Gender Issue Two

Demetrious Johnson is currently champion of the flyweight division in the UFC. This makes him the smallest title holder in that organization. He stands 5 foot 3 inches tall. He has to weigh in at 125 pounds, although his walking-around weight is likely up to ten pounds more than that.

Why doesn't he fight the Heavyweight champ, Cain Velasquez? Granted, he's a bit bigger at 6 foot 1 inch and 240 pounds.
 

OK, that would be silly. How about if they were to just train together? Would that work? Which would be more likely to get accidentally injured?
 

That is exactly the situation women in Jiu-Jitsu face every day.
 

Take Madeline or Coco, our two female Blue Belts. Both are much faster and more skilled than I am, and yet I'm often able to bull my way through a poorly executed technique to make it work. Often they execute something on me perfectly, and due to size I can keep it from being effective.
 

They press down on me with all their weight, and it's no big deal. I press down on them under control, and they can't breath.
 

Put Madeline with our biggest guys and she's literally facing over double her body weight, and over a foot of height.
 

It makes Demetrious Johnson versus Cain Velasquez seem fair in comparison.
 

But of course, not all women are that small. We have one who is about my height. I only out weigh her by 40 or 50 pounds. She still is at a disadvantage.
 

Sometimes people wonder out loud why there are so few women in Jiu-Jitsu. About one third of our class is currently female, as is the high school club.

I find it surprising there are actually so many.

Gender Issue One

There isn't a lot of style in martial arts. When at Karate or Jiu-Jitsu, the attire is universally the standard, white gi. The only gender difference is that women all wear something like a tshirt or rashguard under the gi top. At Karate, men wear no shirt, and at Jiu-Jitsu a rashguard is optional.

There is nothing stylish, or fashionable, or provocative about this gear.

When the high-school Jiu-Jitsu club started up the standard outfit was shorts or sweatpants, and tshirts.

The guys clothing was fine, but the tshirts of the girls didn't really work very well. It wasn't an issue for the girls, but rather for the lads. The girls' tshirts were kinda tight, with thin material, and with low-scooped necks. That's just what girls' tshirts are like these days.

When grappling, you have to grab your partner. There is no option.

Wearing gis, everybody acts as if the person inside the lumpy, baggy suit has no gender at all. That didn't happen at the high-school club.

The girls were fine, and expected to be treated genderlessly. About half of the guys could do this with no problem.

The other half were doomed. They were so afraid of doing something inappropriate that it seriously effected their technique. Some blushed a lot.

I asked the girls to stick around after class for a short chat. I explained what was happening, and asked for ordinary, non-female shirts. They have all complied since.

The next day, the boys with the problem were visibly relieved.

Small passages

There are a bunch of little Jiu-Jitsu milestones about to pass for me.

The first one is almost comical. There is a requirement that a student must attend at least 100 Master Cycle classes to qualify for the right to test for Blue Belt Stripe One. As there are 60 techniques that each require three lessons in order to cover, the 100 class rule is kind of silly. Anyhow, I will reach 100 classes in about a week.

The second milestone is more significant. The material to be covered at any level is divided into 7 chapters. It has been almost a year since I earned my Blue Belt. In all that time I've completed only chapters 1 and 2. In two weeks I'll finish off chapter 3, the longest of the lot. By coincidence, in my private lessons I'm also about to complete chapter 7. Chapter 7 is the second longest.

Only chapters 4, 5, and 6 will be left, and they are the shortest units by far.

When I was a White Belt, we only trained in four chapters of material. The four chapters I'll be finishing off are the same; Mount, Side Mount, Guard, and Standing.

I am about to move into totally unknown territory, at least to me. This is another milestone as I move from the familiar into the novel material of Half Guard, Back Mount, and Leg Locks.

 

 

Pooped out

Tonight the training was open mat. It is a non-structured time. I am there when the instructor opens the school, and usually a few more wander in later.

I worked on reviewing my level's techniques. When I finish the last of them in the fall, I want to be ready to start the exam process immediately. I don't want to have to relearn stuff. I am not a natural at Jiu-Jitsu, and the extra drill really helps me learn.

Along wandered Coco, Rob, and Tobias. They all usually practice a mix of Jiu-Jitsu and Hapkido, and then attend as members of the Hapkido class that starts later. Recently, Coco has been working exclusively on Hapkido, as in one week she'll be testing for her second-degree Black Belt in that art.

I then ended up free-rolling with Tobias; his idea. He desperately wants to improve. He is improving, but his biggest drawback is that he finds it very hard to not wrestle at full speed and power all the time. He's half my age, and has good endurance, but he always ends up beet-red and exhausted. I mostly just relax, let him try stuff on me, and then counter.

