No Surprises

The test is long over, and it went pretty much as expected.

Being old, the biggest difficulty happened when I woke up. My left knee decided to act hard done by, with no hint of a cause.

Parked at the ferry terminal, and caught the first boat. Met up with the other test candidate and our instructor in the cafeteria. We rode together in Shawn’s car.

At the school, we were met by the evaluator and a helper, and got down to work.

Things went on for between and hour-and-a-half, and two hours. There was a lot of technique demonstration, and a bunch of sparring, and some rolling with punching.

Nothing unexpected, and all within reason.

Both of us who were being tested passed, and received our belts and promotion certificates.

By the time we headed for the change room, my knee was making me limp around. It didn’t enjoy the test. I also had a black eye, and my face looked as if a truck had backed over it a few times.

As we left, the womens self-defence class was starting to arrive. I considered returning for the later mixed classes, but felt beat-up and tired enough to abort that idea and head for my bus stop headed home.

By the time I reached my bus transfer stop at Park Royal Mall, things were just starting to open up. I interrupted my travels to celebrate with a pizza at a favourite spot. Limped back to my bus to head home.

I ended up on the 2:20pm boat back home, picked up my car from the parking lot on the other side, and was home just a little after 3pm.

My wife wanted all the details, which I recounted while ensconced comfortably in my lazy boy recliner. This was followed by a shower, and I packed up a clean uniform.

Headed off to train at the local school’s evening classes.

People were very congratulatory, and said nice things about me.

I slept very well.

Merry Maniac

Today, there will be a class at our local Jiu-Jitsu school, and tomorrow there are none. The day after that I go into Vancouver and get evaluated to see if I am good enough to receive a Brown Belt.

That happens early in the morning. If I fail, likely I’d just waddle home straight away in a bit of a funk.

Passing, however, would see my compulsive behaviors kick in. As a brand new Brown Belt, I already be collecting attendance towards adding the first of four possible stripes onto my freshly unwrapped new belt.

With a new belt to wear, I think I’d go for coffee, and then return to attend the Vancouver school’s midday class.

That would put me rushing to get to the ferry terminal to get home in time to train at the Gibsons school in the evening.

The day after that is my normal day to travel into the city to train so I’d be back on the first ferry about an hour before dawn again.

Then both schools shut down to have Christmas breaks. Crazy me will already have 3 classes tallied on his attendance record.

The weird thing is that people are always saying to chase technique, or chase skill, but never to chase rank.

I humbly disagree, but only because they are wrong.

After receiving a promotion right before Christmas most people would take things a little easier. Few would train that very day in the city, and then rush like a crazy person to get home to train again, and then catch the stupidly early ferry again the next morning to train again in the city.

A dedicated person, just might go once, but it would be unlikely that all the rushing about to make it to a second class would hold much appeal, and certainly getting to three would seem like madness.

Doing so for me is a bit of a game. The fastest that it is permitted to earn a belt stripe is 8 months. There are no exceptions.

In that time, it is necessary to have attended 90 or more appropriate advanced sessions ( the actual goal is for 100, but ten of these are so easy to collect that I don’t even bother thinking about them at all).

With the amount that I travel, there is no way I can finish the attendance in 8 months if I train like a normal person. Assuming I can manage absolutely perfect attendance (never sick, nor injured, and no conflicts of any kind) whenever I’m home, I will only have managed 67 classes by the time that warm August day has rolled along.

Collecting 90 classes would take me 11 months and 2 weeks. That sounds like a year to me.

However, I go into the city to train every Saturday. Doing this means that my attendance goal will be reached in exactly 8 months.

But I don’t leave it at that.

On one of our yearly big trips, we usually head out two weeks early, and stop off in LA so that I can train at Gracie University. Putting that trip into the mix, I lose classes at my home school for two weeks, and two Saturdays in Vancouver, but train a ton in LA.

Doing this means that my tally goal will actually be reached 6 weeks before the due date.

But even that isn’t enough. Rob and I will be working on BBS exams, which will require tons of extra mat work. I also run a Sunday session, and work with anybody during open mat time on anything. Factoring these shows my tally growing at an alarming rate.

About half of these sessions end up as nothing, or at least nothing that I can credit myself for. Even so, they make it so that my tally total will be finished easily 3 months before the due date.

If I train after getting promoted in a couple of days, and before the Christmas shutdown it will change all of the potential tally completion dates by one week in my favour.

There is a direct correlation between the amount of training somebody does, and how good they are, and how much they improve over time.

I like getting my tallies up as a form of motivation, and the rank promotion system directly feeds into this. I am either improving by chasing rank, or I am earning rank by chasing improvement.

The point to all this jibber-jaber is to explain why I will be on the mat between the time of my Brown Belt exam and the schools shutting downs shortly after.

If it was really just me chasing the tallies, I would stop after attaining the goal, or at least cut back a lot. I do that, but continue on at my merry, maniac pace.

Also, if I train straight away after a getting a new belt, everybody will get to admire it.

One Week Left

Today it’s Saturday, and there is precisely one week left until the scheduled day for my Brown Belt evaluation.

There is still some question as to the precise day that it will happen, but the paperwork went in naming Saturday; four days before Christmas.

It may happen on Saturday, but there seems to be some question about that. The evaluator has some reason for moving it by a day or two.

That is fine with me, but only if it is moved up, and not further away.

Helen and I always go to spend Christmas with family in Victoria, and we are committed to going over the day after the scheduled Saturday test date. That is already a couple of days later than we’d usually go, and we committed to it back when my test was first being set up, two months ago. No going back on that now.

Earlier is not an issue, at least on my end. It is always hard to coordinate a bunch of people getting together to do anything. Just try and pick a restaurant with a bunch of buddies.

The time has to fit me, and the other guy being tested, and our instructor, and the evaluator, and a couple of extra bodies to act as our bad guys. That would be at least 6 people.

