Jumanji's

An unathletic man's voyage through Brazilian Jiu Jitsu

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I'm not saying you should train jiujitsu, I'm just saying your life would be better if you did.

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Sunday is a great day for Fedor highlights

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Drilling tomorrow morning

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Bas Rutten is the man.

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Winter Training vs. Summer Training - First post for BJJ Lifestyle.com

Personal thoughts about winter training vs. summer training in BJJ

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Focused

Purple Belt 

Movement and Momentum are the tenets of a purple belt.

You’ll be rolling with greater smoothness as a purple belt. This is the stage where you’ll move with your weight in the right place and you’ll discover how to manipulate your opponent’s momentum and weight to their disadvantage.

You will also learn to reduce wasted movements and eliminate superfluous actions that have been holding you back from becoming more fluid and efficient.

You will also further perfect your defense and will spend a lot of time on your weaker skill sets in Brazilian Jiu Jitsu. This part can be very frustrating for many people, as they spend a majority of their purple belt stage working on things they are not good at.

You should also be familiar with every Guard configuration and specialize in doing one or two perfectly.

As a purple belt, you’ll begin to combine your actions.  You’ll do simple compound attacks like armbar into triangle choke.

Your performance gains will be smaller and less obvious than they were at the white belt and blue belt stages.  This can be frustrating for many purple belts as the feeling that they are not getting any better and that they are plateauing quickly sets in.

It’s critical for coaches to help their purple belt students understand that their performance gains won’t be as drastic as they were before and that many of their improvements will come from subtle improvements found in achieving higher efficiency, greater fluidity and a stronger understanding of momentum and weight.

As a purple belt, you’ll be consciously competent, knowing what to do and when to do it.  Purple belts will have keen recognition of the correct circumstances and positions to execute their techniques.

As well, you be making your own adjustments and applying more self-coaching as your knowledge base is much deeper and broader than it was when you were a white and blue belt.  You’ll be less dependent on your coach for answers and your relationship with your coach will be more akin to problem solving and an exchange of ideas rather than a monologue where only the coach talks and you just sit and listen.

The key goal at purple belt is to attain a higher degree of smoothness.  As a purple belt the divide between knowing what to do and doing what you know is starting to narrow.

courtesy of infighting.ca

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Must drill. 

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I'll start drilling this after the Open. I don't have to explode for a shot, its all about the grips and my leg placement. Good move.

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Fun

At the root of every competition there is a game. Yes, people do take things seriously, to another level one might say. That is only because of our human nature. It is only natural to want to be on top, very few people are okay with mediocrity. 

"You play to win the game", said Herm Edwards somewhat infamously during a 2006 post-game press conference. I agree, yes you should always play to win the game but at the root of that competition is still that... a game. 

I have found myself in two very different states lately because jiu-jitsu is everything to me, and when I am rolling around like a maniac, flowing like water, I am often at the most peace with myself. I can roll around for hours with a smile on my face, be it running circles around people I know I am better than or escaping from getting choked by teammates that are way better than I am. When I am this happy I know that I am growing and getting better, I can feel the progress just as I can feel the blood rushing through my face as I hum along to the music in my head. 

The second state is much of the opposite, as I get ready to compete in the NY summer open and I have some weight to lose there is no time for play, there is only time to focus. Focus on things that must improve, on a game plan that must be executed. On things that only I can control. On playing to win the game... 

I am focused. 

I play to win the game, and my game is all about having fun. 

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Mental, Emotional and Physical Exhaustion

As the small amount of you who read this may know I have been a bit depressed lately which is not a state that I usually find myself in. I pride myself in being carefree. That is not to say that I don’t care about anything or anyone… It just means that I put things in perspective more than others and don’t let small things bother me.

My friend Raz told me this past week that he didn’t like seeing me this way. He can see the pain in my face and knowing how I am he feels for me. He knows whatever is weighing me down must be extremely heavy. I have reached a point where I am not only physically exhausted (which is completely normal), to a point where my brain and soul are exhausted as well.

