Humbled

I haven’t posted anything in a while on this blog. Mostly because I have been busy teaching every day, and today is no exception. I just finished a lesson with a 61-year-old Marine veteran. And I am truly humbled. Again!

The most exhausting thing about teaching and training to the degree I do isn’t the physical expenditure or even the mental – these are both extreme at times, but I can handle each much more than the emotional toll it takes on me. I try to give all I have emotionally to my students, and in the process I take on a lot of what they bring in with them emotionally, which is oftentimes a lot of negativity or pain in one form or another. To call it an honor to meet and train with and teach the people I get to is a gross understatement.

Whether it is my student with epilepsy who struggles daily in a battle with her own bodily control, or the autistic children who a few months ago could barely follow a 3-step verbal set of instructions, or the gentleman I just mentioned from this morning, I am humbled and privileged to see what real strength and fortitude is, when there are so many others in the world that fall victim to self-pity, whereas these folks who overcome so much. This veteran, who is twice my age with more holes in him from bullets than I care to mention, including in his head, arms, legs, abdomen, and all points in between, showed me the utmost respect upon meeting me. At his age and in his condition, to walk in the door and sign up is amazing to me! And it motivates me to be the best version of myself and to polish my understanding of the art so as to give him the best representation of what has affected my life so greatly. There is no doubt that what we do at Three Rivers Martial Arts is extraordinary and life-altering, but if ever there were question to it, it would quickly be extinguished by the evidence of our students’ accomplishments.

These are not things that they hand out trophies or medals for (though plenty of our students have those too), and these accomplishments are not things that are widely publicized (though Three Rivers has made quite a name for itself). Rather, the quiet achievements of the unsung champions of our academy scream a brilliant emotionally-charged primal scream that resonates through the universe and advances a shift in consciousness that is inextinguishable and unstoppable.

So today, like most days, I am humbled. I bow in completed deference to the wave I am riding, and I am proud and elated to even be associated with what is going on here! I will do my best today and pray it is received by as many as possible.

Peace.

Jiu-Jitsu Dream

I had the weirdest dream!

I dreamed that I along with some of my comrades from Three Rivers Martial Arts Academy were going to a seminar in Cleveland. Except Cleveland was in Tennessee for some reason, and for some other bizarre reason we were leaving in the middle of the night, around 2am. Like many of my dreams, it was storming, but this was an especially torrential downpour with thunder and lightning and very poor visibility on the trip to Cleveland…Tennessee.

We were going to see Royce Gracie, which is not unusual as he is our teacher, but the strange part is that he was also doing the seminar with Ryron Gracie, which because of a division  that happened some 10 years prior at the Gracie Academy seems very improbable that a joint seminar of these two individuals would ever take place. But, nothing completely unrealistic has happened thus far; only enough to prove to my subconscious that it was in fact a dream and not reality.

Then it got stranger. We show up to this seminar, and it is at an MMA school, but it is inside a shopping mall – like a store. It was such a vivid dream, in fact, that I can remember seeing a “DEB” store across the hall, and a video game store adjacent. Of the people attending the seminar, there was no discernible cohesive ranking structure. There were belts of every color and practitioners of every style – like a Van Damme movie or something. I began to realize at this point it was obviously a dream, as I began to hear R2D2 noises and saw Star Wars characters playing around in front of the video game store. To ensure that it was a dream, Royce finally walked in wearing a blue belt! What the hell?!

So the seminar went on, and Royce taught some techniques. Good information, but Ryron kept fading in and out of existence as happens with characters in dreams sometimes. Royce came over to me (with his blue belt on), and made a comment to me about my new Royce Gracie Network gi that I was wearing, which I had recently bought. Several others had the same gi, so I was unsure why he spoke only to me about mine until he asked why the stitching on mine was brown and not black like the others’. He then told me he was going to give me my black belt, but since it wouldn’t match my gi now I had to remain brown. Remember, dear reader, it was only a dream.

At the end of the seminar, Royce invited questions from the crowd, with off-the-wall responses from people like “Have you ever fought in a UFC?” and “Remember that time you caught that guy in an armlock” which would’ve been comical, had this not been a dream and been real-life. But the diatribe that followed was anything but comical, for dreams or reality or otherwise. Royce launches into a pontification about the recent generation of Gracies losing the way and spirit of Gracie Jiu-Jitsu. He goes on to completely contradict, almost verbatim, statements that Ryron and Rener Gracie had made about how the role of their generation was to disseminate the knowledge created and proven by prior generations. He said that the Gracie family members all had to fight and continue to prove the effectiveness of the art forever. This would’ve made a very uncomfortable and awkward situation, what with Ryron sitting right there, had this not been only a dream. Very awkward.

Craziness of the seminar over, we go eat our lunch inside a Panera bread restaurant, which was delicious, but apparently was being used for an Abercrombie and Fitch commercial that day. We discuss the awkwardness of the seminar and then hit the road to return home, where I can wake from my crazy dream at last. But the dream proved itself to continue as we stop for gas and the attendant informs us that the interstate is closed due to the flood. We go across the street to a hotel lobby and the most surreal image of the entire dream splashes across the screen of the lobby television: there, in living color, was a huge strip of rainbow-hued storm marking a perfect division between us (now in Manchester – not England, but still Tennessee) and our destination back home in Paducah. The way I knew this was still a dream, was by the perfect separation of us and home on the radar map, leaving both areas virtually untouched by the storm but forming a huge monstrous chasm between us. The whole country seemed to be divided in half diagonally.