If it simply cannot be done on or before the designated Saturday, then my part at least would have to be put off until sometime in January.

I don’t really think that it will be, but it is a possibility.

Anyhow, all of the preparation will soon be over. When that happens, Rob and I will jump back into the technical exams in a big way, and there will be other projects and interesting topics to be found and explored.

A pass means that for the next four levels, I can expect to progress every 8 months or so. Perhaps more slowly if some kind of injury pops up.

That would give me 32 month of stability.

The next stressful rank would come after that, and it would be the big one; for a Black Belt. The soonest I can achieve the rank before that would be something like the late summer of 2022.

Back belt exams only happen in Los Angeles at the main Gracie University school in December, and the invitations for that go out the prior January or February. So a ranker finishing in the late summer of 2022, would be followed by an invitation to Los Angeles being issued early in 2023, for a gruelling exam just before Christmas.

That all still seems pretty far away, and quite theoretical. The point is that there will be plenty of time for technical exams, helping beginners, and attending classes. It will be nice to get back to all that again.

My Jiu-Jitsu is all wrong

I seem to be doing Jiu-Jitsu all wrong.

Today started with a little cruising around on Youtube, looking at Jiu-Jitsu videos. They were the kind where some old salt is telling everybody about how their training is going to be. There was a surprising consistency about what all of these high-level instructors were saying.

“It’s going to be hard,” and, “you’re going to get discouraged,” and, “you’re going to want to quit.”

The statement I can somewhat agree with is the one that says Jiu-Jitsu is hard. It is difficult, kind of, in a wimpy sort of way.

I’ve done physical stuff in the Army that was much harder, and been beaten black and blue in Karate competition, and changed careers in a manner that saw me leaving home and my wife for many long months to attend university. You know, real-life stuff. Those were all harder.

And why would I ever get discouraged. As an old fart, I can’t compete antler-to-antler with the younger crowd. My victories often come by merely managing to survive, or even by doing so for as long as possible.

And I’ve absolutely never wanted to quit Jiu-Jitsu. A few times my body has been seriously damaged, and I had to face the possibility that my time on the mat was over.

Each time, my body somehow managed to heal its way out of danger. This has happened much more than a person my age has any right to expect. Each injury could be the end of my training, but so far none has been.

I wanted to keep training, and in each case, managed to heal up enough to keep going.

So, it seems that I have the entire wrong experience of Jiu-Jitsu. It hasn’t been hard, nor discouraging at all.

And I have never, ever wanted to quit.

28 Days

Four weeks exactly until my Jiu-Jitsu test for Brown Belt.

In that time, I’ll do thirty sessions, more or less, on the mat getting ready.

It’s been going at that kind of pace for over five weeks already.

Burn out is a real possibility, but I’m not about to lighten up. This is too important to be left to half measures.

It’s a minor miracle that my 63-year-old body is taking it all. I’ve even been going for runs when the weather hasn’t been too discouraging.

I’ve had a ton of help along this road. My instructor Shawn is vital, of course. Rob and Sam have been putting in many long hours working with me as I drill the required test material over, and over, and over.

Marc Marins, the instructor from North Vancouver, will be the evaluator for my test. I train there regularly, and he has put on extra early morning sessions mostly for Shawn and me aimed at test preparation.

I’ve also recruited a group of people I trust at his school to be partner with me during training. At this time I can’t afford to work with anybody who might be high-risk, or even just unknown.

And along I grind.

That sounds strange, even to me.

I love Jiu-Jitsu, and the more of it I do the happier I am. Of course, some parts are my favourite, and some not so much.

Unfortunately, of all the different parts of the curriculum, my test all relates to my least favourite section.

The reasoning for this being the focus is impeccable. Gracie Jiu-Jitsu is at heart a self-defence system, and that is what the test is about. They want to make sure that their upper rank people are fluent in that material.

In our system, every beginning student goes through a self-defence program before they join the advanced classes. Many of us continue to pay attention to the self-defence aspect of things, but many do not. They start rolling in the advanced classes, and never look back.

I’m sure that there are people out there who started training eight years ago just like I did, but who haven’t paid any significant attention to self-defence in the seven years since they finished their beginner program.

Hence, the focus on the new advanced belt test requirements.

I get it, and I approve, and it’s interesting, but it isn’t fun.

People often ask me why I do Jiu-Jitsu, and my answer isn’t what most people respond. I always say that it’s fun.

I enjoy learning for itself, and love the body physics of Jiu-Jitsu. I like the physicality of it. However, beyond all else, it’s just plain fun.

So I’m training on the material that the Gracies selected for testing, and I understand the reasoning, and am perfectly content to comply. It just means that this is not the funnest period of Jiu-Jitsu that I’ve ever had.

Like I said; along I grind.

And it isn’t forever; it ends in 28 days. I’ll either pass, or I won’t.

Either way, my training will return to normal. The grind will vanish, and the fun will increase.

OK Boomer

“OK, Boomer.”

What a delightful phrase?

I’ve been called a Baby Boomer as far back as I can remember. For about the first half-dozen decades there was absolutely no negative connotation to the term at all. It was just a label given to describe an interesting demographic inflating of the old population pyramid.

In real terms it meant that when I was a kid, new wings kept getting added to every school that I attended, and that after my population lump passed along, those same schools never got expanded again.

When we were young, there were constant complaints about us lodged by older citizens. They hated our fashions, and music, and attitudes in general. Personally, I hated getting so derided for committing no greater sin than of being young.

Then, with shocking swiftness, we were no longer young. What were we like? The generation that I was part of constantly complained about the young. We seem to hate their fashions, and music, and attitudes in general. When did we forget how we felt about identical lumping?

Let’s take a concrete example. As a high school teacher, I had contact with young people on a regular basis. What I noticed didn’t match the general perception of adult society towards those same kids.

So, like any educated person should do, I looked up the relevant research to see who was nuts, me or the rest of my age cohort.

