Commute

Monday I decided to do things the hard way, and go to the city using transit.

Helen has her own car, which meant I didn't have to use the coast bus system getting to the ferry. I used my car and parked it at the terminal for a bargain rate of $2.25 for the day.

That all means that I got to the ferry in 30 minutes, instead of over an hour-and-a-quarter of busing.

The ferry ride has no charge when headed to the city; they get you on the ride back. Foot passengers load on before the cars, so I was easily able to be the very first in line at the cafeteria. Grabbed a meal of bacon and eggs and toast and potatoes. No need to do a transit adventure on an empty stomach.

The boat ride is about 45 minutes either way. When they opened the floodgate for the foot passengers, I scooted out quickly. It wasn't really a fair race, as I needed a stop next to the bus stop at the machine that sells fares. I was ahead at the machine, but it put me well back in the line for actual bus loading. In future I will simply use the fare card I purchased this time out and will be one of the first to the bus.

The bus is extremely long, and is in three sections. Being one of the last bodies aboard, I had to stand. My spot was right on the hinge between two bus sections. Whenever there was a turn, my spot became very similar to surfing. No place to put my bag either, so had to carry it strapped on the entire way, and it was heavy.

Got off at Park Royal mall. Found where my next bus would pick me up, expecting a 15 minute wait. My handy dandy transit app said one of my buses had left one minute earlier. However, a bus promptly turned up with my number on it. The bus I'd “missed” was slightly late, and so I got an early pickup.

My bus riding ended at Lonsdale Quay, which is a transit hub, as well as a shopping and eating venue in North Vancouver. The total bus fare is $2.75 going in either direction. I scouted out where to catch my return ride, and then headed off to a Starbucks which was on my walking route.

After my coffee break, it was about a ten minute walk to the North Vancouver Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu academy. I received a lovely welcome from the Black Belt instructor, Marc Marins.

The noon classes are always small, and this time there were about 7 or 8 of us. My partner was a friend who moved to the city a year-and-a-half ago. When sparring time started, she was my first partner.

After Elizabeth, I rolled with two big, young guys. They were both pretty good, and will kick my butt when they pick up a little more technique. My final partner was Marc, the instructor. He dumbed his skill level down to around my own, and found a few pointers for me in the middle of the roll. I liked that.

After class, Elizabeth and I walked together back to Lonsdale Quay. She is likewise a transit rider, but her ride was heading the opposite direction from mine. We chatted. She wants me to “make” other members of my school come train in the city, too. I agreed to mention it to them.

Ate a nice plate of pad thai at the Quay, then caught my bus homeward. For some reason traffic was insane. Arrival at Park Place mall was late, but the big issue was that the bus to the ferry terminal was extremely late.

Most of the passengers looked nervous, and did a lot of watch glancing. We ran from the bus to the ferry ticket booth, but it didn't help. Loading was already finished, and the ferry pulling out.

Now, with plenty of time before the next boat home, I strolled off to pick up my second Starbucks coffee of the day. Got my boarding pass, which was $13, and waddled to the appropriate waiting room. Only a couple of people were there ahead of me, and the room was all nice and warm. My wait was 2 hours. An annoyance, but I really had nothing to rush about. Sat all comfy with my drink, and my phone, and did a bit of people watching.

Boarded on time, and sat in another warm spot. Sometimes seats can be shockingly cold on the boat as there are places exposed to the outside air. Did the 45 minute ride comfortably, and then picked up my waiting car.

Being right in the middle of ferry traffic, the drive was slow, but nothing shocking.

To get my hour of Jiu-Jitsu instruction, along with a half-hour of rolling, I had first hit the road at just after 7am, and got home at about 7:15pm.

Next time, I won't go to eat after class. My pad thai added two hours to my adventure that I could quite happily have done without.

The total travel bill worked out to $20.75. Coffee and food was more at $33. If I'd taken the car, the food and coffee would likely have been the same, but the transportation costs higher at $54.50.

