What is the Goal of BJJ?

Today, a friend of mine and I were getting coffee and she said she wanted to try out bjj with me. Of course, I was excited. So my friend asks me, "So what is the goal of jiu-jitsu?"

Simple question, but one that is hard to explain to someone who has never tried bjj.

"Do you try to pin the other person?"

That gave me a jumping off point. "No. BJJ is different than wrestling because, instead of trying to pin someone by relying on superior strength and speed, your goal is to learn to use technique, leverage and momentum to get into a dominant position so that you can do a submission -- a joint lock, choke or muscle lock. It's not about getting into a position and holding it. It's about being mobile and learning to use the other person's movements and positions against them."

Then, I started trying to explain what you do in a grapple. I could see from her facial expressions that she was trying to understand, but had a hard time picturing what I was saying. So I invited her to come over to my barn so I could show her. To my great pleasure, she did.

Stephanie came over too and we spent an hour or so showing her some of the basic positions and submissions -- mount, side control and taking the back and a kimura, an armbar from mount and an rnc. She was on overload by that time. So Stephanie and I grappled--just a relaxed flow roll--to show her a little bit of what bjj looked like in action.

She liked it and is coming with me to class tomorrow. Yay!

The thing that struck me, though, is that I had forgotten about how overwhelming bjj is in the beginning. It's fast, in close quarters, scary at times and there are so many details that you are aware that you aren't going to remember even a quarter of what you are seeing and hearing. I look at this as the first hurdle--getting over that fear of the unknown. The second big hurdle, in my opinion, is learning to deal with the progressive, trial and error, long term nature of bjj.

But as we were walking out of the barn, my friend said, "I'm glad I did this with you guys here first. If I had gone in there not knowing what to expect it would have caught me way off guard."

I hope she ends up enjoying tomorrow's class!!

New York, Rhode Island and Words of Wisdom

I'm back from my crazy New England adventure! My husband JJ and I left last Wednesday, went to New York for a day, then spent the rest of the week and weekend in Rhode Island for one of my best friend's wedding. I had never been to New York or Rhode Island before, so this trip was definitely an awesome experience for me.

Me looking windblown and tired in Central Park. ;)

I won't spend much time talking about the trip here except to say that the wedding was beautiful, as was Rhode Island. I didn't get to see much of New York. We only were able to look around for one day and one night. But I LOVED exploring the city and want to go back again when I can.

Here's me with some of my closest and oldest friends from growing up. Robin was the bride. She looked amazing!

Some of the beautiful scenery from Rhode Island. I love Florida beaches, but some of these stretched of rocky beach were breath-taking.

We visited Newport Island and got to see some of the enormous mansions around there. It was crazy! Some of them looked like castles!

Anyway, onto the actual jiu-jitsu talk on my jiu-jitsu blog. Training has been a lot about problem solving for me right now. I can see some of the many gaps in my technique and I have been doing a lot of trial and error to figure out how to handle them. Most of it has to do with transitioning in defense. I know I should be going a certain way but am not sure how to get there.

For example, I've been getting stuck in turtle. I go to turtle a lot when my guard will be passed and I can't invert. Once I get there, I try to either roll out, catch a leg and drive or return to my guard--or attack a leg if I am feeling brave--but usually the person squashes the crap out of me from the top and I have to work really hard to return to my guard or whatever.

I was asking Paul, one of the black belts at our school, for some advice on how to handle some specific problems and he gave me some technical tips for defending my guard differently. But he had some other advice for me about the mental aspect of game that really hit home.

We were talking about having confidence in the techniques I have learned. Yes, there are gaps in my knowledge. But I need to go into each grapple and each move expecting it to work. If I am hesitant, or go into a move half-hearted, expecting it to fail, I have already defeated myself before I even try. I have to admit that this happens sometimes with me. I either don't try something because I am afraid of the risk, or I try it half way. Doesn't work.

Another thing he said was that I need to work on letting my trails and errors just be experiments and not take them personally when they don't work. Basically, I shouldn't judge my grappling ability based off of whether or not a move works every time. If it doesn't work, it doesn't mean that "I suck". It means I need to keep trying and tweak some things. Eventually, I'll figure it out.

He went on to say that letting those negative emotions like anger or frustration take over during a grapple not only defeat me mentally, but they wear me out physically. My adrenaline gets pumping and then I try something and fail, and have this huge energy dump. Then I am feeling defeated AND exhausted. I have had this happen to me several times before.

I tried to keep those things in mind today and it definitely helped.

Great Post on Belt Promotions

I read a great post by BJJ Cailin morning about belt promotions and McDojos. Hopefully, schools that use belts as marketing tools won't spread in BJJ like they have in the other martial arts.

