One very enjoyable evening in class started out with our coach asking everyone leave their egos behind. Our group is (thankfully) devoid of ego anyway, so it was a curious way to start. A few minutes later it all clicked.
The goal for that night was to be submitted. Just give 5% (maybe 20) and let your partner flow through their submissions and then swap up. You keep moving, flowing from position to position, attack to attack. Your partner provides just enough resistance to make the flow feel right - the positioning is realistic, but there's no resistance once you get there. You can swap every tap, or run a series and take turns.
Since then, I try to find opportunities to drill like this whenever I'm with a training partner that's willing to spare 15-20minutes of their open mat time. It's amazing how in just a few minutes, you can go from thinking about what to do next to just flowing through an encyclopedia of techniques you didn't realize you'd been building.
Flow drills and similar exercises may be old news to you, but I'm shocked at how few people take advantage of them during open mat. Open mat tends to just mean, "let's roll."
Spending time on these drills seems like an excellent way to keep you from getting in a rut. Plus, the concept can be adapted a number of ways (similar to drilling I'm sure you already do): passes and sweeps; sub combos, etc.
Here's a few videos for those of you that may be new to the concept. Enjoy!
