Judo Day One

So it was my first Judo class.

It was in an old, school building and had the appropriate old school smell.

There were about 20 to 30 people, about half wearing Black Belts. I introduced myself to one of the leaders.

The line up was very similar to Karate. I took the spot on the junior side of the only two White Belts.

The warm up. What can I say? It went on for a tad over half an hour and is by far the hardest I've ever been through.

Then the actual training. A bit of game-like stuff practising rollovers. After that it was rolling around trying to dominate each other and get submissions from arm bars or chokes. Very tiring, but at least I know how to conserve energy. The other two White Belts looked ready to puke.

I got lucky st the next part. We were supposed to take turns doing the first half of throws. (no boom splatt) My partner was a Black Belt and he gave me a private lesson on two basic throws.

Then it was over.

A little friendly chit chat in the changing area. I bought one of their very cool club tshirts.

I'll go back when I can.

Helen is convinced I'll be pretty hobbled by tomorrow morning.

I won't be surprised if she's right.

Bike and run and other...

Headed to Victoria for a few days, and plan on packing on the human-powered miles.

It is a fabulous running city. Unfortunately, I hurt my Achilles tendon recently and dare not run like I usually do. It will be wise to keep the miles-per-run down and slowly creep it up.

Usually, I pick a run anywhere in the city, run there, do the run, and run back. This summer I'd best drive to any runs not in the immediate neighbourhood. Luckily, we'll be staying with Oliver and Jen's fabulous family over near the University. Lots of good paces to jog through close by.

My favourite will require a drive. There is a wonderful strip along the coast along Dallas road, near the city's big park. When I wake up very early, and I will, I might just drive down there and run the waterfront.

When I run, I'm solo. When I bike in Victoria, I'm with Helen.

Every day that we're there we go visit Mom in her care facility. Rather than drive through downtown, we ride the bikes. There is a bike trail that follows a former train right-of-way that goes almost exactly where we want to travel. It's 8 km each way. Sometimes we vary the route and go other swell places.

In the evenings we sometimes pop up to the University and just ride all about the campus.

If you've never been to Victoria, I highly recommend it. Besides sparkling morning runs and cross town greenspace biking there are a million other things to do.

One block to the east of Mom's place is the oldest Judo school in the province. If nothing else comes up, I'll be there 3 evenings during our 8 day visit. We also both want to see the animated movie "Brave". By waiting until we're in Victoria we can view it in 3D.

We walk and shop downtown, and in any of a zillion malls. Lots of good beaches, too.

We have two families to socialize with; my sister and her husband, and Helen's brother, his wife, and their three kids.

So lots of biking, and running, and family stuff, and city stuff.

Should be dandy.

Another start

I don't know what my goals were when I was a beginner in Karate. That was 30 years ago, and I can't remember.

I became a beginner again last Fall. This time it was in a Gracie Jiu-Jitsu class. My goal there became to earn the first belt and thereby gain access to extra classes. I've reached that point, which is just a few inches inside the door.

Wednesday I expect to be a beginner again, this time at the Victoria Judo Club. My goal this time is simple. I want to learn whatever I can in the very limited number of classes I'll be able to attend. It looks like I can make it to about seven sessions. That's about the equivalent of a month's training. It might be less depending on family commitments. In one month of training a rookie can maybe make it 25-30% of the way towards a Yellow Belt. I won't reach that.

I might not get passed working on break falls. That's where you practice not breaking when an opponent chucks you to the ground. That's OK. I could use a lot of work on falls. Might even learn a simple throw or two.

Judo is known for working slowly through its curriculum, with students practicing high numbers of repetitions.

I learn best exactly this way. For me, being shown a trick and getting to try it a couple of times is a waste. Being shown something, and then doing it a hundred times works well.

Anyhow, that's the plan.

Roots

Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu (Brazilian spelling) people are crazy in that they downplay the remarkable development that is their own art.

