Low Injury

I recently hooked onto a Facebook page dedicated to old people in Jiu-Jitsu.

On one recent posting, people were putting up their ages. Keep in mind that these all self-identify as “old.”

I am too lazy to scroll through the hundreds of responses that poured in, but did look through the first set of 49.

There was one guy who is in his early 70s, and two of us in our 60s. Forty five had ages spread pretty evenly though the 40s and 50s, and even one guy who is only in his 30s.

They all think they’re old.

The page itself is full of questions, often related to how much they seem to get hurt.

Jiu-Jitsu is pretty rough, and things happen, but if somebody is going home hurt all the time there are only three possible reasons.

The first possibility is that their training partners are a bunch of jerks. The second cause is that the student is just rolling wrong. The third and most likely cause is that both conditions are in action together.

I am 62 years old, and have been doing Jiu-Jitsu for over 7 years. That’s easily over a thousand classes, and several thousand rolls. I have been hurt, but only on a very few occasions. After any typical night of training and rolling, I go home with no damage in particular.

How do I manage this? Well, the first thing is that my partners are not jerks, at least not many of them. But let’s say I’m off travelling, and run into Mister Aggressive somewhere that I’m a guest. I’ve run into situation number one, and have done so many times in my travels.

There is some risk in this situation, but nothing major. It will become a problem only if I insist on acting in a way that multiplies the danger.

Recognize what is going on, and react accordingly. Strategy one is easy. Do not match what Mister Aggressive is doing. He wants the top position, and goes after it like a charging rhino. If you self-identify as “old” and you try and match him, you’ll likely get squashed. I don’t care if you are big, or strong, or whatever. You just might succeed, but you’ll pay for it. You’ll get hurt, or exhausted, or both.

What is the upside? There is none. The downside? You end up walking funny, or you are so tired that you get hurt with what should have been a pleasant roll later.

So what exactly do I do with Mister Aggressive? I defend, like Helio Gracie did as a young man, or Royce Gracie did underneath Dan Severn.

And as I defend, I keep in mind that this guy might get a submission on me, and he might apply it fast. To prevent injury, I keep myself ready to tap. If he gets me, I want to tap well before any damage. Usually, this isn’t necessary, but remaining ready is only prudent.

Try it. It sounds easy, but for a lot of folks it isn’t.

Some groups don’t value defence, and the culture there pushes people to meet opponents head on, even younger, bigger, stronger, and psycho ones.

Lots of folks also consider tapping out to be some sort of disgrace. It isn’t, unless you do it too late and get hurt as a result.

Let’s add up how many days of training I’ve lost due to Jiu-Jitsu injury in the past year… it was… none. There were a ton of rolls in those 12 months, against opponents of every size, strength, and skill level. The only constant was that every single one of those opponents was younger than me; most were 30 to 40 years younger.

That’s not quite true. I did roll a couple of times at Gracie University in Los Angeles against a friend named Bill, who is a bit older than me. All of the rest were younger.

You don’t get better by missing training. You get better by being on the mat. You don’t get better getting hurt. You get better by surviving, and being on the mat. You don’t even get better by getting exhausted, as that can lead to getting hurt and missing training. You get better by being on the mat.

Of course, I might be underestimating how important it is for somebody to “win” a roll on their school’s mat. Perhaps there is a wager involved regarding a million dollars. That might encourage me to push harder. Maybe the person being rolled with is a lifelong enemy. Maybe that will do it. Perhaps the winner will get a shiny trophy or championship belt. Maybe your partner is a maniac, and is really attacking you, and you must crush them in order to survive.

I suspect none of these things are true. Rolling is a learning tool, and maybe you learn better when your neck gets seriously cranked, but I don’t. I like learning to be fun. Getting hurt is about as un-fun as anything can possibly be.

None of this means that I lay there on my back like a lump. It’s only with the craziest, most potentially dangerous opponents that it will look something like that; 100% survival. With trusted folk, you wouldn’t even know that is in my mindset. Most people fall somewhere in between, and I roll accordingly.

Some of my very favourite rolls have been with bigger, stronger, and aggressive partners.

