• develop all the muscles throughout the body.
• toughen you up.
• improve balance.
• make you resistant to dizziness in a fight.
• are at the base of the many throwing and grappling movements in Kurash and jiu-jitsu.

Here are the most important rolls, always starting with feet shoulder-width apart and finishing standing up and well-balanced:

1. forward ending with feet close together.
2. backward ending with feet close together.
3. forward ending with feet wide apart.
4. backward ending with feet wide apart.
5. forward with a hand stand.
6. backward with a hand stand.
7. forward breakfalls (left and right.) 

We next do what is called "uchikomi," which is an exercise where you repeatedly spin into throwing position and then back out again to your starting stance. All the throws involve this movement in one way or another, and actually many grappling moves on the ground utilize it as well. Speed, coordination and strength at this movement are what we are aiming at here.

Next we study techniques, often in strings of movements. An example would be something like freeing yourself from a grip, then establishing a dominant grip on your partner leading to a throw, a ground control and then a submission. 

We often do drills where we fight it out from a specified starting position. Some particularly important ones are:

• Closed Guard
• Open Guard
• Triangle Choke/Armlock (Particularly important for lasting in BJJ tourneys :)  )
• Butterfly Guard
• Half Guard
• Turtle
• Back Control (Also, particularly important for surviving tourneys.)

Finally, we spend a long time actually fighting. We do three kinds of fighting: standing, ground and both together (like in a real match.) This part is especially fun and it gives everyone the chance to apply their newly learned skills to their game. 

Conditioning (Homework:)

The best form of conditioning for judo and grappling is running. You should ideally run for about an hour 3 times a week on the off-nights when you are not training at the club. Running develops the following sport-specific skills and attributes:

• superb dynamic balance
• strong grappling stance
• fast and explosive movements
• tough body
• strong back and stomach
• resiliant cardio-vascular stamina
• an indomitable will to persevere 

For the upper body all kinds of weight lifting methods are good. Kettle bells are particularly good because they strengthen the grip better than regular weights do. Pushups are especially helpful because they exercise more muscles than any other single upper-body exercise and thereby develop fantastic conditioning and stamina. Also, they exercise the whole body and not just the upper body. In addition, they strengthen the body posture for pinning a downed opponent. Pushups for grappling are best done with hands placed apart at or wider than shoulder width.