It was created by the brothers Carlos and Helio Gracie starting back in the 1920s. Carlos taught Helio early on. Carlos in turn got his early training from a Japanese immigrant named Mitsuyo Maeda.

So far, no problem. Jiu-Jitsu is a Japanese term, and they learned from a Japanese teacher.

The problem is, Maeda likely did not practise or teach Jiu-Jitsu.

In Japan, a man named Jigaro Kano changed martial arts forever. In the 1880s he took created a new art based on the techniques of various schools of Jujitsu (Japanese spelling) and created a new style he called Judo. In 1886 there was a major competition held between Judo and Jujitsu practitioners to see who would train the Tokyo police department. It was a landslide win for Judo.

Jujitsu slid into the background as Kano pressed on to invent competition rules, the Belt system, and the famous white uniform. He and his students promoted their art as something different. I doubt they referred to it as Jujitsu very often, if ever.

One of their people was the same Mitsuyo Maeda who taught Carlos Gracie.

He took up training at the Kodokan (Judo Headquarters) at age 18. This was already nine years after the split between Judo and its parent art.

He had quite an adventurous life, travelling the world teaching and giving demonstrations. When in the United States he referred to his art as Judo.

Finally landing in Brazil, he taught for many years. Amongst his students was Carlos Gracie.

What was he teaching?

According to Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu practitioners the claim is that he taught Jiu-Jitsu. Really? He was a Kodokan Judo man, continuing to progress in Judo rank up the time of his death, when he received recognition as a 7th Dan. A 7th Dan Judoka teaching Jiu-Jitsu?

Some accept that he taught Judo, but that he called it Jiu-Jitsu. Really? He chose to call his art a name that it did not have at home? Why would he do that?

My guess is that the name of Jiu-Jitsu, or Jujitsu, had arrived in Brazil prior to the arrival of
Maeda, and the term was already widely recognized. I bet it was just easier to use the accepted term rather than try and re-educate a nation.

This happened in North America when Tae Kwon Do started popping up many years ago. Practitioners usually called it Korea Karate for simplicity. I saw a Tae Kwon Do demo on TV recently. They didn't even call it Korean Karate, just Karate. Very wrong, but easier.

If I'm right, it means that he would have taught Judo, which has a great deal of sport emphasis. This also means that Gracie Jiu-Jitsu, which has the opposite focus of real combat, is a bigger accomplishment than just being a copy of what Maeda taught.

Let's look at it my way.

Maeda arrives from Japan. Carlos Gracie is one of his students for a few years (they lived in the same town only about five years), and goes on to open his own school. Let us assume Maeda taught Judo as Judo was usually taught. Carlos teaches what he knows to brother Helio and they then go on to develop their own slant.

Their own slant is Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu.

I'd say most of it came from the Gracies and from Brazil.

Be proud of that.

Just do it....

Last night at the advanced class at Jiu-Jitsu there were five of us present.

Of the five, four have Black Belts in other arts. The only student without one will earn hers within the year.

We do have other Blue Belts who just happened to be away. None of them has a Black Belt or is close to one.

Kinda funny who was there and who wasn't.

I read a great t-shirt recently that said, "A Black Belt is a White Belt who never quit."

I stopped training for about ten years once; at least I claim I did. In those ten years, I spent one summer studying Japanese swordsmanship, four seasons of fencing, and a year of Karate training. What kind of quitting is that?

I then re-started in Karate, found it wasn't enough and added in Jiu-Jitsu.

This year I dared all my high school students to do a Thirty-Day Challenge. That's where each picks something to add or subtract from their life, and does it for 30 days. If it doesn't work out, they can quit after 30. If it was the right thing, they keep doing it.

You can do anything for 30 days.

That's really all it takes to become a Black Belt.

Join a class, and force yourself to never miss in that first month. If something really unavoidable pops up, add some time onto the end of the 30 days to compensate. Keep going.

After 30 days, admit to yourself that it wasn't hard to maintain really good attendance. Look ahead. When is your first Belt Test supposed to happen? Likely it's still two or three months away. If you're up to it, stretch your Challenge to reach and pass that test. Just keep training.