I remember one school in particular. The instructors were great, and welcoming, as were most of the students, but there was a cadre of tough Blue Belts who seemed to take my presence as some kind of double-dog dare, and who really, really wanted to dominate me, even though my belt was Purple.

Each would come at me hard, and I would defend. Without exception it went just like Helio Gracie said it should. They would push really hard, and I would fend them off. They would start to gas out, even though they should not have let that happen against an old man. I would play at escapes just enough to keep them from slowing down, and by the end of the roll I could control them with ease. Survive, exhaust, control.

It was fun as hell, and it was also pure Jiu-Jitsu.

Let it Go

Let’s look at some big future dates for me in Jiu-Jitsu.

The earliest I might get a Brown Belt is less than 8 months away, and a Black Belt is possible in 5 years.

What can I be doing right now to get ready for these two events?

For the further away evaluation, there isn’t much, but for a much closer Brown Belt there is a lot.

A Black Belt friend in North Vancouver would most likely be carrying out my Brown Belt evaluation. He has told me that he would expect a candidate to demonstrate any of the available curriculum that pertains to street self-defence. He has also said that students who have passed any of the relevant technical exams would not have to be tested on those aspects.

To me that means I either work like a lunatic on self-defence material, or make sure I have already passed all of the technical exams. Neither is an attractive prospect.

I think am perfectly competent in the area of self-defence, especially if my lifestyle is considered.

I have a Karate Black Belt, and a Jiu-Jitsu Purple Belt, earned during 36 years of martial arts training. I am involved in no high risk behaviours, and live in a very low-crime area.

However, to pass a one-shot, in-person exam covering the specific Gracie self-defence curriculum material, I’d have to train those techniques ad nauseam. I’d have to become almost perfect at the least entertaining part of Jiu-Jitsu.

If I work on the technical exams, there would actually me a lot more work involved. I’d have to be able to perform about 5 or 6 times as much material, including the all of the self-defence stuff. The difference is that the exams involved are neither one-shot, nor done in-person.

After training the levels and being able to correctly perform every technique, the candidate video records the precise exam material in chunks that take about 20 minutes to perform. If anything gets screwed up, a new attempt is started over with a fresh recording. This is quite unlike trying to demonstrate material at a live exam.

So what do I want to do? Shall I learn my least favourite part of the curriculum to the point of mastery, and then demonstrate all of that skill on test day, or learn the much broader curriculum to a point of competence and then record videos covering everything.

A point in favour of the video exam is that of the 4 test levels, I have already completed and passed the first, and that I have a partner lined up already to work with on the second.

How would either of these routes fit into the time-line for a Brown Belt about 8 months away?

The live-test self-defence route certainly could be done in that time. I’d need to get going on perfecting all of the material, and could use any other students who are willing to help.

The bigger video route is more difficult. In the coming 8 months, I will likely be unavailable for as much as 2.5 months, leaving only about 22 weeks to get all the work done. I would say that the second level would be the quickest to complete by far; perhaps 6 weeks. That would leave about 8 weeks per level for each of the other two.

However, for those two levels, I don’t even have a potential partner currently lined up. That’s a problem. It might well be that the hurdle will be insurmountable. No partner for a technical test renders it impossible.

It is a puzzle.

Or it was until I shifted my thinking.

Which of the two routes would actually make me better at Jiu-Jitsu?

Should I choose the video route, I would have to do tons more work than I do now. It would require that both I, and several partners, put in long hours on top of regular training. We would be honing a wide range of skills, across several levels, and in all chapters.

I would predict that at a minimum, doing the video route would add at least a hundred hours to my practise. That represents an approximate doubling of my training for the next 8 months.

Doing the self-defence test-day option would also see me doing many hours of work, but it would be a different sort of thing. Most would be grabbing other students before and after class to be my partner for whatever self-defence move I would be working on. This isn’t extra training, as it is currently time that gets used for other Jiu-Jitsu work. It is more of a redirecting. There may be some added time, but nothing like the video route.

This means that while my self-defence skill will certainly improve, in a very real way it will be at the expense of other Jiu-Jitsu skill. Doing the heavy-homework video route will improve my overall skill level, as there will be a huge amount of work done that would not be taken from existing mat time.

