Sprint vs Marathon

When I was 16 I could out pace Usain Bolt at the 200 meter sprint. It was 1990 and Usain "Lightning" Bolt was 5 at the time, but I think it still counts.

While Usain in widely known as the fastest man on the planet he is no Dean Karnazes. At the age of 42 Dean ran 50 marathons in 50 states in 50 consecutive days. He completed the NYC Marathon on the last day with a time of 3 hours and 30 seconds. I have no doubt that Usain can best Dean in the 200 meter, but Dean would beat Usain at the 560 kilometer (which he completed in 2005 in 80 hours and 44 minutes with no sleep). 

The point is that there are different modes in running, the sprint and the marathon. BJJ is no different. Last night I had the opportunity to roll with both extremes. First was BlueBelt (bb), bb was a sprinter. Before I had even began to think about how I was going to defend, bb was already all over me tugging at my extremities and trying to manhandle me into where he wanted me to be. I did the best I could to protect myself but I was quickly sub'd (submitted) several times. His attacks were quick and brutal. As soon as bb felt that one line of attack wasn't working for him he would either try to muscle it through or move to another line just as quickly. It was a sprint that I had no chance of winning. 

Later I rolled with BrownBelt (BB). BB was patient, at no point did it seem like BB ever really exerted himself. Every movement was precise and only exactly what was needed to do the intended job. BB allowed me to explore attack options but never let me close the deal. I never felt like there was a time that he was not in control, when I passed his guard and took side control it was because he let me, he resisted, but not so much that I wouldn't be able to progress. This was a marathon that I still had no chance of winning, but I didn't feel my efforts were wasted. 

Now I am not suggesting that a sprinter is not as good as marathoner or even the other way around. Let's face it when I say Usain Bolt, you know whom I am talking about, when I say Dean Karnazes I get blank stares. Sprinting is flashy and exciting to watch. I see very proficient BJJ practitioners that are sprinters.  What I don't see is very many older BJJ practitioners that are sprinters.

Sprinting is a young person's game, and marathons are the long game. 

I want to play the long game. 

I'm pretty sure it's not broken, but that isn't the proper colour.

Session 5 of my BJJ Journey. 

This week was a bit tougher and easier at the same time. I'm in a fair amount of pain. Mostly because I'm out of shape but also because I seem to be losing chunks of skin from mat burn, joints are being stressed, muscles are being used in ways they don't care for and my fingers are stiff from desperately holding on to my partner’s gi. That all sounds bad when I list it out like that, but I am honestly feeling better about this experience.

 

Last night was first time my Budoshin training came into play. Two of my partners repeated got to their feet while rolling. One of them obviously had never rolled with someone who had judo training and was quickly dispatched several times. The great advantage of many judo throws is that one almost always is in a dominant position at the completion of the throw. My second partner clearly has played this game before but between the two of us we negated each other’s attempts to take the other down and we spent the entire round deadlocked with neither of us having a great advantage.

I felt pretty good about my performance until I rolled with one of the black belts who showed me why he was a black belt and I was a white belt. Every move I made was not only countered, but exploited and put me in a more compromising position. The entire time I rolled with him I felt like I was being controlled. A few minutes into the round he began to guide me and coach me through some techniques, but all the things he walked me through, while effective, were not things that I would have thought to do on my own. It was much more than post out with your hand here or tighten your knees there. It was, “now (blindly) roll into the choke here”, “now flip your body this direction”, again, effective for that scenario, but not something I would have likely figured out on my own. Later I realized that because I didn’t fully understand what was happening to me, I could not properly counter it.

Daniel’s chess analogy comes back to me. In chess tactics unless one is able to recognize that the opponent is setting up the Boden’s Mate, they are in no position to properly defend themselves against it. Without a comprehensive knowledge of what techniques or theories were being used against me, I would be at a significant disadvantage to defend against them. Like my first opponent that did not have a background against someone with judo training was unable to properly defend against throws, my second opponent understood the theory and was able to prevent me from exploiting a weakness.

The moral of the story: This is a journey unlike my pervious training. The goal is not for me to grasp a specific technique or throw but to understand how my partner’s movements and body positions effect my ability to execute a movement. It does me no good to be able to perfectly execute a scissor sweep, if I can’t get myself AND my partner into position. My partner is unlikely to set himself up to the ideal position for me to perform a compromising move on him. I need to understand how to get myself and my partner into the right position, but also be able to modify my plan on the fly if another opportunity or road block presents itself.