I bet you'll pass. So now you get a dandy coloured belt to wear. If you haven't been enjoying Karate, this would be a fine time to move on, but I bet you've been enjoying it.

Don't quit. Keep training. Don't miss classes without a darn good reason.

After a year, look around. Where are all the people who started with you? I bet most are gone. Maybe they're all gone. The athletic guy? The flexible girl? They are gone and you are not. What was the trick? You kept coming. You didn't quit.

I did this for four years, and earned a Black Belt.

Now I'm doing it in Jiu-Jitsu. It still works.

The Secret

I often get asked what martial arts are really all about. The answer is, "coffee".

After training hard with a bunch of folks, it is very pleasant to sit down with them afterwards over a hot beverage and to find out who they really are. Time for coffee.

We used to do this up north regularly, and also at my first club here on the coast. I need to make it part of my new Karate club and also at the Jiu-Jitsu school.

We're trying to move the Monday Karate class to an earlier time. If that works out we can go for a cup of Joe afterwards. The Saturday class will be easy, too, depending on where we hold it.

Jiu-Jitsu also has a Saturday session that will fit well with my cunning, go-for-coffee intentions.

It's actually an important thing, besides just being pleasant. People share training-related experiences, and over time become more comfortable. Many are soon asking questions that they'd never ask in class. They find out why and where their instructors started training. They find out about things their seniors found challenging, and gain a deeper understanding of martial arts as a result. At coffee, their opinions and ideas are given equal weight to everybody else's, including the instructor's.

Got to get coffee going.

Lucky 13

Summer in my household is martial arts shutdown time.

Helen and I do lots of both short and long trips in July and August on short notice. This makes sustained training difficult, so I don't try.

I stop. With any club that I run, everybody stops. With clubs I'm just a member of, they keep going and I might do the odd drop-in.

Two months without training? Don't I turn into a lump?

Maybe, but it's also an opportunity. I direct part of that spare energy into running and such.

It is also an opportunity to do things outside of the usual. We spent a month in Victoria a couple of years ago, so I joined an Iado class. That is Japanese sword. Of course, in a month I really got nowhere useful, but it was very interesting. I'd love to do it again, and am glad I got to do it once.

Last summer I joined the University of Victoria Karate Club. As we were only in Victoria now and then, I didn't get there all that much. I'd say I made it to about a third of their classes in the warm months. It's a first-class club and they do excellent training.

So this year, my Karate club is down until September. I'll get to Jiu-Jitsu here only a few times.

We'll be in Vernon visiting friends. Wine, good food, and lots of laughs. There are also tons of martial arts options but I won't avail myself of any. Can't squeeze it in without missing out friend time. There is a big-deal Shotokan seminar in a town near Vernon that I will attend. Too much quality training squeezed into concentrated time to miss.

Again, we'll be back and forth many times to Victoria. I won't be signing up for the University club this year. I'm going to try something a little different that I've wanted to do for a long time. I'll be a student at the Victoria Judo Club. I'll be a bad student, as when we're there I won't miss a session, but we won't be there for many days in a row. Tons of gaps. I've counted, and it looks like I can make about seven classes in July and August. Anything I pick up, I'll cherish.

Add all of those together and it is about a month worth of stuff, spread over two months. Not bad, but very uneven.

September feels clogged in comparison.

I'll be teaching both kids and adult Karate classes. I'll also be a dojo-rat again at Jiu-Jitsu. They will have five days a week with at least something happening. I bet most weeks I'll be there every time.

It is my last year as a school teacher. In the old days teachers only retired at the end of June. These days we can go anytime of year. If it's a crappy year, and those do happen, I might bail early.

As soon as I'm out of the classroom I want to start a daytime class for older Karate students. That would make it... let's see.... 5+8... carry the one... 13 martial arts classes a week.

Is it any wonder that sometimes I take breaks in the summer?