One of the stupidest things I ever read on a combat sports message board was from some MMA tough guy talking about how he improved his butterfly guard sweep.
His solution was to find the "biggest, strongest guy in the gym" and to have that guy sit in his butterfly guard while our narrator struggled to sweep him.
That's it.
It is completely beside the point that the guy was eventually able to sweep the "biggest, strongest guy in the gym" and improve his butterfly sweep. As has been said before, some people make some gains in spite of, not because of, the efforts they put in. I'd argue that as a prescription for the average person trying to improve the effectiveness of any technique, any strategy similar to the one above is a prescription better left unfilled.
Improvement, especially technical improvement, comes not from chopping through tree trunks, but from first chopping through air. In The Talent Code, the author talks about aspiring young tennis pros in Russian talent hotbeds swinging their arms without rackets for training session after training session. The point isn't in overcoming resistance - again, not when it comes to technical improvement. The point is in mastering movement, your own movement. And when it comes to mastering movement, particularly in the early stages, resistance is the enemy.
This goes beyond "500 armbars a month" - thought that's a part of it. It's about making sure that programming takes place in the most friction-free environment possible, as you would in any circuit-building process.
I say all that to say this. There is no less friction-free environment that the competitive environment. Here, obviously resistance reigns.
And, importantly, to the degree that the competition, that world of ultimate resistance, is a microcosm of the training/learning experience of jiu jitsu, the more daily training resembles the competitive framework of evenly-matched competitors, the more the training will resemble a microcosm of the training/learning experience as well.
In other words, if competition represents only a small part of jiu jitsu, then too-regular training with "competition-calibre" training partners keeps the amount of technical development and growth relatively limited. It's "A" Game All the Time. And while there is merit in that from time to time, a steady diet of "A" Game All the Time - especially between training partners who also frequently train together - tends to preclude opportunities for experimentation, for trial and error in which the costs of "error" are low enough for new trials to begin again and again.
By that last I mean this: a brown belt trying a new sweep on a white belt is likely to get more than a few opportunities to try that sweep over the course of a five minute training session. Even if the first attempt or two is completely disasterous, the brown belt is likely to be able to recover, and even reposition himself or herself for another attempt or two. Or three.
On the other hand, that same brown belt trying that new sweep against a competition-calibre training partner will likely get only one shot, maybe two, at that sweep. The competition-calibre partner will adapt much, much faster than the white belt, providing much less room for error as the new techniques are being attempted. In short order, new techniques become shelved if not abandoned and we are back at "A" Game All the Time.
This isn't rocket science. Aside from a few knuckleheads, most people agree that it makes sense to learn new techniques against smaller and/or less experienced training partners first, and then increase the level of the challenge as confidence in the new technique grows.
But it seems as if more often than not, we're on our own to take care of this work, to get our "white belt feedings" on our own time. More often in structured training, that two hours a day, 6-8 hours a week from bow in to bow out, matching equals (or comparables, smaller brown v.s. somewhat bigger blue) is the order of the day.
There is no doubt a time for iron sharpening iron, as the saying goes. But iron too often in continuous contact with the sharpening effects of like iron swiftly becomes a lesser tool.
