Words

We're in the Black Hills for the holiday.  his means that, unfortunately, I won't get to train again until Tuesday.  This is sad.  I even tried to get in touch with a few academies in town, but none of them are going to be training while I'm in town.  In case that changes, the gi, rashguard, and belt are all in the trunk.

I told Brenna earlier this week that she has no idea how much of my thinking time is spent on jiu jitsu.  On the way through South Dakota, we were listening to Radiolab, my new podcast addiction.  We were listening to the episode on Words.  (Here is the link; if you haven't listened to Radiolab, it's probably the smartest thing on the radio right now.)  In this episode, they were discussing the idea of whether language is what allows children to think better than rodents, and later, whether language prevents us from feeling as much emotion as possible.  [Rereading that sentence, it's terribly written and only kind of explains what I want it to, but we'll see if I can make it better.]  One of the stories focused on a woman who was having a stroke, and she wrote a book about the experience.  The left side of her brain was shutting down, and she lost all language.  In those moments, when only the right side of her brain was operating, she said it was indescribable (not the least because she didn't have language) and allowed her to feel in ways that the logic and design of language prevent.

There was another bit about neural connections, and how evolutionarily advanced it is to be able to form the thought "left of the blue wall."  Both rodents and humans have the capacity to define the noun and adjectives in that phrase ("wall," "left," and "blue"), but for some reason, rodents are unable to build the connections necessary to define an item's location in relation to a differently colored wall.  [Again, bad explanation--listen to the radio show.]  So it's as though each of our brains has these islands that define colors and directions and objects, and language (prepositions, in this particular case) allows us to connect those separate islands to one another.

So we were driving the expanse of nothing that is Dakota Country and I started thinking about how my training has been going lately and the feedback that Klint has given me.  I know a lot of techniques.  I can talk about (and even reasonably teach) armbars, takedowns, triangles, kimuras, the Camarillo switch, chokes---when I write it down or try to explain it, I realize that it's a lot more technique than I expected.  I have these islands of technique, and a few bridges between them that I constantly use.  (And this is where the two parts of the episode combined to fuel my thoughts.)  But I'm scared to turn off my left brain when rolling to see whether any other bridges exist for me to use.  Occasionally it happens---I'll do something that's really good and that I didn't expect, but I don't remember what I did so I can't replicate it or even explain it.  But that is what my jiu jitsu needs right now:  less left brain.  In jiu jitsu parlance, I have to flow with the go a bit more.  Stop thinking about it and just roll with the roll.

It's hard.  I have a rather overbearing brain--I want to understand everything that I'm doing, and shooting from the hip in these situations, especially when I'm up against Klint, means that I'm going to have to lose a lot and that I won't enjoy the time I spend training.  Which is simply a fact of life.  And I should get used to it.

Why Not To Be Upset With My Progress

This conversation has happened a handful of times in the last three months:

Them:  You have really good movement.
Me:  Thanks, I appreciate that.
Them:  How long have you been doing jiu jitsu?
Me:  It will be two years this coming February.  So around 20/22 months.
Them:  .....That can't be right.  You're much better than that.  Did you wrestle?
Me:  For a year in eighth grade.  So kind of, but really no.
Them:  That's not fair.

I wish I could take credit for it all on my own.  I can't, and I refuse to.  For starters, I still think I'm not all that good.  I have a few tricks, and one or two standard attacks and set-ups that I always look for.  But I'm not a monster on the mat by any stretch.  Also, my progress is almost entirely due to Klint's instruction.  He's a technical madman.  Every lesson takes the minutiae of each technique, explains why it's important to the particular combination we're working that day, and at the end, goes from the six-inch view to the thirty-thousand-foot view.  From explaining why the elbow control helps more than wrist control for this one set-up to why we should attack constantly and how that affects not only our game, but our opponent's defenses and concentration.

And it all shows in my training.  So that's nice.  And though I'm frustrated and feel stagnant, it seems that I am the only one who thinks that about my game.

