Eddie Bravo and Marcelo Garcia Virtual Jiu-Jitsu

Happy Holidays to everyone!

It has been a while since I posted, so I would like to update you on some stuff:

Firstly, my first-ever Charity Workshop event went great! The generosity everyone showed by coming to it, training, and giving extraordinary amounts was heart-warming! We collected tons of food, clothes, toys and cash. The donations were distributed like this:

• Food went to Family Service Society

• Clothes went to The Salvation Army and Goodwill

• Toys also went to The Salvation Army and Goodwill

• Cash was evenly split between The American Red Cross and St. Jude’s Children’s Research Hospital

Thanks again to everyone who participated and donated!

Now, on to Jiu-Jitsu! I posted a little while back about the new 10th Planet Jiu-Jitsu site, and the updates to that site have been great, so far. Technique-wise, it is one of my favorites to visit for cool new tricks. Here is the link to the site 10th Planet Jiu-Jitsu, and here is a video for a sample of the system Eddie professes:

An even more exciting site that has launched since last I posted anything is the brainchild endeavor of Marcelo Garcia and Josh Waitzkin. If you don’t know who Josh Waitzkin is, read about him! Talk about an amazing guy! You remember that movie “Searching for Bobby Fisher,” about that kid who was a chess prodigy? Josh is that kid, all grown up now, and has since become a chess world champion, Tai Chi push-hands world champion, and now a brown belt in BJJ under Marcelihno! He came up with the idea to make an interactive BJJ learning tool website based around Marcelo. Here is how they describe the site:

• Nightly access to Marcelo Garcia’s classes and sparring sessions in his brand new NYC Academy.

• Watch Marcelo teach, roll, and break down his BJJ philosophy just like you were in the school.

• A growing database of Beginner and Advanced techniques all categorized to allow for customized study based on your level and repertoire.

• An innovative navigational system, drawing technology from elite chess training, that will allow you to search for submissions, sweeps, escapes, transitions, competitive principles, all the while weaving back and forth between lessons and rolling footage.

• Watch Marcelo teach a technique you like—you are one click away from seeing all the examples of him applying that technique while rolling.

• Watch Marcelo slap in a crazy submission while sparring—one button and you can see him teach that lesson in class.

• If there is a technique you have seen in the rolling footage that is not taught in a lesson yet, send in a request and we will ask Marcelo to break it down.

Now, the site is a little pricey, in the range of $25 a month. I suspect it is worth it, but I can’t bring myself to pay that right now, because it is not where my head is in my training. But I do think it is pretty genius, so here is the link to the site MGinAction.com. And if you don’t know much about Marcelo…well, you are probably not reading a BJJ blog if you don’t know much about Marcelo…but anyway, he is multiple BJJ champion in Gi and No Gi Mundials, Abu Dhabi multiple champion, and probably owns any other highly-coveted BJJ title you can imagine. Here is a highlight video of him for your viewing pleasure, also followed by him vs Xande Ribeiro (whom is regarded by many to be the most technical BJJ competitor out there). I had to include the second one, because it is so beautiful that I thought I would cry…seriously:

Insane Marcelo Highlight:

Marcelo vs. Xande

Lastly, and something I will promote more in the near future but thought worth mentioning already, is the IQ Athletics website. My BFAM (brother from another mother) Jared Jessup has a business called IQ Athletics that deals in not only Jiu-Jitsu, but kettlebells, personal training, and other fitness/wellness endeavors. Jared is a brown belt under Royce Gracie, and an awesome Jiu-Jitsu man and teacher. His site is up here at  IQAthletics.com, and will be updated more soon. On it you will be able to find contact information for Jared, find out about his services, and see other resources as well.

Here’s looking forward to an exciting new year coming up, and I will tell you my resolution in the next post!

Peace!!!

Free Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu Workshop!!!

Below you will see the poster for my upcoming, Free Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu Workshop. It has all the information you need to find out how to attend. However, please read below the poster, as I have a couple thoughts to share with ya. Thanks.

