Lately

There are a lot of fabulous stuff happening at Jiu-Jitsu these days, at least around our school.

We have the usual White Belt Combatives classes handling the basics. In the advanced group, we continue to work hard on the first and second levels of the Master Cycle curriculum.

That's not what I mean. It's all the other stuff.

Our instructor is working on the third level of the Master Cycle material. He has a study group that is working through it all with him.

We have two guys who are just a squeak away from completing the cripplingly demanding BBS1 exam, and two ladies who are just starting to prepare to do the same thing.

We have 5 White Belts who have been working on their own exams to earn promotion to get their Blue Belt. Another young gentleman who is so eager to join them that he is doing extra private lessons with one of the assistant instructors.

There is also a Tai Chi Qigong group meeting on Saturday morning before open-mat time.

I can't say much about the Monday Women's Empowerment group. It's exclusive to females, and I don't qualify.

Anyhow, there's a lot going on around here. I, myself, am on the mat over eight hours a week.

The energy is really strong, and more than ever before people are taking control of their learning. The cool part is that it's all contagious.

A good time to train.

Phones

It's very cool to be old. People like me were raised in a totally different world than the one that now exists, but we get to live in this one.

Smartphones have been around for only 8 years, and Google has been present for 17.

That means that for anybody in their mid-teens, it is as if smartphones have always existed, and for anybody up to their mid twenties, there has always been Google

It also means that people my age managed to live their lives for 42 long years without reference to “The Google,” and for whom over 50 years were smartphoneless. (oh the horror)

This can be seen in how people use technology, especially the old ones.

Let's take an example. You see two people, both alone on a subway train or ferryboat. They are sitting reading. One is reading a newspaper, and the other is using their iPhone to access the same type of information. Which person is older? Which one has up-to-date news?

This is not universal, of course. I am an old fart, but haven't bought a newspaper in decades. Free ones get delivered in our mailbox, but it is an incredibly rare event that I crack one open. My age does show in that I do purchase a couple of print magazines a year. Did you know that the magazine industry totters on the edge of collapse? Twenty years ago it flourished, but I digress.

Old people also don't seem to understand what smartphones are for. They think such phones to be similar to those things that used to be attached by wires to the walls in our houses. They are not.

My old friends tend to use their phones to talk to people. These people do not text. Young people do not use their phones for speech, at least for quick messages. They text. They use voice on their phones for long gab fests only.

I got rid of my cell phone. I only rarely used it for anything, and that was only to text back and forth with my wife; which was expensive.

I don't like expensive, especially for such a limited device. As I only texted with Helen, and she had an iPhone, I got an iPad Mini that can hook up to cellular data networks. Doing so is amazingly cheap if one limits how much data gets used. Most months I pay the minimum, which is $10. With this I am able to send an effectively unlimited number of messages (texts) to other users of Apple devices, such as my wife. It has become my “phone” if you will, but it does not do voice at all. It could if I bothered to set it all up, but I don't because I'd never use it.

My sister and her husband are about our age, but they use technology in the manner of much older people, rather than younger. They each carry a phone, mostly to communicate with one another. They do not text, nor do they even know if their devices can text.

Texting is better. Let's say you are in the coffee shop, with a friend, and a call comes in. Normal procedure is to pull the phone out, and to engage in a conversation with the caller that interrupts your conversation with your companion, and generally irritates everybody nearby. You could have let the phone call go to voice mail, but nobody does that. When the phone rings it must be answered.

For me at a coffee shop with a friend, if a text comes in, there is no imperative to deal with it immediately. I will hear the alert sound, and can choose to ignore it. At a convenient moment, I can excuse myself if something important is expected, and glance at the text to see if it needs to be dealt with. Let's say it's my wife telling me where and when to pick her up. I can respond with a single keystroke, “k,” without being unnecessarily rude to my companion, or being noticed at all by the surrounding patrons.

It is true that many are unable to resist the siren call of an incoming text, or insist on composing long-winded responses, but this is not the failure of the technology.

