What Are BJJ Partner Drills? Should You Do It?

It is important for you to do both kinds of drills, whether it is about solo drills or training with your partner, you have to make sure to include both in your training. But if you compare both drills, then the partner drills are more important than the solo drills. You need to make sure to have a partner drill daily in your BJJ routine. The partner drills are very important because you can get a lot of help from your partner. You are able to get the real feedback on your execution of the techniques. This feedback is very important for you. It will help you improve your game. So the partner drill is the core of Brazilian Jiu Jitsu training. You should always start with the partner drills, then you can go for sparring sessions in which you will experience the feeling of fighting BJJ like a professional match. At the start, you must be confused about which partner drills you should start. So the article discusses the best partner drills that you should start with. Let’s dive into these best partner drills in BJJ.

The partner drills are the most common type of training form that is used in many martial arts. It is mostly used in Brazilian Jiu Jitsu. In these drills, usually two grapplers or martial arts practitioners are involved in practicing and training together for any particular technique. Doing the training with your partner helps provide numerous benefits in various ways, all contributing to the improvement in your game. You develop defensive strategies, and at the same time, the other partner can develop offensive techniques. So it is a very effective way to train a particular technique with one grappler practicing the offense and the other one practicing defense.

The partner drills are very important for a number of reasons. Some of the facts and benefits that highlight the importance of partner drills are given below:

• Feedback is very important in every aspect of your life. No matter what you are doing and what you want to achieve, you should have someone around you who can give you feedback. The feedback will tell you the weaknesses hiding in you and the strengths you show. You will come to know about the techniques in which you are weak. So the feedback is very crucial in anything you do and plays a very important role in getting you what you want to achieve.

• The same is the case in Brazilian Jiu Jitsu. In this art, you need to have someone for feedback, and the best way to get the feedback is the partner drill. With the partner drill, your opponent is continually seeing, observing, and fighting with you, defending against you, and hitting you with the strikes. So, who can give you better feedback than this person who is with you all the time when you are training? So the partner drill is a great way to point out your mistakes or weaknesses and improve yourself.

• In Brazilian Jiu Jitsu, muscle memory is a very crucial part of your game. It is very important for you to develop muscle memory in your training. This does make sense. Let’s discuss the logic behind it. In BJJ, when you are grappling in a professional match, you are under a lot of pressure. The pressure is created by the crowd watching and shouting at you. Millions of people across the world are watching you live, which also creates pressure. You are playing an international match against a worthy opponent in a knockout stage.

• So all of this creates pressure. When you are playing under a lot of such pressure, you can expect a lot of mistakes from you. You can expect forgetting some technique, a strategy, or the step of the technique's execution. Fortunately, this also has a simple solution, and that is your muscle memory, which you must develop in your game. The fact is that it is not a very complex thing to do. Just like the name, it is also very easy to develop.

• For building your muscle memory for a particular technique, you need to repeat it until you become a master at it. At the start of training a particular technique, you will make each step after a lot of thinking. Without proper thinking and planning, you will not take the right step. After some time, while you continue training that particular technique, the time required for you to think about the next step of the technique starts decreasing.

• This will keep on reducing until it is reduced to zero, but this is possible only if you continue training that particular technique. After this, the stage will come when you will be able to execute that technique without thinking, taking any time, and under a lot of pressure situations. So this is how muscle memory develops, and you are able to do this through partner drills.

• The most important thing for your Brazilian Jiu Jitsu training is the dynamic environment. You do not play a professional BJJ grappling match in a static environment. You have to keep your body in motion and ready for action all the time. Your opponent is not static. They respond to all of your actions. So you have to face a dynamic environment. So why shouldn't you do your BJJ training in a dynamic environment? It is better for you to do the training in a dynamic environment. No doubt the solo drilling, which you do with the grappling dummy, is also important, but training in a dynamic and interactive environment is a must.

• What’s the best way or form of a dynamic training environment? It’s the partner drills. It is the best because it is effective for both beginners and experienced Jiu Jitsu grapplers. You have a partner against whom you are executing the technique you want to learn, and they will not remain static. They will respond with various defensive tactics. After some time, you will switch your positions, and you will defend against your partner’s execution of the same technique. So, eventually, you are playing in a very dynamic and interactive environment because your opponent is reacting to your shots. So all of this creates a very healthy and perfect method for you to make your techniques perfect.