Free Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu Workshop!!!

I have been working on ways in which I, and my Three Rivers Martial Arts family, can give back to the community that has made us what we are. Beyond that, I have been trying to come up with as many ways, qualitatively and quantitatively, to give back to the community on a global scale. This is a simple and complicated task.

The easy part is doing: Give to charities, spread joy and kindness, harm no one, live the Golden Rule in everything you do.

The hard part is the direction and organization: How do you make compassion contagious? How exactly do you get others involved? I found what may be the most perfect answer at the most perfect time for me. I came across a TEDTalk (which are always awesome and you should check out by clicking here if you’ve never seen these before), by a woman named Karen Armstrong. She came up with an idea/initiative called The Charter for Compassion. I checked out her lecture, was blown away; checked out some videos on the topic, was amazed; and read the Charter on the site devoted to it, and was overwhelmed! This Charter has some meat to it. It is not an empty, vacuous set of ideas floating with no direction and saying “Hey guys, can you please be nice to each other if you get around to it?” No, rather, this is a mandate of sorts, it seems to me, stating that if we cannot spread compassion, and disseminate the true nature of what it means to be compassionate, then we are headed for misery and downfall.

I will explain another time what the hell Jiu-Jitsu has to do with Compassion, if you don’t already understand, but for now it is just simply my vehicle to promote awareness and get people involved with the charitable principles of compassionate awareness. Like Edmund Bourne said:

“Despite our differences, we are all in this together. No act of kindness or compassion goes unnoticed. To change the world, take compassionate action within your immediate sphere of influence. To change yourself, start by being still and making time just to listen.”

So it is in that vein, that I invite you all out to my workshop, where I will show you some of the best Jiu-Jitsu that I can, get you excited about learning such an incredible system, and hopefully (my greatest intention) create an atmosphere that breeds so much compassion that it is palpable. Bring what you can: food(canned, packaged, not highly-perishable), clothing, toys, and of course cash. Every bit of it will go to local charitable organizations and help out families and individuals in need.

If, you don’t have anything to give when you show up, I will not turn you away. You can participate in the workshop for the admission price of one promise. You must make me a promise that you will, on that day, affirm the Charter for Compassion on the charterforcompassion.org website, and also that you will do some compassionate, selfless, altruistic act of kindness. That is all. But you have to mean it.

Thank you, Dear Reader. Now, go do your practice!

A Jiu Jitsu Perspective of Yoga

“Do your practice and all is coming.”
~Pattabhi Jois, originator of Ashtanga Yoga~

I know little yoga, but I try to incorporate its principles and practice into my daily life. It affects me deeply and has offered to me a lens with which to understand the workings of life, just as Jiu Jitsu has. The following is my account of my introduction to yoga through Jiu Jitsu and the benefits of the practice I have become aware of:

In the late 90’s I attended a week-long camp in the Poconos on Gracie Jiu Jitsu. To say the experience was life-altering is a gross understatement and completely insufficient, but there are no words to describe with authentic emotion the profound impact it had on my existence. To describe the environment, I, along with my closest Jiu Jitsu family members, would wake up around 7am each day, have a clean and natural breakfast, go train in a large hangar-like enclosure for a few hours, break for lunch and recreation for two hours at midday, return for three more hours of training, and then nap briefly before dinner and gathering for discussion of Gracie Jiu Jitsu at evening. This is awesome enough, but I must tell you with whom I trained this week. The instruction for this week came from Helio Gracie, Rorian Gracie and Royce Gracie. Ryron and Rener were there but I believe they were around 12 and 13 years old, so they didn’t contribute much that week.

In addition, some other little-known people were present, such as Steve Maxwell and Phil Migliarese. It was Phil Migliarese that stood out to us among many others. Only a purple belt at the time (now one of the highest ranking American black belts in Gracie Jiu Jitsu), Phil’s expression of Jiu Jitsu seemed to embody exactly what the Gracie’s were trying to get through to us. In a word, he was equanimity. He was calm, fluid, patient, and relaxed. At a camp full of tense and muscle-bound martial arts practitioners from all disciplines, this relaxation stood in sharp contrast to many present. His Jiu Jitsu was effortless and beautiful and dangerous.

