Kevin Leavitt

Peter, once again, you and I seem to have the same thoughts at the same time.

Just last night I had the most unique situation I have probably encountered to date.

I am in Dakar Senegal for a while, and there is no Brazilian Jiu Jitsu here. A long story, but I was able to connect with the local judo community that really wants to learn and incorporate BJJ in their training.

Mostly in the US and Europe I train newbies when introducing BJJ, but in Senegal, it is very, very experienced Judoka. These people are in their mid 30's, 3 and 4 dans, experienced, some that are on the National Team.

their tachi waza and nage waza is decent, but ne waza is not so strong.

I normally teach from a technique based model because this is what young americans and europeans seem to want and respond to.

However with only a few days to work with these experienced judoka and a lack of a common language for me (my French is terrible), I found that it was best to abandon technique and work with them on establishing a new paradigm/methodology for assessing ne waza vice teaching techniques.

So I taught from a very basic foundation and framework, and we built on what they already knew about kuzushi, timing etc. The only change really was the orientation of our practice (ne waza versus tachi waza).

In the senior students that had 20 years of judo, I saw a light bulb go off and then they were able to begin to explore things on their own.

I think (hope) that I gave them more to grow on, than if I would have simply taught a bunch of techniques that they would have forgotten over time.

Thanks for this well written blog post!