close to her size, the likelihood is they're they're gonna lose. And you need to be sure that that's not gonna create any sort of bad reaction. So fortunately, the culture of my gym, we don't ever have anything like that. Um and so that that all helps a lot. Um also just in genre's nature, she's quite playful with the way that she trains anyway. So I think it's like even if she's like beating you up, it's like it's hard for anyone to like hate on her because she's just doing it with a smile. So I think she gets away with a lot more than like someone like I might do as well.

SPEAKER_02 46:47

Gotcha. Um actually earlier today, correct me if I'm wrong, Jake, but I think you were entering some of Injana's matches. I forget if you entered the match with Rana. Uh just because Rana trains at Corvus. You know, I'd I'd love to talk about that match. Um, and Jake, I don't know if you have it up or if you have it entered at all, but yeah, I can I can pull it up.

SPEAKER_00 47:09

I was just entering because Flo posted the submissions from her ADcc run. Yeah. Um, so it's not the full match, but I can pull up this section.

SPEAKER_02 47:20

Um yeah, Max was just super curious on your your thoughts on the match and yeah, your analysis from your side.

SPEAKER_01 47:28

Yeah. How much of it can we see? So I remember um if I remember correctly, I think she broke her down initially uh with an underhook to front headlock. Um yeah.

SPEAKER_00 47:40

She did this a lot.

SPEAKER_01 47:42

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 47:43

She's she's really good at at like breaking people down from the front headlock to like their elbow here and then going behind.

SPEAKER_01 47:55

The referee's doing a great job buying the spring. So yeah.

SPEAKER_00 48:00

Yeah, she she gets here a lot too, from what I've noticed, like chasing the back with chest to back with no hooks, and then she'll want to insert her hook. And she was even like, like you said, following like Gramby rolls and taking the back off Gramby rolls and everything. It's it's pretty cool, uh, especially hearing you talk about how you work so much on it. I didn't um know that this was like uh something that she had put so much time into. But yeah, it makes sense watching her roll.

SPEAKER_01 48:24

Yeah. It's it I love to see it. She's just like, you'll notice like there's never a chance of her ending up out of a dominant position. She's always either behind, yeah, I don't know what the the body triangle goes in now. Uh yeah, it's savage. Rain is definitely she she fights her, yeah. Oh yeah, for sure. Rihanna. But this is the thing with Ninjana as well, like she I've there's not there's not many people that you see like making really high-level black belts just she just seems to like I don't want to say it looks it looks easy, but like she just she just ran well at this particular tournament, she just ran through everybody, like nobody got close to a single point against her, like no penalties, no points. Like she just ran through everybody. Um yeah, it's insane.

unknown 49:26

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 49:29

Even little things like the like the body triangle, like this was something that she that we were working on a lot. Um this was something that we tried to implement more into her game as well, like trying to to get more directly to the body triangle as opposed to aiming for hooks. And I think if I remember rightly from glancing at it earlier, like the the body triangle came in pretty quick, which is good to see.

SPEAKER_02 49:56

Like she shot her foot all the way across the body scene. Yeah, I think if you go back, oh do so you designed games specifically to to go straight for the body triangle as fast as you can, or um so I feel like this is where like I think maybe this is my limitation as a coach currently, um but the I there are certain things where I feel like or maybe it's just a type of athlete.

SPEAKER_01 50:30

So this was more something with with Injana, and I have another athlete called Sam, um, Sam Gibbs, um, who's uh under 66 kilo guy. Um and like they were both, they both love back taking. And I felt like both of them we wanted to work more on getting directly there, but this was more something that I could I know that they're at a level where they understand what I mean by that. And both of them love, they just love being asked to do something, if that makes sense, uh, and have something to focus on. Like Sam locks in so much when you say it to him. So for that in particular, we didn't necessarily have to change the rules of any of the games that we were playing. It was more something that I just have to communicate to them, like this is what I want you to focus on, if that makes sense. And with the with those two, that was enough. Like that was all they needed. Um, but yeah, there definitely are the you can definitely find ways to to obviously design design games around that. As a general room, though, I think that's hard because not everyone can lock a body triangle. And I was trying to avoid that because I don't want anyone to feel like bad about themselves because their body literally can't do something that someone else's can, you know. Um so, but yeah, with them it not really was not really an issue. Just like get straight to the body triangle. We did actually, no, I'm telling lies, we did do a specific, we did play a specific game about this. Yeah. And it was all about yeah, getting to the body of triangle directly and throw, like you say, throwing the hook like directly across the hip line rather than than through the legs. Um I can't remember the exact specifics of the game now off the top of my head, but yeah, we did. We did some work on that, and it definitely helped. Wow.