My best friend, Jared Jessup, rolled with Phil and was visibly shaken afterward. He had trouble describing the experience. We inquired as to “how he got so good,” and Phil, of course, accredited the superior instruction of the Gracies, but his first word was “yoga.” Yoga? Ashtanga Yoga to be more precise. Phil had studied yoga for longer than Jiu Jitsu, and he credited his relaxation and fluidity to his yoga practice. On a week in which we were having relaxation shoved down our throats in the form of flowing as slowly and effortlessly as we could, with no submissions, for hours at a time, and often in complete sensory deprivation, meeting him set us on a path of exploration into yoga.

Once at home, we procured some Bryan Kest instructional yoga tapes (yes, VHS), and incorporated our interpretation of Surya Namaskara into our warmup before our Jiu Jitsu practice. We went through peaks and valleys of the amount of yoga we incorporated into our practice. Some vacillating more than others, and all taking a very organic approach to it. It would be years before we saw the true benefits. But they would arrive. Oh, did they arrive.

This is yoga for me today: Centeredness rather than balance, but balance as well; Pliability rather than flexibility, but flexibility also; Power rather than strength, but strength too; and Equanimity rather than calmness. Calmness is simple.

~ Centeredness is balance internally and externally. Externally, an overall understanding of positioning and how each part of the body
is affected, contributes to centeredness. Internally, getting your physiological inner-workings to cooperate in order to allow your
body to perform your practice is what I mean by centeredness.

~ Pliability is maybe an arbitrary alternative word to illustrate something beyond flexibility, but I want to emphasize something far
beyond the physical application of flexibility. Being pliable insinuates yielding to external forces seeking to damage or influence you
in some uncontrollable way. Yielding to these forces, rather than resisting them is the way to overcome them. Resisting things
bigger and intangible is a certain way to create stress and damage. Allowing them to come, recognizing them for what they are,
and letting them run their course without feeding them benefits you much more. Holding a pose, melting into it, feeling the
vibration and hearing what your body is telling you; this is the path to pliability. Pliability is opening lines of communication
between your body and mind and breath.

~ Power is strength in its purest and most pervasive form. Power is not aggressive or tense; it is intelligent and active. The adage
states that “knowledge is power,” but in yoga, it seems that the corollary is true. Reverse the antimetabole and read it as “power
is knowledge” and you will get closer to the heart of power in yoga. Power comes in yoga in the form of energy properly placed in
the correct areas of the body, evenly distributed, and igniting the body from the foundation up. It comes from alignment,
structure, breathing, and clarity. It is a product of the yoking process.

~ One of my favorite words, equanimity, is perhaps the most immediately helpful benefits of yoga for the Jiu Jitsu practitioner. It is
balance + calmness. As I said before, calmness is simple. Put anyone in a calm situation, take away their problems, lay them down
on a soft surface, give them drugs, and anyone can be calm. A good measure of true calmness, though, is how much balance it
yields. This is something only the individual will be able to discern, and the ability to discern it comes from listening to oneself.
Equanimity is achieved not through the elimination of external stressors and tense situations, but amidst them. In yoga, the next
movement may be uncomfortable or the next inhalation may be difficult, but it is necessary nonetheless. Likewise, in Jiu Jitsu, the
next escape from the difficult position may be seemingly impossible, but it is necessary in order to survive and ultimately prevail.
Equanimity is achieved when the external forces acting upon you fail to thwart your advancement, and cease to deter your
practice. Things are just things. This bad thing happening to me is bad because I have labeled it so. Time spent in self-pity is
always wasted and never helpful. The truest calmness is not in running from the storm, but rather in the eye of it.