BJJ didn’t make me feel old until last night; actually this morning.

Session 4: My Journey into BJJ

The Pan Jiu Jitsu IBJJF Championship is this week. I will NOT be participating this year. Many in my gym will be, all of them, as far as I can tell, are significantly younger than me. That in it of itself didn’t necessarily make me feel old. Researching the IBJJF tournament rules, seeing age based tiers for adults and my level of soreness from last night’s session did make me feel old.

As I looked at the IBJJF Belt and age divisions I noticed that the adult bracket was broken down into 30 individual groups, 6 of the categories are based on age. That doesn’t even include weight sub categories. I didn’t really understand why though. Was it because a 45 year old in the Masters 4 group has so much more experience than a 25 year old in the plain vanilla Adult category it wouldn’t be fair? So I looked around some blog sites to seek some insight to if there was a benefit to an older guy, like me, competing in a different age bracket.  

As it turns out us older guys get hurt more. “The Master” honorific is just a kind way to remove the sting of “can’t roll with the 24 year old mat monster”. Let’s face it, Master does sound better. This got me thinking about the significant differences between Budoshin JuJitsu and BJJ. During training of Budoshin there is generally an aggressor vs defender. The defender is the one being evaluated on the technique and even during our tournaments the aggressor did not resist the techniques of the defender. This is in large part due to safety concerns. Many of the techniques we demonstrate could cause catastrophic damage to joints, but also it allowed a very controlled environment. This method of training and tournament style meant that age (or aggressiveness) was not much of a factor in evaluating the proper execution of techniques.

During last night’s session I decided to take Daniel’s advice and focus on just trying to maintain control over my own body, forget about trying to submit my partner, just stay alive. He likens it to a physical chess match, I call it delay and deny. This method worked quite well for me for most of the night. I found myself not getting compromised so quickly while inside someone’s guard and being able to protect my back just a little bit longer while in guard myself. After each round I would ask my partner, “What could I have done better?” or “Where did things go wrong for me?” and each time they would happily explain and offer suggestions for improvement. That is, until I rolled with a shark.  Apparently a shark, as I understand it, is a practitioner that is more aggressive than absolutely necessary. I believe this colloquialism is inspired by a quote from Carlos Machado, “one way or another, we’re going to hit the ground, and we’ll be in my world. The ground is my ocean, I’m the shark, and most people don’t even know how to swim.”

One of last night’s drills was to pass someone else’s guard without getting swept. I approached one of the guard players (younger guy with an advanced level belt) and we got to work. I was quickly flipped around and had my shoulder nearly wrenched out of socket. This was partly my fault because I was honestly trying to resist, but at the same time I didn’t really know how to properly defend myself in the situation. As soon as I was clearly compromised he brusquely dismissed me to defend against the next attacker.  He isn’t the bad guy here. My expectations and experiences are the root of the problem. I was used to being able to practice techniques in a controlled manner against unresisting opponents.  I unconsciously expected him to “roll light” with me without clearly communicating my expectations.

This experience made me realize I’m not in Kansas anymore. If I want to learn BJJ, I need to let go of my Budoshin expectations. BJJ is aggressive. It’s physical. Age, experience, physical prowess do factor in ways that they didn’t in Budoshin.

So this morning I woke up sore and feeling old, but not completely disheartened. I have a long journey a head of me and sometimes there are going to be difficult patches. But that’s ok, everyday I’m getting just a little bit better.   

I’m pretty sure one of the guys I rolled with is a chiropractor.

Day 3 of My BJJ Journey
I’m pretty sure one of the guys I rolled with is a chiropractor. My spine has never made such noises. I’m not entirely sure what happened but I found myself on my elbows and knees and this gentleman had climbed onto my back and suddenly my hips were going one way while my shoulders went the other. My back made a sound like a thousand bubble wrap sheets being twisted at the same time. It didn’t hurt, but it was still distressing in its own way.

Last night’s session was good, I am beginning to recognize people and learn some names. Everyone is very polite and once they realize how little I actually know they usually will take an extra moment or two to show me a specific technique or point out an area that needs correction. I am beginning to see the benefit to the Professor’s organic style of training that allows us to address very specific issues with each other during a practical application of techniques. Obviously this works best when teamed up with a more experienced person, but the ability to teach someone else gives an excellent opportunity to hone one’s own skill. If you can’t teach a concept, then chances are you really haven’t understood it yourself.