It turned out that I wasn’t the uninformed one. In almost every category that exists, kids have been getting better and better. Less violent, less drinking, less tobacco, less pregnancies.

One of the most unfair of the things that old people claim about the young is that they are a bunch of entitled brats. Somehow they are expected to work at their crappy, futureless jobs, with loyalty and gratitude.

I have news for all you Boomers out there; we have never, ever had futures as dismal as the young have. Our parents had it bad, what with World Wars and the Great Depression, but that was certainly not our story.

The Boomer expectation is that most people will get good paying jobs, and if they work loyally, they will be rewarded with continued employment, and eventually receive pensions.

That is the exact opposite of what the young can expect from a job.

How about life style? Can the young expect to ever own their own home?

But no matter the counter arguments, geezers insist on tearing down the young. Maybe they always have. Maybe they always will.

So up pops this new expression, and some Boomers are getting quite upset about it.

It really hit the mainstream in New Zealand of all places. An MP by the name of Chloe Swarbrick was speaking in Parliament on the subject of climate change. She happens to be 25 years of age.

She was getting heckled by a 50-year-old member of the New Zealand National Party, Todd Muller. Swarbrick had just brought up her age in relation to the issue, so it is likely he was insulting her relative youth. Nowhere is it reported just what he was yelling out. It doesn’t matter much, as she stopped him dead in his tracks by inserting into her words the response, “OK, Boomer,” before seamlessly continuing.

It doesn’t even matter that Muller doesn’t fit the description of Boomer, as he was born in 1968, and the most generous boundries of Boomerism have that group ending with people born in 1965.

When questioned on this she responded that, “Boomer is a state of mind.”

I love it all.

It is dismissive of every bit of age discrimination that the old aim at, “young people these days.”

As minor as this entire exchange really was, old people on the internet are suddenly losing their minds. Radio host Bob Lonsberry tweeted that calling somebody a Boomer is equivalent to somebody getting called the N-word.

How’s that for ridiculous? Some cry-baby old fart thinks that a word that has had no connotations whatsoever has suddenly become as demeaning as the most hateful word in the English language. Interestingly, his tweet drew over 18,000 comments, most of whom were tearing him a new one.

Dictionary dot com even weighed in with, “Boomer is an informal noun referring to a person born during a baby boom, especially one born in the U.S. between 1946 and 1965. The n-word is one of the most offensive words in the English language.”

The only bad part is that due to my birth cohort, I just might get lumped in with the anti-young crowd. A First-World problem, right?

I can’t say that I carry the label of Boomer with pride. I never did, and never will. It certainly isn’t any part of my sense of identity.

My identity is all about what I do, and what I am involved with, and the people I care about, and nothing about being part of a group defined by age.

Theme Training

For my test I’ve made some bold choices.

All are based on evidence that has slipped out of the powers-that-be, but they’ve never actually stated that these trends are actually the way things are.

The first is the belief that my Brown Belt exam will be based on the list of techniques required on the Black Belt exam. It’s somewhat bizarre that I have a pretty good idea what is on the more advanced test, but not on my own.

Anyhow, there are, if I recall correctly, 5 techniques taken directly from the beginner curriculum. The rest all comes from the Standing sections of the four levels of the advanced curriculum.

Not everything from those sections is included, but most is.

The general theme is Self-Defence, and the missing techniques are those that don’t quite match up with this.

Last week, during a test preparation session, we were working towards Shawn’s upcoming exam; training the highest level of the curriculum. We worked from the last technique on the test towards the first. We made it backwards through about 2/3 of that level. Every technique or two, Marc would say that the ones we’d just done are not needed for Brown Belt testing. Marc will be doing my test evaluation.

Every time he said that my brain shouted hurrah, and I mentally struck the technique off of my personal exam list. By the time the session ended, there were only 5 techniques left from that level that hadn’t been eliminated, as we hadn’t reached them.

I strongly suspect that even those ones are not going to be on my test, but that is more a hunch than based on what Marc actually said.

At its largest, my test will have 5 beginner curriculum techniques, and just possibly 5 from the highest level, and 28 from in between.

It is my belief that the beginner items are there to make sure that Gracie students from all over are closely following the curriculum at every level. I do this material all the time, and I do it the Gracie way. Therefore; I am focusing my attention on the more difficult material.

For now, I am working on the techniques taken from levels one, two, and three.

That doesn’t sound like much, but it is actually 72 separate variants. For example, when called on to do Guillotine Defence technique, the candidate will be required to respond to the same type of attack with four different, and unrelated counter moves.

So, 72 items. That’s a lot.

I was working away, but not really knowing what was going on, until I organized it. Instead of always going through level 1, then level 2, and finally level 3, I started going by themes

Each level starts with a variety for attacks that only relate to one another in that the attacker is coming from the front. Then it’s all rear attacks, followed by weapon defences, and finally whatever doesn’t fit neatly into the other categories.

I am now doing front attacks from all the levels, then going on to all the rear attacks, then weapons, and finally the remainder.

This is working much better for me.

Today, for example, I want to work weapons. By the time Rob and I are done, I fully expect to be able to perform any and all of them. They won’t be totally locked in, but we’ll have done them all. By sticking to the one topic, it is possible to see underlying themes that always apply.

I love it when that happens. In this section, you almost always go towards the weapon, or the weapon arm. Learn that single thing, and you’ve improved your response against all of them.

I am not one of those gifted individuals who can figure something out and then be able to do it. For me, getting it right is only the very beginning. I need repetition; lot’s of repetition.

They call it “muscle memory,” and it sure feels like it, but in reality, each repetition is actually brain work. Each time going through the movement demands that your mental pathways improve, and become more efficient.

Jiu-Jitsu Thanksgiving

I am surrounded by great people, many of whom have put their own interests aside to work with me towards my pre-Christmas exam.

