Old Roller

As Jiu-Jitsu people go, I don’t roll very much.

But what does that mean?

Today is Sunday. I’d say it’s been a pretty typical week, so let’s see just how much I’ve done.

Last Tuesday, Thursday, and today, there were no classes.

Monday; I rolled with one partner for five minutes.

Wednesday; rolled with Rob for about ten minutes before class started.

Friday; rolled with several people for every possible moment. I’d say this all added up to about half an hour.

Saturday; a five minute roll, and then I headed out.

So there was the week, and I rolled for a grand total of 50 minutes, spread out over 4 sessions.

As I said, it was pretty typical.

Sometimes I don’t roll at all at a given class, depending on how my body is feeling. I almost always manage to spar once, and after that judge if I should continue with a different partner.

Even if sparring time is longer than half an hour, which is rare, I cut myself off at about that point. I don’t want to get stupidly hurt due to being over fatigued.

This has all served me pretty well over the years. My injuries have been less frequent or significant than they would have been if I’d tried to keep up with the 20-year-olds. It has been a pace that I could sustain for the most part.

Why do Jiu-Jitsu

Just what is it that makes Jiu-Jitsu so compelling?

Some cite fitness, or self-defence, but to me those answers really make no sense.

It is a great work-out, but there is always a significant risk of injury involved. It wouldn’t be logical to do Jiu-Jitsu to improve your cardio, and improve your muscle tone, and then get crippled with a knee-bar. I’ve had an arm hurt, and a knee hobbled, and wrenched shoulders, along with small, broken bones, and a rather shocking dislocation, all within 7 years, and I take it pretty easy. Any of a number of those injuries could have sidelined me permanently if they were only slightly more damaging.

Self-defence might be a reason to start Jiu-Jitsu. Let’s say you do that, and complete the Gracie’s superb self-defence beginner’s program. Great; you’ve taken your ability from about a zero up to a five.

You enjoy it, and continue in the advanced class. You will learn tons more stuff, most of it aimed at beating up your training partners. That is NOT the same as self-defence. At least 75% of what you will do will have no application in a street fight. You will get comfortable with grappling in general, and some of what you learn will be aimed at people trying to take your head off for real. After about a year, you will have taken your ability up a few more points, to maybe an eight.

Like any activity, the smallest improvements happen at the top end of the scale. How many years will it take to become a nine? Will you ever be a ten?

If gaining self-defence ability were my motivation, I should have stopped long ago. I trained in Karate for 30 years, and have put 7 more into Jiu-Jitsu. Will going to class today really make me safer?

If I lived in a place with real threats, it might look different, but I don’t. My chance of being injured by some attacker are pretty minimal. My friends at class are a much more tangible risk.

Let’s say somebody tries to rob me today. Should he succeed, he would get the $100 in my pocket. If he fails, I will keep my hundred bucks, but will have easily spent over $10,000 on Jiu-Jitsu training to stop him, and spent thousands of hours on the mat.

My wife doesn’t do Jiu-Jitsu; she plays music. She doesn’t do it for a workout, or to gain self-defence skills. She does it because she enjoys it.

I don’t do Jiu-Jitsu for the workout, or to gain self-defence skills. I do it because I enjoy it.

I love learning new stuff, and working out the human puzzle that grappling presents. It involves the intense concentration necessary to solve intense mathematical problems.

I also love grabbing people, and flipping them about, and being flipped around in turn. Escaping an inescapable position is exhilarating, and rewarding.

It is like puppies rolling around in the back yard, or small children, or monkeys.

It is just so much fun.

Time off training

Over the years, we’ve had a number of experienced people stop training for some reason, and then return years later.

As we do the lessons, they often have difficulty with moves they once new, and struggle about the amount that one would expect considering their layoff.

Then it’s time to roll, and the amount of rust on them is surprisingly small. They often are a little hyper, and tire more quickly, but their actual rolling ability seems largely unaffected by the time off of the mat.

I don’t know why this is.

Yesterday, my partner was a Purple Belt, who let me know that it was her very first class back after 2 years off. It was the same thing that I’d noticed back home.

Of course, she was fuzzy on what we’d been just covering, it having been years since she’d done the like. However, her reflexes were all there, and she rolled like a pro. She was full of smiles, but did work herself hard enough to be bright red in the face by the end of the session.

That will pass.

In fact, I don’t think returning students are discouraged by any of this, but there is another danger.

Suppose you were such a person, with maybe a Blue Belt. When you left, you had a group of peers of about your ability, and some people on the mat that you would consider rookies. Your life then has you off the mat for a couple of years.

You return, and everybody in your peer group can now kick your ass. They have moved on.

Some of those people that used to be rookies, know are more experienced than your, and right up to date. They will be showing you the moves during class.

If you aren’t prepared for this, it could all be very discouraging, and that’s even if you haven’t slipped even a tiny bit. Realistically, you will have trouble remembering some of what you knew.

There is a society structure to martial arts groups. Just where will the returning student fit in. It sounds silly, but subtle things like that can have a remarkable impact.

This, too, can pass with time.

Belt Behavior

Gracie University in Los Angeles is a great place, full of great people.