So, it boils down to getting better within a narrow spectrum, largely at the expense of my skill level in general, or a general, wide-spectrum improvement done outside of current mat time. This makes my decision clear.

Video seems like the answer.

There is a major flaw with doing the video route. It needs dedicated partners to be found. I already have level 1 completed, and a partner lined up for level 2. Getting 3 and 4 done look to be needing a lot more time that I have before possible Brown Belt evaluation.

A few years ago, I assumed that getting beyond a Purple Belt was highly unlikely. It is wonderful that I’ve made it this far. If I do the video route, and it takes me a few extra years, so what? I am actually a firm believer in the method that Gracie Jiu-Jitsu has used up until just this Christmas down at the headquarters school. A student’s next belt was awarded if and when they were ready. Ryron and Rener Gracie knew their local students so well that any sort of exam was superfluous.

I sort of got in on that for my Purple Belt evaluation. I went to LA for two weeks. On the first day, Rener Gracie rolled with me, and selected a couple of other people for me to spar with. After that, they may or may not have kept an eye on me for the time I was there training, and on the very last class of my visit gave me my new rank.

Now it is all about tests. Either I do the one-day test, and not actually improve overall, or I improve generally, do three massive video tests, and experience general improvement, but take several years doing it.

Best to just do what is right for my Jiu-Jitsu. So what if I do the superior-for-Jiu-Jitsu video route? Are there potential issues?

There sure are. If I could do it within 8 months, a Brown Belt on time could still happen, but completion that swiftly is extremely unlikely. If it takes longer, new instalments of curriculum will get released, and have to be worked up and video-tested as well, making the finish point recede farther into the distance.

I think the only plan is to work away at things, and forget about Brown Belt altogether. I’ve made it to Purple as I had hoped. It might be fun to refuse to do an exam for a new belt.

Maybe after a few years or decades they’ll give me one anyhow.

Maybe not.

Renaissance Jiu-Jitsu

It is Christmas Break time again, which is always good for reflection. It would seem that I’m in a bit of a Golden Age of Jiu-Jitsu.

Normal full-time training for somebody of my level around here would be 3 advanced classes per week. I attend all of that, plus all the beginner sessions. I also go into the Big City, and pick up another of each type of class.

We haven’t had any open sessions at all, or anything else “off the timetable” for a long time. I was happy enough with the way it was going, but did dream a bit about more.

And then the Jiu-Jitsu Renaissance started to roll into action.

Shawn Phillips, our instructor, wanted to get his third level completed on his technical exams. We really only had one section left to work through (only isn’t really the right word, as it is a bloody great heap of work) and I was the logical partner.

We got busy, meeting maybe a dozen times, and cranked that puppy out.

Then, we kept going and plowed right into level four. This time, Shawn decided to copy a formula that other instructors have adopted, and recruited another partner into the mix. Rob Henley became our third guy. He is a long-time serous student, and a Purple Belt.

Somehow in all that training, Rob and I started working on his first-level technical exam; meeting on top of everything else to progress down that track. Than, our manager and business head was great with all of this extra training and allowed us all the access we needed.

It seems that meet-ups for any kind of serious training goals are now on-the-table anytime. Still nothing exists for less formal work, but that will be changing greatly soon, too.

My wife and I decided to move into some form of strata living situation, and attacked the downsizing required with gusto. When we finally found the perfect new home, it turned out to be a massively-large town-house. Suddenly, we were living with tons more unused space than we’d ever had. Helen claimed a chunk for her sewing and quilting hobbies, and I grabbed another for my very own Jiu-Jitsu training space.

The mat will be arriving in about a week, and there will be a place for anybody who wants to work on anything at all, and it comes with an enthusiastic Purple Belt ready to help, and maybe a coffee pot, and facilities for tea.

There is also a lot happening to which I am only an observer.

Two of our guys are working towards instructor certification, which we desperately need. The programs that we follow are carefully constructed, and qualified people are needed to handle the many details.

Our White Belt class, which a year ago seemed about to vanish into the mist, has started growing and growing, and now totally fills our mat space. I think that the last class saw about 18 students working away with enthusiasm. This is no flash-in-the-pan, as the growth has been steady, and fed by solid word-of-mouth.

