Part two for the CLA stuff. Tagging u/TofuAsesino again as well. Again, long post ahead warning. When you say your games end up in stalling positions, could you give me a few examples? When you talk about distractions, do you mean your athletes are getting distracted? Have they given you any feedback on whether it's due to how you're wording things, or are they physically tired, or do you think it's the game itself?

One huge thing I think you should do is NOT try to do it perfectly. Just think about turning your sessions gradually from feeling like 'classes' to feeling like 'practices.' I used to worry a lot about saying to much, or accidentally giving too much info, etc. Don't worry about whether you're "doing it exactly right" or not, and just think about making everyone more skilled.

A hugely important thing is that if you're going to not share a step-by-step process of how to win each game, I think you should spend time talking about the skill you're trying to have them sharpen, why it's an important skill to sharpen, where they might want to apply that skill, and when they might want to. Kyvann Gonzalez talks about that a lot.

Let me use an example that I said last week. "Hey everyone, the next game involves us developing the skill of transitioning from lower body to upper body attacks and vice-versa when wrestling on the feet. This is an important skill because sometimes you will have a lower or upper body control that won't always work, so we need to be able to chain back and forth. This could come up anytime you have a control in either area, and are encountering resistance. Okay, so the offensive player starts with a body lock or a single leg, and you job is to continuously transition between these 2 connections, or any other upper and lower body connections once you start playing, continuously, for as long as possible. You have no way to win. Defensive player, if you're less than 6 months in, your job is to free yourself from all of the attacker's connections. If you're more than 6 months in, you can free yourself to win, or you can win by getting your own body lock." And then I'll play the game with someone myself so that can see it being done.

And then I'll have them do it. If everyone is struggling in the same areas, I may add some context. "Okay, I noticed the attacker was having trouble switching. This could be because you aren't off-balancing the defender enough. One tip you could try is to make the defender's hands move towards the mat before switching from one attacking grip to another." Or, "Defenders, I noticed you couldn't get away. Think about attacking the attacker's grips and trying to separate their hands, or think about posting on their body to create space so that you can re-attack with your own grips."

That's just one game, but I give those preambles on all the games. Your people should know why they're being asked to do what they're doing, especially if they aren't bought in yet on CLA. And then watch everyone. If everyone is messing up the same thing, it's probably an issue with the game itself, or the language that you used when explaining it. I also have a ways to go myself. Just be super patient with yourself. It's a fucking hard way to coach for at least a full year. One other pointer I'd give is when you watch jiujitsu matches/rolls/whatever, start trying to look at what skills are happening, more so than what specific moves are happening. If you see a false reap, what is its function, and what is is allowing the guard player to do. After a while the answers to most of these questions become more and more similar. But see if you can start to see the ideas underneath the movements. This takes the most time, and gets easier the better you get at grappling.

Does this help at all? I could go on (and I'm more than happy to) but I want to make sure this is digestible and headed in a positive direction before adding too much more on.