E142 | Demystifying Democratic Jiu-Jitsu Coaching

Welcome to Tapped In. My name is David Figueroa Martinez of DFM Coaching. And today we're going to be discussing the democratic jiu-jitsu coaching approach. As someone who has been around for quite a while, I've learned from multiple styles and teaching approaches, gyms, traditional, non-traditional, stuff that's kind of in the in-between stages. And I personally have always kind of shifted to the more of a democratic approach.

And it's interesting because the the sport that we're in and what we're doing is not necessarily democratic. Like we don't get to vote on a whole lot of stuff that happens at the gym. There's an owner, there's an head instructor and they set the tone for quite a bit of what's going to go on or not go on. How the money's spent, how's it not spent, what kind of resources are going to be developed back into the program. We don't get a whole lot of say when any of that stuff. Rightfully so, we're not owners in this this business, so I get it.

But it doesn't mean that we can't have a democratic approach when it comes to the instruction and the culture. I have learned jiu-jitsu under a couple of people that were more authoritative. And while it can create maybe more order, I think it stifles creativity and evolving culture. I think that it creates in some cases, especially if the personality is too rigid or too judgmental, you will get environments where students don't want to make mistakes or students don't want to speak up or they don't want to piss off the person in charge. And you get a very by-the-book experience. And anything outside of that kind of gets shunned or you know, ignored, pushed off to the side. And it doesn't help the creativeness or the creativity that jiu-jitsu's actually supposed to be.

Then you go to these these gyms where there is a bit more more freedom, there's more exploratory nature when it comes to training and you will feel the shift completely. I've been to both, I have studied at both. I personally have I do more of a democratic approach myself. That doesn't mean that we don't have rules in place, expectations in place, things that are going to make sure that how we conduct ourselves are not are in place. It doesn't mean that we don't have any of those things. And it doesn't even mean that everything that the student wants happens. It's more of a shared responsibility in how I coach you and what we're going to kind of review or the facets in which we do that.

The advantage to me of the democratic approach is I am more of a guide. I am not your not the dictator, I am not I don't even like the word professor. I am not the person that is going to be super rigid and say you have to learn XYZ. I don't care what your body type is, I don't care what your ailments are, I don't care what your limitations are physically, you need to learn this this and this. And there's some elements where you have to learn how to escape the guard, how to guard like retain the guard, how to escape bad positions and there's certain submissions that you're going to have to learn and they get applied a certain way. But I don't dictate what your game is going to look like. I don't dictate the submissions that you should be learning. I don't do normal belt tests where I say yeah they have to learn this set of moves.

It's really about how are you as an artist are creating the A-game for yourself, is it effective, are you putting the right pieces together. And those pieces are going to be different from person to person. Are you taking advantage of kuzushi, are you taking advantage of timing, are you understanding leverage when you're doing these things. Those are the principles that I'm really looking after. How you get to that stage is completely up to you. My job is just kind of help you there and guide you and allow you to see the possibilities and then to offer hey maybe you should do this, maybe you should add this here and take allow you to take more of an ownership. That ownership approach builds trust between you and I. I entrust that you know a bit more about your own body and what you're interested in, what your body's capable of and how you want to put it together because of your temperament than I do.

I don't want to make a bunch of carbon copies of me. I really don't. And I when I look at my students, I don't have a specific copy of me. That doesn't exist. I have people who have bits of my game. I have someone who does kimuras, I have someone who plays turtle really well, I have someone who smash passes, I have someone who who uses butterfly hooks and the butterfly guard, but I don't have anyone that is following specifically in my footsteps, which I am incredibly happy about. I do not and I say this again I do not want copies of me. I do not want to make an environment where people feel like oh that's the way to success. I want students to feel like I have to piece these things together and coach is there to help me. He's not going to do it for me. He doesn't give me the car and say go drive. No I got to piece it together a little bit.

Additionally I want to have feedback loops. I want to have these moments where I get with students periodically and I start asking what are you happy about, what are you what are you struggling with, what can I do better. I recently had a conversation with a student who I was approaching it from not wanting to dictate what they were going to do in any specific spot and more assisting and they told me well at this stage I personally want you to to drive it a little further. Tell me what what I should be doing and then from there I'll start developing some stuff. Cool, and that's where we've started to do and the game is flourishing thanks to a little bit of that.

