What Is Solo Grappling? Best Ways To Do It Without a Partner

Solo grappling is the art everyone needs to learn because there are days when you cannot go to the gym for training for any reason. Moreover, it saves your time if you do solo grappling at home. It is often advised to spend more days and time training martial arts at home rather than in the gym. This is because solo grappling equips you with more techniques and skills in much less time than the gym. So, ideally, you should be focusing on both going to the gym and training at home. But how can you do solo grappling without a partner? What are the ways you can do it? Let's explore this in detail.

Solo grappling is not a new concept in martial arts. It refers to the training in Brazilian Jiu Jitsu or submission grappling without a partner. You usually do it alone at your home. Solo grappling has the basic objective of improving the techniques you have learnt in the gym, or mastering any specific technique by practicing again and again. You do solo grappling when you are too passionate and too serious about learning and mastering grappling. So either you are doing extra training after coming home from the academy, or doing it half of the week without going to the gym. Solo grappling is a very essential aspect of your training if you want to be the best in the game. So if your goal aligns with this, you should definitely consider solo grappling.

Solo grappling has a lot of benefits for you, which makes it crucial for you to do such as the following:

• The first reason you should do solo grappling is that it improves your techniques and skills to a major extent. Let's take an example to understand this better. One grappler who goes to the gym daily and practices one technique. After the academy, he goes home and does other chores without thinking or doing anything about the techniques he learnt on a specific day in the academy. 
• But there is another grappler who practices a technique in the academy and then, after coming back home, he starts doing solo drills to further practice that skill. Who would be better at executing that technique? Obviously, the one who does solo drills. In this way, with solo drills, you are spending more time on your techniques and improving them with each day at a faster pace than your colleagues or training partners. So at the end of the day, you would be better than others.

Another reason for you to do solo grappling is that it increases your confidence. When you are practicing alone, you know how much you are capable of, your weaknesses, and your strengths. So you work and train according to such strengths and weaknesses. Eventually, you become much better at a technique that you have been training solo for some time. So this makes you confident in yourself and your ability to execute techniques and moves in a very efficient way.

Doing solo drills helps improve your conditioning. With continued drills, your body and your muscles become adapted to that particular technique. It becomes easier for you to do that technique. Your muscle memory builds, your stamina develops, and all of these things occur just because of repeated solo drills.

There are a lot of solo grappling drills you can consider, but the following are the top five you should try at home:

The first solo grappling drill you need to do at home is backfall. As the name indicates, in this drill, you are falling on your back. Follow the steps given below to do this drill:

• Choose a mat or a form on the floor for doing this drill. You cannot do it on the floor without anything on it; otherwise, you will get injured. So choose any form or mat and put it on the floor. It should be large enough that you can easily lie on it in all four directions. Moreover, it must be square-shaped.

• The next thing you need to do after choosing the form is to stand erect on it.

• Fall on your back. You should fall straight.

• Once you are on the ground, immediately raise your legs or complete the lower body upward. This will put pressure on your upper body.

• Once you have raised your legs to the maximum height, bring them back to the ground.

• Now, stand again and repeat the same process.

The second solo drill best for grappling is shrimping. Follow the steps given below to do shrimping at your home solo:

• Just like backfall, make sure you have put some form of mat on the floor.

• The next step for you is to just lie on that mat or form on the floor.

• After lying on the floor, you have to do shrimping on both sides, i.e., right and left. Start from the right side.

• For doing on the right side, keep your right leg straight and bend your left leg such that the lower and upper leg start touching each other.

• Next, move your upper body, your shoulders, face, hands, arms, towards the right side, and lower them towards your legs.

• This is the right shrimping.

• Now, for doing the left shrimping, keep your left leg straight and bend your right leg.

• In the same way, move your upper body to your left and lower it towards your legs.