So here I begin to see the symbolism: Home was Royce Gracie. He is where my jiu-jitsu has come from most my life, and the route from which I have learned the tradition of the art. Our current location symbolized, of course, the evolution of the practitioner, refined through conscious study of the art into not only a warrior, but one whose ambition was peace. We (in this dream) had taken a trip, and seen the pinnacle of what is possible to achieve from a full-circle study of the art. We began in peaceful conditions, road through the storm and into chaos, and came out on the other side, into an even more certain peace than which we had begun. This dream was epic and convoluted at times, but I see from having it that you truly never can go home again. I realized a while back the Zen aspect of jiu-jitsu, in the sense that it is like soap: first, you wash with the soap and then rinse the soap off. What then, is changed? I am. Not the soap. Not the jiu-jitsu.  Royce and Ryron may be two different generations, and the division in what they view their purpose is may be vast and unagreeable by both parties, but as long as I keep jiu-jitsu in my heart then my journey will continue through the use of the techniques. Sometimes the teacher is better off teaching the move, and the philosophy behind the move, and not the personal philosophy of himself.

I eventually woke from this dream, but not before the best and most revealing moment came to fruition. Standing in the hotel lobby with my dear friends, discussing the horrific images on the screen and what was to be our plan of action, we decide to let jiu-jitsu dictate what we would do next.

Jason: Jiu-jitsu says wait, and let the opponent exhaust some of his energy.

Eric: True. Can’t fight force with force.

Me: Yeah, but we can’t stay completely still. We are in the bad position, so jiu-jitsu says we make space.

We were all correct in our assessment of the situation, and it seemed at that time, and for much of the remainder of the dream, that we all symbolized different perspectives of the jiu-jitsu practitioner’s consciousness. That is the characters that appeared in the dream were there. Each type of energy and impulse and intellect was represented in this dream.

So visceral was this dream, and so impactful in its message to me, that I had wondered to this point was it possible that it had actually happened somehow? Was it indeed some somnambulism of mine, because it seemed as if anyone on the trip may have experienced it just as likely.

But today I woke up. In a haze, I rise from my bed, and head to my morning lesson, on my way out the door I grab my gi, complete with brown insignia stitching.

Gracie Jiu Jitsu Self Defense

Here we are having some fun in the academy. Jason Hawkins and I have been training together 16-17 years now.

Kids and Jiu-Jitsu: How Many Ways Can You Spell Jiu-Jitsu?!

As pleased as I was that the newspaper in town did an interview with me about Jiu-Jitsu, I was surprised to see the spelling that the writer chose to go with. Here is the article. Thanks to Michael de los Reyes for the interview and keeping pretty accurate with my answers (only paraphrasing mildly):

click to enlarge the article

So why “jujitsu” and not “jiu-jitsu?” Or why not one of the countless other ways of spelling it? And where did these permutations of the spelling come from? Here is a great explanation of it for those of you interested:

Modern understanding of the nuances of language translation has improved greatly since the first contact between English and Japanese speaking people. We now know that the accurate spelling of these characters are
Ju, and

Jutsu.
Not JIU and not JITSU.

That combination of kanji characters therefore makes the word: Jujutsu (jujutsu). That’s just a fact!

Now that we have clarified the spelling issue, we still have the problem of pronunciation. As I have said, there are variations in the sounds used in languages that often pose problems in trying to properly pronounce foreign words. Such is the case with the pronunciation of Jujutsu.

First, notice the macron (bar) over the “u” in “Ju”, indicating that it is not the typical English pronunciation of the vowel. Just as these symbols are used in a dictionary to clarify proper pronunciation, the macron is used here to indicate specifically how a native speaker of Japanese would pronounce the word for the particular kanji character.

In this case, the proper Japanese pronunciation is an elongated “u”, or more specifically, “u-u”, as if repeating the “u” a second time. You might say it is truly a “double-u” (w). Of course, it would make no sense to write it “Jw“, or even “Juu”, so it is written “J“, with the macron.

[Side Note: Based on its name, "double-u", and the shape of the character "w", one could logically assume that centuries ago, this "u-u" sound used in Japanese was the same exact pronunciation used for the English "w", but let's not get side-tracked.]

The closest approximation to the Japanese “u”, or “u-u”, would be the sound of the “oo”, as in “cool”. Unfortunately, many interpreted the “u” to be the same as the English pronunciation of a “long u”, resulting in a sound like the “u” in “unit”, making J rhyme with few, leading to jiu. (or it could be jew-jitsu, the Hebrew martial art.) but as we now know, that’s just wrong.

The second kanji character has been determined to have the spelling (and pronunciation) of “Jutsu”. Notice there is no macron over this “u”, so it does not carry the same sound as the “u” in “Ju”. As we have seen (or heard), the double “u” is longer than our “u”, but, the single “u” is actually shorter (that is, more abrupt) than ours. We would typically pronounce the “u” in a word like this as the “u” in “cut”, but this sound is much too gutteral for the correct Japanese pronunciation, and should be closer to the “u” in “put.” However, the short Japanese “u” is very abrupt, making it sound almost like an “i”, as in “hit”. That is where we got “Jitsu”.

That is an excerpt taken from AllJujitsu.com. Basically, the explanation of why Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu or Gracie Jiu-Jitsu is spelled this way is due to the most common spelling of the word around the early 20th century. And why is it that I always capitalize each “J” in the word? Because it is that important to me. It is like capitalizing “God.”
Hope you enjoy the article.

Now go train!

Jiu-Jitsu Videos and More at Three Rivers YouTube Channel

This is an example of the videos posted at Three Rivers Martial Arts Academy YouTube channel. You can see me, Jason Hawkins, Jared Jessup, Brad Lynn, Derik Perry and all our other instructors and many students training, teaching and more. Check it out and come back to my blog often for updates.

Three Rivers YouTube Channel

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.

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?