We have a good friend who also carries an iPhone. She uses it both for talk, and for text, but her messaging skills are from another era. She tends to compose texts as if they were letters, and would never dream of sending more than a single text to any one person on a given day. Who would send more than one letter per day to anyone? Very annoying if somebody is trying to set up a lunch date.

When my wife got her iPhone, we found ourselves paying the phone companies for three devices; her phone, my iPad, and our home phone (called a landline these days).

We needed our mobile devices, but did we need our landline any more? The potential hassles that loomed were the loss of our main phone number, and an inability to dial 911 in an emergency. These two things stop many from switching.

Did you know you can switch your phone number over to your smartphone without any hassle at all? We still have the same phone number we've always had.

The 911 nonsense was in effect when we made our switch. As I had never, ever dialed 911 in my life, I figured we would be reasonably safe. Since then, 911 response has been introduced to cellular service, so even this is no longer an issue.

It's funny how many of our (older) friends know that Helen's cell is our only phone, but they'll still ask when we'll be home so they can call us. Of course, it doesn't matter at all where we are, as Helen's phone is always with her, so she gets every call whither at home, or out shopping, or riding her bike.

I still don't understand why landlines can't do texts.

Foot Deeply in Mouth

The coolest competition in Jiu-Jitsu is called Metamoris. The first event was put on in October of 2012. There have been 6 of them in total.

All have featured 6 matches, except for the most recent event, which had 8. That makes a grand total of 38 fights.

37 have had male competitors, and only one was between women.

Recently, the head of the event, Ralek Gracie tried to explain just why this is, and managed to stick his foot into his mouth several different ways in his short statement.

The basic premise of what he was saying is that he didn't think that women grapplers are a big enough audience draw. In this, he may or may not be right.

It was all the other stuff he said. He mentioned something about some people wanting to watch female grapplers if they are cute. He also said that female grapplers are into the pull-guard mentality, and that they don't fight in a manner that fits Metamoris's submission-only style.

How dumb is that?

I won't go after him just letting his mouth run, but will go after something that he must really believe; that women Jiu-Jitsu are into pull-guard tactics and would bring that along to Metamoris.

The 38 matches he has put on have overwealmingly consisted of top sport Jiu-Jitsu competitors, with a smattering of UFC fighters.

Every single one of them is tainted with the pull-guard mentality of sport Jiu-Jitsu. When fighting for points, and within short time limits, it's a viable strategy. Ralek doesn't seem to think this is a problem for the male sport Jiu-Jitsu competitors, just the women.

The single female bout that Metamoris did put on featured two top point Jiu-Jitsu competitors. I recall them going at it like manics, neither fighter exhibiting any hint of a defensive mind set. I tried to refresh my memory by re-watching the event. All of the fights used to be available on YouTube. All six of the matches from that event used to be there, but the Mackenzie Dern versus Michelle Nicolini bout is one of two that have been pulled down.

Anyhow, I'm going to label their match as a fully aggressive one. Therefore, 100% of the women fought for the submission.

In contrast, a significant number of the male bouts featured fighters who did not. Therefore, less than 100% of the males fought aggressively, and for submission.

Logically, the evidence would show that the women proved to do a better job.

This doesn't mean that they draw enough audience for inclusion. Personally, I would be more likely to watch an event which included female matches than if it didn't. I don't think I'm alone in this.

I suspect that Ralek is expressing what his own viewing decision would be if he were a consumer of Jiu-Jitsu programming, rather than a producer. He doesn't want to watch women's Jiu-Jitsu. Not good enough for his tastes, I suppose.

Do you remember what UFC president Dana White used to say about women's mma. He said women would NEVER fight in the UFC.

Now, a few short years later, Rona Rousey is just about the biggest drawing card in the UFC.

I love watching her fight, and it has nothing to do with wither or not she is “cute.” I've seen her training in real life, and consider her more terrifying than attractive.

She was the first American of either gender to ever win an Olympic medal in Judo. In all of her 3 amateur mma bouts, she won by armbar. The matches were 23, 24, and 57 seconds in duration.

She turned pro, and all of her subsequent opponents knew she was coming at them planning and to rip their arms off.

She won her first 4 pro fights, by armbar. None lasted even one minute.