There is my instructor, Shawn. He is also working towards an exam of his own, and always includes me in his prep. The actual content of my test very similar to what Shawn has to do on his.

Sometimes we meet before class, and usually work off to one side while the White Belt class is in operation. This works out to about 4-6 hours or prep per week.

Then there’s Rob. We were working about 3 times a week getting ready for an unrelated Jiu-Jitsu exam. At his suggestion we still meet, but strictly aimed at my current needs. Our other exams are on hold.

There is also a Sunday group that meets for an hour or two. It is for people who want to get my help on addressing weaknesses that they think are in their technique. They offered to be my partners as I drill what I need. They are giving me their training time.

Then there’s the big city folk. I don’t know everybody there, and can’t afford to get any overly-enthusiastic partners for either training or rolling, and I’ve recruited four who are wonderful, detail-oriented, and safe partners. They are the folk I work with while on the city mat, at least until after my exam.

The last great helper on my list is Marc. He is the instructor in North Vancouver where I get my city training, and he is also going to be the evaluator for my test.

He has set up special early-morning sessions to work on what Shawn and I need right now. Some of Marc’s folk also attend. Nothing could be more helpful than getting precise tips and correction from the guy that will be running my test.

All together, that works out to 9 people who are putting themselves out for me, and that doesn’t even include the many more who’ve said they’d also be happy to help.

In hours, that gives me about 10 hours a week on the mat working on test preparation, on top of my regular training.

The paperwork has gone in, with the date set to be December 21st. That will be 9 and a half weeks after my first learning about the exam, which in turn means I will have totalled close to a hundred mat hours getting ready.

I don’t know how things will go, but am happy with the amount of work I’m able to dedicate to getting it done. None of this would be possible without the help of a lot of people.

Maybe I’ll even pass.

Necks and Backs

Some Jiu-Jitsu techniques terrify me. The funny thing is that being on the receiving end isn’t the problem, it’s being the guy who performs the move.

Let’s say that your partner is supposed to do something to you, and as the good guy, your response is to back-roll out of the situation. I really don’t like that.

The move will look cool, and work, and not even be particularly difficult. For most people there is no risk at giving it a shot.

The worst thing that can happen is that during the back roll your weight doesn’t rest fully on your shoulder, and your head takes part of it. That means that your neck will get scrunched to one side under some measure of pressure.

For everybody else around here this is no big deal. If it happens to me, my neck is instantly hooped, and will be so for a long time.

I can do the move, and perform it without injury probably 19 times out of 20. The problem is that the value in the technique is less than the chance of significantly compromising my neck.

I either modify the danger out of a neck-threatening technique, or I don’t do it.

Luckily such things are quite rare, and therefore no big deal.

However, there is another large category of technique that is much harder to avoid.

They make up a significant proportion of all throwing techniques.

My back used to cause me grief fairly often. I would be barely able to move for at least a week, and this would be followed by a month of restricted activity.

It no longer does this, but the threat is never all that far from the surface.

Out of the entire menu of throws, only a few carry risk, but for me it’s very real.

A good example of the danger in throws happened to me during my first visit to the Gracie University headquarters school.

It was a very large group that day, with several instructors who all just happened to be in their 20s.

The technique was demonstrated, and very well explained. In it, the opponent gets lifted, but, “don’t worry. Just keep your back straight and it is all just a lift with your legs.” You know, like doing a properly-aligned squat, except it wasn’t.

The opponent’s weight was being held by the good guy with arms somewhat uneven in height. This meant that even with the lifter’s back being kept perfectly straight there was a rotational action happening. It was not obvious.

After a couple of attempts, my back was seriously warning me. I told my partner I was done, and happily played victim for him. He got double reps, and my back got a vacation.

After class it was time to roll, but I wasn’t about to with a half-sprung back, and I noticed something interesting. About a third of the class were above the age of 40, but during the rolling they had all vanished. Normally the proportion participating is about the same as it is during class time.

Every single one of the old guys had hit the change room and left. That’s a lot of wrecked backs to happen in a single class. At first I couldn’t believe it, so I stayed and watched the rolling. Not even one older guy remained.

This taught me that I have to take full responsibility for self-injurious techniques, and not to trust an instructor who says it will be OK.

There are a couple of throws I have to get really good at for an upcoming exam. I am super lucky that the list of throws included has been curtailed greatly, but there are still a couple of nasty ones.

Two spring to mind.

I’ve been studying the online videos very carefully, looking for ways to limit the risk. It’s a conundrum; to get good enough for the test, I have to practice, and by practicing I put my back in danger. Hurting my back means cutting back or eliminating all practice which will hurt my performance overall.

The first of the questionable techniques involves a weird, lifting, twisted-hip-thrusting, back-bending movement. Doing it with light-weight training partners might be OK.

The second technique looks nasty if done the way it is normally presented. However, in the last few moments of the video lesson, there is an alternative version presented, almost as an afterthought. It isn’t a throw at all, but rather a trip. My relief upon seeing that version was palpable. This is the version I will be drilling and performing on test day.

There may be other nasty techniques that I haven’t really identified yet. 

You’d think I’d be worried about getting hurt during the rolling on test day, but I’m not. I never use self-injurious moves when fighting. If I’m going to get wrecked, it will be the other guy’s fault.

It is the techniques that must be presented that I cannot avoid. They will need just as much practice as all of the lovely safe ones.

I don’t even mind getting hurt on test day itself, as I’d likely still be able to bull on through, and recover later. The totally crippling reaction to back injury never happens to me immediately.

It is more the injuries during practice. Having my back go boing in the week before the test would mean no exam at all.

Maybe it should be a written exam.

A Rare Day Off

Just updated my spreadsheet.

I went back to the day almost two weeks ago when I was told that my test was coming shortly before Christmas.

By the time I arrive at my Brown Belt exam about 7 weeks from today, I will have attended about 26 classes at my home-town school, and about 5 more in Vancouver.