Handing out belts before students have earned them is not only dishonest, but it robs the student of one of the greatest benefits of BJJ: learning to face yourself--and keep going--when you hit the wall. I think that actually having to EARN a belt helps you grow not only in bjj as a self defense art, but it also helps you grow as a person. Sometimes it takes months or years to get past a snag in your learning process. It forces you to be lose your pride and be humble, to think critically about the techniques and to adapt.

Also, handing out unmerited belts waters down the sport. It certainly won't help the student if they want to compete. They will get trounced at tournaments.

I know it is not my place to judge how other schools do things. But if a school is handing out belts based on time spent practicing BJJ, that sounds illegitimate to me. As Jenn said in her blog, different people develop at different paces. Six months in training will put some students farther than others. Automatically handing out a stripe or a belt to someone based on time devalues the belt system. Just my opinion.

Tip For Beginners

If you are new to BJJ, here is a tip that will save you some time and energy: Don't try to gi choke someone while you are inside their guard.

Twice today, someone tried to gi choke me from inside my guard. What they did was try to stack me from inside my guard and then use pressure to keep me pinned and try to gi choke me.

It didn't work. Why? For a number of reasons:

1) Their arms are outstretched, in my guard, just asking to be arm-bared. Because their weight is forward, my hips are mobile and, even when you are trying to smash the ever loving crap out of me, I can maneuver around to get an armbar from guard.

2) Because their weight is forward, they are in prime position to be swept, with me ending up in mount.

3) When you are in someone else's guard, your primary objective should be to pass. Any submission you try on the person's upper body will only be exposing your arms and neck for submissions.

Now that I've gotten that off my chest... :)

30 Before 30

Stephanie made me do it!!

Steph is doing a bucket list to be completed before she turns 30. I decided to do one to.

Here it be!

Hey, if I'm going to get old, I might as well have a little fun doing it, right? ;)

Reporting from Pancake Town

I have not been having the greatest success in adapting, lately. There is one person in particular that I have a really hard time with and, as such, Fabio puts me with him nearly every class. I am not complaining. That's good. It is forcing me to learn and adapt. I just wish I could adapt faster.

On of the things I have a hard time doing with this particular guy is moving out of turtle. I can get to turtle to prevent being smashed in side control or half guard (those were the places I used to get stuck in all the time with this guy, so I can see some progress, I suppose). He is very strong and fast, and also is technical. It is hard for me to get out of turtle once I get there. When I try, I usually end up getting smashed or getting my limbs peels back so he can take my back, which is strangely easier for me to escape than turtle.

Anyway, I haven't been having much luck moving out of turtle when I try it against this guy, so I started deliberately putting myself in turtle with some other people I grapple who I feel I have more of an advantage against. I think it is helping, though it has only been a week or so that have been doing that.

Read a blog over at Jiu Jitsu Blues talking about starting from bad positions. He brought up some great points.

Also, estou aprendendo Portugues. Yes, I found a way to use my nerdiness to increase my obsession with BJJ. I love languages, so I am looking forward to tackling Portuguese. :)

Do you expect to submit me?

Ever grappled a guy that is about as solid as a brick house? Ok, now add to that a 100 lb weight advantage. And a five year skill advantage. That's Tony, one of my friends at Fabio's. I grappled him yesterday. Let's just say things didn't go well for me. He didn't use a whole lot of muscle or anything. He just submitted me a bunch of times, which is normal. It wasn't a shock to me, as this happens every time I grapple him.

After our grapple, I must have looked a little deflated (though I don't remember feeling particularly down. Just...vexed. I felt like I was handing him my legs on a silver platter the whole time).

He said, "You know, it's cool for me to see how much you've grown since you started. You don't see it, do you?"

I shrugged awkwardly. It's hard to feel good about a grapple in which you were categorically owned with very little effort on your opponent's part.

He said, "I've been grappling five years, Allie. Do you expect to submit me?"

"No!" I said, laughing.

"Do you expect me not to be able to submit you?"

Again I said no.

He shrugged and said, "You're doing good."

It was a good reminder for me. I am very competitive and, too often, I forget that BJJ is a marathon, not a sprint.

Also, I had a funny miscommunication with one of the girls I grapple. We had a seminar with Marcelo Saporito this past weekend (which was AWESOME. Another post on that later) and I learned some cool stuff. I was going to try one of the sweeps we learned in a grapple yesterday. Got about halfway through it, then drew blank on what came next. The girl I was grappling had not been at the seminar, but I started to ask her, "Hey do you remember...oh, you weren't at the seminar." She thought I said something like, "Hey, do you think you're going somewhere?" LOL She goes, "Are you talking crap?" And I was like, "Huh?" After we sorted it out and laughed, I realized I mumble things a lot while I grapple. And most people probably wouldn't ask me to clarify what I said. Again, it's kind of like the looks I do. Don't realize I'm doing it. I need to figure out a way to zip my lips!! GRRRR!!!