Students who were part of the early growth of our White Belt class have reached the point of evaluation, and will soon be members of our advanced group. This will continue, and accelerate as the later, larger numbers reach a level of readiness.

In summery, more technical training, my own mat space, more certified instructors, and a lot more students are the highlights of this Golden Age of Jiu-Jitsu in our little town of Gibsons.

Hugs

Recently, on Facebook, there was a bit of a discussion about staff at schools hugging children. It all seemed to revolve around school and district policy, rather than on the individuals own practice.

I’d just like to share my own experience in this matter.

Keep in mind that I started out with certain suppositions, that you might totally disagree with. I really never cared what the policy was about physical contact with students. My policy was my own, and seemed like common sense to me.

The first is, that the school world exists for the benefit of the kids, period. It doesn’t matter at all what the adult is feeling about a hug. It doesn’t matter if a kid is as cute as the dickens, and you feel an urge to hug the little fellah.

There are many kids out there for whom a hug from any adult is not a positive event. Imagine some young person who has been sexually exploited. Should you walk up and hug that kid? Should anybody? One unwelcome embrace of that nature more than counters a hundred neutral ones. There are more kids out there living that sort of life than we want to imagine.

Asking a kid if they want a hug doesn’t isn’t a solution. In the school setting, the adult has tremendous power over the student. They may not feel able to say no.

Thinking that a kid needs a hug shouldn’t act as permission to do so. Suppose that child is upset precisely because of sexual exploitation, and that the event started with a hug from the exploiter.

I am nothing like a Saint, but somehow managed to figure that out all on my own. Also, keep in mind that I like hugs, very much.

So decades ago, I resolved to avoid the possibility of harming a student in this way.

I taught kids in grades 8 through 12. With every new group, somehow I would slip in that I was not a hugging kind of person. I wouldn’t make it a big deal, maybe some wee mention of hugging, and a shudder. The kids would laugh, but get the idea. I was saying that I don’t like contact, and asking them to avoid touching me.

I was asking for my space, and clearly expecting this to be respected. This in itself is a powerful message.

Keeping with this clear statement, which would be reinforced occasionally throughout the year, I never attempted to initiate an embrace with a student, ever. I did not place my hands on their shoulders, or high-five them, or anything else. I would ignore accidental contact. Sometimes stuff happens.

The kids always accepted this. Other staff members would sometimes express their discomfort with getting hugged by students. For me, student-initiated hugs were incredibly rare; happening perhaps once every year or two. Some of my colleagues considered my method to be genius, and copied it. I never preached about it, but shared when appropriate.

Whenever I did receive a student hug, I didn’t make a big deal out of it, but did clearly express discomfort.

There was one other interesting side effect upon my relationships with students. Staff members would hear from students how I disliked physical contact. As a result, I became the least hugged person in the staff room. I never corrected this misunderstanding. Why would I? A single casual mention by a single staffer to a single student could have undone all of my non-contact groundwork.

As mentioned earlier, I did get touched sometimes, but would try and fend it off if I could. Every so often, I was surprised. Even then, the student would often apologize. I would never make them feel bad.

Now I am retired, and don’t have to worry about this sort of thing. I am not in a position of power over anybody. My years as a potentially damaging hugger are done.

The Toughest Student

Who do you think is the most bad-ass student at your Jiu-Jitsu academy?

My opinion might be very different than yours, but even if you disagree with me, I think that you’ll have to agree with my findings somewhat based on the actual evidence.

At the two school where I regularly train, there are all sorts. There’s a huge cop, and an even bigger gentle giant. We have slender dudes, and muscular ones, young ones, and even a few geezers like me.

There are also a fair number of female students. Of these, most are somewhere in the 120 to 140 pound range, but there are a few even smaller.

I would contend that the toughest student in the school has to be amongst the smallest females.

Why? Isn’t it obvious?

Let’s forget about my schools, and even yours, and make up a new one.

Let’s say you are male, and a raw beginner, are 6’1” tall, and weigh in at 200 pounds.

At this particular school all of the other students are quite different from you physically.

Their average height is 6’5”, and their average weight is 312 pounds. They all have a significantly lower percentage of body fat than you, meaning that each pound of those guys is more muscular than every pound of you.