I imagine this is something that everyone has to go through during their training.  At least, everyone who isn't BJ Penn (or some other equally ridiculously prodigious grappler) and has to suffer through life with regular concerns like a job and familial obligations.  We're not learning knitting or how to make a collage.  We're fighting.  It's hard, and sometimes it sucks.  But you're not always the best judge of your own progress.  That's something worth remembering.

That's what you get....

Jeremy returned.  I have weeks of thrashing to look forward to.  At the end of class Thursday night, Klint and Jeremy pickled me.  It's like baseball in the back yard when we were kids, where one kid runs between the bases and the other two try to tag him out.  Just back and forth, with the kid in the middle pickled.  That was me.

I honestly can't say whether I was doing anything well or not.  I know that I made some stupid mistakes, and that I hate making those mistakes in general---especially when either Klint or Jeremy are watching me train.  So the fact that each of them was working me over while the other watched was hard on my psyche. Very hard.  I was fighting and screaming at myself over it until I went to sleep.  After gaining a certain level of proficiency at anything, you always get pissed and irritated when you can't do anything, when none of your techniques work.  And that was all of training Thursday.

Friday I got a text from Klint telling me that class was cancelled on Saturday, so Saturday I spent the entire time at Edina, taking class from Gina and her girls early and working through the open mat afterwards.  And for a lot of Saturday, the roles were reversed.  There were a few rounds where I was fighting out of my class---some rounds with higher belts who I knew were going to handle me and they did.  I got to work on my defenses and survival, and the thrashing I took Thursday had me better prepared for those rounds than I otherwise would have been.  I stuck myself into turtle too often, and one of the areas I need the most work is keeping moving through those transitions, from stiff-arming the guard pass to my knees to either my guard or my own takedown reversal.  I left myself in a few terrible spots simply because I didn't keep moving.  So I have some drills to work on, and I'm sure Klint and Jeremy will be able to help me work that problem.  Against a few similar belts, though, I was the driver.  I rolled with two people who were being just as hard on themselves and getting just as frustrated as I was on Thursday.  So I caught myself telling them the same things I heard at the end of Thursday's training:  they're doing well, that they're going to get beat sometimes and that's part of the process.  A few of the other rounds were a bit closer, no one losing self-confidence or slapping the mat.

A bit of the time, I even surprised myself with the techniques my body went to.  I was working a baseball choke, a few bow-and-arrows, some guard passes, Jeremy's back defense....it was a really good morning of training.  I only wish I could remember that those nights that aren't so reassuring.

Plays poorly with others

I went to a seminar this past weekend, given by a very public figure in BJJ around the world.  He is a second or third degree black belt, runs a world-famous academy in southern California, and is a relentless advocate for his family's brand of jiu jitsu and way of life.  I won't name him, though if you do minor research, it won't be hard to figure out.

I was disappointed in the seminar.  One session was about side mount, and the second was about triangle.  Neither went that deep into the position or strategies and philosophies around it.  I think part of the reason was that the hosting academy is new, and it's full of white belts and some blue belts.  As a blue myself, I hesitate to cast aspersions on others who hold the same rank, but looking around the room at some people moving around and drilling, I don't think many of them would have been blue belts at other academies.  So that's my snarkiness for the day.

I went on my own, and no one I knew did the seminar.  it was a room full of strangers.  The effect of that, though, is that my partner was always someone who I didn't know---which is more than fine---and who either doesn't pay as close attention to technique as I do (first session) or simply doesn't normally practice jiu jitsu (second session).  So I felt like I ended up re-teaching the techniques once we started drilling them, which seemed to be wasted time.

If nothing else, it gave me still more confidence in my home academy, and in my instructors methods and philosophy.  Exactly what I need---more reason to feel quietly superior.