• Another benefit of the partner drills is the active learning. The active learning means that you are executing your technique step by step, and with each step, you are learning how you can improve or remove your weak points in them. So you are executing and learning at the same time.

• But what if you are not learning while executing? You will not be able to learn any weaknesses about yourself. You will not be able to make your techniques perfect, and the result is that you will enter the match with no perfect execution of techniques. You will not be able to execute it perfectly.

• So the partner drills promote active learning so that you can practice, learn, improve, and execute at the same time.

• The benefit does not only lie in technique improvement but also in some other things that assist in improving your overall game. In BJJ, technique is the king, but it does not mean that you should only be focusing on the improvement of your techniques and repeat them again and again.

• Your stamina, physical strength, how much power and force you can generate, and how long you can hold your opponent in your trap, the energy you can give in your match, and your fitness levels all contribute to the effective technique execution. There are not a few factors that affect your game. The reality is that they contribute a significant proportion to making sure your technique is perfectly executed.

• Imagine for a minute, if you cannot execute your technique with the proper force applied to your opponent, will it be helpful for you? Will it get your opponent into your trap? The answer is no. With no force, the technique is not worthy. If you cannot generate enough power for the move or tactic, then even if you are making all the steps correctly, it will not be enough to make a dominant position and take you to a victory.

• So you need to figure out a way to build your stamina and fitness levels. But the way will be such that you are practicing your technique and building your stamina at the same time, and that way is to do partner drills. You do these drills repeatedly over a long period of time for a particular technique. So you are building stamina and improving your technique at the same time. So a simple tactic can serve you multiple benefits.

• On the other hand, most people prioritize they often work out at the gym. So are there any benefits for that? Yes, they have, but you have to do the workout separately and your training separately. So you are doing multiple hard works. Why should you do both separately when you can get multiple benefits from a simple drilling routine? So focus on prioritizing partner drills in your daily BJJ training routine.

There are a lot of good examples of partner drills that you can choose from and implement in your daily BJJ training routine. The following are some examples to help you understand better and do these drills:

The first good example of partner drills is the pummeling. In these drills, the focus is on the execution of underhooks and overhooks. You develop your muscle memory for the hooks. These play a very crucial role in your BJJ game. They are very helpful for the grips.

Guard passing partner drills focus on learning the drills that simulate and help you learn the guard passing techniques. There are a lot of examples of such techniques, such as knee on belly and leg drag passing.

The ladder up drills involve the techniques that involve the movement of your hips. With such drills, you practice the hooks on various parts of your opponent’s body, which can include the biceps and hips.

The guard retention drills involve all the techniques which help you retain your guard and prevent your opponent from passing it. You practice various grips and using your shoulders and hips to retain the guard.

These partner drills help you improve your submission attacks on your opponent. You set yourself in a position such as a guard and then execute the different submission attacks such as the armbar.

The partner drills are very important for you to implement in your daily training routine. These serve various purposes for you in your BJJ game. Your techniques get improved multiple times, and you get your muscle memory for that technique. Besides this, your stamina for those particular techniques also gets improved and perfected. This all makes you a master in everything related to that particular technique, which you are practicing in partner drills.

In these drills, usually two grapplers or martial arts practitioners are involved in practicing and training together for any particular technique. Doing the training with your partner helps provide numerous benefits in various ways, all contributing to the improvement in your game. You develop defensive strategies, and at the same time, the other partner can develop offensive techniques.

The following are some examples to help you understand better and do these drills:

• You Get Prompt Feedback on Your Techniques' Execution

• Your Muscle Memory Develops

• You Get the Dynamic and Interactive Environment

• Improve Active Learning

• Build Your Stamina And Fitness

Some of the facts and benefits that highlight the importance of partner drills are given below:

• You Get Prompt Feedback on Your Techniques' Execution

• Your Muscle Memory Develops

• You Get the Dynamic and Interactive Environment

• Improve Active Learning

• Build Your Stamina And Fitness