This got her a shot at the Strikeforce Women's Bantamweight Championship. The champ did better than anyone else up to that time, lasting until 4 minutes and 27 into the first round, before Ronda snapped her arm.

Rousey defended that title once, winning by armbar in under a minute. The UFC, having bought Strikeforce, then created their own Women's Bantamweight Title, and awarded it to Ronda.

She has since gone on to defend her UFC title 5 times. Four ended in the first round, 3 by armbar, and one by knockout. The other fight lasted until a minute into the third round, and ended by....drum roll....armbar.

How could a fan of the UFC not want to watch Ronda Rousey fight, especially a fan of grappling?

To his credit, Ralek did mention that he would love to have Rousey fight at Metamoris, but that there is no way he could pay what would be necessary.

I consider this another nail in his coffin. He's had one very successful female bout, and would certainly include the world's dominant female fighter if he could get her, but that somehow other female fighters suck.

Now he's ignited a storm of hate from female Jiu-Jitsu practitioners.

The Gracies are known for being outspoken.

Zombies

I have been doing a little thinking about the upcoming Zombie Apocalypse. Hollywood is bravely doing all that it can to help up prepare, and to provide quality information about the “rules.”

It seems that zombies want to rip us to shreds, consuming all of the yummiest bits.

It would also seem that the way a normal person gets turned into a zombie is by some kind of infection inherent in a zombie bite.

This would mean that most of the people killed upon exposure to hordes of zombies do not, in fact, become zombies themselves. The zombies' behaviour would make sure of that. The only people who can change over are those that survive an attack intact, and yet who have been bitten.

I live on a fairly inaccessible section of Pacific coastline. We are protected by many miles of mountains on one side, and by ocean on the other. One cannot travel here by car.

There are about 25000 to 30000 people who live here. For the sake of argument, let's say a couple of hundred uninfected survivors are still around after the first week or so. How many zombies would they be facing?

What percentage of the remainder will have turned? I can't imagine that very many would have gotten close enough to the business end of zombie teeth without being taken out altogether. Let's call it a quarter who join the undead.

That would have this area occupied by up to 7500 walking dead. That's quite a few, even though I suspect it would be somewhat less.

The good news is that their number will cease to grow. Even if they wipe out our hypothetical 200 survivors, that would only add about 50 to the horde.

With an effectively non-growing number of zombies, attrition will begin to take its toll.

Being only nominally intelligent, they likely won't take common-sense precautions in preventing accident and injury. I suspect they will fall off of and into things on a regular basis.

If you've ever watched zombie shows, you will see that they just don't take care of themselves. They shamble around, bumping into things. They also seem to decay.

How long would an average zombie manage to keep shambling? Assuming they don't heal, friction alone would eventually wear them down to nothing. How long would this take?

Granted, they are a determined lot. If one should walk around until one leg or the other gives out, they would continue to crawl, and eventually claw themselves around.

The implication is clear. Zombies will begin to die out, so to speak, or at least break down.

The game for the survivors becomes to last long enough until the zombies have become extinct. Can this be done?

With no statistics on the rate of zombie demise, it is impossible to tell.

What is clear, is that the number of zombies would be finite, and subject to decay. One of the roles of the terrified survivors should be to speed the process along.

I am always astounded by the tendency of survivors to traverse the post-apocalypse world on motor cycles. Large, durable vehicles should be the order of the day. Survivors should travel in groups, in such vehicles, on their assorted food or ammunition-gathering runs. Zombies should be ruthlessly run down.

Traps are another option. In an early episode of “Walking Dead,” one enterprising survivor had built a large number of clever zombie traps outside of the building he was inhabiting. These were not put up to protect the building, but rather to eliminate zombies.

Such traps would not need to be particularly complex. Wooden frames could be set up that would gently funnel the undead into the trap zone, and into large, sharp objects, or perhaps big, barbed hooks. Shambling into a very-sharp and well-angled blade might just see Mister Zombie cutting himself into pieces. Pits would be good, too.

Sometimes somebody in a zombie movie sets up on a rooftop, from which they use firepower to pick off shufflers. This would be a viable strategy, assuming the shooting platform is safe enough.