I must not let myself feel this way. The last thing to go should be your mind. You must never let anyone break your spirit. It is a fundamental law. The only issue is that to keep that spirit your emotions and your mind have to be in sync. Everything must flow… like water.

Currently I’m closer to oil than water. Not really free flowing and I hate it.

I’ve been through a lot that people could never imagine, and if there’s one thing I’ve learned it’s that people should live their lives and not stress or dwell on what can be but instead experience life as it should be.

Praying for stamina. I already have the physical, simply need the mental and emotional.

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NY Summer Open 2013

I am about to sign up for the NY Summer Open on July 13th. It is roughly 6 weeks away and as my knee has almost healed I am ready to compete again. 

As I wrote before I have been having concerns about where I will continue to train and how far I would like to go. I recently texted a lot of my current teammates and nobody had a response about whether or not they wanted to sign up for the tournament. It can be a bit discouraging, but I have decided that this is what I want and nobody will simply give it to me. 

I have been lifting regularly and thought about going up to lightweight for next season but I haven't been able to gain any weight. The only way I can gain a couple of pounds is if I eat horrible food and that's not the route I want to take. Currently hovering around 158-160 I figure I will keep lifting as much as possible and just make featherweight. 

It's great to see the improvements in my strength. I was always that guy who had all this technique but couldn't finish most people because everyone is way heavier than me, and everyone knew it. A running gag. I also always told people to watch out when I started lifting because once Jumanji got stronger it wouldn't be fun for anyone. 

Well I am not the strongest I will be by far, but I am certainly getting there and people have noticed. Everything has gotten a bit easier in that department and it's allowing me to save energy, catch more submissions and not have to worry about an adrenaline dump. I simply flow. Like Bruce Lee said "you must be like water". 

July 13th is only the beginning. I still have many choices to make but I suspect that God has a plan for me and everything will work itself out. 

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Live for yourself

Lately I have been kind of down so to say, I’ve been in a bad place. I don’t like throwing out the word ‘depressed’ because I feel like a lot of people really do have depression issues and my life isn’t that serious. I have Jiu Jitsu and my family and I thank God (or whomever you do or don’t thank) I do because it really is my own personal form of Prozac.

Due to many facets of my life, career, health, in depth personal analysis, and my knee I haven’t been able to train as much as I would like, at a pace and consistency that I would enjoy. However, last week I was able to get a couple of training sessions in before I headed up to Montreal and I was reminded of why it’s great to just be alive. To just live for yourself.

On Monday I trained at the Renzo Gracie Academy in Manhattan as it was my coaches last day in New York and it was the last time I would get to see him for a little while. He moved to Portland on Tuesday and is setting everything up to open up a new academy, Renzo Gracie Portland. It was great to head down to Renzo’s because it’s such a big academy and there were a lot of good guys there and it was my first chance to go to John Danaher’s no-gi class. I got to roll with a couple of purples and some bigger blue belts and I felt great. My knee held up, I didn’t exert much unnecessary energy and I got a couple of compliments from everyone.

Tuesday, I received a message from my friend James Saa who is in town from Ecuador getting ready for the Worlds. I got out of a job interview and ran straight down to Alliance to train with him and the Iturralde brothers, who are also here getting ready for the World Championships. It was my first time at Alliance and it was great to change the pace, drill and train hard with people that are highly competitive on a world level. James just got back from winning bronze at the Abu Dhabi World Pro and the Iturralde brothers are all highly decorated competitors. We trained at noon and then headed back to Queens to train with them again at night.

I ended my training week back at my academy for my friend Larry’s first class. He recently got his brown belt and is teaching on Wednesday nights to give Jin a night off. I admire Larry a lot, his sequences and transitions are almost flawless and at times you can tell he is toying with people. He’s a good friend of mine and I pick his brain as much as I can, we only differ in that he has no desire to compete. He doesn’t want to deal with the waiting, the anxiety, the dieting and all the other stuff that comes along with the usual competitions.