If you need help visualizing this, the stats I’ve chosen for the other students are what is average for NFL linesmen.

You start out, and maybe half are pleasant to work with, but the rest are dicks.

They do everything possible to make your training miserable. They crush you hard enough that you sometimes tap from the pressure alone. They use their superior strength and mass to shut down every move you attempt, no matter how well, and to force through their own, no matter how crappy.

You end up getting hurt much, much more than any other student at the school. You also are regularly insulted for your size and lesser strength. Some of your partners openly express the opinion that there is no place for you at the school.

You continue regardless, taking your lumps, and doing all that you can to progress in such a negative environment. Some people are happy to work with you, and somehow magically manage to make their size and mass go away, but they are few and far between.

There's nobody that you can ever hope to out muscle. You try and learn every movement perfectly, and become somewhat of an expert in surviving discomfort, and pain, and being unable to breathe. You do not develop any sort of swollen ego, as you tap more often than anybody else.

Eventually, it becomes promotion time, and you are awarded your new belt at the same time as a couple of your peers, some of whom openly scoff, and consider it an insult to their own, superior performance.

Who is the toughest student at that school? Who has taken the most abuse? Who has suffered the most physical pain? As a result, who is the actually has the most perfect technique.

Clearly, you are the toughest, and are your schools pound-for-pound champion, and you care the least about suffering pain or injury.

You would be a big time bad-ass. But not as much as a 110 pound female who regularly trains with 200 pound men. To match the size disadvantage that she would be facing, your school would have to be full of students 50 pounds larger than the average for NFL players.

While your large partners average 56% bigger than you, the ones she regularly faces out mass her by 81%.

We used to have a dedicated young woman training with us who was well under 110 pounds, and she often rolled with our biggest guy, who at that time weighed about 235. For him to face a similar challenge, he would need to stand up to an adult male mountain gorilla.

Buck up, Buttercup, she’s tougher than you.

Third Version

People usually say that there are two types of Jiu-Jitsu training that they classify as being either Sport, or Self-Defence.

I contend that there are actually three versions.

A Self-Defence focused curriculum would be such as Ryron and Rener Gracie have developed for their beginner program, that they call Combatives.

The students in this program NEVER free-roll. Every technique and every bit of practice goes into developing the skills necessary to survive the most common forms of street attack. Students are not there to learn how to defeat trained Jiu-Jitsu people, but rather people with the fight characteristics most likely to arise in a real life confrontation.

Conversely, a true Sport school wouldn’t work on this sort of thing at all. They would be working on the types of things that they are most likely to experience in a tournament setting. They would have a complete understanding of the rule set, and develop strategies to get the maximum advantage out of it. They would not be concerned with striking defences at all, as these are forbidden within a sportive context.

Most schools are somewhere in between, at least a little bit.

Even at Gracie University, once the totally self-defence beginner course is completed, the students join the main advanced class. There they start to free-roll, and many of the techniques taught are geared not for a street fight, but rather for a roll with another trained Jiu-Jitsu person.

So what is this third type of which I spoke.

The third is the type of rolling that goes on between two Jiu-Jitsu people after a normal Jiu-Jitsu instructional session. Almost every class ends with free-rolling.

Nobody is worried about getting punched, or body-slammed, or scoring either points or advantages. They are just rolling.

Perhaps they end up in a position where the person on the bottom traps the person on the top’s arm, whilst the person on the top’s other arm is quite free, and able to strike.

If they are concerned with self-defence, the person on the bottom would need to respect the danger more than get excited about the possibilities of the trapped arm, and could well decide to release the trap and move on.

If they were thinking about competition, the person on the bottom would ignore the potential strikes, and try and use that arm for control, or perhaps to try and work it towards a submission, or to advance their position.

If they are doing neither, the person on the bottom could well use a bit of pressure against the wrist of the person on top to form a wrist lock, to which their partner would likely tap, before they moved on to something else.

A Self-Defence person watching might be horrified, as the danger of the strike should have taken priority, and a Sport person would decry the clear violation of the rule forbidding wrist locks.