These are just a few methods.

Could our 200 survivors outlast the 7500 zombies? It would seem daunting, but not really. Avoidance would also be an effective strategy.

This area of coast is about 85 km long. The second biggest town is at one and, and the biggest is about 30km from there. These two are where half of all the people live, and most of the rest are located in between. This would be where almost all the zombie would be.

Merely by driving up to the less-populated end would put one well away from the majority of the zombies.

It would also be possible to hide out on any of a large number of nearby islands. Many of these are habitable, but uninhabited. That would mean camping in a zombie-free area. There are also islands with small numbers of inhabitants, and therefore very few possible zombies. It is also likely that these spots would be areas that already contain survivors, as zombies might never have made it there at all.

This all applies only to this particular area, but analogies exist in every area. Cities would suck. Los Angeles, for example, contains 18,550,000 people, which would mean a heck of a lot of zombies. The message for survivors should be to, “get the hell out of town.”

In rural areas, the message should be to avoid population centres, set up traps, and play sniper if so inclined.

And to not ride motorcycles.

Swampy Ranks

I use my powers to see into the future and to predict our Jiu-Jitsu school's upcoming round of promotions.

Gonna ignore people getting three or four stripes, as that won't happen until October at the earliest. That's too far off to worry about.

However, we do have 3 people ready to roll from a single stripe into having two.

The first of these has near-perfect attendance, and will fulfill the minimum attendance requirement today. She only has to keep training, and to wait until the minimum period of 8 months is up, which will happen in July.

The other two have had a harder time getting on the mat sometimes. They have careers and lives that conflict. Promotion for them is long over due. If they can manage 3 classes a week, they will finish up in mid summer. If not, it will take longer still.

One of them has had a job change that will remove him from shift work. This means that he will be able to become the mat rat that he's always tried to be. He should be done by early August.

Rank progress is difficult in Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu. It is pretty hard to see change.

Let me explain with reference to a more typically structured martial art; Shotokan Karate.

In Karate, every little gradation in rank is denoted with a different colour belt. People work together on most things, but each level has it's own unique curriculum that must be mastered. Pass a test, get a new belt, and work on different stuff.

In Jiu-Jitsu it is very different.

Come and watch our advanced class. You will see a bunch of people all working together on EXACTLY the same material. All of us wear Blue Belts. The only difference is that our belts have from zero to 3 little white stripes down on one end. The maximum number of stripes is 4, but we don't have anybody with that many yet.

Unlike Karate, you don't get a belt when you progress in rank, or work in different material. You just smile at your little white stripe, and get back to work in the same, big group.

In Karate, rank seems like steps to be climbed.

In Jiu-Jitsu, rank seems to be a swamp to be slogged through.

In Karate, you earn a new Belt every 3 or 4 months.

In Jiu-Jitsu, a new Belt takes at least 4 years, and even a stripe takes as long as several Karate Belts.

In Karate, a Black Belt takes about 4 years, which is about how long it takes to get a Jiu-Jitsu Purple Belt.

In Jiu-Jitsu, a Black Belt takes about 12 years, by which time a Karateka would have reached about third-degree Black Belt rank.

In Karate, a Black Belt is considered a beginner.

In Jiu-Jitsu, a Black Belt is considered a master of the art.

It's a slow road.

Brother

The other day I was surprised by one of my brothers, and I didn't have the right response ready.

He said he was thinking of joining a Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu class, and was asking me for advice. I told him to go watch a class before he joins in, and to see how they treat their White Belts. I also said that if they won't let him watch, to walk away from that group. This is good advice, as far as it went, but it left out more than it included.

If my brother was a young dude of twenty or thirty, he would do fine whatever happened, but the poor old guy is almost my age. For grappling, that is incredibly ancient.

There is a real risk of serious injury. A younger guy could get his neck cranked, and as uncomfortable as it would be, he'd likely be fine and dandy again in no time. With somebody like us, a neck crank could easily do damage that would never heal, ever. We're not talking about black eyes and busted noses here, but spinal disks and bones.

