Due to the runaway popularity of both the Lloyd Irvin Privates and Gazzy Privates threads at the Jiu Jitsu Gear Forum over the past week, I thought I'd write a bit about my idea of the ideal private session.
In a perfect world, I'd do a private session once a year--like a birthday present to myself. But I wouldn't ask to see new techniques. I would want to spend at least a quarter of the time--maybe more--explaining how I see jiu jitsu, what I think I want to do, what I think I can do successfully.
In the final analysis, what makes jiu jitsu an art and not a science is that while jiu jitsu has its encyclopedia of techniques--the mastery of which would make any jiu jitero hard to handle on any mat, anywhere--the fact of the matter is that we are human beings, not cyborgs. We respond to certain ideas, ideas of what we can do, better than others. Some of those ideas are obstacles to be overcome, to be sure. But many of them simply reflect a reality that our growing understanding of jiu jitsu has slowly begun to grasp--as it applies to the practioner personally.
It's so easy to sit back and let a thousand techniques cascade through your brain--and there aren't many better hours spent than those doing so courtesy of jiu jitsu remixes, submission compliations, full fight coverage ... But I think the maximal use of a black belt in jiu jitsu is to have him or her help you fix your thinking, to show you where you are "getting it" and where you are still uncertain or just plain lost. That way you are more likely to be able to fix yourself down the road, rather than trying to remember a couple details of a technique that somebody probably could have showed you sometime after a class ...
Sure, if I have a problem area, a technical problem area, then show me one or two ways to fix it. But privates aren't cheap. It seems like a gestalt approach is the best way to grow out of the private session experience: What kind of jiu jitero am I? How can I be a better version of that?
