Unexpected

I’ve been coming to train at Gracie University every year since I retired.

That first year the visit was 8 weeks long, and the following five visits were all 2 weeks long. This week it’s visit number seven, and I’m halfway through two weeks of training.

There have been milestones along the way; one year I did a few private lessons with Jordan Collins; in 2016 I was evaluated for and received a Purple Belt promotion.

In general, it has all been good, rock-solid training.

This year is just a little different. A lot of the lessons have involved defence, where suddenly the defender abandons everything that they’ve spent years learning, and does what seems suicidal, and suddenly is out of danger.

This is very good for me, and is making me think differently about rolling.

Compared to just about everybody I train with, I am a dinosaur. Certainly not one of those sprightly velociraptors or t-rexs, something significantly more lumbering.

My basic assumption, almost always proven totally correct, is that my partner is faster than me, and stronger than me.

I can only manage to survive with technique.

With significantly less experienced partners, this is just fine, as almost anything I do will be a surprise. With those around my level of skill, all I can usually do is defend and try and survive.

Those guys know everything that I do, and are still faster and stronger. It hardly seems fair.

Therefore, it is really nice to be learning some techniques that turn all of an opponent’s expectations upside down. With these kind of moves being exactly the opposite of what is expected, I will seem crazy fast, even if it’s only an illusion. These also go exactly where the attacker they want things to go, therefore making a strength advantage into a handicap.

And there is something even better than the techniques; this is the mindset of looking for them.

If it were just the moves I’m being taught, then I’d head home after two weeks with maybe 4 very specific tricks to use when caught in very specific situations. Focusing on the mind set means that, while I’ll still have the specific tricks, I’ll be looking to create others of my own.

Let’s say I figure out a couple more, and am back home pulling this kind of stuff on my rolling partners. This will annoy the hell out of them, and they will likely get much more careful about everything they try to pull off. Does that seem like they’ll be slowing down to protect themselves from the tricky old guy? It does to me.

That in itself is a great form of defence.

Tired Knee no Problem

My knee is acting up, so this evening I am only watching the classes. It’s nothing serious, but better to baby any injury.

Currently, the group lined up in class has about 40 members, at least half of whom are coloured belts. This is very strange, as it is primarily a White Belt session.

All the other White Belt classes are just about as large, but with only a handful of coloured belts around. Those that attend are there to help.

Not tonight. This is the ever-so-slightly-higher-level session for beginners who are at least half way through their program.

The fancy name for this class is “Reflex Development.” It is still aimed at self-defence, and focused on simple technique. But why so many coloured belts?

The answer is simple. Rank advancement has many mandatory minimum requirements. Coloured belts have to attend at least ten  Reflex Development classes in every 8 month period if they want to move up in rank. There is no such demand that they attend ordinary White Belt classes.

What this means in practice is that a lot of people with Blue, Purple of Brown Belts show up for exactly ten Reflex classes, but never, ever attend any other White Belt sessions. The only advanced people that do so are there to help. I applaud them.

Anyhow, it’s a room full of every rank right now.

Ryron Gracie is teaching, and having them do some cool control drills. The moves all feature what the White Belts are already familiar with, but in a very different context. It is also stuff that the higher folk don’t regularly deal with either.

After an hour, the group is dismissed, and the Friday advanced class happens. Likely, all of the coloured belts from the Reflex class will stay, and be joined by a million others.

For my entire time here, the advanced classes have all addressed counters to Back Mount submission attacks. Well, almost all. The 7am classes on Tuesdays and Thursdays are a little less controlled. In those we’ve been doing mostly Back, but with a little arm bar work thrown in.

Usually we jump right into the lesson, but at the noon class earlier today we were all directed to do a simple throw that I wasn’t going to risk my knee for. When everybody grabbed partners, I just moved to the side.

After a couple of minutes of everybody working, and me sitting who do you think walked in?

It was my Black Belt friend Marc from Vancouver. He’s down to help with the police training course. He saw me at the side and asked if I wanted to do the throw on him.

Both taking and receiving the throw are not knee friendly events, but with a perfect partner like Marc, my executing the throw carries zero risk.

He stayed with me for the whole class.

The main lesson covered escapes from side and turtle position that I’ve done before, but not in a very long time. The instructor, Alex Stewart, is detail-oriented teacher.

My favourite part of this was the final movement of the sequence. The instructor the previous night also included that movement in what we had done. It was fun noting the differences between their two, very dissimilar methods for the move.

Then, when drilling, my partner Marc didn’t do it the exact same way as either of the instructors.

