Elder Belts

I don't mind being the oldest student at my Jiu-Jitsu academy. I think it's pretty cool, actually.

It looks as if I might just be getting a Purple Belt in 2017. I'll be a mere kid of 60 by then.

Assuming things run as smoothly in my rank progress beyond that, I could be a Brown Belt by the age of 64. Is smooth progress something I can realistically expect as I push through the ravages of time? Perhaps.

Beyond that, at the same rate a Black Belt awaits when I'm a 68 year old. Hmmm.

It really doesn't matter much when I get to Purple, but there is finite time that I can continue to climb the ladder.

I've been able to shake off bumps and bruises, but it's only a matter of time before I start missing chunks of time to injury or illness. My prediction for attaining Brown and Black Belt at 64 and 68 are perhaps very optimistic.

If I could shave a bit of time off now in attaining Purple, that would move forward future promotions as well.

I will be entering my last level of training before Purple around mid-October of 2015. I would like to complete attendance at about 100 classes before making the big jump up to Purple.

There is a strong chance I'll be at the Gracie Academy in Los Angeles early in 2016, but I'll only have about 50 or 60 advanced classes racked up by then; nowhere near enough. It would be about a year before I might return to LA again, so that's when I'll be evaluated for Purple. Hence, 2017.

Just recently our instructor mentioned that an extra class might be starting on Saturdays. Interesting. That starts making things for a Purple Belt evaluation in 2016 look practical. I started playing a little with the dates for the 2016 visit.

It looks like the trip can be moved a couple of months without any serious repercussions. Suddenly, the number of classes I'll have done prior to the visit will have reached 100.

That could mean Purple a full year early. That would make every subsequent rank move a year nearer as well.

I am greatly tempted.

Instructor Rankings

About a year ago our instructor, Shawn Phillips, was evaluated by the Gracies, and awarded the rank of Purple Belt.

It was long, long overdue. The system is relatively new. Unlike students, who can receive rank from their home academies, instructors only receive rank directly from the Gracies.

He has received no promotions since, as he hasn't seen the Gracies since getting his Purple Belt.

In about a month, Rener Gracie will be doing a seminar down in Seattle. There are bunch of us heading down for the event, including Shawn.

Perhaps he will be promoted.

In a year, an ordinary student at the Gracie would have received one promotions, and be halfway to a second.

Instructors are different. They are the ones who carry the torch for Gracie Jiu-Jitsu far from the core. They have to self-teach the material from the online program, and to present it to the rest of us. This is not easy, and Shawn does an outstanding job of things.

Everything he has taught me is exactly the way things are done down in California at the main Gracie Academy. I don't now how he can do it, week after week, year after year.

I suppose they might give him a single stripe for his Purple Belt. In my opinion this would be highly inappropriate, and two stripes should be the minimum of what he might be awarded.

I certainly hope they don't just let things slide, and that he doesn't get promoted at all.

There is a practical side to all of this as well.

Instructors can only promote students to one level below their own. In that way, a lack of progress in an instructor can impinge on his students' advancement.

Rank can also be helpful in attracting students to a school.

In any case, Shawn is definitely due for promotion, and I hope to see him heavily-striped up very soon.

Piles of Training

I tend to get all stuck on rank progression goals in Jiu-Jitsu. It isn't supposed to be that way. Everybody knows that. Even Mr. Miyagi in the Karate Kid as much as said that belts don't matter.

So what does make somebody good at Jiu-Jitsu? I would say it's how much training they have done, and whether that training is focused or not.

I rushed to get my Blue Belt, and pushed to get a stripe added to it faster than would normally have been possible. To get both of these promotions, I took a number of private lessons, and spent countless hours on the mat drilling alone.

My training isn't all aimed at rank hunting. I go to whatever seminars are in Vancouver or Seattle put on by the Gracies, and have attended the Gracie's California academy for a total of 10 weeks. While there, I don't attend a few classes per week like a normal person, but have averaged over dozen each week.

I also train more than anybody else during our school's open mat sessions, and still attend the all the White Belt classes.