And I think mainly because of some of the higher belts, in which I'll get into in a minute, kind of stepping in as well and coaching and mentoring that kind of develop those things as well. I want to have discussions about things that we're happy about, things that we're not happy about. I want to have discussions about I remember when I first got there I was doing a specific type of warm up, not everyone liked it. So I truncated the warm up down to we do a flow round and then we start. Sometimes I'll have a set like two three moves that we'll start doing as a warm up like yeah I want you to pass the guard, go to mount, armbar or pass the guard, go to mount, bottom person's going to bridge, they got to open the guard, pass the guard and then it becomes a cycle. We do that occasionally.

So that feedback because I am at the end of the day I'm giving a service and I want to make sure that that service is what people want to be a part of. And sometimes you're going to get in there and you're going to realize especially if you're brand new and you're trying to do like a traditional warm up and no one likes it, you're just going to have to cut it back. There's a benefit probably but you're going to have to cut it back, it's just not going to fit for the crowd that you're in.

I really try to as I mentioned give ownership to the students and what they're developing. I have a guy who's into lasso, I have a person who's into loop chokes, I have someone who's into ankle locks, I have someone who's into chokes from the back like there's a huge like conglomerate of subject matter experts here, which I'm super proud about. They don't look identical, they don't have identical games, they all have something different that they've kind of latched onto and made their own.

And in that I think it because I have we have this approach, I think it also develops other people who are moving up up the ranks because then they see that it's not a top-down structure and it's more democratic. We all have a role to play here, we all help each other out. So then they take on those same leadership qualities and approaches and they start mentoring people that are under them. It is one of the best things to see, it's a huge plus. I'm incredibly happy when I see the purple and brown belts mentoring other students. It's so much fun to watch. Because that's when you know okay we're we're working something positive here.

And then you start seeing the more advanced blue belts start doing it with the new white belts or within the blue belt ranks they're mentoring each other. It's beautiful, like that's the environment that you want. You do not and I I can't stress this enough. You do not want an environment where you have these people who feel like they are the source and I don't say that disrespectfully or anything, but I've been in in gyms where it was top down and I need you to do it this way because I do it this way and it becomes a really rigid environment and you don't get the same you don't get the same mentorship from the next levels. You it occurs naturally but I don't think it happens to to the depth that it should. I think sometimes when I would watch a that approach actually kind of created clickish environments, which end up being a problem. So maybe it works for your gym, maybe it works for your academy, by all means who am I to judge but I I just personally don't think that it works that way.

Additionally I also want to have environment where people don't feel uncomfortable asking questions. Hey why do you do the technique that way. And I get that question a couple of times in my own morning program and sometimes I get it at Five Peaks or I'll have someone pull me aside at Sunny Dojo and be like hey I noticed that you do this this and this why. And I take great pride in the fact that you feel comfortable enough to ask. I need that and I want that kind of relationship. So then I express I will often say this is how I do it, this isn't the way, there is usually not one way, this is how I do it. Your instructor might have a different process or ability, you might even come up with a different approach based on your body type, your experiment, the things that you do really well, the thing that your body does or does not do well and you might come up with a new way.

But I do this because of XYZ. Recently I was teaching a class and one of the questions was do you get the thumb up or thumb down grip. It was a grip from bottom half, I was grabbing the gi. And I explained I do thumb up but there are limitations because you can break the grip a little easier but I just feel more comfortable with the thumb up. It's probably the way I was taught or I learned it incorrectly and I just made it my thing. Sometimes that happens. There's no like always do things the quote unquote right way. Sometimes we do things just because it works for us in our body types in our experiments.