Sam, from the night before, would insist we duck our shoulder underneath, plant it on the mat as far out as possible, and pivot. Alex, from today, had us duck our shoulder underneath, but very close in, and pivot. My partner Marc, didn’t really duck his shoulder under at all, and would pivot. I liked seeing what the range of possibilities really are.

The problem was that I was having way too much fun, and not holding back at all. By the end of the class, my knee was really done, but it was worth it.

Nothing desperate about my cranky knee, so I went for a yummy lunch, and walked about in a cool market area. When I got back to Denise’s place, I iced my knee and took things easy.

Now I’m on my viewing bench for the evening classes.

The Reflex class ended, and the advanced crowd moved in.

Ryron was teaching, and I think the stuff they were doing was something that I first encountered during last year’s visit, but perhaps it was at a seminar sometime.

It involves at totally non-intuitive method of defending from a nasty rear choke.

Watching from my bench, I decided that the best way to teach this would be from the back to the front.

In the normal order the attacker manages to get a one arm choke started, and wants to bring in the second arm. Conventional wisdom is that the defender tries to stop this progress, and tries to pull his chin down, and to tense all of the neck muscles.

This evening’s wild defence insists that as soon as that first attacking arm gets locked in, the defender should pull is own head back, totally exposing their throat, but making the insertion of the attacker’s second arm into position much more difficult.

The defender concentrates on a couple of moves that capture the slowed second attacking arm, and then defeats unsupported single choking arm.

I learned a great deal from my off-mat perch. The biggest revelation was how difficult it was for most of the students to overcome their instincts and to really commit to fully exposing their naked throats to being attacked.

By not doing so, they totally failed to slow the other attacking arm. By not risking the neck, their partners were able to easily lock in both arms and finish the choke. To prevent the choke, they had to expose themselves to being choked. To hesitate at all got them choked; totally counter-intuitive.

That’s why I think that the finish should be taught first. Students would learn all the easy-to-trust stuff that finishes the move. The hard part would be left for last.  It could be emphasized that none of the evening’s lesson would be any use at all without total  commitment to the key element.

Things are rarely taught that way in Jiu-Jitsu. Sometimes, mixing up teaching style can be shockingly effective, specially with unusual material like tonight’s lesson.

It was a really great day for me here at Gracie University.

Happy

This visit has been freaky.

Keep in mind that I am nothing special at all. We have come to LA for a couple of weeks at about this time of year since 2014. We do fun tourist stuff, but we come primarily so that I can train in Jiu-Jitsu at Gracie University.

For this visit, my goal is to attend 20 classes, and so far am only 5 classes toward that total.

Gracie University has thousands of students of its own, and tons of visitors always coming and going.

I have been noticed and acknowledged by instructors Ryron Gracie twice, Alex Stewart twice, and by Sam Fernandez, and Rener Gracie.

Several students have remembered me from before, and made a point of greeting me.

I have also been approached in the change room by a student who says I am exactly what he is aspiring to be. You see, I am 63 years old, which counts as crazy old for an activity like this. He was stunned to run across somebody my age wearing a Brown Belt.

Another student came up after a class to greet me. He used to be a member at an affiliate school in Palm Desert, which has folded. I visited there a few times in 2018 and 2019 and showed them a few simple things.

Their survivors have opened a new school in Indio, and he enthusiastically invited me to visit them there. As we will be in that general area soon, I happily agreed.

Keep in mind that I’ve only been to 5 classes.

Nothing even close to this happened during any of my other 6 visits here to train.

It must be because of the high regard that people have for Brown Belts.

I must say that I don’t act like the other Brown Belts. Most don’t behave like they do at earlier levels.

There seems to be two trends. The first group seems serious all the time, and somewhat reserved; dare I say, “mysterious?” The other bunch is more annoying, and insist on telling other folk how to do every little thing as if they are some kind of experts. If you listen in, you’ll hear all sorts of downright nonsense. Luckily this is by far the smaller of the two groups.

I don’t know why either group behaves as it does, but it’s really pretty obvious if you play spy for a while.

Me? I’m usually smiling, and acting as if I’m just happy to be there, because I am. Not mysterious, and not trying to pass my self off as knowing more than I do.

Deep Fake

Most people haven’t even noticed, but the entertainment industry is trying to do something pretty evil.

The start seems to have been in the Star Wars movie subtitled Rogue One.

The creators decided to bring back a very minor character from the original movie who had been played by the 63-year-old Peter Cushing back in 1976. They wanted the character to be the same age as he had been in the earlier move.

This was going to be difficult, as 40 real-world years had passed. How were they going to make a 103 year-old man look like he was 63? The good news for the studio is that at that point Cushing had been dead for over 20 years.