I wouldn't have missed the ferry if I'd been driving, but in the future having a car could have an opposite effect. Foot passengers normally get on if they arrive on time. Cars sometimes get left behind if there are too many of them trying to fit on.

Comparing perfect transit versus automobile trips would see me on the exact same ferries regardless of transport method. No time savings either way.

There is even a third option. I could ride the same ferries, and ride my bike. This is more of a fine-weather option, but quite viable. Google Maps says that the ride each way on the city side will take 90 minutes. That would be fine. As my bike will soon be electrified, it will take even less time. On this side, the bike would easily ride in the car to the ferry terminal, as it is a folding one.

Is this all worth it? If I were still a working Joe, the idea of giving up what is effectively an entire day-off to gain 1.5 hour of Jiu-Jitsu would look like madness, even if the financial cost were irrelevant. Most people only have two such days in a week. Being a retired gentleman of leisure, this isn't really a consideration. I have seven free days each week.

Marc Marins teaches 3 noon classes per week. The Saturday one is good, but very crowded. The two weekday classes are much smaller, and students receive more attention.

I think I'll try and attend the two weekday classes unless something else pops up. This week, for example, I cannot make it to both, and so will be content with only one.

Before the commuting starts to feel like too much, which it likely will eventually, I'll shift down to once per week. If even that starts to drag, I can cut it back even further. Once in two weeks, or perhaps once per month.

This is my take on the ins-and-outs of training in the city from here.

Three Friend Saturday

One of my pet peeves struck again.

I was in the city on Saturday to train at the North Vancouver Bazilian Jiu-Jitsu school. The class was excellent, and there was a generous amount of sparring at the end. One of the people I got to roll with was an old friend who moved to the city about a year-and-a half ago.

She didn't train at all for the first year after her move, and then started up at the North Vancouver school. During the roll, she apologized for not having improved.

At the time, she was giving me all sorts of trouble.

If she had not progressed at all, I could have run rough-shod over her.

I was better than her back then, and I've improved a lot in the meantime. I have trained for hundreds and hundreds of hours since her move. I know a lot of stuff now that I had no clue about a year-and-a-half ago.

The version of Elizabeth that I rolled with on Saturday would have been able to easily dominate and submit the version of her from the middle of 2015. She has gotten better, even if she can't see it. Sure she could have progressed more with more consistent training, but she has still improved over what she had back then.

Another friend of mine, Tobias, was also there, dropping in. He often feels himself getting stuck in a plateau situation, and not progressing. We rolled, and it was vastly fun. He has it all over me in athleticism, and our skill sets are pretty close. He hasn't brought the topic up lately, which is good, as I've never seen his progress stagnate.

It would have been wonderful enough to be able to train with two friends, but it was a very good Saturday indeed. There were actually three of them there. I got to train with Koko, as well. She never complains about lack of progress. She has been living in the city for a few years while attending university. During breaks back home, she practices like a crazy person (almost like me), and when at school she trains with the SFU Judo club. Some things get rusty and away from her. It has to happen in her situation. She just accepts that, and keeps her basics solid as stone, and then works some of the fun stuff when she's home.

By chance, all three of my friends wear three stripes on their Blue Belts. Their very next promotion is the last that they will receive before making the transition to Purple Belt.

They do not award Purple Belts to people who are not up to standard.

When the time comes, all three will be seriously able to kick that test's butt.

Lemonade

I am going to be pessimistic, just for fun, and pretend that the worst thing possible has struck our Jiu-Jitsu school. I shall also assume that it's all about my next promotion.

Things this time of year are a little tricky promotion-wise at the best of times. I got a first stripe for my Purple Belt on the last day of November. That would make my earliest next one come 8 months later, at the end of July, but only if I will have racked up a minimum of 90 advanced classes by that date.