They reach another point, and the person on the bottom, gets his a hands into a crappy collar choke, and the much bigger person in their guard, stands up. The bottom person releases their legs and drops gently to the ground and lets the now useless collar go.

A Self-Defence person would say that the combatant on top should have started throwing big punches once the bottom opponent’s hands were tangled in the choke, but that if they did stand up, the bottom person did the exact right thing by aborting before they could be body slammed.

The Sport person would say that the bottom guy did the wrong thing by aborting, and should have kept the position as they were lifted, and worked to sink the choke in better, as both punches and body slams are against tournament rules.

These disagreements would continue throughout the roll; Self-Defence decrying any use of spider guard, or de la Riva, or deep halfguard, while the Sport guy would be cheering those self same moves, while critical of any consideration being given to punch defence, or rule-illegal moves no matter how effective they are.

The two guys actually rolling are ignoring this debate. Likely they are from a school that is more balanced than either strictly Self Defence or strictly.

I think a good name for the third type of Jiu-Jitsu would be to call it Fun.

This is pretty much the situation within Ryron and Rener’s organization. In free rolling, usually the participants act much as I’ve described in the examples. Students are usually encouraged to try anything within the parameters of a safe environment.

Usually, but not always, punches are not allowed, nor body slams. Sometimes they are. Biting, eye gouging, and things of that ilk do not happen, but not due to any enforced outside set of rules. The unspoken rule is that everyone is expected follow is, “don’t be an asshole.”

I have been training for seven years within their umbrella, and have no idea about how tournament points are scored at all.

If asked what the most important aspects of free rolling are, most of the students there would say that it is a good general way to practice whatever you want to work on, and that it is fun.

Fun is important.

Up Down

August 2

This has been a challenging year so far for my weight.

Please don’t think that I consider myself to be heavy by any means. It’s just that I function best at a certain size, and try and keep myself in that zone.

If for nothing else, doing this lowers the pressure that my knees have to undergo in my favourite fun activity; Jiu-Jitsu. I also like to run, which is even harder on the knees.

My joints have already had issues with osteoarthritis. Being a few pounds over for a younger person is not as important as it is for me. If I treat myself badly, I could end my Jiu-Jitsu and my running permanently.

So I try and keep my weight within the range of 173-175 pounds. This is where things feel the best.

The trouble is, while staying in my target range is easy to do while at home, we travel very often. When away, a big part of life’s enjoyment is food (even more so than when at home), and I choose to partake. Weight always increases during travel.

This year has been absolutely fantastic for travel, and for food, but not so much for weight, or for how my body feels.

That has meant it’s been weight reduction time whenever we weren’t away.

The first trip of 2018 was over a month in South-East Asia, most of it on a cruise ship. I kept myself from going really crazy with the fabulous food, and ran on the stupid treadmills, but still came home in the neighbourhood of 188 pounds.

Less than a week after returning home, we were off for a month-and-a-half in California. Not as dangerous as cruising, but still very foodie. I took my fancy scale along, and kept an eye on things. Did plenty of desert runs, and a fair bit of Jiu-Jitsu. Still did plenty of piggy eating. Came home after that at around 184 pounds.

Managed to claw that down to within my target range, and then we promptly did a two-week cruise to Alaska. That put me back to 185.

In July, we spent three weeks on Vancouver Island with family, which slowed but didn’t stop my progress. Ran a lot while there. Came home at 179.

That was only a week ago, and in that time it’s been dropping nicely. Today’s weigh in was 175 pounds. Huzzah.

That doesn’t mean relaxation quite yet. I’ll have to hit 173 before that can happen, but it shouldn’t take long. Then I just have to keep my eye on things and experience some stability.

There is a lovely, long period of home time.

I love travel, but it does come with a lot of calories.

To enjoy it fully, the food must be eaten. I am lucky in that I do not hate the exercise that helps making a bit of overeating less critical.

On cruises, I run in the gym, and on shore. When near an appropriate Jiu-Jitsu academy, I train. Very many miles get run when holidaying on land.

I don’t begrudge myself fabulous meals when abroad, but I restrict my eating during other times.

At home, there is and even greater amount of running, and a constant flood of Jiu-Jitsu training sessions. Eating is whatever is appropriate to maintain weight.