...can be, and often is hard. But if it is what makes you who you are, you have to follow it. The pandemic situation is unfortunately still a relevant factor in our training, after more than a year, which means that solo training is still a VERY important aspect. Although, it always is, anyway. As guro Roger Agbulos pointed out during one of his Zoom training sessions, even before the lockdowns and other hindrances, 80% of his training was done solo, anyway. I have already written about it, so today I'd like to offer a couple of ways to maybe freshen it up by introducing new ways of working on your own.
To begin with, you may consider taking certain exercising ideas and applying them in different planes. For example, most BJJ solo drills are done on the floor, but what if you tried to work on chaining various movements in different positions? Possibly, something of this could come up...
OK, once you are comfortable with that, or simply wishing to add more ingredients to the mix, it could be a simple piece of training gear such as a ball. Following is a clip of my friend Vasilis from Athens, Greece, showing some interesting ways of expanding your training.
Finally, should you be looking for a way to make the training more reactive and spontaneous, using a pendulum could be the answer. In the following example guro Jay Pugao of Visayan Corto Cadena system of arnis/eskrima is demonstrating it with empty handed applications, i.e. punching, but this type of training can be done just as well with various impact or bladed weapons.
As always, what you get out of these modes of training depends on what you put in. Granted, there is no way to adequately replace partner training, but it should not be the excuse for failing to train at all. With a little imagination and a lot of drive, you can end up attaining good results, especially with proper mindset