In that same period, there will also have been 25 times on the mat doing test preparation.

That’s a lot of work towards getting myself ready, and that doesn’t even include the many hours spent watching the available instructional videos.

The funny thing is that even with all of that last minute training, placed on top of over 8 years of Jiu-Jitsu, I still feel rushed.

To be ready to handle whatever I might be asked to do, I have to get four levels of advanced self-defence material up to a level of acceptable fluency.

The first couple of levels are no big deal as I’ve been doing them for years. I drill those in a manner that gets them ready to demonstrate. I don’t think I’ll make any significant mistakes there.

Level one is the easiest, as I’ve been doing those techniques since 2012. Since then we’ve gone through the level one curriculum in class about 7 times, and I’ve already passed a humongous technical exam that included exactly that material, and acted as tutor and victim for a number of other students who’ve also done that test.

Level two is almost as familiar. Our class has cycled through that about 6 times over the years. I don’t know it as well, but there are no mysteries.

Level three is the highest material I’ve been doing test prep on so far. I think we’ve done that part of the curriculum only twice in class. I am far less proficient on this segment, but am working to make it as much my own as are the previous levels.

Level four may or may not be on the test, but I have to assume that it is. This will be hard. We’ve never done it in class, so I will have to learn these babies from scratch using the online instructional videos. They will take a disproportionate amount of work, and will still be the ones I will be least able to perform acceptably at test time.

All of this focus is having a down side. Free rolling is also a part of the exam, but I have cut down on this significantly. Neither minor nor major injures can be allowed to happen. Losing test preparation time is just not an option.

There are a few trusted partners that can help me with rolling here, and I’ve recruited four that I trust in Vancouver. If my trusted crew isn’t available, I won’t roll. Even with their help there will be some measure of ring rust, but hobbling onto the mat on test day with the help of crutches would be much, much worse.

One thing I’m very glad of is that most of the throwing that is actually included in the self-defence part of the curriculum is not part of my exam. I suck pretty bad at throwing in general, and my old body can only handle so much practice as either the throw-ER or the throw-EE.

Today, it was one of my rare days off. There are no classes that I can reach on a Tuesday, and there were no playdates with my test-prep helpers.

Tomorrow it’s back to work.

Until Christmas

My last self-indulgent blog about my upcoming Brown Belt evaluation was back on day 53.

At that time I was wondering if there would be 36 items on the test, or 27. The difference of 9 techniques was making me apprehensive, as those were all new to me and would have taken a great deal of time to prepare on my own.

Now it is day 50, and this seems to have been largely answered.

My instructor says he is 99.9% sure that the offending 9 techniques are not to be included. He did counter this a bit by saying that I should go over all of the Gracie Philosophy videos, which I certainly will do (a total of 10.5 hours of viewing). He also wants me to look over the Master Text. None of this is actually added to the exam itself, and is more than counterbalanced by the loss of 9 techniques.

Doing those added educational tasks will not require any mat time, and only eat into frivolous television viewing.

I now feel quite able to work things up for my mid-December evaluation. I might even develop a more jaunty style of ambulation, and start smiling again.

One thing I will have to watch out for is high-risk sparring or partnering during class time. That is easy to do here, as I know which folk are the safest to play with.

I will be in Vancouver six times between now and test day, and I don’t know folks there so completely. Maybe I can get a hold of one of those that I trust, and get them to commit to being my playmate until after my exam.

So instead of struggling to get totally unknown techniques figured out and trained to a level of fluency, I have been reviewing and refining material I know, and learning unexpected details.

I am also about 3 hours into my Gracie Philosophy viewing assignment, and have been thinking on strategies to avoid training injuries for the next 51 days. After that they don’t matter.

All in all, this entire test preparation process has been incredibly educational, and not merely in the area of Jiu-Jitsu technique.

Around here I’m pretty much the guy who is always helping out others.

For example; a month ago I was part of a team helping my instructor with his technical exams, and hosted a weekly session aimed at helping out the less experiences of our advanced students. Rob and I were just completing the work on his first level of technical exams, and starting to work together to earn the second level for both of us.

Now, with the pressure on me, this has all changed about. I didn’t engineer any of it. All was at the willing instigation of my friends.

My instructor’s sessions are now focused equally on preparing him for his own Black Belt exam and on mine for Brown Belt. My weekly group has also switched themselves to helping me drill for my test. Rob and I are not currently working on our technical exams, but also working on test preparation.

In addition, I’ve been accepted into a special training group at the Vancouver school aimed towards precisely what I need at this point.

So you see, besides all the study and drill, it has been an education to see how wonderfully everybody has shifted things about to help me along my road.

It’s all going so swimmingly, that I’ve actually started looking past the exam itself.

The first thing coming up at that point will be the trip that Helen and I always make to be with family for Christmas. Usually, I go with mixed emotions. As much as I enjoy the holidays with our family, I also severely dislike the break in training.

I imagine that after all of this recent focused work I’ll be glad to step away for a while, whether I pass or fail.

It's just math

I recently did a blog entry about how counting up classes and dates helped me relax about an upcoming Jiu-Jitsu exam.

This is how I’ve been handling my training for a very long time.

There is a philosophy that suggests the best course is to ignore promotion, and to focus on training instead. This sounds good, but the reality is quite different. The best course is to get yourself onto the mat as much as you can, and that whatever motivates you to do that is great.

In the Gracie system of rank progression, there is a definite link between rank and time spent on the mat.

When I first found out how it worked, I did a quick calculation out of interest, and found that if I did extra work, I could get my first promotion by June. If I didn’t, the date would be late September. That isn’t a large difference, but it was actually more than that. Between those two dates, I would have two full months off of the mat. That would have made me very rusty in September, and needing a lot of brushing up; at least a couple of months. The test itself would drag on, as they always do. The no-extra-training completion date would turn out to be 6 months after what I actually managed.

