Lachlan Giles is one of the most refreshingly honest grapplers around with absolutely no tendencies towards bravado or trash talk and the giant-killing ADCC Bronze medalist recently announced that even he struggles when first learning techniques. He made the admission as part of a lengthy post on his official Instagram account, where he was discussing the release of his new DVD on Guard Retention which was filmed jointly with fellow Australian, Ariel Tabak. In the comments, Giles also confirmed that he believes the release will be made at some point in the next two weeks.
He revealed that the upcoming instructional is going to look at guard retention from all three phases, long, close, and mid-range. This was the reason for him bringing Tabak on board with the filming of this instructional as he explains that he is better at guard retention from long distance, which compliments Giles’ retention abilities from close and mid-range. This was the area of grappling where Lachlan Giles had begun to implement new techniques and concepts courtesy of Tabak and as he explains, his performances were immediately worse and his guard was getting passed often. But as time went on, he began to get a feel for what he was doing and he now believes that he’s elevated his game to a new level as a result of this.
Realistically, this just confirms what most coaches will have told their students time and time again. It’s easy to fall back on what you’re good at and continue to perform well in training, but that can only get you so far. In order to really improve, you have to force yourself into the situations where you’re lacking and try new concepts or techniques. Not just try them once or twice either, but continually for weeks and even months on end until that specific area becomes just as good as the rest of your game. It’s just nice to hear that even those at the very top of their game still experience the same peaks and troughs in their development.