The put him into the movie by recreating him with computers. They got the actor’s heirs on board, and it worked pretty well on-screen.

In that same film, they used cgi technology to bend old footage of Carrie Fisher into a few scenes. They needed her to also be 20 years younger than her real age. She was fine with it.

Shortly after, Carrie Fisher died.

That didn’t stop her from appearing as a major character in the final Star Wars movie.

They decided to blunt any possible criticism by pretty much using already filmed clips gleaned from all of her recent Star Wars work, and to bend the story to fit what they had. They claimed they didn’t cgi her at all, but that’s merely a matter of semantics.

They cut her out, slid other actors in, and warped things all over the place.

Most fans didn’t mind at all. I did, as it was all (A creepy) and (B very dangerous for the future).

Let’s say some studio decides to make say, a Western. They want it to be exciting and novel and news-grabbing. Who do they hire for the lead? Will it be a relatively unknown actor, or perhaps a high-priced star?

Maybe they will go with John Wayne. He died over 40 years ago, but there would be no lack of material to produce a fine cgi clone from.

How owns his likeness, anyhow? Do his heirs, and if so, how long does it take for that to expire? Could they buy the rights to his image? Maybe, the courts would decide that the companies that own the rights to his movies also have the rights to any computer doppelgänger created from them.

And how about new actors? Will their contracts all contain clauses that specifically give all rights to clones to the studios? Of course they will. They probably already do.

Again, there will be a creepy factor. If studios had such capabilities and powers all along, we might still be watching new episodes of “Leave it to Beaver,” with the kid forever young.

“Big Bang Theory,” would never have gone off the air, and the studios would never have been paying the core stars a million bucks an episode.

Cgi actors might be expensive to build, but they never need paying, or want creative control.

Have an actor who baulks at doing a nude scene? No problem. Have an actor who turns down an offer to do a bad movie? No problem?

The studios will literally own them.

There is already talk of using cgi to put James Dean into some war movie. He’s been dead for 64 years. He was also a pacifist.

Think it isn’t a problem, or so difficult and expensive that it won’t be much of an issue take a look at this clip. For fun, somebody used a technique called, “deep fake,” a clip off of a talkshow, and a bunch of images of a well known actor, and banged this off.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MRQiIbNK31w

No Surprises

The test is long over, and it went pretty much as expected.

Being old, the biggest difficulty happened when I woke up. My left knee decided to act hard done by, with no hint of a cause.

Parked at the ferry terminal, and caught the first boat. Met up with the other test candidate and our instructor in the cafeteria. We rode together in Shawn’s car.

At the school, we were met by the evaluator and a helper, and got down to work.

Things went on for between and hour-and-a-half, and two hours. There was a lot of technique demonstration, and a bunch of sparring, and some rolling with punching.

Nothing unexpected, and all within reason.

Both of us who were being tested passed, and received our belts and promotion certificates.

By the time we headed for the change room, my knee was making me limp around. It didn’t enjoy the test. I also had a black eye, and my face looked as if a truck had backed over it a few times.

As we left, the womens self-defence class was starting to arrive. I considered returning for the later mixed classes, but felt beat-up and tired enough to abort that idea and head for my bus stop headed home.

By the time I reached my bus transfer stop at Park Royal Mall, things were just starting to open up. I interrupted my travels to celebrate with a pizza at a favourite spot. Limped back to my bus to head home.

I ended up on the 2:20pm boat back home, picked up my car from the parking lot on the other side, and was home just a little after 3pm.

My wife wanted all the details, which I recounted while ensconced comfortably in my lazy boy recliner. This was followed by a shower, and I packed up a clean uniform.

Headed off to train at the local school’s evening classes.

People were very congratulatory, and said nice things about me.

I slept very well.

Merry Maniac

Today, there will be a class at our local Jiu-Jitsu school, and tomorrow there are none. The day after that I go into Vancouver and get evaluated to see if I am good enough to receive a Brown Belt.

That happens early in the morning. If I fail, likely I’d just waddle home straight away in a bit of a funk.

Passing, however, would see my compulsive behaviors kick in. As a brand new Brown Belt, I already be collecting attendance towards adding the first of four possible stripes onto my freshly unwrapped new belt.

With a new belt to wear, I think I’d go for coffee, and then return to attend the Vancouver school’s midday class.

That would put me rushing to get to the ferry terminal to get home in time to train at the Gibsons school in the evening.

The day after that is my normal day to travel into the city to train so I’d be back on the first ferry about an hour before dawn again.

Then both schools shut down to have Christmas breaks. Crazy me will already have 3 classes tallied on his attendance record.

