SB Nation User Blog: Jiiri

A Little White Belt vs. Black Belt Action: Guess Who Won?

Jiiri — Thu, 15 May 2008 22:33:33 -0000

Tonight was my 6th class. Every class I'm feeling better and better - not only is my conditioning improving a bit since I started regular exercise a few weeks ago, but I'm getting the hang of picking up the techniques. Of course they're all basic moves, but I'm getting the concept of the leverage need to pull off the moves. It makes it easier than just trying to copy exactly what the instructor shows us if you can think of how it works.

Tonight the class was pretty slim; only for students (we're all white belts) and the instructor. A lot of the guys were deployed for the week, so it was a smaller class than usual. Tuesday and Thursday are on the U.S. Navy base here in Naples, Italy, and Marco has a gym, Eagle Gym, that he gives classes Monday, Wednesday and Friday at. Apparently a few Americans have opted to go to the gym because there is more sparring, but Marco says he prefers if white belts stay at the base, since the classes are smaller and he has more time to teach us the skills we need. I agree, so I'm not going to move to the gym as was my original plan. Instead, I'm going to buy a bunch of mats and build a grappling room in my house (the houses in Italy are huge and we have tons of room).

My best friend is one of the deployed guys, so tonight I paired up with a guy I hadn't worked with before. He asked me to please take it easy and go slow, which I agreed to, since I always am extremely careful with my partners when learning new techniques. So I practiced the technique we learned (a wrist lock), then got on my back to let him practice the move. He immediately torques the shit out of my wrist with quite a bit of speed and power, and I shouted out "Damn dude! Chill out with that!" Wrist locks hurt like hell and it doesn't take very much to get the sub, either. I'm learning that some students are dangerous to train with, that's for sure. Next time I have to train with that guy we're gonna have a talk before he practices anything on me. I'm not being a giant vagina, but I don't want to get injured on some bullshit and miss weeks of training because my training partner didn't use good judgment learning a technique he's never done before.

So, at the end of class, we got to fight in 5 minute chunks, Marco's standard for white belts. As I mentioned in the previous post, I am excited to get a chance to put some of this stuff to use in a live sparring match with a resisting opponent. Got my wish tonight, but it was against Marco. I knew he was way better than us (of course), but I never had a decent idea of how much better until tonight. He let me in his guard to start, and I tried to pass, but couldn't do anything. He didn't even have his guard closed and I couldn't pass it. I tried to push down on his knee and squirt around, but every time I did he swept me. And when he was on top I almost wanted to tap from the pressure he brought - his body just crushed mine. When I watch grappling on TV or in an MMA match I never realized the physicality of it - I mean, I know it's physical, but just the guy on top of you is stifling. Every time he got on me it was a matter of seconds before he got me in something I had no idea how to defend. On time, I tapped but then realized that he didn't have what I thought he had and said to him "Never mind, I take that back." He laughed and tossed something new and equally painful on me. It may have been the longest 5 minutes of my life - I was gassed completely. He must have tapped me 10 times.

I've been reading grappling sites non-stop for weeks, and I told myself "Breathe, relax, work for position before submission, don't extend your arms, and don't push with your hands (the wrist lock I mentioned comes form that if you're on the bottom). Well, I tensed up, didn't breathe well, extended my arms all over the place, and he wrist locked me twice. I'll get better though.

I guess I did well though. He asked me afterwards if I had ever rolled before, and I told him I had not. He said "Well, you must have watched a lot of videos, because you did some things I didn't teach you." I told him I've been watching MMA for years, and in recent months have developed an interest in watching videos of grappling tournaments as well. That felt good, anyway - I guess I must have done some good things. But there was just nothing available for me in the way of attempting a submission. As soon as I started working for a position in which to find one, he would sweep me. I'm banged up and exhausted, but that was some of the most fun I've ever had. I plan on hitting the competitions in a few months - I told Marco to just let me know when he thought I was ready. The day he tells me I'm ready I'm packing my shit to go to one, I don't care if I get destroyed. It's just too much fun. Tomorrow, I'm off to pick up some mats for my grappling room, and I'll post photos if I can figure out how. Thanks for reading.

Motivations and Ego

Jiiri — Tue, 13 May 2008 23:23:05 -0000

Just got home from my 5th class, the start of my third week of training. Had a long talk with one of my buddies I'm training with tonight and I thought I'd write a bit about our thought processes regarding why we decided to train, and some disagreements we had about our perspectives.

First, a little about tonight's class. In my last post I eluded to the fact that I'm not in the best shape; tonight I got my ass kicked. Marco (the instructor) decided that tonight we needed some conditioning. We always do warm-up drills, but today we did extensive drills, then a series of push-ups, crunches, leg-lifts, squats....it basically sucked. But I want to be good at BJJ so badly that I did my best.

After the ass-kicking, we got down to some techniques. I'm not the biggest fan of how the classes run - he usually teaches us 6-7 techniques a class, and I'm not sure I can internalize that many techniques. I'd be more happy with 2-3 techniques, some sparring, and some practice of techniques we've already learned. But I may be completely wrong, I'm brand new.