Perfect attendance for 8 months means 104 classes, give or take one or two. However, we have just had our usual two-week Christmas break which lowers the theoretical max to 98. That's enough with perfect attendance, and even has leeway for a cold or some such event. However, it has trouble handling all the travel that I do.

In those 8 months, there will be 11 weeks of travel. That would drop me to around 65. There is countervailing good news in that I will be training in Los Angeles for 2 weeks of that time, and in Phoenix for a full month. The net situation was going to miraculously work itself out at 99 classes, an overall improvement in my situation.

Then the disaster struck. We were supposed to move into a new facility as of January 1^st, but it fell apart. The best we can hope for if the start of February. Scrambling was done, and a small, interim solution was found. We lost the first week of January, and will be getting few classes less than normal for the remainder of the month, but is certainly could be much worse.

It always seems that by the time promotion time rolls around, everything ends up far too tight for comfort. This time it happened early.

Therefore, I re-did all the calculations with the assumption that we don't get back to our usual 3 classes per week, and continue at 2, just in case it never gets sorted out.

At that rate, there is no way I'd be anywhere near completing on time. How could I fix things?

Step one would be to take weekly private lessons with our head instructor, Shawn, whenever he is available. I think he will be around in April, June, and July. Those got entered into the spreadsheet.

Step two would be to head to Vancouver to train at a sister school. It would be possible to go three times a week, that seems excessive, so I pencilled in two such training trips weekly.

So to reiterate; a loss of 1/3 of our home-school classes, addition of a number of private lessons, and addition of training in the city. The net total has me at promotion time with 138 classes, rather than the required 90. That is a massive buffer.

What this means to me is that if I stick to the full program, I will have it all totally wrapped up easily. This is not what I'd do, as it is clearly overkill, but nice to think about.

I think I'll start strong, and then taper off. Going to Vancouver eats up a day from before dawn until a return home around suppertime. It also costs a bunch for the ferry, transit, and parking (and restaurant eating, of course). I really enjoy it, but twice a week for months on end is too much. I think doing that much would be fine for January, and then should drop to single times per week.

What all such plans ignore is the unforeseeable. Getting hurt or sick screws it up horribly. There has to be appropriate slack built-in, and my killer program will handle that. Tapering down will still give me tons of leeway.

This is all excellent practise for the following 3^rd and 4^th stripe promotion periods. They are also vacation-filled, but will include no intensive Los Angeles or Phoenix training, and will take months of extra time to complete without going full-speed-ahead on private lessons and city training. With it, they all finish on time.

Our school location blip made me think my entire situation through thoroughly.

Before that, I was looking at my coming stripe being on time, but barely, and the next two each being several months late. Now, the plan has the coming strip happening with tons to spare, and the following two each finishing easily as well.

That's a lot of lemonade from one little lemon.

Move

People typically get started in mma after having considerable experience in some other similar activity.

Wrestling, boxing, kickboxing, Muay Thai, Jiu-Jitsu, Judo, and Karate all spring to mind.

The trick is to take what you're good at, and then to strengthen up all of the weak areas. For example, if a great Karate champion enters the Octagon and tries to make a career out of it, he'd better get to work on grappling or he'll be finished pretty fast.

All of the component arts have both strengths and weaknesses. The big problem comes when somebody coaches their speciality to an mma fighter without really being able to address the weaknesses.

In the mixed fighting style environment, movement is critical. Some sports don't need it at all, and produce wonderful competitors with no idea how to do it, or even about the need.

Out of my little list of arts, Judo is one of the worst in this regard. In competition, Judoka walk towards one another, and proceed to grab each other or to beat the other person's grip. Somebody tries a throw, and perhaps they end up on the ground scrambling. They are then re-started, and do it all again.

Jiu-Jitsu can be equally stunted, usually in the case of a sport-style competitor. They walk up, grab, and both go to ground and grapple for the rest of the match. Non-sport Jiu-Jitsu is a bit better, being obsessed with being either out of striking range, or in absolutely locked-down clinches. In between these two ranges, they blitz in and out.