One drawback is that asking to roll with another student is difficult for introverts like me. Generally, I don’t like to touch other people and rolling is… intimate. I am not the most introvert person in the class however. There are a couple of other students that I can see have a hard time asking others to roll, one student in particular seems to only roll when specifically asked. We will call him Bob. Last night Bob wasn’t getting much action and I noticed the Professor call over another student that was close to Bob’s age and discretely instruct them to ask Bob to train. It's easy to get lost in the room, it is nice to know that the professor is looking out for that.

One minor pet peeve: Obi knots. I get it, during rolling it comes undone. And there are a variety of ways to tie it, both traditional and more progressive, but for the love of toast - it isn’t like tying a shoe.

On my second day, the Professor held me down while one of his other students kicked me in the face.

On my second day, the Professor held me down while one of his other students kicked me in the face.

While that is technically what happened, that’s not the whole story.

Day two of my journey into Brazilian Jiu Jitsu.

This time my friend Daniel was there to help me transition to the class. He explained some basics and showed me a few tips before class started. Again Professor (The BJJ term for black belt) Matt Baker approached me and spoke with me for a few moments before class started, showing to me that he is concerned about his students and making new people feel welcome. Rolling with Prof Daniel & Prof Matt dramatically changed the sparing experience for me. It was clear that they were in complete control the entire time, the best I could do was try to deny and delay the inevitable. I learned that my stamina needs work, after only a few minutes I was sucking air.

My first class I didn’t really push myself and didn’t really feel like I was being pushed. This time was different. Prof Daniel pushed me, then passed me off the Prof Matt; who really pushed me (it was during this time while Prof Matt was rolling with me another pair of students bumped into us and accidentally kicked me in the face). I went home aching and woke up sore. I still feel a bit lost, but it was an excellent session.

Back to the White Belt

Last night after several years my gi sitting in storage I put it back on. It felt weird putting on the white belt again, I was switching up disciplines and I felt a mixture of fear and excitement because I had no idea what I was doing. Originally, I was going to go with a friend of mine, who is well connected within the group, but at the last minute he couldn't make it so I decided to go anyway and see how the gym was to fresh faces.

First off the owners noticed me right away and went out of their way to acknowledge and welcome me. The session I attended was less structured than any martial arts class I had ever been to. I walked into a room with near wall to wall mats covered with people grappling. I wasn't even sure when the class actually started. One of the older purple belts noticed my confused looks and offered to "roll" with me and he started to show me some basics. My martial arts background is strictly stand up arts so this was very foreign to me and I felt way out of my element, but he was very patient and I was very grateful.

Soon the instructor called a halt and began talking about a specific technique, unfortunately for me he used a lot of terms that I was not familiar with, but he did clearly demonstrate the moves then asked us to pair up and practice. This time I ended up with a different purple belt. Again, he was super nice, but he obviously had no idea what the instructor was trying to communicate and was having difficulty with the technique. After a while the instructor clarified the technique to the class and bid us to practice again. Still my partner did not seem to grasp the concept and I felt this would have been a good time for a more experienced person to roam the room looking to correct poor technique. Then suddenly, to me it seemed anyway, that the class was breaking up again and going back to “freestyle”. Several people left while the rest broke up into pairs for grappling.

At this point the instructor came back to me to speak for a few minutes and ask how I felt. He explained that his style of training, for this class, was less formal but he felt was more organic, and enjoyable. He also mentioned he had a more formal class on other nights if that was to my liking. He was very friendly and I was very grateful he took the time to speak to me.

This is where things got a bit awkward, to me it seemed that most of the student had preferred training partners, and me both not knowing anybody and not wearing glasses so everyone resembled an up close Monet, found it a little harder to pair up. It became obvious that if I wanted to train I would have to initiate with another person. I approached white belt who seemed to be waiting, he agreed and was significantly more skilled than my last partner. We “rolled” for a bit while he gave me some pointers until an alarm went off and people broke up to other partners. This time I approached a young white belt that was sitting alone and we practiced a bit. After a bit, everyone lined up, the instructor talked for a bit then we all shook hands and class was over.

The bottle line: I had a good time. I suspect that as I get to know the people in the class better I will have a better time. The instructor was humble and friendly and in no way reminded me of Sensei John Kreese. No one was rude to me in anyway or treated me as a lesser person due to my rank and obvious confusion. I haven’t decided how I feel about the structure of the class yet.