I did the work, and got the Belt.

The promotion after that would add a dandy little stripe onto my belt. In those days, the only way to earn one was to do a horrendously difficult technical exam. I earned one in 18 months by putting in a great deal of extra work outside of regular class time.

If I hadn’t been “chasing rank,” I wouldn’t have done that extra work. Instead, I would have attended classes, and not received my first stripe until the new rank system was put in place in 2014.

At our school’s first mass promotion that year, I would have received my first stripe, instead of earning my second.

With those promotions the new rules stipulated that the fastest a stripe could be earned was 8 months, and only if a student had attended a set minimum number of classes.

For most people, the promotion period averaged out at about 10 months. I rarely missed class, except when travelling, and did better, but it wasn’t easy.

I got my Purple Belt in April of 2016. If I had been relaxed all along the way along, it wouldn’t have happened until October of 2017.

Until recently, there really were no students training at anything like my rate. Good students are those that regularly make 3 advanced classes per week, and maybe show up at one open mat.

I am at 3 advanced classes per week, as well as 3 beginner sessions, and 3 open mat times. I also travel to Vancouver on Saturdays to get in another advanced class as well as an extra beginner sessions. There is also a Sunday group that I’m involved with, and a couple of other get togethers during the week.

I now have a Brown Belt exam staring me in the face. It’s due to happen in December of 2019. If I’d taken the simpler, no-rank-chasing route, my Brown Belt exam wouldn’t be happening until 2 years later.

The relaxed-twin version of me testing for Brown in 2021 would have completed over 1,200 sessions. Conversely, I will actually have been on the mat more than 1,800 times (not counting beginner classes) by the time of my exam, two months from now (2019).

I’m not saying that having trained 50% more than otherwise has made me 50% better than would otherwise be the case, but there certainly has been a significant improvement due to all that rolling around.

But what might counting classes to for other people? That’s hard to say, but let’s try.

We have a big crop of White Belts right now that have reached the halfway step to a minor milestone.

Beginners get to attend twice per week, but there is a point where having been to 40 classes earns them the right to attend a third, slightly more advanced class.

That will be happening for our crop in January.

If they keep training diligently, they will complete the requirements for their first promotion exam before the end of April, and could receive a Combatives Belt in May.

If they do that they gain access to 3 advanced classes per week (many at that point stop attending the beginner sessions, but they can continue those if they wish).

Good attendance at the advanced classes will earn them a Blue Belt by November (after 6 months, the only variation on the 8-month theme).

Let’s say at that point that they either become regular good students (averaging 10-month promotions) and being eager ones (getting promoted every 8 months).

An eager, extra-motivated student will be a Purple Belt 4 years and 5 months from today, a Brown Belt in 7 years and 9 months, and a Black Belt in 11 years and 2 months.

A regular student will be a Purple Belt in 5 years and 3 months, a Brown Belt in 9 years and 5 months, and a Black Belt in 13 years and 7 months.

In another example we have an individual who wants to become an instructor, and who should be getting his Blue Belt next month.

On the faster path he can be a Purple Belt 3 years and 5 months from today, or in 4 years and 3 months if he takes the slower route.

It’s all about information, and lifestyle, and about making conscious decisions about how much to train.

Countdown

Counting things makes me feel better, so I’ve done that for my upcoming Brown Belt exam.

From what my instructor has said, the test will likely be on December 14 or 15, unless he agrees to a date a month later.

That means there are at least 53 days left.

In that many calendar days, I’ll have attended a couple of dozen White Belt classes, and an equal number of advanced ones. None of those will have any direct impact on improving my test performance. There is always a very small chance of injury when training, and a not insignificant change of damage during free-rolling.

To be fit on test day, I will be curtailing my free-rolling. All I’d need now would be a busted ankle or blown knee. I will still partake of the activity, but only with the very best of my free-rolling friends. I like wrestling around, but caution is wise in this situation.

In those same 53 days it looks like I’ll have three dozen sessions working on the Brown Belt test material. These will include general self-defence practise with the Sunday group, work with Rob on the more advanced material, sessions in Vancouver focused on precisely what the examiner wants, and times with my instructor where a small group works on Brown and Black Belt exam material.

That feels like it will be enough. Seeing the actual numbers helps me understand this.

So far, the Gracies have released curriculum that contains 276 techniques and all of their variants. We are allowed to know that only the self-defence material will be covered. That brings the tally down to 87 techniques.

If it were to be a test on all 87, the test would be crazy long and exhausting. Some of us do huge technical exams, where sets of about 20 techniques are recorded. These take between 12 and 25 minutes to perform, and are absolutely exhausting. I can’t even imagine what a test of 87 would look like. Might it be and hour-and-a-half of non-stop motion? If it is they better have oxygen and stretchers available.

Don’t get me wrong; I like them all the techniques and enjoy working on them. The point is that with 53 days left, this isn’t really the time to be doing general training.

My instructor and I were working on the list of material for his upcoming Black Belt exam, and he let me have a real look at it.

I totally ignored the first 36 items (the easy ones) that might be on the test, other than to notice that there won’t be much from that at all. It was the other 51 (the hard ones) that might be included that I wanted to know about.

Of those 51, there were only 36 included. That is already making a huge difference. By knowing that the list is 15 techniques shorter, it’s as if I’ve managed to find 30% more training time.

The other issue is that of the remaining (hard) techniques, there are 9 that I have never experienced in class. A bit of a bummer being examined on stuff that I’ve never learned. A friend of mine who is also being graded for a Brown Belt hasn’t even seen them.

These are all of the highest, hardest, and most recently released layer of curriculum, called BBS4. This is where the majority of all my training time will have to be invested.

The online instructional videos for this stuff adds up to a hair under 6 hours long, and that’s without all the stopping and rewinding that actually has to be done to gain understanding. Of course, that doesn’t include any of the drill that is necessary to actually gain any sort of competence.