Greco-Roman wrestling has restricted movement as well, but Freestyle does not. Freestyle wrestlers are forever shooting in blindingly fast to secure double-leg take downs, or single-legs, or trips. Greco-Roman specialists don't do this.

Karate has the best movement of any of the striking styles, being predicated on getting in and out without taking any reciprocal damage. Mauy Thai and kickboxing both have to handle various ranges to accommodate kicking and punching and elbows and knees, and move well.

Boxing alone stands as a stunted-movement striking art. They don't have to deal with anybody shooting in to grab them in a boxing ring, or trying to stay just a bit farther away to kick. The entire game is predicated on a relatively short-range exchange, but not at elbow range or closer. Similarly, much of the punching defences are predicated on an opponent wearing big, padded gloves that are easy to block or absorb with one's own big, padded hands.

Everybody getting into mma knows they need grappling, and striking, but a lot don't think for a second about movement at all. A lot of coaches don't either.

The biggest example of failure in this area lately involves the last two fights of Ronda Rousey, although the evidence has been present much longer.

She came from Judo, and knew she needed to learn how to handle striking. To do this, she found herself a boxing coach. Not an mma striking guy at all; strictly a boxing guy. She made him her head coach.

Ever since, he's been teaching her boxing hands, and ignoring anything like movement.

For example, he holds pads that Ronda will strike in rapid patterns. This is fine in itself, but only as one activity of many. They should also do it while moving forward, and back, and sideways, both at a slow boxing-like pace, but also with rapid movements, and changes. They never do. They both stand, and she hits the pads. She also hits bags, which don't move either.

She had 3 amateur mma fights, followed by a string of 12 straight professional wins. The early ones were all won with her Judo, but this became more difficult as she climbed the ladder. The kept facing better opponents, who also had better coaches getting her ready against Ronda's style.

Nick Diaz and BJ Penn are notable examples of other fighters who moved into mma from impressive grappling-only credentials. They worked hard on their striking to prepare for the move, just as Ronda tried to do. In BJ's first 12 professional wins, he had 3 decision victories, 5 submissions, and 4 knockouts. Nick had 2 decision victories, 4 submissions, and 6 knockouts.

Ronda had no decisions, 9 submissions, and 3 knockouts, but even those few striking finishes were not really due to the boxing she'd been specializing in. One was from a knee to the chest, and another by striking an opponent while holding her down on the ground, and pounding with her free hand. Only one was from straight up striking, and that against a limited opponent who did likewise. Her striking training was not preparing her the same as Diaz's or Penn's had.

Then, a little over a year ago, she faced a real striker, Holly Holm. Holy came from a boxing and kickboxing background, and had put herself into the hands of one of the finest mma gyms in the world. They took the movement she already had, and took it to another level. They also knew that she had to be able to grapple, and worked heavily on that as well, specifically with Ronda Rousey in mind. She trained to avoid the upper-body throws of Judo.

They came out, and both wanted to hit. The difference was that when Ronda threw, Holly was gone. When Holly wanted to throw, she'd blitz in, hit-hit-hit, and be gone again. As the swifter fighter, Holly got to choose the distance. When Ronda would chase her down, she'd then stop to exchange. Holly would hit and be gone again. By the middle of the round, Holly knew she could hit Ronda at will as was demonstrated by a right cross, and then a few seconds later, buy another identical one, and a few seconds later, another, a pause, and then again. Ronda had no movement to get away, or to get in, or even to move to the side.

In the corner after the round, an exhausted and battered Ronda Rousey was told by the boxing guy who was her head coach to just keep doing what she was doing. She followed his direction and ended up unconscious about a minute into the second round.

She took over a year off and trained hard, but kept her head coach, and kept training the exact same way.