This is only what yoga means to me, and how it has benefited me in my life and enhanced my Jiu Jitsu. I am learning. I only wanted to share this with others, to share the beauty of it, in hopes that something I have said may reach someone and possibly help them with their journey, wherever they are headed. The God in me greets the God in you.

Namaste.

New 10th Planet Jiu Jitsu website

Everyone knows I have been a fan of Eddie Bravo for a while. I think he is brilliant in jiu jitsu, while most of the his loyalest followers annoy the shit out of me! Anyway, his new site was recently launched, and if you haven’t checked it out, please do. He has some good techniques on it, and some of them are even free. However, if you do want to subscribe it is about 5 bucks a month. Seems worth it for the quality of videos you get, though.

I only complain about Eddie Bravo disciples because they can tend to be neurotic, and unrealistic with their jiu jitsu. They seem to want special status as 10th Planet Jiu Jitsu practitioners and not BJJ guys/gals. I think this misses Eddie’s point with a lot of it. I am going to usually dislike anyone who puts down other people’s practice, the way 10th Planet folks sometimes tend to put down training with the gi, or training the self-defense portions. I am not saying all 10th Planet practitioners are this way, but I have encountered many and seen many. And for those who just train and leave everyone alone, and choose not to disrespect, I am not referring to them at all.

Additionally, if you want to check out a good book, and a great introduction to 10th Planet Jiu Jitsu, his Mastering the Rubber Guard and Mastering the Twister books are excellently laid-out and compiled. Definitely money well-spent.

Now go train!

Jiu Jitsu Lifestyle

I have been doing Jiu Jitsu half of my life, and for anyone who knows my real age they know that is a pretty long time. For this reason, it becomes more and more interesting to me to look at people beginning their training and their motivations. Likewise, it interests me to watch my peers’ motivations grow and evolve, as does mine. Jiu Jitsu has become a lifestyle for me, and I would like to pass on a few ways in which I mean this.

I first came to Jiu Jitsu after some previous martial arts training that was somewhat lackluster. I had various reasons for wanting to learn, but a major one is that I saw the “magic” of martial arts training, and Jiu Jitsu offered a new brand of magic that appealed to me at the time. I was not very strong or fast or otherwise athletic. I was introverted, but I was artistic and imaginative. I enjoyed the outlet for a new expression of creativity that Jiu Jitsu gave me. However, there wasn’t anything I could clearly articulate was my direct motivation. And I think this is common. I often hear people, upon being questioned about their reason for starting their training, say things such as “I am just interested in it” or “I saw it on TV and thought it looked cool” or some variation of these responses. Others may express an interest in defending themselves or in the competition aspect, and most all students are drawn to these aspects to some degree.

As an instructor, it has become a responsibility of mine to figure out the true motivation of individuals, in order to help them in their journey. “Journey” sounds a little hokey, but that is what it is or what it has to become, if it is to amount to anything at all. Most initial responses to the question of motivation are superficial, because the individual has had no exposure yet to the benefits of training. As they proceed in their training, their motivation changes and vacillates. Eventually, if they stick with it, their motivation becomes muted, effaced, and aloof. “Motivation” as a term for why they continue training becomes outmoded, and they progress to a constant state of just “training for training sake.” Everyone knows that they are in some way trying to better themselves with their training, and the fact that they are drawn to do this is a wondrous thing. It only becomes more wondrous as they continue.

Back to me: I have had moments of doubt and uncertainty. I have questioned my motivation, as well as the amount I have sacrificed to continue my training. “What am I trying to accomplish here?” I said on more than one occasion. What a dangerous question that we are all guilty of asking! Luckily I stuck through plateaus and climbed out of valleys, as well as I fortunately survived the rush of being high on peaks. It is easy to want to give up when you are feeling poorly about your training; especially if a single or few bad events knock you off of a pedestal of superiority you may have accidentally wound up on. And I am now more thankful than anything that I have the ability to say to students, with genuine conviction and reinforcement, “This too shall pass, so be thankful for today’s training.”