So I have 53 days to get ready. The goal is to be able to fluently demonstrate an insignificant number of easy items, along with 27 hard ones that I already have some competence at, and 9 more hard ones that I need to learn up from scratch.

I won’t work the easy ones at all, as I already do them on a very regular basis. They are covered in our beginner classes, which I always attend, and sometimes teach.

The 9 hard ones from BBS4 will demand far too much of my time and effort, but they are on the list. I will need to spend many hours studying the related videos, and teaching them to myself. I’m sure that my instructor will help when he can. It is this section that is of the greatest concern.

The 27 remaining techniques will have to be polished up with less training time than would be ideal.

Overall, the amount of time that I have available should get me to a level that will likely be enough for the examiner. Conversely, due to the necessity of learning material that I’ve never been taught, I won’t be able to perform at anything like the level I would prefer.

I would like to be really fluent in what I am asked to perform, not merely barely competent. That, however, is not up to me.

I better not get the flu.

What's on it?

Things have been going pretty well. Since word about testing for Brown Belt landed, I’ve managed to get in 3 sessions of preparation, and will have another tomorrow. In 6 days there will have been 4 times dedicated solely to getting ready, and that’s on top of 5 regular classes my level (one of which I taught, so it doesn’t really count).

At that rate, there should be a total of 40 hours dedicated to test preparation by test day. That might be enough.

Actually, I politely suggested to my instructor that the middle of January might be better than the middle of December. He said he’d think about it. That would give me an extra month.

I want to feel ready.

It is already altering most of my training.

They have sessions for exactly this stuff early on Saturdays in Vancouver sometimes. That is the day I go in to train anyhow, so it’s perfect; sort of.

The transit that gets me there is a little shaky on the weekends. I can’t guarantee getting to the gym, and don’t know which Saturdays are scheduled anyhow. My plan is to get my butt there on time.

If it turns out that nobody is there, or if the buses let me down, I’ll just revert to a usual Saturday. That will mean sitting around in Starbucks for a couple of hours, and then going to help out at the White Belt class, and then attending a class for my level.

If the early training is on, that would be great. It gets followed by a women-only class, so coffee time for me. I did this on the only day I’ve been to that session, and then returned for the Whites and advanced. Three classes was a tad too much, and my tired brain wandered a bit towards the end. Didn’t like that so from now on I’ll be dropping the White Belt sessions so my attention will stay frisky and clear to the end of the material aimed towards me. Selfish, but there is a test coming.

At home, my partner for technical exam work has graciously suggested that we put that on the back burner, and focus instead on Brown Belt preparation. That is helping a lot.

There is also a small Sunday bunch that meets at my house to work on whatever they want, or technique in general. They’ve also volunteered to change the focus to stuff I need to drill.

It seems I have a lot of friends willing to help me along this road.

My instructor is also working towards a huge test of his own, and the stuff covered is the same as mine. Get togethers will happen, and help us both.

The actual stuff that needs to be prepared is quite specific, and interesting.

The Black Belt exam includes a lot of the Combative self-defence program, as well as most of the self-defence aspects of the 4 levels above that. There are restricted-access videos and printouts related to exactly what will be on the test. This is the exam that my instructor is working on.

The Brown Belt exam I’m up for on is based on that same material. I’ve seen a partial listing of the material once, but don’t have access to it, and have never seen the video. That means that whenever I’m working alone or with my helpers I have to work up everything that could possibly be on the test.

My instructor is also going to ask my examiner if I will need to work up Combatives and all four levels above also. Most students have never even seen the top level stuff at all. I’ve never done it in class, and my only contact with it was within the last couple of months when I was the caller for my instructor and another guy drilling that material.

We have another guy expected to test for Brown Belt when I am, and he’s never seen that material at all. How is he supposed to prepare for that?

It would be a huge relief if the gentleman who will be doing the evaluations decides that the Brown test will not include those techniques, and even helpful if he says that it definitely will.

Need an example? In the highest level of material that I’ve never done, and that my friend has never seen, there are a bunch of techniques that relate specifically to police work and handcuffing suspects.

Going in blind, it will be necessary to study all of the related hours of video lessons, and to understand them. Time will need to be invested to try the motions and understand the techniques on an intellectual level. Of course, that in no way means they would be test-level ready, so there would have to be a great deal of drill, at a number of separate sessions to really get them ready in even a rough fashion.

Cool techniques, to be sure, but they don’t really relate to the exam’s proclaimed “street self-defence” focus, or to Jiu-Jitsu in general. If that level isn’t included, all of that time can be invested in actual test material.

There is also a good chance that the handcuff stuff is not included in the Black Belt test list, even if that level is. That would mean it won’t be part of a Brown Belt test either. That would also free up time to focus on test material, but I can’t know that at this point.

You could say that I should just bite the bullet and learn the handcuff stuff. If it were a single technique I would, but it’s actually a whole series of moves, each with a number of variants. Just watching the related videos would likely take 3 or 4 hours, and easily as much doing early run throughs, and as much again drilling. Let’s round down and say that handcuffing in or out makes a different of ten hours work. 

And that’s just the handcuff stuff. What about all of the other 4th level material?

It makes me glad that I’ve at least gotten to see them.

It’s a major reason that I asked for an extra month before the test.

Yikes

Well, my little Jiu-Jitsu universe just shifted.

Currently, I am sitting at the last level of Purple Belt. That means no more promotions until I pass a test, and earn a Brown Belt.

I have been this rank for ten months. There is no set amount of time to wait, and no specific attendance requirement.

I have not really had a belt exam in my field of vision at all. About the same time as my last promotion I started helping a friend work through his 1st level of the technical exams. This is an activity pretty much unrelated to belt promotions. It took us nine months to get it done.

Since then, he and I have been working on the second level. I was planning on completing all four before changing my focus to a Brown Belt exam.

A couple of days ago my instructor said he wanted me to test for Brown Belt by Spring.