SPEAKER_02 52:29

From oh wait, did he have something to say?

SPEAKER_00 52:32

Not anything specific. I was just gonna uh not to like counter what you're what you're saying here. This is the the back take off the Gramby roll that I was referring to. Yeah, super smooth. Um, but I like how she wasn't able to get the body triangle here, but you know, she uses her top hook as a like crab hook, you know. Um to manage that that rotation well. And then she finishes, like you said, she just kind of runs through everyone, takes the back, chokes everyone out in this. Um but uh yeah, like one thing I noticed with her from the the front headback, I thought she was really good. It probably goes back to those four-point games you're playing, where like she just does a such good job of like covering the head, breaking people down, and then like working to like get them down to to their elbow here. Um and then going going behind towards the back. So you can see like she's always looking for the back, you know? Yes, um, and just does a really good job of of breaking people down and um working your way there, you know. So I was really impressed with her.

SPEAKER_01 53:36

Thank you. Yeah, she's impressive. Yeah, the the like front headlock stuff and like well, front headlock forms quite a big part of our program in general. Like I tried to focus, we started to branch out from it now, but for a long time I focused almost exclusively around front headlocks, single legs, and body locks, um, particularly rear body locks, because I felt like those were a few things. Like, I feel like they're very, very effective, first of all. I felt they're accessible to most people, they don't require like great levels of athleticism to be able to do them. And I think they're the most common wrestling scenarios that come out from from ground grappling as well. Um and so I felt that by focusing on those, we would get the like most success for the most people that they could use in the most different ways. Um, and so that was like a really big focus and or has been a cornerstone of our like kind of grappling program since we started. Um, and the the idea of like the the fact that she's so good at like breaking people down, like we played so many brutal games as well, where like all you're trying to do is hold someone down and they're just trying to get back up and you're just trying to keep them down as long as possible. Obviously, and Jana's very good at that. Um, but then this idea of I kind of try and drill this home a lot. I think sometimes a lot of grapplers they see an opportunity for something really good, like getting behind somebody, but they don't uh like make maintain or maximize the conditions which are making that available. Right. So, like you say, like getting the elbows to the ground, like the you could put someone to a four-point and there's a pot with the hands on the map, there's a chance that you could get behind them from there, but it's less certain. And the more you're able to take that holding them down to a greater and greater like extent, the I almost see it as like your the window is wider for you to go through and take the back then. Um, same with like single legs. If you put hands to the mat and you want to go go behind, can you how heavy can you make the hands before you release to go to the back? I think stuff like this makes such a huge difference. Um and again, and Jana does it as well as anyone.

SPEAKER_00 56:10

Yeah, and it it reminds me of uh like what you were talking about about making the like super easy win condition um to open up like the like in in the example, like if you want them to chase the back, you make it like super easy to get the win condition of getting chest to chest, and then that encourages the defender to give more back take opportunities. And like kind of the classic dilemma from here is you know, the strangle versus the go-behind. Yes. And as soon as you put them on their elbow, it's like she immediately just goes for the strangle. She's like, I can't really use this arm to prevent the go-behind, so I'm gonna go grab her arm and make sure I can't get strangled. And it's just like like this is the easy thing to prevent. You should prevent this. And you're like guiding them towards like take this route, and then it opens up the other route. So um, yeah, like I mean, it's very well, very well done. And obviously, your approach is very well thought out, and she's demonstrating it beautifully. She sure is wow.

SPEAKER_02 57:15

Uh, as we wrap up here, uh, do you want to talk a little bit about uh a tune grappling? I'm I'm curious about this uh tool that you've been building.