You have to develop the ability to take pleasure out of the sheer state of presence that training allows you. If you come in with worries from outside or regrets over earlier occurrences, you diminish, if not completely destroy, the joy and value of the training you are about to partake in. This is one of the highest principles from training that you can apply to all your life: be present and taste every detail of the current situation, painful or splendid. No amount of worry over a late bill will pay it! If you are at your daughter’s play, watch the play! If you are cooking a meal, cook the meal! Chop wood, carry water! When you allow your mind to live in another instance not the present one, you have separated your mind and body, and no harmony can follow that. In Jiu Jitsu this is immediately obvious, because if you are not paying attention, then you get caught in a choke. And you deserved it!

These are the very important aspects I see about living a Jiu Jitsu lifestyle – these metaphorical ideas. Metaphorical in the sense that they present themselves in tangible form in training and then render marvelous abstractions in daily living. Once we are able to settle ourselves into our practice and quiet some of the noise that runs through our heads, we can hear subtler things we are not as attuned to in daily bustle. We begin to “hear” our bodies instructions on how to to treat ourselves. How far can this muscle stretch comfortably? How fast does our heart beat before we have to breathe through our mouths and not just our noses? How much weight can I comfortably support in this or that position? How sluggish or energetic do I feel in my practice when I eat an hour before? Two hours? Most of these are fairly easy to answer if we can get ourselves present and quiet enough to be receptive.

I know my purpose now. I have learned it through my training. It is not about accomplishments, although I can outline these if I want. It is not about any willful direction I have forced myself into, and it is not about proselytizing, although I do plenty of that (that is what this blog is kind of about after all). My purpose is manifest, and I try only to nourish it with love and give it space to flourish. Jiu Jitsu tells me this is the right thing to do. So I consider Jiu Jitsu my purpose.

In closing I would like to include a nice segment of a video related to this topic:

Tricks Are for Kids

Tricks are for Kids….

Reverse, Upside Down, Standing Triangle, WTF?!

So…you have been training 6 months to a year, you are starting to tap people at your gym/school, that blue belt just arrived, things are going awesome! But it’s just that damn 50/50 stalemate heel hook position that is giving you trouble. You need a new move, some trick to get you out of it, right? You already figured out how to work into that cool standing inverted triangle you saw on the Bellatore Fights the other night. Got a lot of cool tricks, some that work and some that don’t, and you are always on the hunt for more.

Here is a secret for you: Tricks are for kids. Better yet, there are no tricks. I just watched Phil Migliarese on a video, showing a tip for getting out of the 50/50 heelhook position I mentioned. It was a great method, and Phil is a master level instructor. I enjoy doing the same thing he was doing (not placing myself in any way in a category alongside Phil Migliarese), which is taking questions about jiu jitsu and helping with solutions. But here is the thing: people want fixes or tricks to help them out of their sticky situations, and learning these types of tricks can actually be ineffective and obfuscate the bigger picture of how they need to be training.

Oh no, not another one of these damn “Stick to the basics” soapbox speeches! We get it already! Blah, blah, train the basics. I know, I didn’t like to hear it either. Still don’t. I am a trick collector, too – ask anyone who knows me. I am not taking the blanketed route of saying train your basics and nothing else. I think that is the wrong (and boring) thing to say. It is also confusing. What are the basics? Aren’t there basic and advanced versions of the same moves? When do you learn the advanced stuff?

Firstly, what are the basics? Base, posture, position, etc. Whoa, whoa…you can’t throw “etc” in a statement like that! Yes I can. I just did. And the reason I did was because people sometime have to develop certain basic principles in different order. So, ETC! Deal with it! Drill and drill. Apply the basic principles everywhere. Something I preach to noobs is to operate in the familiar positions when you first begin rolling. If this means you get into a strange position that feels as if it may be dominant but you don’t know how to use it, then back off it into a position that you actually know how to work from. Example, if you are lost in half guard, let your opponent put you into the guard if that is where you actually know an escape from. This way you get to work on your techniques rather than having to ad hoc a transition or position.