After class we hit the Subway on base, which has become standard practice. We still haven't had a chance to spar, I suspect because Marco is injured (shoulder). His requirement of rolling with him before we can spar is a good one, but it's holding us back because we feel ready to try out some of these techniques and we have to watch the sparring sessions and cannot participate. While we were eating, we discussed the sparring and how excited we were to finally hit the mats with a resisting opponent. One of my friends feels that I am too anxious to spar, but I disagree. I AM anxious to spar, but it's because I've already learned a bunch of techniques (as I mentioned, he teaches us a bunch every class), and I practice regularly at my house with a friend. My triangle is coming along, my arm bar is feeling somewhat fluid, I have an americana, kimura, guillotine (that one sucks for me though), rear-naked, multiple collar chokes, some guard passes and defenses to most of the above.

Don't get me wrong, I know this is only my third week training. The issue for me is that I like to learn by doing. These techniques, as fun as they are, are snapshots in time. I'm learning them as best I can, but I really need context. What I'm trying to do is try to figure out the why of every technique. Why does it work? How would someone defend it? If they defend that way, does another opportunity open up? This way, when things are fast, I don't have to think "I'm in the guard - which subs do I know from the guard?" I'll just work for position, and when an arm extends I'll try to take it. I mean, rather than have to learn an arm bar 5 different ways, if I can understand well how exactly the arm bar works, I can get it from different positions just by knowing what I need to do to make the leverage work. I know some positions require special knowledge, but that's my point in a way.

I want to spar so I can discover my weaknesses. Plus, as I mentioned, my main concern is sport jiu-jitsu. There's a guy in our class who's been training about 2 months and is going to compete next week in a local competition. I'm in my 3rd week and I haven't even sparred. I'm alright with it, I'm just arguing that I feel like it's hard for me to really understand the techniques when I don't understand the game because I've never been able to play. Any thoughts?

Another point we got on is one of the guys said he didn't want to compete. That's no problem; we're all in it for different reasons. But it was his reason for not wanting to compete that I didn't like. He said he didn't want to lose. He wouldn't compete because he didn't want to lose. If you spar and are worried about winning more than anything, you are succumbing to ego, pure and simple. I'm also a fan of chess, I play daily and am constantly working on my game. I constantly seek out players that are rated way higher than I, knowing that I'm going to lose almost every time. The point is, every time I lose a game against a stronger opponent, I lose nothing and I can gain a lesson. I can improve a bit. If I only played when I thought I was certain to win, how can I possibly improve?

I'll write more tomorrow, this post has already gotten long. I want to touch on motivations and personal growth, and more on how losing is an opportunity.

BJJ Training Diary

Jiiri — Sun, 11 May 2008 18:13:32 -0000

This entry was promoted to the front page by Nick Thomas.

Guess I'll start posting my BJJ training here. I'm new, only been training for two weeks, but here's my prognosis so far; BJJ is hard.

So far I'm absolutely in love with Brazilian jiu-jitsu. I found, by an amazing stroke of luck, a legit black belt here in Naples, Italy. His name is Marco Galzenati, and it sure seems like he's at least a competition bad ass. He won his division in the 2007 European BJJ Championships, and that's way better than I would have expected to find in Naples. This place is the man's hairy ‘anoose’ of Europe.

At any rate, here is what I know of BJJ so far; my wisdom truncated here for you in precious few words: It f*cking HURTS. Granted, I'm 31 and, uh, not-so-in-shape, but still. I got muscles that are hurting that I have not been heretofore aware of. I got bruises all up and down my arm because my fellow white belts do not understand the concept of not grabbing me with the claws of death when trying to learn a new technique. I keep politely saying "Hey man, I'm not sure, but....I think we're supposed to be using technique, not strength." It doesn't seem to matter. And two of the white belts who started training on the same day as me are enamored with trying to resist each other to death on every single technique, even though a) they don't know the technique yet, and b) they don't even know what realistic resistance is yet, since they haven't rolled.

The instructor has a rule that we need gi’s first (I just got mine), and then we need to roll with him so he can ensure that we're not going to injure someone. I'm not so sure that all of the other dudes that are new are going to be able to roll any time soon, and I offer the huge bruises on my upper arm as exhibit A.

So, I've had 4 classes. We have class on the military base here twice a week, Tuesday and Thursday. I'm considering changing my membership to his gym, where I can train Mon, Wed and Friday, which would be better. My goal is to compete; I really don't care too much about self-defense. I'm 31 and haven't been in a fight yet in my adult life - I mostly stay at home with my family playing video games, and rarely drink to excess, so I doubt if I'll need to whip out my sweet BJJ skillz to save my ass anytime soon. I also want to give a shout out (gayest sentence ever) to Luke Thomas, who took time out to give me advice before I began training. So far his advice has been spot on, and I'm glad I didn't order the nicest gi I could find - I was going to until Luke dropped a truth bomb on my head. He said to not be the guy in the class with the nicest gi who sucks all kinds of ass. Well, I suck all kinds of ass, but the nicest gi I do not have.

Mark