I am pushing to be as good at Jiu-Jitsu as I can. For me, rank has been both a reward for training, and as motivation to work hard.

Let's say I started Jiu-Jitsu with a twin who had attendance just as good as mine. I would have been collecting rank faster than him, but not as much as you'd think. About half of our Blue Belts continue attending the White Belt classes, so I made my twin be one of these people. Most don't attend open mat, so neither does he. Some attend seminars, so he does, but nobody goes to train in California, so he doesn't.

I think my twin would have received a second stripe for his Blue Belt about the same evening that I received my third. So what's the big difference?

I have done about 40% more training than my twin. All of those extra hours were either classes at the Gracie Academy, private lessons at home or in California, or doing intensive practice at open mat time.

Keep in mind that my hypothetical twin is a darn good student with stellar attendance. He will surely earn his Purple Belt on schedule. I find it interesting that I have already done more hours of training right now as a three-stripe Blue than he will have on the day he gets his Purple Belt.

So are there any more tangible rewards to working hard than rank? There are for me.

I pushed to progress as a White Belt so that I would qualify early for an additional, more advanced White-Belt class. I got to learn stuff fancier stuff.

I pushed to get my Blue Belt early so that I could begin attending the real advanced class. I got to learn the technique Blue Belts knew about 6 months earlier than my twin would have.

Learning material to pass ranks back then made sense. You had to get the rank in order to join the next class.

After getting a Blue Belt, you can attend everything. The problem is that there is so much to try and remember that most of it slips away. To retain the material takes a great deal of extra drill and practice. Most of what we learn builds on what has gone before. In Los Angeles they do technique of every level mixed together. The more you know, the better you can absorb and retain what is new.

And I want a Purple Belt.

The power of words

We have an eager young man in our beginner Jiu-Jitsu group. He's been around long enough to have gone once through the basic cycle of the Gracie White-Belt curriculum. It's taken him 2 or 3 months to get this far, and he's facing more than 5 more before he will have completed the three required cycles for Blue Belt.

He's having none of that. He comes to the open mat session on Saturday. He's been working with Cosme, effectively getting an extra class per week. If he keeps this up he'll shave a third of his remaining time off. It's a smart thing to do for somebody that wants to advance quickly.

Anyhow, Cosme wasn't there today. He ended up with both Rob and I helping him out instead. He still got his extra class.

I don't teach much anymore. I'm a retired high-school teacher, and also spent a few decades teaching Karate.

In all that time teaching, I've seen a lot of mistakes, and made quite a few myself.

Some take a great deal of organization and planning to prevent, but some are so simple to correct and are so significant that it's surprising that everybody can't see them.

There is a ton of effort expended in education in evaluating students before new material is introduced. Have you ever been taught the same thing in school more than once? It's a waste of time and effort. The good news is that in a physical activity it's really easy to do. All you have to do is watch the students as they train. Instant feedback.

Sometimes there are easy fixes like that, sometimes for major problems.

In my teacher training, one professor mentioned casually that we should never tell students that material is, “easy.” He said we should always stress the parts that are difficult. I understood what he was saying but it didn't make a big impression on me until later in a real classroom.

I saw it in action in my first teaching job. I was to take over another teacher's class for a few weeks, and got to observe for a week or two ahead of time. It was a math class for kids who had severe difficulty with math.

The instructor would keep repeating how easy it all was. For the kids in that room, that was the exact wrong thing to say. It was difficult for them. What he was telling them was that, “for normal kids it's easy as pie, but you're all so stupid that you can't do it at all.”

He should have been saying something more like, “what we're doing today has a few tricks to it that mess everybody up, but we can work through that.” It doesn't matter if the teacher thinks it's easy or not.

In martial arts, saying something is easy sends an even worse message, although with less devastating consequences.

To martial arts students who hear you call something easy, and who then find it hard,  get the same message as the math kids I was talking about earlier. It tells them that they suck at martial arts.

To martial arts students who hear you call something easy, and don't find it difficult receive the message that they don't have to take things very seriously. It's easy, so of course they are able to do it effortlessly. They rush through, and ignore tips, waste time, and horse around. “No problem. It's easy.”

