Nathan

Nathan is one of our new Blue Belts, having received his promotion a mere 3 months ago.

When he then joined our advanced class, we were about halfway through the Back Mount chapter. We then progressed through the entire Leg Lock section, and have just done a couple of lessons within the Standing curriculum.

His only formal experience with Mount, Side-Mount, or Guard was in the very limited White Belt curriculum. The beginners class doesn't cover Half-Guard at all, so for him anything in there was totally unknown.

When a new person moves up to the advanced class, they are totally unprepared to handle the activity known as rolling.

Let's say it's rolling time, and their more experienced partner lets them get a dominant position, perhaps Mount, from which the newby launches one of the several attacks he learned as a White Belt to handle an untrained attacker.

His attack will not work, no-way, no-how, no-chance, unless their partner lets it. They can also escape from under his Mount position, and submit him at will.

So, as I mentioned earlier, in class Nathan has learned a bit of Back Mount, lots of Leg Lock stuff, and a tiny bit of Standing technique. He should still be totally useless at rolling, a babe-in-the-woods, deer-in-the-headlights, and easy meat. That is not the case.

He has improved more in three months than any Blue Belt we've ever had.

It hasn't attained this by being one of those annoyingly gifted athletes. If anything, Jiu-Jitsu is more difficult for him than for most people. It does not seem to come naturally for him.

He is very intelligent, but that only takes you so far in rolling.

What he has done to get so good is to adopt a deliberate campaign of out-of-class improvement.

We have a couple of times each week when the gym is open for students to use to work on what they choose. Nathan is always there, but he's not looking for a chance to work alone, or with White Belts. He makes himself available for more experienced students to use as a human dummy.

I use him that way a lot, as do other people when they have something to work on. I don't think Nathan ever finds himself at open-mat without a partner.

As he usually doesn't know how to correctly do what his partner requires, they have to give him a mini-lesson showing him the movements, and teaching him what the person in his position is trying to achieve. He then works his side of the technique with gusto. Almost universally, his partner later tries to pay Nathan back by teaching some move that his current formal training hasn't yet reached.

Today, I was working with Koko, and Nathan was with a Purple Belt named Cosme. After about an hour, they ended up just rolling. Koko and I took a minute and just watched. Nathan was doing remarkably well. When I was watching, he had Cosme in Side-Mount, and then ended up in Cosme's Guard.

He didn't look half-bad, which is remarkable considering that he has not attended even a single advanced class that has covered either position. Everything he can do from those positions is stuff that he arranged to learn from other students. He didn't do it by asking for help, but by instead making himself useful, and receiving private mini-lessons in exchange.

He's also getting the stuff now that experienced rollers think is the most important, but a lot gets left out.

When the group lessons reach material that Nathan hasn't been formally instructed in, he'll learn all the stuff that his friends haven't included. His knowledge gaps will get filled in. A lot of technique will already be old hat for him, meaning he can concentrate on the stuff we've he hasn't picked up.

Our best three-month Blue Belt roller, ever.