At the very end of 2016 she went in to challenge the current champion Amanda Nunes (who beat the women who beat the woman who beat Holly Holm).

They came out to punching range, both ready to exchange. Ronda started getting hit, and had no Plan B. She didn't back off for time, and move, or blitz in closer to grapple. She stood there, at punching range, and got hit with a string of increasingly devastating blasts. The fight was over in 48 seconds.

Likely she'll retire.

If she decides to keep at it, she'll have to get her head around it all, and will have to get a totally new training setup. If not, she's doomed, as the formula for her defeat has clearly been revealed.

In effect, she'll have to remove 7 years of defective, non-movement based, stand-up slugging that she's been invested in, and find somebody to get her moving properly, and dodging, and learning how to shoot in fast.

Not a simple task at all.

City School

We have a bit of a blip happening at the local Jiu-Jitsu school.

Our lease ran out, and the landlord wanted the property to expand his own business, so we were out. A new place was found, and the move planned.

Then the arrangement for the new place fell apart, and the school is scrambling. A new school facility was found for a bit into the future, and a temporary space generously shared by the Boxing Club until then.

The short news version is that we pretty much lost the first week of training after New Years, and will only be having two weekly classes until we get into the real, new replacement space. I understand that it, “might be a few weeks.” This translates in my brain to meaning February 1^st; the next rental period.

Our normal training quota is 3 advanced classes a week, and we will only be having 2 for the immediate future.

This just isn't enough for me, so I will be heading over for weekly training with our sister school in Vancouver. The instructor there is excellent, and two of my old friends train with him. They have 7 classes a week, but only the 3 daytime ones work for me.

Somehow, I am drawn to visit the Saturday classes. As a retired gentleman of leisure, there is no reason for this, but equally no reason to focus on the others either. Therefore, Saturday it is.

Doing this is a bit pricey. If I take a car over on the ferry, the fare comes to $70.15, although I use a discount deal, which drops the total to $54.15. This Saturday I'll be car-ing it.

If I leave the car at the terminal and ride as a foot passenger, the ferry bill will be only $12.65 after the discount. There would also be transit costs of $5.50, and a parking fee to leave my car behind of $2.25

So the car trip is $54.15, and the bus ride $20.40. There will also be some kind of charge for the training itself, but it will be fair.

I suppose I'll normally take the bus, unless I think of something fun to do in Vancouver that justifies the extra cost, or if I'm perhaps just feeling lazy.

In any case, this little weekly jaunt will get my training back up to an intensity I like. We have good classes at home, but working with the Black Belt in the city will make a valuable addition. He has different ideas and areas of focus.

If we do get into a new school location in a couple of weeks, or a month, I suppose I could drop the city trips, but likely won't.

Back in 1990 when we first moved here, I was a Black Belt Karate instructor. For several years I made monthly treks to the city to train at one of the top dojos. It was done sometimes by car and sometimes by transit, and was a longer trip. I am no stranger to doing this sort of thing.

I suspect that after a return to normal training at home, I'll still go city-side either weekly, or monthly, or something in between.

Stalled

I am very self-critical about my performance in Martial Arts.

My many years of Karate training were great, but I never fooled myself into thinking I was anything other than mediocre. Eventually, my old knees induced me to stop training.

I am also a student of Gracie Jiu-Jitsu, and although I am not brilliant at it, I would rate myself as above average. I just seem to be better able to do what is required than I ever could at Karate.

None of that is really what this blog entry is about. The topic today is a phenomenon that people usually call "a plateau."

What this refers to is a period of time where progress seems to stall, regardless of effort and hours of training. Some people actually report feeling a loss of ability. Almost everybody has experienced this situation, and typically have found it very demoralizing.

In 5 years of Jiu-Jitsu, and 30 years of Karate, I have never experienced a plateau.

Perhaps it is that I always expect progress to come at a glacial rate even at the best of times. When it goes better than that, I am pleasantly surprised and excited, and when it remains ploddingly slow, I am where I expect to be.