If he were starting to train at a Gracie school, that wouldn't be an issue. There is a very specific curriculum that gets taught in a highly structured manner. He wouldn't be free-rolling with anybody for about a year, minimum. That would get his old muscles and reflexes ready for the activity, or maybe he wouldn't stick around that long.

Free-rolling, or wrestling, is where the bad stuff can happen really, really fast.

In many Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu schools, beginners are doing it on their very first day. Danger on day one. This is risky enough with a gentle, careful partner. Imagine the danger if the partner is an overly-competitive jerk. There are a lot of them out there. Many, many meat-head jerks.

Recently, at a seminar in Seattle, I had a string of jerk partners. We weren't even rolling, but were supposed to be doing very specific movement sequences. My meat heads insisted on doing their turns with speed and power every time, and to defend the same way when it was my turn. We were doing guillotine chokes, which are a really good way to get injured by an idiot. Luckily, I'm no rookie. I managed to move myself in such a way to minimize trauma, and tapped out really, really early. All that was bad for me was that the entire drill time was wasted. If I hadn't known how to handle it, or been slow, I'd still be walking funny and rubbing my neck, or worse.

A beginner who is also an old guy should not be rolling at all; period. Not even a little bit.

Maybe I should have listed all the injuries I've had, even with the best of partners. Let's see. Just about every toe has been hurt, at least once. Had a thumb pulled way back the wrong way, and had it taped for months. Had my neck over twisted a bunch of times. Had a knee hurt so bad I thought I'd have to give up running forever, and had to have it investigated with fancy medical mri stuff. After months of physiotherapy it is finally settling down; a year after the original injury. Have also been to the doctor over a jammed finger that still won't straighten out.

If he lived near me, I'd take him to class with me and all would be well.

He already does Yoga, and that's much safer.

Maybe I should have told him that.

Four Gone

Two years ago (June 2013) it was a different time for the big boys in the UFC.

Every division from 170 pounds on up had a dominant champion.

The welterweight titlist was George St. Pierre, and he'd held the spot since 2008. The middleweight king was Anderson Silva, and he'd been there since 2006. Light heavyweight had Jon Jones, who took the belt early in 2011, and heavyweight had Cain Velasquez, the rookie who had come in six months earlier in 2012.

Since then all have fallen. St. Pierre won another defence, then retired. Silva lost two title fights, and after a minor win since is still trying to regain former glory. Jon Jones won 3 title defences, but was stripped of his championship after a run-in with the law.

Cain Velasquez, the heavyweight king, defended is title once late in 2013, but due to a rash of injuries didn't fight at all in 2014, or in the first half of 2015. Last night he took on Fabricio Werdum in Mexico City, and was stopped in the third round.

There still are some dominant champions in the lighter weight classes. Demetrious Johnson has ruled the flyweight division since 2012 in 6 title defences, while Jose Also has held the featherweight belt since 2010, and has made 7 title defences.

Interestingly, Ronda Rousey, the female bantamweight champion is the third-longest-reigning title holder. She got her belt in 2012, and has defended it 5 times.

Don't get me wrong. I do like a division with a bunch of gifted fighters all vying for top spot. The boxing heavyweight division in the Ali/Frazier/Foreman/Norton days comes to mind, but that's not what we've got.

The situation in the 4 heaviest male divisions is not exciting. Each pretty much has a knot of fighters who were never good enough to rise to the top while the dominant champions were around. They are getting pretty long in the tooth. The younger crop are having a hard time getting past them. Quite possibly, these older guys might end up in a champion role that they were unable to earn in their prime. Alternately, some younger fighters might manage to get passed them, and be just good enough to hold off their challenges. In either case, the champions could end up being the best of a sorry lot.

This is even assuming that a “best” fighter emerges at all. It could be that the titles rotate rapidly between these guys. This is about the same thing.

Perhaps this is unfair. There are a couple of interesting prospects coming up, and the middleweight champion, Chris Weidman, has already made 3 successful defences, although all of his challengers were pretty long in the tooth, being 38, 36, and 38 at the time of their fights. In his most recent fight, Weidman was 29.

None of the other men who has held any of the 4 heaviest division's belts since the fall of the dominant champions has made a successful defence.