And as far as those tricks go. By “kids” I mean newbies. Kids are excited by shiny, fancy things, and so are the tiros new to jiu jitsu or any other class. These are the ones wanting to know how to do that thing that guy from that fight the other night did. And to them, it is a trick in the truest sense of the word. It is a case-specific, independent movement to get them out of a certain difficult situation. The problem with noobs learning these tricks, is that they have a limited frame of reference for applying the sound basic principles to them. Tricks are fine if you can pick apart the principles at play within them, that make them work.

This is where the tricks come from; someone uses basic principles to apply a technique that gets them out of an unconventional situation. Dissect the situation, remove the technique from the context, and poof, you have a new trick. Here is the only real problem with tricks: when guys sit around and think up new things that might work, force these half-brained moves into a situation that is impractical or unrealistic, and anything but battlefield-tested. I could sit down and think up exciting new ways to choke someone with my toes, and if they sit still for me I can make them work. Hell, I can make crazy shit work very effectively if someone holds still for me. People do this all the time, and because they can demonstrate it on a cooperative partner, it appears to have as much validity as “real” techniques. Some people make whole careers on doing this shit (George Dillman?!).

My recommendations: you don’t have to be a cynic about everything you see in martial arts (that is my job), but you do have to establish some accredited sources you trust, and still keep a healthy level of skepticism over much of what you see. Half of what you see and none of what you hear is a great maxim for martial arts. Seek out those pure basic principles and use them as a barometer for any new trick you encounter. And train! Nothing filters bullshit better than exposure to the truth, and truth comes through experience.

And just to spice things up, I thought I should give you some examples of things I would consider “tricks” in the negative sense of the word. In other words, these tricks have either so very little basis in reality or are so isolated in their application that they benefit nearly no one. Enjoy, until I get in trouble for posting these and have to remove them:

The Pentagram?! Really?

And this is just hilarious!!!

Growing Pains

“Other things may change us, but we start and end with family”
– Anthony Brandt

Watching UFC with Royce

I got a call from a student the other day about doing a private lesson. This particular student wanted to do it sometime Thursday night. I looked at the schedule, and there were group classes in the front all night and the private lesson room in the back was booked solid as well. So, I tried Friday night….same thing. Saturday – ok, but had to be late afternoon. My first thought was “Damn, we are having a bunch of lessons!” And then I thought again. “Damn! We are having a bunch of lessons!”

These are the types of growing pains an academy wants to have; too many students and lessons and not enough time or space. These types of “pains” are fixable. Easily. Happily. But, there are other types of growing pains as well. Not as easily fixable, and more painful in nature. They have to do with maintaining the environment and integrity of the academy while absorbing all these new people into the mix. “Check your ego at the door” has become such a ubiquitous maxim of martial arts training facilities that it is almost cliche now. But there is so much more than ego that needs checking.

People all carry around with them their life experiences, good and bad. We are the sum total of our experiences, and these determine or actions and reactions to what all goes on around us. If you truly keep this in mind, it makes it easier to allow certain trespasses to occur, and not be too offended by people’s lack of tact or ostensible rudeness. You see, Jiu Jitsu is not all about fighting and self-defense. Well, at first it is, then it isn’t, and then it is once more.

We come into new situations, especially those in which we feel uncomfortable and those which are performance-based (at least in our minds), with a certain air of competitive mentality. We must size up the competition – and that is everyone! We must portray ourselves as flawless and ideal as possible! We must, at all costs, be better than our peers in all aspects of our performance! And, holy shit! We must never be outdone! Tell yourself all you want that this isn’t you. “No, not me, I am just there to learn and go with the flow, and whatever happens happens….” Bullshit. You may vary in intensity of these emotions, especially on the surface and when compared to others, but we all have these feelings. We all are repelled by the feeling of being outdone. We are mathematical this way; if John has been training a the same pace as I have, and he is approximately the same age and physicality as I am, we should remain even in our abilities, right? Hmmm….Hell No!