Of course, most students don't experience either problem from such a casual statement. Some do, but not many. The question becomes; why describe a technique as easy at all? There are potential problems, and there is also no upside to the statement. What good does it do to say it? What does either the student or the instructor gain from it?

The cure? Simple. Describe the difficulties in a technique, and try to include things you found hard when you first learned it.

How simple is that?

Undefeated

There has been a fair amount of rolling this week, and I won every time.

Let me explain.

The least comfortable roll of the week was a five-minute round with a guy who out-masses me by maybe 50 pounds, and is as strong as a mountain gorilla, and is maybe 20 years younger. He's a one-stripe Blue Belt, while I am a three-stripe, which gives me an advantage in experience.

He managed to stay on top for most of the round, and did everything he could to submit me. I defended every for almost the entire session. He finally caught me mere seconds from the timer bell, and I tapped. I bet he thinks he won, and he did. His goal was to submit the higher-level guy, and he did that. My goal was to defend, and I pulled that off far longer than I should have been able to, so I won, too.

Last night I was partnered for a while with our smallest practitioner. I tried to not use force or weight to my advantage, which I'm sure she appreciates. She is super flexible and very fast. I was able to score a few submissions, including a couple of chokes, and she got me a time or two as well. At one point I was standing in her open guard, too close for any of the defences we've learned to be effective. I stood there for a few extra beats to give her a moment to figure out an escape or transition. What she came up with was a brilliant, improvised sweep that ignored my size advantage, used the power of her legs and my forward angle, and flipped me right over her and put her on top. I won again, but so did she.

I also got to roll with our youngest advanced student. He's only 15, but has about the skill level of a new Blue Belt. He's a big lad, and will be throwing me around like a doll sometime soon, but not yet. He hasn't really come into his adult strength or coordination yet. He seems to like rolling with me, and sometimes grabs me to do so before class. Anyhow, I was up to all my usual tricks. For the first time ever, he managed to shut most of it down. I won again, and by defending well, he did, too.

These are maybe a third of my matches this week. All of the others were well-played encounters; nobody dominated, and we all rolled through a plethora of technique.

I'm pretty sure my partners won every time.

And I won, too.

Muscle=bad

Considering the lowliness of my rank in Jiu-Jitsu, I've rolled with a lot of people.

At home it's been limited to a couple of dozen, but out on the road there have been more.

In Arizona, I figure I've sparred with about ten, and in Los Angeles about a hundred.

Let's call it an even 125 sparring partners.

Out of all those people, well over 80% have been on-the-matt to improve their technique. The few others have had other agendas. I Find the silliest to be somebody who desperately wants to submit me, or to dominate me.

What's with that?

I'd guess about a dozen of my partners have been Brown or Black Belts. All these events have been similar in one way. They all let me try my stuff, or forced me to defend to the best of my ability. None went all-out, but when they pushed it was always with technical skill.

Except for one guy. He wasn't taller than me, but must like lifting weights. His arms are bigger around than my thighs. Also, he wanted to dominate me, but he didn't do it with skill. He did stuff like grabbing both of my wrists, and then clasping them in one of his hands. This, of course, left his other free to attack with while I effectively had no hands at all.

So here is this high-rank, big-muscle guy trying to dominate this old, low belt with strength.

Surprisingly, I found him relatively easy to defend against, considering his level. So what if he could trap both of my arms with one of his? What's he planning on doing with his free hand; tickle me to death?

This kind of thing went on for several minutes. During this time, Ryron Gracie yelled at my partner to, “use technique,” and, “stop using muscle.” My partner just carried on.

Ryron came and shooed me out, taking my place. Muscle-boy tried his stuff. He used power to try and force stuff through on Ryron, but it didn't do him any good at all. Ryron neutralized his power easily.

I don't think the guy got the message. He was used to forcing things through with strength against lower belts like me, and it worked, just not as well as better technique would have. He also tried to use strength on more skillful opponents, and it didn't work at all.