It gives me a chance to practice my stuff. I also give him clues when he hits a roadblock. I also try and get him to relax. Much of grappling is conserving energy. At twice his age, I should be the one to burn out first, but it's always him.

Last night in the Blue Belt class we mostly rolled. There were four of us. The smaller two stayed together, as did the larger two. That meant I was partnered with Ryan, our brand-new Blue Belt. He's the largest guy in the club, and strong as an ox, and half my age. He used to be one of the can't-relax guys but has come a long way. He still tires faster than me.

Most likely, Tobias will soon join us in the Blue Belt class, as will Wan, our mma fighter.

As soon as their cohort of new Blues really figure out how to relax, my biggest edge will be gone.

This will be a good thing. My knowledge is considerably ahead of their's. To remain competitive, I'll be forced to rely on skill, rather than just letting them burn out.

This will make me a better grappler, and in turn readier for the three free-sparring segments of my exam.

And just more awesome in general.

Robbery

I've been robbed. It's over a month since I've retired. I was supposed to be running and biking every day, but it hasn't happened.

I've put in a floor, and painted a bunch of walls. Baseboard trim was removed, painted, and replaced.

Tomorrow I attempt replacing a doorknob. It doesn't sound like much but these things never go how either the instructions or youtube says they will. You'd think a doorknob would take 20 minutes, but I bet it will be several hours of fudging and swearing. Assuming it actually goes smoothly there are other walls waiting for paint.

I don't like any part of projects like this. I want them all done and gone.

I want to get biking and running.

Maybe I should make myself a deal. Finish the knob job before 10am, and I get to bike to town for coffee or something. I'll save painting for Friday.

The problem is the list is very long. There is the knob, and two bathroom walls to paint different colours, and a living room wall. Everything we moved out of that bathroom has to be replaced. Mustn't forget the baseboard trim. The yard needs cleaning up after the roofers. The basement has to be re-ordered, and another heap of new flooring. It seems never-ending.

Robbery, I tell you.

Bump cluster

From Tuesday until Friday, which is today I normally train in Jiu-Jitsu for about 9 hours. Normally, my training week goes for one more day for another couple of hours but this week is different.

We are heading in to the city to get the car serviced and to do some shopping. This means my Saturday training is canceled.
 

Normally I'd be unhappy about this, but not this time.
 

Sometimes I go for months on end without the slightest injury, but this hasn't been the current reality. I've had a nasty little cluster of things happening. I've hurt both elbows. One might actually be something, but the other is only bruised, swollen, and scraped.
 

This week's technique had us pulling heavy ground friction, and I've got several annoying floor burns on my legs.
 

I also managed to get head-butted in the nose in a way that made a most alarming noise. My partner was sure he'd killed me. Didn't hurt then, or swell up, or bleed, but when it gets bumped in just the right spot the pain is very nasty. Of course, it's been getting bumped all week.
 

My body can use the almost-four-day-period-off to mend. By Tuesday, my lesser elbow injury, the floor burns, and the nose should all be right as rain. The other arm might remain an issue longer, but I'll keep using elbow pads to help protect it. That elbow just might take a little longer to heal.
 

My plan is to stop getting hurt. I haven't quite figured out what strategy to use to achieve this goal. I don't now what causes the long periods of no-injury, or what causes a bump cluster.
 

It's probably random.

A fresh coat of Blue

It's official; one of our members gets to start wearing a brand-new, snazzy, Blue Belt.

It will take a while to actually arrive, of course, but he passed his test.

He is eligible to start attending the Blue Belt classes starting tonight.

We started on this week's technique already yesterday, but it's a pretty straight-forward one. There should be no problem bringing him up to speed on it.

He should be only the first of a group of White Belts making the move up over the next couple of months. There are three more who getting close. One might start testing in a couple of weeks, another by the end of June, and one somewhere in between.

It was starting to look as if we'd be down to 3 Blue Belt students by the fall. If all the possibles test successfully, we could instead have 7. That will make a much better group to work with.

With more people, you get to have more training partners. Each reacts differently, and is a different size, strength, and speed. Having more rather than less means learning more about how to apply each technique. It means even more when we're doing free-sparring drills, or semi-free. Each will have a style their own, and we'll have to learn how to handle each.

There is even more good news. There are a couple more White Belts who should be ready a couple of months after the current crop. It's still too far off to start predicting their commitment, but they seem keen enough. We might start getting a slow but steady stream of new Blue Belts as the year rolls on.

I hope it happens that way.