Why Atomic Teaches One Position for an Entire Month

There's a very deliberate reason for that.

One of the things I find most frustrating about random technique classes is that they're a little bit like being handed random jigsaw puzzle pieces. You don't know whether all the pieces belong to the same puzzle or whether they're from a number of completely different puzzles. You might learn a technique today, another one tomorrow, and something entirely unrelated next week, but it's very difficult to understand how it all fits together.

By spending an entire month studying one position, you get to see that position from every angle.

You see it from the top.

You see it from the bottom.

You learn how to attack from that position.

You learn how to defend that position.

I don't particularly like the word "holistic", but that's really what it becomes. Instead of learning isolated techniques, you develop a depth of understanding of the position itself. If your classes are completely random, who knows when you'll revisit that position? Who knows how long it will take before you've accumulated the same level of understanding?

Whether we're studying Half Guard, Closed Guard, X Guard or any other position, I think it's important that students understand it inside and out.

They need to understand what makes the position strong.

They need to understand where it's vulnerable.

They need to understand why it works.

It becomes far more than simply saying, "Here's a technique from Closed Guard."

Instead, it's about understanding what Closed Guard actually is, what it's trying to achieve, and how the position functions as a whole.

I don't want people learning Jiu Jitsu by numbers.

It's a bit like those old paint-by-numbers books where blue is number one, yellow is number two and green is number three. You simply follow instructions without ever really understanding the picture you're creating.

Jiu Jitsu shouldn't be like that.

By diving deeply into one position, we're able to teach far more than individual techniques. We can explain the position itself. We can explain its purpose, its pressure points, its strengths, its weaknesses, and explore those ideas and principles over the course of an entire month.

Typically, the month is divided into four weeks.

Week One will be spent exploring the position from either the top or the bottom.

If we're studying X Guard, for example, we'll look at Single Leg X, traditional X Guard and modified X Guard. More importantly, we'll look at how you arrive there. We don't simply say, "This is X Guard."

We look at the entries.

We look at the transitions.

Once you're there, we look at what you're trying to achieve. What are the sweeps? What are the submissions? What are the objectives of the position?

Week Two then explores the opposite side of the equation.

If Week One is playing X Guard, Week Two is dealing with somebody else's X Guard.

How do you pass it?

How do you shut it down?

How do you attack the person playing that position?

Weeks One and Two establish what we consider the foundational principles of the position, along with the fundamental movement patterns required to play both the top and bottom effectively.

For newer students, this provides a structured introduction to the position.

For more experienced students, it's valuable revision. No matter how long you've trained, you'll often rediscover details you've forgotten or identify holes in your own game that you didn't realise were there.

Week Three is what we call Extension Week.

This is where we move into more advanced techniques, more advanced concepts and more advanced philosophies surrounding the position.

It is a challenging week, and it's designed to be.

We don't expect every student to execute every advanced technique perfectly. That's not the point.

The point is exposure.

Depending on your experience level, Extension Week might simply introduce you to positions and problems you haven't encountered before. Later, when somebody attempts those techniques on you in live training, you'll have seen them before. You may not have all the answers yet, but you'll recognise what's happening and begin thinking your way through the problem rather than encountering it for the first time. And having absolutely no idea.

Finally, Week Four is Review Week.

During Review Week we revisit the previous three weeks, but much of the class is built around specific positional sparring.

We place constraints on the rounds so that students are forced to apply the position under live resistance.

That becomes the real pressure test.

We've drilled the techniques.

Students have been experimenting with them during normal rolling throughout the month.

Now we deliberately create situations where they have to express their understanding of that position against a resisting partner.

Because we've studied both the top and the bottom throughout the month, everyone is actively engaged.

Whether you're attacking or defending, playing top or bottom, everyone is working within the same position and testing the understanding they've built over the previous four weeks.

For us, that's a far more meaningful way to learn Jiu Jitsu than simply collecting random techniques.

There's another important reason we teach this way.

It challenges us as instructors.

If you don't have a structured curriculum, it's very easy to fall into the trap of teaching the techniques you enjoy most or the positions you're naturally strongest at. We don't think that's good enough. Our responsibility isn't to teach our favourite Jiu Jitsu. Our responsibility is to develop well-rounded grapplers. That means teaching every major position, whether it's one we personally gravitate towards or not, and continually challenging ourselves to explain those positions more clearly and teach them more effectively.

Finally, our curriculum is a living, breathing thing.

Just because you trained Butterfly Guard with us this year doesn't mean you'll see exactly the same Butterfly Guard curriculum next year. Quite the opposite. There are far more techniques, concepts and variations in every position than could ever be covered in a single month. Every time we revisit a position, we review it. We look honestly at where our students excelled, where they struggled and what would serve them better the next time around.

Our own learning also shapes the curriculum.

Every year we travel overseas to train with world-class instructors and athletes. We don't do that for a holiday, and we certainly don't do it to collect techniques. We do it because we believe that if we're asking our students to keep learning, we have an obligation to do exactly the same ourselves.

When we discover better ways of teaching a concept, a detail that improves a position, or a new way of thinking about a familiar problem, that knowledge comes home with us. It becomes part of the next curriculum cycle.

Our students deserve more than instructors who simply repeat what they already know.

They deserve instructors who are still learning.