Stay there long enough, and some patterns start to become noticeable. What I have been looking at recently has been behavior off of the mat.

White Belts come to class, and seem nervous. I guess the whole experience is somewhat intimidating. They seem serious, and quiet, as if they don’t want anybody to notice them.

The next rank up are those folks who’ve completed the basic course, and wear the Blue-and-White Combatives belt. They train with the higher belts now, and are generally very grateful to any higher-belt partner who helps them along. Some call me, “sir.”

The biggest group by far are the Blue Belts. They seem to have the widest range of mannerisms. Some are brash, and act as if they really know something, which they don’t. Some seem intent on proving themselves. A lot just act like themselves, and many smile a lot.

Purple Belts are much like the Blue Belts, and are also a smiley bunch. I have yet to see any who acts like they think they are experts, as by this time they understand that they are not.

The group that seems the weirdest to me are the Brown Belts. For several days I checked every one I saw. None smiled except for one guy. The rest all looked super serious, and might flash a grin at a friend, but it would instantly fade back to serious. I find this very weird, as that isn’t how the rank below behaves, nor the one above. Were they different as Purple Belts, and will they be different when they receive Black?

Black Belts seem the most comfortable both on the mat and in the halls. They are generally very welcoming; smiling at people and shaking hands. That is part of their role, but they also genuinely seem to want to behave in that manner. The detachment that the Brown Belts display is in no way evident.

Inside of Pluto

So two full weeks in Los Angeles.

For me, that means about 20 classes at Gracie University, three visits to Disneyland (and/or California Adventure), lots of hanging around with Denise, and a pile of restaurant meals.

It is a lovely place to hide out from cold weather, especially a nasty winter like early 2018 has experienced.

Training at Gracie University is the rewarding part, and also by far the most painful. It is also the part that anybody who reads this blog will find the most interesting.

As great as the training has been, there have also been a number of interesting human interactions at the gym.

This time around, a lot of people seemed to remember me.

One of these was Jackie. She used to be the front counter person, but now works someplace back in the office area. I ran into her in the hall, and she remembered me by name. I used this opportunity to ask her a few questions that had arisen in my mind about the new Gracie University facility.

It turns out I was correct about the big empty area behind one of the, “employees only,” doors. It is earmarked as a second mat space.

Jackie is one of the people I first met back in 2014 during my initial visit to the Gracie place in Los Angeles. Another was Bill.

I am an ancient guy around here in my early sixties. Bill is about a decade older than me. We were both Blue Belts in 2014, me with one stripe and he with none. I have gone on to progress through 8 more rank levels. Bill has only made it through a couple.

Physically he is fine, but seems to need more repetition to nail things down than the young kids do. He trains regularly, and is much better than he was 4 years ago, but had not improved as much as even I have.

When I reach his age, I hope I’m still as active as Bill on the mat, but likely my progress will have slowed in a similar fashion. I hope I am tough enough to take that with good grace.

This visit is one where I seem to be honestly noticed. I’ve received lots of nods and handshakes from people I have worked with in years past, and also have been greeted by a number of instructors.

Both Rener and Ryron Gracie have talked to me on several occasions. It has all been small talk, but very welcoming.

A really big kick happened a couple of days ago. We were working on some high-level rear choke defences. My partner didn’t understand some point or other, and called out for help from Ryron Gracie, the session’s instructor.

To explain the point to my partner, Ryron had me take his back, and fire in a full-lockup rear choke. He went on to clarify the confusion. He also decided that he should show the entire group of 60 students.

He called for everybody to stop, and pay attention. I took his back again, and he went through the clarification for everybody. We did it over and over, for five or ten minutes.

That’s the first time I’ve ever been demo helper in Torrance.

All-in-all, this time it wasn’t strictly all about the training, although that has certainly been top notch.

This visit has been about acceptance as a part of things. They have always been welcoming, but my place was as a satellite far beyond the orbit of Pluto. This time, I’ve slid inside of that barrier.

Mo' Training

I started doing Jiu-Jitsu in September of 2011. The first trip to the main Gracie school in Los Angeles happened early in 2014, and has repeated every year since then.

This year it’s the 5th visit.

All of them have been different. The first lasted for two months, while all the others have been around two weeks. One of the visit included a number of private lessons. During the 2016 visit I was evaluated for, and received, a Purple Belt.

It is always a delight to discover what parts of the curriculum they will be covering. I have hit Guard, Mount, Standing, and this time it is Back Mount.

I thought I had a pretty competent understanding of Back Mount, but only a couple of days later my world has been totally redirected.

Each of those training days contained two classes, and the material taught was top notch and highly technical. I was learning, but nothing earth shattering, then Rener Gracie made perhaps a ten-minute explanation that hit a nerve.

He changed how I will forevermore interpret Back Mount.

The coolest thing about this year is that the real visit hasn’t even started yet. We’ve been in Palm Springs for a month, and I made the trek into Los Angeles to attend a handful of classes. Soon we will move over to Lomita, and I’ll be at Gracie University every day.

In those two weeks, I’ll have attended about 20 top-notch sessions.

It would be possible to attend a total of 26, but doing so almost killed me back in 2014, when I was four years younger. The slightly slower pace that I will be doing is plenty demanding as it is.