So my life is divided into two opposites, the desire to compete at Alliance made me feel great and again brought up thoughts of switching academies. But what would feel better? Going to the best and biggest academy in the world, or becoming the first person from my small school to win at the Pan Ams? or the Worlds?

As much as this decision has been on my mind for the last couple of weeks I have decided to put it off until I receive my purple belt. I don’t know when or where that will be, and that’s ok with me. Jiu Jitsu is my lifelong journey and even when I teach I will still be its student.

A friend told me last week that I was being given an opportunity and that I will regret not taking it more than if people hate me for leaving. Her words haven’t left my mind, she’s a friend that knows me pretty well I would say. When the time is right, the right decision will be made.

You have to live for yourself, because nobody will live for you.

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I wonder what it must be like to be the one of the best black belts in the world, being able to always roll lightly because the game comes with ease... one day, one day. 

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My bum knee, to rest or not to rest....

So I stated previously that my left knee has been sprained for a couple of weeks. I have also been having a hard time life wise, a tumultuous roller coaster of a life that has had more valleys than peaks. 

Jiu Jitsu has always been my escape, my freedom, my happy place. In the end it is what matters to me. It has made me a better person and for the lucky few to know me on a real personal level, it has saved my life so to speak. Needless to say I try to take as little time off as possible and with my sprained LCL I tried to do the same. The only issue being that as much as I try to go train and roll light and feel better, my knee is nowhere near ready. I may be doing more harm then good. I wake up in the middle of the night sometimes because I have rolled the wrong way, I am severely sore after training most days and even worse my coach taught a certain guard last week that requires a bit of strain on your knee and I couldn't work on it.

The guard is amazing, it's the type of guard the flows right into my Spider-guard, Z-guard, X-guard combo I like to play. I'm a little bummed about it. What can I do? Do I run the risk and continue to train light or do I sit at home depressed because I'm not training. 

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Keep your ego off the mats.

The mats are said to have no space for ego. The mats are where anyone and everyone can be humbled. I have been known to be stubborn, to be slow to tap, but I have never been known to roll with an ego.

Yes, I will not tap if a choke is not on 100% because I believe I can escape. Yes, I will twist, turn, bridge and fight until the room closes in and I see some stars. I have to see how far I can go and I happen to be pretty difficult to choke.

However, I have never rolled maliciously, nor have I ever wanted to use anything more than pressure to pass a guard or to secure a limb, of course this also may have to do with the fact that I am smaller than most of my training partners.

We were drilling throws today and a teammate of mine picked me up and referred to me as a “feather”. I have noticed that stronger, more athletic people have a really difficult time letting go of their ego, they don’t want to lose to the small guy.

Which brings me to my friend, Blake. Blake is really strong and athletic, he is about 10-15 pounds heavier than me but a WHOLE lot stronger currently. He is a good player but I feel he is constantly held back by his ego. Instead of trying to learn new things and flow naturally he is constantly trying to cartwheel pass over peoples guards or muscle his way out of positions.

His ego will not let him advance. One day after training a few months ago he leaned over and said “I want to be like Yoda, I want to roll with the Force,” and then added,”Right now I am a Sith Lord”.

Interesting thought. So I promptly replied, “You need to just relax, I roll with the Force because im 155 pounds and weak, you have to find a different way”.

I figured that by telling him constantly that his super-aggro style was not working that he would eventually relax and focus more on his technical jiujitsu. Sad to say he took it as a challenge and said he would keep doing cartwheels and playing his inefficient game.

Ego.

There is no place for it on the mats.

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Crossroads.

It really is TWO crossroads but that just seems like a clusterfuck. I sprained my LCL about three weeks ago, luckily it was only a sprained LCL and nothing worse. When it happened, the bubble wrap sound my knee made everyone in the gym stop rolling and images of torn ligaments pop in my head. 

It's not that bad. The swelling subsided after 3-4 days but the movement isn't there, i can't rotate it as I normally do and forget about closing a triangle choke, holding a tight half guard or rotating my knee to recover my guard (something which I do consistently). 