Plateaus

I was working last night at the bar and a training partner ended up coming in for a drink with a lady friend. They had dinner and a drink or two, and then she left and he waited at the bar for his bus.  So we got to catch up; he and I don't get to train together that often.  He trains across town at night, when I'm usually at Woodbury.  We started training at roughly the same time, I think, but I have one distinct advantage:  I'm 6'1"-ish, 180 lbs, and he's 5'3"-ish, 130 lbs.  [You heard it here first---size matters.]  He said something that resonated with me:  "I see everyone around me making leaps and moving forward, and I feel like I'm just plateauing."

Why did this resonate with me?  I look over the history of this blog, and I can see (and remember writing) posts about how I feel good about my jiu jitsu, and how I feel like I'm progressing.  Right now, it's a little different.  I know that I'm progressing and improving.   I feel myself giving certain people more trouble than I used to, I see myself beating guys who used to stomp me.  I take my training seriously (more seriously than I think my lovely wife would like), and I make time to roll with guys across town so that I get training in with different bodies and higher belts who are not my instructor.  I hear guys complimenting my progress, etc.  And it still feels like a plateau.  Explain that.

For one, improvement is becoming much more of a slog, a much steeper incline.  It's no longer about learning the basics; now I have to build combinations and increase push-pull sensitivity and up my aggression without sacrificing my defense.  For another, I don't have people with whom to practice building those essentials.  I have Klint to wreck me, I have the white belts to wreck, and I have guys across town to measure my game.  I don't have drilling partners.  And those are the ones I think I need right now.  Blue belt, as I understand it, is where you build your game, where you craft what kind of jiu jitsu player you're going to be and determine what goes into your A game.  I'm going to be here a long, long time.  And I'm cool with that.  What would bother me would be being a blue belt for a long long time and feeling the entire time like I'm not training properly.

Updates

I just got back from a family trip to Texas.  We have family in Ft. Worth, so I got to train twice at Genesis Jiu Jitsu.  A training partner recommended it to me a few months back, and this is the first change I got to train there.  Great bunch of guys, they train hard and were extremely welcoming to me.  They heard I was in from Minnesota and just opened the doors, both literally and figuratively.

I trained one session no gi with them (seems the only time I train no gi is when I travel and visit other academies) and one session gi.  I matched up pretty well against guys of similar rank, I felt.

Right now, my jiu jitsu feels great.  This goes back even to my tournament performance.  I'm very happy with where my game is for the amount of time I've been training and how I'm able to handle myself against people with years more mat time and depth of experience than I have.  I don't have a good competition game, and I'll be the first to admit that.  We just don't get enough competitions in the great white north.  If we want a decent depth of competition, we have to drive to Chicago, and that's six hours and a hotel room for a few nights.  It's brutal.  I think that if I had more opportunity to throw myself into the fire, I would have finer timing and quicker synapses in those situations.  So my tournament results do not coincide with my confidence in my game.  But I don't train for tournaments.  I train for fights.  I train for unexpected situations.  I train for no time limits.  I train so that I'm not the one who gases.  So that I can outlast my opponent and take no damage at the same time.   Of course, I've never had to use it outside the academy.  So there's that.

And that's where I'm going to leave it tonight.  Go train.  Get better.  I took the night off to stay with my gestating bride and pet my forlorn dog, but tomorrow night I'll be back on the mats.  And Friday I get sworn in as an officially licensed attorney in the State of Minnesota.  (If that's not weird, I don't know what is.)  Still, I'll be learning, losing, and loving every second of it as often as I possibly can.

I Hate Rules

Here are my matches:

Weight 1:


Weight 2:


Weight 3 (bronze medal match):


Absolute 1:


Absolute 2:



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I'm happy with where my jiu jitsu is, if not with my tournament performance.  I felt that if there were no governing rules or scoring system -- if this were a sub only tournament, for instance -- then I would have won every match.  I never felt out of my depth, I never felt sideways.  I was in a bad spot once or twice, but I never felt threatened.  And I didn't gas, which was a nice realization.  (Though I'm sure someone will tell me that it just means I wasn't working hard enough.  I will tell that person to pound sand, but that's a different post.)

So here's some more of my jiu jitsu.  Enjoi.