The weird thing is that people are always saying to chase technique, or chase skill, but never to chase rank.

I humbly disagree, but only because they are wrong.

After receiving a promotion right before Christmas most people would take things a little easier. Few would train that very day in the city, and then rush like a crazy person to get home to train again, and then catch the stupidly early ferry again the next morning to train again in the city.

A dedicated person, just might go once, but it would be unlikely that all the rushing about to make it to a second class would hold much appeal, and certainly getting to three would seem like madness.

Doing so for me is a bit of a game. The fastest that it is permitted to earn a belt stripe is 8 months. There are no exceptions.

In that time, it is necessary to have attended 90 or more appropriate advanced sessions ( the actual goal is for 100, but ten of these are so easy to collect that I don’t even bother thinking about them at all).

With the amount that I travel, there is no way I can finish the attendance in 8 months if I train like a normal person. Assuming I can manage absolutely perfect attendance (never sick, nor injured, and no conflicts of any kind) whenever I’m home, I will only have managed 67 classes by the time that warm August day has rolled along.

Collecting 90 classes would take me 11 months and 2 weeks. That sounds like a year to me.

However, I go into the city to train every Saturday. Doing this means that my attendance goal will be reached in exactly 8 months.

But I don’t leave it at that.

On one of our yearly big trips, we usually head out two weeks early, and stop off in LA so that I can train at Gracie University. Putting that trip into the mix, I lose classes at my home school for two weeks, and two Saturdays in Vancouver, but train a ton in LA.

Doing this means that my tally goal will actually be reached 6 weeks before the due date.

But even that isn’t enough. Rob and I will be working on BBS exams, which will require tons of extra mat work. I also run a Sunday session, and work with anybody during open mat time on anything. Factoring these shows my tally growing at an alarming rate.

About half of these sessions end up as nothing, or at least nothing that I can credit myself for. Even so, they make it so that my tally total will be finished easily 3 months before the due date.

If I train after getting promoted in a couple of days, and before the Christmas shutdown it will change all of the potential tally completion dates by one week in my favour.

There is a direct correlation between the amount of training somebody does, and how good they are, and how much they improve over time.

I like getting my tallies up as a form of motivation, and the rank promotion system directly feeds into this. I am either improving by chasing rank, or I am earning rank by chasing improvement.

The point to all this jibber-jaber is to explain why I will be on the mat between the time of my Brown Belt exam and the schools shutting downs shortly after.

If it was really just me chasing the tallies, I would stop after attaining the goal, or at least cut back a lot. I do that, but continue on at my merry, maniac pace.

Also, if I train straight away after a getting a new belt, everybody will get to admire it.

One Week Left

Today it’s Saturday, and there is precisely one week left until the scheduled day for my Brown Belt evaluation.

There is still some question as to the precise day that it will happen, but the paperwork went in naming Saturday; four days before Christmas.

It may happen on Saturday, but there seems to be some question about that. The evaluator has some reason for moving it by a day or two.

That is fine with me, but only if it is moved up, and not further away.

Helen and I always go to spend Christmas with family in Victoria, and we are committed to going over the day after the scheduled Saturday test date. That is already a couple of days later than we’d usually go, and we committed to it back when my test was first being set up, two months ago. No going back on that now.

Earlier is not an issue, at least on my end. It is always hard to coordinate a bunch of people getting together to do anything. Just try and pick a restaurant with a bunch of buddies.

The time has to fit me, and the other guy being tested, and our instructor, and the evaluator, and a couple of extra bodies to act as our bad guys. That would be at least 6 people.

If it simply cannot be done on or before the designated Saturday, then my part at least would have to be put off until sometime in January.

I don’t really think that it will be, but it is a possibility.

Anyhow, all of the preparation will soon be over. When that happens, Rob and I will jump back into the technical exams in a big way, and there will be other projects and interesting topics to be found and explored.

A pass means that for the next four levels, I can expect to progress every 8 months or so. Perhaps more slowly if some kind of injury pops up.

That would give me 32 month of stability.

The next stressful rank would come after that, and it would be the big one; for a Black Belt. The soonest I can achieve the rank before that would be something like the late summer of 2022.

Back belt exams only happen in Los Angeles at the main Gracie University school in December, and the invitations for that go out the prior January or February. So a ranker finishing in the late summer of 2022, would be followed by an invitation to Los Angeles being issued early in 2023, for a gruelling exam just before Christmas.

That all still seems pretty far away, and quite theoretical. The point is that there will be plenty of time for technical exams, helping beginners, and attending classes. It will be nice to get back to all that again.