I wish I could have borrowed this other guy I met down there. He was attending some university on a football scholarship. His position was something like tackle. He is huge, and is clearly the strongest person I've ever rolled with, and also the largest. He rolls like a great partner, and uses skill and speed rather than power. He is also a Blue Belt like me.

It would have been perfect if he'd been put with mister muscle. That guy's entire game would have collapsed under the weight and power of the football player. Imagine how badly he'd have freaked out to have found himself with nothing he could use against a Blue Belt.

Last night I experienced something similar again. A stronger, heavier guy really, really wanted to submit me. This would be fine, except he wanted to do it using power and determination.

Several times we ended up in positions where he had the potential to go for an armbar, but didn't try as I was setting up to defend. It would have been a race of quickness and skill, and he never went for it. It might have failed, and he wanted to succeed.

He would let it go without making the attempt, so he could find something he was more comfortable with.

Through it all, he tried crushing, pain techniques that don't really force a submission. In no real danger from such, I would work myself out. He was causing pain to no effect.

He finally caught me at the very end of our five-minute round with an extended Americana armlock, and I tapped.

None of the submission attempts he made during the entire roll, including the final Americana, would have had any chance against a similarly powerful partner. None.

How would he do against the football guy, or the LA muscle guy?

How do you prepare for such an encounter? What you do is to roll as if everybody is within your strength range. If you catch yourself doing something that would never work against somebody your own size, let it go immediately. It is impossible to do this perfectly, but the goal should be to try.

This is also better for your partners. Nobody likes

That way you are magically never able to rely on strength. Every roll is a practice of skills that you'll need someday against the inevitable stronger opponent.

Innovation

It can be hard to be a good martial arts student.

There are just so many versions of everything, even within a clearly defined art.

For example, the Rener and Ryron version of Gracie Jiu-Jitsu has a particular grip that is used whenever double underhooks are achieved in a clinch. Their uncle, Royce Gracie, teaches the same movement with different grip. A difference, even within a single martial arts family. They even live in the same suburbs in LA, for Pete's sake.

Which is better? Which should we do?

Simple; you stick to one version, but be aware of the other. We are learning the Rener/Ryron version, and future movements that they teach may be predicated on the grip they expect us to be using.

We aren't learning a collection of movements, but an entire art as interpreted our head instructors.

If that argument isn't enough, how about this one. Suppose you like Royce's grip better, and start doing it all the time. Let's say you pick up what you think are better ways to do certain other movements. Then you do a belt-stripe exam. You can get away with a maximum of 20 “mistakes”. Let's say you do really well, and only do a dozen real mistakes. You also perform your version of other moves without thinking, and the examiner counts these as errors as well. You might just fail.

This is perfectly fair. They are quite up-front about their exams being aimed at exactly the material they teach, done in exactly the manner they expect you to perform them.

I find there to be more than enough material to master without going looking for extra versions of things.

This may sound funny being the guy from our school that trains in other places more than anybody else.

In 2014 and 2015 I have trained for a total of 3.5 months away from home. This does not contradict my philosophy at all, as every one of the 127 classes I attended were presented by my own organization.

Am I a robot, mindlessly following my leaders? Don't be silly. I learned this approach years ago in Shotokan Karate. I had to get good enough at doing things precisely their way. There wasn't anything left to dedicate to much else. I didn't avoid picking outside things up, but didn't hunt different stuff out either.

To me; it's a lot like learning to read English. When they teach you the alphabet, they expect you to learn it the way it's being taught. They don't want you deciding to use German vowel sounds rather than English, or adding in Cyrillic characters. Those are totally different things. Neither better nor worse, but not all that useful in learning to read English.

I like the Japanese version of fiddling with one's martial art. They believe that it's a job left to the highest of the masters. At a minimum, tinkering should be left to those with experience in an art that is measured in decades.

I was a 30 year guy in Shotokan, and still didn't consider myself advanced enough to tinker. In Jiu-Jitsu, I'm a baby with under four years experience.

I think Royce Gracie's version of the double-underhook clinch grip is great, and if I were his student I'd be happy to do it that way.

But I'm not.