John (or call him by whatever name you will) has a completely different makeup than you. Maybe his brain secretes hormones at different periods of elevated stress than yours when presented with a stressful situation. Maybe it is a different combination of hormones than yours causing him to perform better, while your reaction actually hinders your performance. Maybe you operate better in more confined spaces and the training space is very open and disorienting to you. Maybe you have an upset stomach, or lack of sleep. Any host of problems, physical, psychological, emotional, physiological, etc., can determine what you get out of training.

But wait, there’s more! What if I come in, guns blazing, and I am doing well. I have found my niche in Jiu Jitsu – it speaks to me and I excel at it as a result. My instructor picks up on this and appreciates it. Whenever I go to him/her with a question, it is happily received and answered. I am feeling more than just satisfaction of training after a few months; I am feeling like part of something bigger than myself. I feel like a part of an extended family. It is great….for me. However, Bob (or whatever name you want to give him) is not feeling this. You see, he joined after my progress had really begun, and he sees how accepted I am by my teachers and training partners. He wants that too, but he is not sure how to get it. But he will try in a couple of different ways:

Alpha-Bob will try to outdo me at every turn. He is progressing well, and trains extra hard, getting all those “good job”s from the instructors, and trying to be very expressive about how well he is catching on. He makes a big display when he performs in class. He puts all his effort into tapping all his opponents with the latest greatest technique he just learned. He gives it all he’s got, especially against me. Now I am his opponent in his mind; not his partner. And it extends beyond the mat. Alpha-Bob tells people how well he is doing, and compliments anyone but me. He tells others that he really doesn’t care much for the way I do a certain technique. He talks to others about how I am just an apple polisher and that is the real reason for my status in class. He would be much better than I am if he had started back when I did, he explains to other students.

Now, how I react to this once it becomes apparent to me is crucial. Either way, I am bound to go through a period of discomfort. And that is heartbreaking now that I have found such utter sanctuary in my academy. If I am unfamiliar with how to deal with this, I may make the supreme mistake of engaging in it. All of the sudden, I am talking trash about Bob, and putting extra effort into tapping him or maybe I correct his technique in front of others. Screw that guy, I was here first! So how do I handle it? How do I fix this situation?

Firstly, if I admit there is a situation at all, I have lost to an extent. Once I label it, I pit him versus me on some level. Now I have cemented the drama. Rather than this, the key lies in not engaging. Notice, I did not say “ignore it.” Alpha-Bob’s feelings are real, and if he directly approaches me to start a dialog, I will not shy from it. I will not however move from my home, just because there is a house guest visiting that does not like me particularly. And that is what he is – a visitor – unless and until he decides to acclimate. So I will continue my journey. I will thrive in my sanctuary, purifying my art and myself internally and externally.

Eventually, Alpha-Bob yields way to Beta-Bob (or whatever you will call him). Beta-Bob recognizes that I will not engage his efforts to fight me. I will not feed his Painbody, as Eckhart Tolle puts it. So, what is he left with? He is left with what brought him in the door in the first place. But even that have metamorphosed into something different. He now has to take inventory of what he has accomplished, and what he must change in order to accomplish more. He must cleanse his perception in order to see the infinite possibilities that truly lie before him in his training. Now he has really begun. After all this time, he has actually just now started his journey.

I make it a point to know something about every student that walks in the door at Three Rivers Academy. And most are more than willing to share – people like to talk about themselves. This is good. I want the students to achieve, among other things at the academy, catharsis. I enjoy the closeness created by knowing these things, good, bad, otherwise. I love my Jiu Jitsu family. And as my family grows (outgrowing the new academy already!), my heart grows, making room for new love for all those that would join my family. But when someone brings ego, jealousy, contempt, insecurity, deception, etc. into my Jiu Jitsu home, it hurts my heart, but I must only help to preserve the purity and sanctity of my environment and hope that everyone else follows suit. Either the person will acclimate or leave, ultimately. I dearly hope they all stay.