• Two things to note here are that you have to lower your arms in such a way that they reach very close to your feet in both right and left shrimping. The second thing is that you will keep that leg straight in the direction you are doing shrimping, for example, the right leg for right shrimping.

• This is the one set. Now, continue doing this again and again at your home.

The third solo grappling drill you should do is the rockers drill. It is a little bit similar in its steps to shrimping. Follow the steps given below to practice rockers at your home:

• First of all, as mentioned previously, get yourself on the mat or form.

• Now do a back fall. Fall straight on your back on the mat.

• Lie straight on your back on the mat.

• Now move your upper body upwards. In this step, you are trying to get yourself into a sitting position.

• Once you are in a sitting position, stand a little bit upwards but not straight.

• In this step, you will keep both your legs in a bent position. You are actually sitting at this step, too, but your hips are now above the mat.

• Your one leg must be on the floor in such a way that your knees touch the mat. Your other leg must be on the ground in a way that your foot is on the ground, but your knees are in the air.

• In the next step, you will get yourself back into the lying position, straight on the mat with your back.

• Now, repeat all the steps again, but this time reverse the positioning of your legs. Your leg, which was on the mat, will now be in the air and vice versa.

• Repeat this drill again and again.

The fourth drill for solo grappling is the penetration step. This is a walk. But this is very different from the way we usually walk. It focuses on your knees and lower legs. So your lower legs get improved a lot in strength. Moreover, as this walk is difficult to continue, doing this will strengthen your balance while moving. So this benefit will ultimately help you in the fight. Follow the steps given below to do this drill:

• The drill is simply composed of steps that you take while walking. But it is not a normal walk.

• In this drill, you are pressing your knees.

• So, for doing the drill, stand in a way that one leg is on the ground with the knees, and the other leg is above the ground in such a way that the knees are in the air.

• Now move on to the next step and change the positioning of your legs.

• Continue this walk.

The last solo grappling drill in the list of the top five drills is flat rolls. These are not easy to do, and are more difficult than the previous ones. It is more like a back flip, but in flat rolls, you are doing the back flip while lying on the ground. After the back flip, you are coming back to your original position. Follow the steps given below to do the flat rolls:

• Get yourself on the mat.

• Stand erect and then fall back on the mat.

• You should fall in a way that your back touches the ground.

• Now lie straight on the mat, but only for a second.

• After lying on the mat with your back, the next step is to move your legs upward and backward.

• Continue moving your legs upward and backward until your legs reach the mat.

• Once your legs reach the ground, you will be upside down, lying on the mat. Your belly will be on the mat.

• Once you are in this position, start reversing yourself to get to your initial position.

• Move your legs upward again and move them in the forward direction.

• Continue doing this, and you will eventually reach your initial position. You will get back in the lying position with your back on the mat.

• Repeat this exercise until you have become a master at it.

Solo grappling drills should be a part of every martial artist who is training in Brazilian Jiu Jitsu or any other submission grappling. They improve many aspects of your game. Your techniques and skills, which you learn in the martial arts gym or academy, get improved or refined. This is the most important benefit you can get from solo grappling skills. Besides this benefit, you are also getting alot of other benefits from these solo drills at your home. This can include mental strength, physical strength, confidence building, your muscle memory building, and other benefits related to your psychological and spiritual nature.

Solo grappling refers to the training in Brazilian Jiu Jitsu or submission grappling without a partner. You usually do it alone at your home. Solo grappling has the basic objective of improving the techniques you have learnt in the gym, or mastering any specific technique by practicing again and again.

There are a lot of solo grappling drills you can consider, but the following are the top five you should try at home:

• Backfall

• Shrimping

• Rockers

• Penetration Steps

• Flat Rolls

Solo grappling drills improve many aspects of your game, such as:

• Your techniques and skills, which you learn in the martial arts gym or academy, get improved or refined.

• Other benefits can include mental strength, physical strength, confidence building, your muscle memory building, and other benefits related to your psychological and spiritual nature.