Road to Worlds: Atos Training Report & Highlight Video

Atos is one of the most successful teams for a reason – the curriculum is always evolving.  Continuing a theme we saw at ARt of Jiu-Jitsu with the Mendes brothers, Andre lead a competition training session that was HEAVY on positional sparring and exceptionally short, explosive rounds. 

The class was NOT intended to burn the competitors out, but leave them thirsting for more.  Read on for a full breakdown of the class and watch the highlights for a full sense of how an elite competition academy trains. 

Warm Up

Light Jog to warm things up; this was followed by guard passing drill where athletes practice various passes and progressed to finish the sequence on the back.

Many in the competition training session had just completed the advanced class and we’re plenty warm.

Positional Sparring – Three Variations

The theme of the training session was positional sparring. The room was split by light and heavyweight  Rounds were only 45 seconds long, and they went for over 35 minutes.  

The three variations were essentially extended progression of a leg drag pass - the first drill saw the passer attempt to complete a leg drag with a grip on the collar and pants.

The second variation saw the passer advance their starting position to a nearly completed pass – the person on bottom’s job was to recompose their guard and continue the fight from there.

The third variation saw the passer start from attacking the turtle - a common scenario when trying to escape a leg drag guard pass. 

Sparring 

There were ‘only' four rounds of sparring at five minutes.  Andre told his athletes that today’s theme was to keep them sharp – there are other days of training that including grueling 10-minute rounds 

Follow along and don't miss a thing from the 2019 Road to Worlds!