SPEAKER_01 57:22

Yeah, so um yeah, it does a bunch of different things. The main thing that I'm involved that like is my like pride and joy with it is the it's a CLA video library, and the goal that I have with it is I guess to share my coaching philosophy first and foremost. Um I want to give like as many lots and lots of examples of how to create games that first of all make sense. So like the even something as simple sounds so simple, like having the win conditions oppose each other. Both players can't win the game at the same time. Sounds so simple, but it's not actually that easy to do when you first start out. And so, examples where the games make sense and kind of like we were already talking about in the in the episode, um, the progression, because this is where things actually get useful, I would say. Well, it's useful anyway, but it gets most useful when we use the games to progress the skill from like introduction level to um uh like an intermediate level, start to challenge the skill a little bit, versus okay, now we're trying to whether we're then trying to use the skill in combination with another skill, then do we want to challenge it further? When do we want to start creating games that encourage exploration versus games that focus us directly in in one specific direction? And and so I've basically created the the video library where it each video is focused on a different skill area, and we kind of go through these progressions. Okay, we're separated as well into like foundations level content and more advanced content. Um we have a what I consider to be a like comprehensive foundations program that's already there. Um, not to say that it won't get updated at any point, but for now, I'm very, very, very pleased with the way it is. Um, so we cover what I consider to be the foundations of submission grappling in that course, and now we have a lot more advanced courses on there, all focused around different ideas and even like the how to choose what concept to design games around, because I think that's really difficult because at first we want to make a technique happen. That's what I wanted to do at first, but then I feel like we're missing the point a little bit, and so even seeing what I think there's a lot of value, seeing in what what different uh concepts or skills I think about when I design a game. So we have games, uh like a series of games designed around the idea of getting behind knees as a guard player. Okay, so think about a basic like baby bolo crab ride type like back take. This is an idea that I think is super powerful, just the idea of getting behind our training partner's knees. And we had a similar one playing guard of getting behind the elbows. Um and then there's a like scaled, progressive games to work people through those skills. So, my idea behind it is if someone wants to be uh more effective with their own training, they get access to the video library and they can choose a skill that they want to work on, and they have a progressive set of games that they could go and implement at the rate at which they feel is most appropriate. So rather than it being completely prescribed by me or by someone else, this is the game that you need to play. They see the options and they can kind of fit themselves into the scale where they are now and work their way from there, and which I think is super helpful. And then obviously, coaches can use it to help them design practice. One of the really good things that I heard from one of the like really good coaches that's been using the platform was that he said that not only did he find the games really easy to follow and implement, but he felt like the way it was structured made it easy for him to think of variations of his own around the games. And that's that was really kind of a relief to hear because that was the intention with the way that I've tried to put the information across. Um, so at least Runo felt that way. So hopefully other people feel that way as well. But yeah, on top of that, we have like um there's gonna there's tool, different tools on there basically to help you at any stage of your brackling journey. So we have like a training journal that's gonna help, that's gonna uh be enabled to link up with um like uh like biometric data. So if you have a Whoop or something like that, you can sync that with it. We're building out that functionality at the moment, so that's not currently an option, but you can still upload, you can input your data there. Eventually it's gonna sync, and that's gonna be really cool. Um you can keep a training journal. If you're a coach and you have athletes, you can track your athletes' training journals and their biometric data if they choose to share that with you. So you can see where your athletes are at. You can plan out sessions using your own video, or if you have access to it, our video library, where you can drag and drop specific chapters into a class planner, whether that's to use for your own training or for other people's. Um and then we also have an academy management tool on there where you can track the gradings and everything like that, as well as membership payments, but then also upload your own videos that your students will get access to, which you don't have to pay for. Um yeah, so there's it's the overall idea is that it's like a one-stop shop for people that want to train grappling using CLA. Um, but there's pretty much something for everyone. And for me personally, the video library is the thing that that's where all my effort has gone into. So I'm very, very pleased with that so far.

SPEAKER_02 1:03:36

Very cool. We'll probably have to talk offline at some point because uh Jake is building something, I'm building something, and there's a lot of overlap and interesting angles, but different focuses, which is really interesting. So, yeah, we'll have to trade like uh what's working, what's not, lessons and stuff like that. So that sounds good. Yeah, amazing. Very, very cool. Well, yeah, Max, thank you so much for for coming on today. If people want to uh follow you or learn more, where should they go?

SPEAKER_01 1:04:02

Yeah, uh so yeah, please follow me. I've got my Instagram account hacked and I lost all my followers. So uh I'm building back up now. Oh my god. So yeah, I'm idiots it was so sad. I got caught with a phishing email. I was such an idiot. Oh no, yeah, it was very convincing in my defense. Um so yeah, so my my account now is just max.bickerton. That's my Instagram account. Um, you can find my gym, grapple collective, on Instagram. Um, and then we have Attune Grappling is also on Instagram, and the website is it's attunegrappling.com.

SPEAKER_02 1:04:40

Perfect. Awesome. Thank you so much, Max, and thank you all for listening. We'll catch you on the next one. Thank you so much.