Royce Gracie Seminar 2009 Review

“…It is easier to think what Poetry should be than to write it—and this leads me on to another axiom. That if Poetry comes not as naturally as the Leaves to a tree it had better not come at all.” ~John Keats…This quote will make sense after you read a little further, I hope. Just substitute “Jiu Jitsu” for “poetry.”

So Royce Gracie came to our school once again. He brought great information (of course), but there was more than just technique polishing for me this time.

Royce and The Three Rivers Group

I guess that when things happen in your life, events occur, the nature of the events is significant of course, but likewise where you are in your life’s journey is significant as well. I was in such a place as to look for what goes on with someone like Royce under the surface a bit. I watched his technique, his movement, his mannerisms, all that, sure. But I also tried to pick up on his reactions to situations and interactions with different personalities, of which we have many at Three Rivers. Here are a couple of things I found important.

Royce is very intuitive. I am sure out of necessity, being multicultural and bilingual. But teaching something of which you are a true master, you have to have a heightened intuition or you cannot communicate the intricacies of your art. Royce is an excellent teacher. I learned in a big way not to show too much detail in the technique. I had learned this a while back and continue to try to impliment it in my daily teachings, but damn it is hard. However, I learned WHY to do this ultimately this weekend. Royce showed a few techniques, about which I inwardly thought, “Why didn’t he mention this detail? No one will do it right without this detail, so why didn’t he mention it?” Here is what happened (nothing short of miraculous to me): Most people did it correctly off the demo! And more amazingly, the ones who didn’t know the detail in question…wait for it….they asked about it!

Lesson here: Scrap away the unnecessary babble about the technique description. Teach organically, through sensation and observation. Draw the student into the process by forcing them to question their performance and seek out help! God, I needed this lesson years ago….but I wasn’t ready for it then. Damn you, Irony!

So much of life happens that way, right? Everything comes to us that we want and need, just not always when we need it or want it. I remember the first technique I ever learned that could really be called purely Brazilian Jiu Jitsu. It was a half-guard pass about 15 or 16 years ago. Well, I had not spent much time in half-guard that I recalled, so I had very little point of reference for this technique. I practiced it, not knowing exaclty when or how I would get the opportunity to implement it, and to be honest years went by before I got to a level that it even made much sense. Through the beauty of BJJ, though, I was able to still retain the sensation, and it came back to me to an extent later on. I still use a variation of that pass to this day.

Another lesson from this weekend for me: I get why so many BJJ men don’t want you taking notes. I was never a big note-taker at seminars for the most part, although I see the value of it in many situations. However, since BJJ is so tactile, and that is the manner in which you improve the most, notes can actually be a hinderance. Thoughts outside of your brain don’t operate the same as they do inside sometime. Sometimes you can sit down and write out a thought to express it more eloquently, and choose your words more exactly, and this is good. But in that barrage of detail, sometimes you lose sight of the thing’s essential nature. Much better to completely immerse yourself in the sensory experience of the technique and its repetition than to interrupt that beautiful experience to get all cerebral and disconnected.

That’s why the quote by Keats is at the beginning of this post, “…It is easier to think what [Jiu Jitsu] should be than to write it—and this leads me on to another axiom. That if [Jiu Jitsu] comes not as naturally as the Leaves to a tree it had better not come at all.” You will never be able to pull off anything in a high-stakes situation if it is not natural for you. So much of what we are actually training is to replace our instincts, or lack thereof, with more effective ones. Because, when you consider it, isn’t most all of life a high-stakes situation?

New Technique Video

Just posted this video on YouTube. These are three of my most used chokes from the turtle position. Enjoy, and leave a comment if you like.

Side note: shot this with my iPhone which is why the size is a little weird and the sound is quiet. But you can still see the detail and turn up your speakers.