That moved everything up a great deal; perhaps by as much as six months or a year.

However, it seemed both reasonable and doable. A test at the start of Spring would still give me five full months to prepare.

The today, I got called into the office, and my instructor informed me that he wants my Brown Belt exam to happen right before Christmas. Suddenly, five months shrunk down to two. I asked if he would consider the middle of January, and he said he’d think about it. If he agrees, it would give me almost another month to prepare.

The technical exams will have to be put on hold. I’ll have to grab anybody I can to use as my drill dummies. When not working on the mat, I’ll have to be watching the pertinent curriculum videos. I’ll be very busy.

Interestingly, all of my training mates seem very excited and enthusiastic at this news. I seem to be the only one who is less than thrilled.

To me, tests mean the possibility of failure exists.

I quite hate exams.

Wrist Pinger

I’ve just been doing a little research into the particular boarding procedures used by Royal Caribbean cruise line for our upcoming voyage.

They have an option for guests to use a wristband instead of their Seapass card.

If you don’t know, onboard cruise ships you can’t use money or credit cards at all. You use the card you were issued for every purchase, and they are charged to your account. This gets settled with a single charge on your credit card at the end of your trip. The cards also act as your id for things like spa appointments, and drink packages you may have purchased. They also act as your room key. It is very nice not needing to carry a wallet, or a separate key. The cards are also what you need when in port to check out and back onto the ship.

So as I was saying, our next ship will have the usual cards, but guests can also get wristbands that serves all of the same functions. Well, almost all. You still need your card for going ashore and getting back onboard.

To most people this wouldn’t be a major thing at all, and online there are tons of posts of people blasting this new practice. The biggest concern that they all seem to have is the price. Getting a wristband carries a $4.99 price tag.

On Royal Caribbean, a domestic beer costs $7.99USD, and a glass of wine from $9 to $25. A bottle of water or soda costs $3.25.

About half of everybody gets a drink package. The cheapest version is only for soda pop, and costs $12 per day. The kicker is that you can’t buy one day. You have to buy for the entire voyage. As this sailing is 10 days long, a pop package would run you $120 USD. The same goes for plans that include booze, and for this trip those would run from $665 USD for the trip and up. There are few bargains on board the ships. It is quite possible to not spend even a penny beyond your cruise fare, but folks that do that are pretty rare.

As I no longer drink booze at all, and am not interested in paying their price for soda pop, and prefer the main dining room and main buffet, I won’t rack up even a single extra dollar spent, unless I find a cool tshirt in one of the shops. I’m a sucker for tshirts.

Therefore, my entire additional outlay for this 10 day voyage will be $4.99 for a wristband.

Why are those people all so concerned about this outrageous cost? It is totally optional. I guess they don’t cruise the same way that I do.

With my band, I need never take my card swimming, or to the gym, or dig through my pockets to be able to access my room. It will be there, with me, always. I will be able to walk the decks with nothing in my pockets at all if I so choose. This is very freeing.

No money, no wallet, no credit cards, no nothing. Just a thing on my arm that makes things go ping when I need it to.

I’m sold, and am happy it will be so cheap.

Fat Scores

I hate needlessly stupid systems.

You see, I am officially overweight. I don’t feel overweight, but I am.

These things are determined by a lovely calculation of a person’s Body Mass Index, or BMI. To figure this out, there are a ton of calculators on the web that will take your height, and weight, and spit out the number.

I am 5’9” tall, and weight 174.1 pounds.

My BMI is 25.7 which means overweight. A person who weighs the same as me and is 6 inches taller would be 21.8 and be normal, and a same weight person 6 inches smaller would score 30.8 and be obese.

For somebody my height to make it into the normal category, they would have to weigh in at 168.9 pounds.

This is crazy.

A typical day for me includes a 5 or 6km run, and several hours of Jiu-Jitsu training. I also walk a fair bit, and restrict my diet. My old knees don’t like any extra pounds, but they don’t complain at all when I manage to keep my bulk in the 173-175 pound range.

Fortunately, there is a better system out there for figuring this kind of thing out. This requires technology to do the calculations. Like anything, this used to be clumsy and expensive, but now devices like my bathroom scale do it on command.

This morning I was 22.9% fat. That rating puts me into the ideal range.

I consider this by far the more accurate measure. If I touch my body where bones are supposed to be near the surface, they are right there. My face is narrow, and does not carry any extra weight. All the non-measurement related indicators have me being more lean than fat.

To give some kind of comparison, Michael Phelps the Olympic champion swimmer was about 5% fat. The percent charts declare that he is Lean. Strangely, his BMI of 23.6 would rate him as Normal, and closer to being Overweight than to being Lean.

You may want to say, well, maybe he’s gotten chunky since his swimming days, but the figures I’ve used are from his swimming prime. He was pretty much one big muscle.

Let’s say that I considered Body Mass a good measure of health, and say that it scared me. I might keep doing all my regular stuff, but also start lifting weights, and might put on 30 pounds of muscle.

With no change whatsoever in the actual number of pounds of fat in my body, my Body Fat Percentage would have dropped from 22.9% down to 19.5% and have me scored at the very low end of the ideal range, and almost list me as lean.

Gaining those same identical 30 pounds of muscle would also change my BMI. I would go from my current 25.7 up to 30, and be considered obese.

BMI is trash, with its only positive characteristic being that it’s easy to calculate.

The damage it does is immense. It has people trying to plan their health strategies based on inaccurate information.

Attempts have been made to keep simplicity with modified systems that are more accurate. The best of these relates waist circumference with health issues. It is based on the assumption that it would be a good measure of how much fat is actually present in the body. However, like BMI it fails when considering two individuals of significantly varying general size, and if the goal is to investigate fat, why isn’t Body Fat Percentage used instead.

This is all a mystery to me, but what do I know? I’m simply a chap with an ideal amount of fat who is also overweight.