Making Progress By Hanging Back And Just Watching

So this morning like most Monday mornings I was here at Ivey League MMA teaching the 11am Brazilian Jujitsu class.

I showed some techniques from side control and after we got some drilling in it was on to the live rolling portion of the class.

During some of these classes I’ll jump in with the students to get some live rolling in myself. However today I decided to hang back and do some observing.

You know, to see what the students are doing during the live goes.

As I sat just watching I started to remember just how effective observation can be and what it’s done for me and my training.

And I’ll tell you this, I’m glad I sat out because I ended up learning some great techniques that I’d either forgotten about or some brand new concepts that hadn’t even dawned on.

The bullet point here is this: You can get pretty good just by watching and not just by training. You’d be surprised how much you can learn by watching high level people do what they do.

I mean it doesn’t even have to be high level people either. You can learn from watching just about anyone, white belt, black belt, UFC Fighter or just another training partner.

Now don’t get me wrong, watching in no way, shape or form should replace doing. I’m not trying to paint that picture at all. I’m just saying that watching has it’s place and can be a great thing to help in your overall mix martial arts training.

I think this watching thing is pretty darn important and so very often gets overlooked. Sometimes it’s better to just hang out after or during a class and just watch. See what others are using and what’s working for them.

Then take what you see and give it a try yourself. By doing this you’ll get to play with a bunch of new techniques or concepts that otherwise you’d have missed or not learned till some point down the road.

Most MMA students only get the chance to watch class only when they’re forced to. Most of the time this is due to an injury or an odd number of students in class.

If you’re like me then the very idea of watching class vs doing it isn’t fun at all, I get that. You might have to work hard to force yourself into this type of scenario but it’s worth it trust me.

Force yourself to watch because I guarantee you’ll learn something new, or maybe a bunch of new things. Combine watching with taking notes, studying youtube videos, extra drilling and so on.

Do all that and it’s not going to take long before you get the results you want. Put in the work and when it’s all said and done the rewards will be there waiting.

Give this a try. Watch a class rather then take it. It can help you big time.

Speaking of study, watch the videos below.