I am firmly convinced that plateaus are not really a lack of progress at all.

My friend, Tobias, felt he had stalled recently. He was wrong.

He is one of the guys I measure my skill against. Sometimes he is better, and sometimes it's me, but it has always close.

I am a better Jiu-Jitsu-ka than I was a year ago, and better then that I was the year before. It has been that way though each of my 5 years of training. The current version of me could easily defeat any version of myself from the past. All along, Tobias has been right there beside me.

This has changed in the last couple of months. Tobias has been taking private lessons with an excellent Black Belt instructor in Vancouver. I noticed the differences in him immediately. Now, although our rolls are exciting, and entertaining, Tobias is clearly better than me.

How could it be that I am better than ever, with Tobias now a superior mat monkey than me, and for his plateau to be real?

Another fine example is Colin's return to the mat. He's been gone for well over three years. He is a Blue Belt, as I was at that time. Although he feels rusty, he has retained a remarkable amount of his skills. He can still do all of the things that we used to know how to do. However, in those missed years, we have moved on. We have gotten better; a lot better.

There's clear evidence in Colin's return that we've all kept growing. When Colin left, Tobias was far junior to him, and likely easy for Colin to defeat. Now, I can control Colin easily, and Tobias even more easily that can I.

What I think happens is that a person can see just how much there is to improve upon. Any invested effort makes such a small impression on the huge momentum of this mass that it seems like nothing is happening.

If this happens, it would help to focus on a single, discrete unit of material, and focus just on that. Let's say it's a single guard pass. Do it a hundred times, until it starts to seem really slick, and then switch and do a hundred more with the other leg. Work on executing the movement explosively, and without warning. Do this for several training sessions. The next step is to get yourself caught up in your opponent's guard when sparring. Give your new move a full-speed try. Keep drilling it, and keep using it. You will have improved, but not a little bit spread out over everything, but rather in a small, spearpoint of focused progress.

There ain't no plateaus...

Planes, Ships, and Cars

We live in a beautiful place, in a nice community.

The climate is great once the weather starts to warm up. April is always grand. It's all good until near the end of October.

Then it gets cold. Not Canada cold. We very rarely get snow at all, or temperatures like the rest of the country. However, it certainly stops being comfortable, and it gets really, really wet. The sky is grey for days on end.

That's why Helen and I travel to warm places between the months of November and March.

I'd like to stay someplace warm for the whole time, but would miss my home greatly. For my wife, December is off the table so that we can be with family for the holidays. That means we can travel in late fall, and winter after New Years.

We usually find get away during either period, or both. Last winter, we got to LA for a couple of weeks, and to Arizona, and this fall we spent a couple of weeks in Hawaii, although that trip ended up mostly in October for assorted reasons.

I digress. Since retirement three years ago, we've been to LA a few times, and to Mesa Arizona twice, and Hawaii. We went to Florida and for a Caribbean cruise, and to Austria and Italy with another cruise in the Mediterranean.

All are clearly warm places, except perhaps for Austria and Italy, but compared to our home in November they were like summer. We did need light jackets, but were never cold, and often meltingly hot.

We have other European travels in mind, and some California, and even Singapore.

What we have during the cold, wet months is a record of lovely breaks. In that season, we've been away for over a third of the time. Doing this removes eliminates the feeling of a long haul of unpleasant weather. It also means that most of the time we're actually home, enjoying our house, and friends, and activities, and community. It does, however, feel like we're always about to take off, or that we've just gotten back, and sometimes it's both. I highly recommend it.

The funny thing is, we travel at the same kind of rate in the rest of the year, too. The difference is that we stick close to home. We visit friends and family in other cities, cruise out of Vancouver, and even go camping sometimes.

So big, warm-weather travels in the winter and late fall, and short-range trips sprinkled through the spring, summer, and early autumn.

A fine system.