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.