I’m always surprised at the naming convention of this drill. Really it’s nothing to do with the striking, who is doing the sprawling and brawling. This drill is all about the grappler, who’s blocking and shooting. I guess “Not the Face!” isn’t as popular a name.
If I haven’t posted it before, I’ll say it here. In Sprawl N Brawl, the odds are heavily stacked against the grappler. That’s the nature of the game. You are going to get hit. You are going to gas. BUT, you have to go for the win all the way through. Want to get beat? Try pace yourself, try resting. You must, as the grappler, push the pace. It’s the only way to get through it.
For this SNB, each guy did two 2-minute rounds, spaced about 8-10 minutes apart. Even with this rest, notice how different they act in the second round, once fatigued.
Watching John’s Sprawl N Brawl above, you notice he gets fairly heavily winded. He’s put back in to finish his round. In order to be able to fight, you need to deal with pain. Note this isn’t the same as having to deal with injury: training while seriously injured is stupid if training just aggravates the injury. But knocks, getting winded, eating a heavy leg kick, these are all part of the game.