So but I said the thumb down version is harder to break the grip but I don't feel as strong I personally. Try both, decide which one wants will work for you and then move on from there. Um you do not have to do the same way I do it but then there's moments where the technique really specifically requires a specific approach and I'm honest about that too. Um but yeah I I want people to ask questions, I want people to question why the things are occurring. It shows that you're more you're paying attention more. You're thinking outside the box, you're not just going step by step. You're going step what if this and why does that. That's a deeper understanding of the technique and I personally encourage it. I've been in circles that that wasn't always the thing and sometimes you got your head bit off when you asked certain questions.

So yeah it's a big thing. Additionally because we're asking questions I also want a environment and I get I think I get that or you will get that from a democratic approach when it comes to leadership where you entrust your students that it's okay to make mistakes and they're going to make their own mistakes for the good of their own game. I have watched people teach who get on students about a mistake because they thought it was a dumb mistake. There's a different approach, if I'm going to belittle you for the mistake that's not going to help your confidence grow and it's not going to allow you to become a scientist that you really need to be. You need to treat this like a lab and do experiments. Thumb up, thumb down, try which one works for you. If I pass the guard and my hips are a little higher what happens. If I pass the guard and I lower my head what happens. If I pass the guard with this grip what happens. And that's really what I want you to do.

I need you to experiment, experiment all the way to failure. I failed when I did this why. Again goes back to asking. When I mis- when I mistimed this sweep, when should I have gone and why didn't it work even when the timing was right. Sometimes it's the angle maybe, sometimes it's you didn't pull back the right part of the body. It allows your students to really just we're going to fail, we're okay with failing, my instructor isn't judging me when I fail, my instructor isn't going to degrade me isn't going to not physically demote me but mentally demote me as someone that's close to getting promotions. That doesn't happen. I really want students who just go out there and try shit.

I love watching the students at Sunny, Five Peaks and Lamesa. Those are the three places that I'm at the most. All three things have something very close in common with one another. They try, they fail, they try, they fail. There doesn't seem to be a negative layer or or a fog within any three of the gyms about failure. I can't say the same about when I was coming up. So when I watch these students playing jiu-jitsu without the care of failure you can see the joy and you can see the experimentation and you can see the advancement occurs more often. When I failed three times at the same sweep and then it made finally click, the click means so much more. I understand it more in depth.

So that when I become an instructor and my instructor allowed me to fail so much all the way to success I can then impart that back in them and be like we're all going to just fail. I failed at this technique because of these things that I didn't do incorrectly. And you can expre- explain that to them, it gives them the why or when he ask you why you have a deep answer because you were able to duplicate the the your successes over and over mixed in with the failures. It's not just a do it this way because I told you to do it this way. There's a there's a trial and error that you are able to look back on that helps.

I said this earlier, we do not want to have an environment where there is a source. We are all subject matter experts and that's part of the democratic process, we're all subject matter experts. I do not understand everything, I don't know everything nor will I ever. I got students that are great at footlocks much better than I am. There students at the academy that are way better at anything against the legs than I am. Uh there are students that are great at at back takes and attacking the back and I'm decent but I'm maybe not on their level. And then there's things that I do really really well, maybe they do equally as well but they do it differently.

So if we can get that environment where it's like the instructor isn't the only person I can ask, there's a whole bunch of these people around. So when I'm when I get a question that I don't quite understand or know all that in depth, I give them the answer this is what I do, it's not the greatest answer, but I would ask such and such. And if they're in the room I pull them out. You want the environment to understand that there are different sources and different experiences and they are all equally important to the ecosystem that is the gym.

You want that so that god forbid something happens to you the gym can still live on. If you get sick, if you get injured, if you have to retire, if you have to move away, if you have to you know what I mean, you want that that knowledge base and that environment and that program to live on after you. So I think this is one of the best ways to to do that. I think it's one of the best ways for jiu-jitsu to blossom. The less rigidity the more outcomes, the more possibilities, the more guards start to get developed, the more approaches. We're this sport is getting older and we are getting older and there's new ways of teaching, you got constraint led approach now like all this is beautiful and it comes from having more of a democratic approach than the more traditional one. Traditional has its place and it has its way of growth and growing but personally I don't think it's the best model. And you can do something in the middle where you have some traditions that you keep and some that you do a little bit more democratic- democratically, that's beautiful too.