So needless to say I've been a bit depressed about it, the gym and jiujitsu are my happy zone. My teammates are my family and the mats are my home. The issue is that I don't like NOT training, if I can walk I can roll, and the fact that the pain is only there when I rotate the knee doesn't help because it doesn't hurt most of the time so I tend to forget. Yes, I have been rolling light and I have been using my left leg minimally, which in turn has resulted in my working on new techniques but I suspect that I am not healing as quickly as I should be. 

To paint a picture, I am really prone to one side, I prefer arm dragging to the left arm (using my right arm to drag my opponents left) and taking the back, I prefer playing my Z-Guard on my left, and I almost play half guard on my left. Needless to say having a sprained left LCL can impair a good portion of my game. 

The hardest part about this is that psyche myself out, i worry about people training while I am not on the mats, I am already unathletic as it is, so imagine me thinking that an athletic guy is outworking me on the mats, double disadvantage. I have been reading books and watching a lot of video (mostly Marcelo Garcia and Leandro Lo) to try and balance things out. 

To train or not to train? Heal quickly at home or heal slowly on the mats?

The second crossroads is in that of my coaches, and my academy. I am a very loyal person. Very, very loyal. It's a code I feel. It's an honor thing. I love my coaches and I love my teammates. 

I want to win tournaments. I want to be considered one of the best at my level. I am constantly reminded that I started out too old and that I am not athletic enough, so I try and work harder than anyone out there. I embrace the challenge of proving everyone wrong, of making my coaches proud. 

The dilemma is that when I train in Ecuador I train at Alliance Samborondon, with coach Juan Miguel Iturralde and his team. I have friends at that academy and they have helped me improve my gi game a fair bit (South America trains about in the Gi about 90% of the time) and after the BJJ camp in Ecuador back in March I now have quite a few friends in South America (all of which train at Alliance). 

While I was in Ecuador I was asked by one of my friends there, a very good young purple belt, why I didn't train at Alliance NYC with JuanMi's brother and the rest of the team. I explained to him that I had a loyalty to my professors that have taught me everything I know, I am who I am because of them. He in turn explained how he thought it would vastly improve my game to train with the champions at Alliance NYC and all the Alliance's around the world. Coincidentally enough, this was two days after Gianna Grippo had left Renzo Gracie's for Marcelo Garcia's academy. My friend Johnny simply said "If Gianni Grippo, 5x world champion, can switch schools after 10 years, so can you". 

It's a statement that has weighed on me for quite some time now. I simply let it run in my mind and it boggles me. What do I do? Will there be a "what if" either way?

I just need a sign...

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Earned, never given.

One thing I have learned on my journey over these past years is that nothing in this world is given, unless your name is Rockefeller or Memphis Bleek. 

After my first week training and consistently getting rolled into a pretzel, hyperextended and choked, I asked my coach how I would get better. 

"Just mat time", he said to me. "Just show up and train."

I was a skinny fat 180 pound white belt back then and I consistently showed up for eight months and got beat up. I didn't understand it, I couldn't get a tap, I was weaker than everyone and one of the smallest guys at the gym. I marveled at how my coaches were 160 pounds and could destroy people. I still marvel and hope to be like them one day. 

"You've never beaten anyone?", was what my ex-girlfriend said to me one night. "You suck". She added. It only fueled my fire. 

The fact was that I was the newest guy there, the guys that followed me were usually big 200 pounders who would just pick me up like a feather, I hadn't learned how to use my movement or how to create that pressure, or how to effectively play open guard without getting passed. There was only one thing I did know... I would never give up. Ever. 

There was one thing I had going for me in that first year, I'm pretty hard to choke, It was my savior, I could hang out in a choke calmly and wiggle until I got out, or until the person squeezing to kill me drained their arms. It's a gift and also a curse because I have been known to not protect my neck at times, but it gave me a boost of confidence I needed when all I did was defend for so long. 

I love this sport. Coach John Danaher says "A day without training is a day wasted" and I truly believe that. Nobody will ever give you anything in jiujitsu. I took my first submission, I caught a body triangle from the back and rolled into a rear naked choke. It was my victory; Earned...not given.