Couchjitsu

In high school, I was playing basketball over at a friend’s house. It was a 3-on-3 game in his driveway. We’d been playing for a little while and someone asked “What’s the score?” Another friend replied, “Ask Nate, he’s kind of like a human calculator.”  I did know the score, as I had been keeping track in my mind the entire time (but it doesn’t exactly take a calculator to keep track of a 3-on-3 game to 10 by 1’s game.)  That’s something I’ve always done. If I’m watching a game I can almost always tell you what the score is, about how much time is left and in cases of football, what the down and distance is. Obviously this is easier now because all that information is plastered all over the screen. But even before it was, it was just something that I mentally kept  track of. It wasn’t even really all that conscious. I never made it a point to say “Ok, remember, it’s 7-3 with 8 minutes left in the 2nd.” It just kind of happened.

When I first started BJJ I was still very much that way. Driving home after my first sparring class, I replayed almost all of the matches. I remembered when the first guy passed my guard like it was nothing. I remember the second guy getting mount etc.  And that happened for quite a while. In fact, I even detailed my first submission in somewhat in-depth detail.

However, over the past month or so, I’ve noticed something has changed when I spar. I’m aware of how I’m doing in the midst of each session. For example, I might be fighting off a back attack for 3:30 of a 4 minute round, and I realize that I’m in a bad place. But at the end of the night, I don’t instantly remember who got me with what, which matches went the whole time without a submission, and which ones I got submissions in.  I will remember if it’s someone who always taps me out and I was able to survive. Or if I got a new submission that I wanted to work on. But other than that, the matches just blend together for me.

I think there are a couple of reasons for this. First, it’s a process of maturation. Although I’m still very new to BJJ (10 months this week) I’m starting to move away from some of the early tendencies of “all that matters is getting a submission.”  As I progress in the sport, I see that there are a lot of things to learn, and lots of areas to grow. And that, especially in practice, the submission isn’t all important.

Secondly, I think competing helped me in this area as well. After my tournament back in March, I realized that there are some areas of my game that need more immediate attention than others. For example, when someone gets my guard open, I need to be mobile and not just let them right into side control. What this did to me in sparring was take the emphasis off of retaining guard, and focus on my movement when they passed my guard. In doing that, I became focused on hip movement, and escapes. I started judging the quality of my sparring sessions by whether or not I executed the correct escape. It changed the definition of success for me. The following sparring session once would have definitely been a failure in my mind, but now might be a success:

• Start on our knees
• Get guard
• Grip fight
• Attempt a submission
• Partner starts to pass
• Shrimp away, up to my elbow
• Get back to my knees
• Get taken down
• Get mounted
• Get submitted

The final result may or may not have changed, but the middle section from “Grip Fight” to “Get back to my knees” was what was important to me.

Finally, I realized that sparring class in the gym is just that. It’s a class…at the gym. Most people there are trying to work on different parts of their game. You often start in non-neutral positions. Is it super impressive that I got an Ezequiel choke from mount, if I got to start in mount?

Even though I don’t track each match like I used to, and at the end of the night I couldn’t tell you what my “record” was, I’m still tracking my progress. It’s just that I’ve started using a different metric.

Saulo Ribeiro (an amazing BJJ practitioner and teacher) has a quote in his book Jiu Jitsu University:

If you think, you’re late.  If you’re late, you muscle.  If you muscle you tire, and if you tire you die.

The emphasis here is that jiu jitsu needs to be second nature, it needs to be instinctive. I’ve never doubted the truth of this statement, but I got to experience it this week (except for the dying part.)

It was Wednesday night sparring, and I was feeling beat up. Class and sparring Monday was physically exhausting (I had one match that must have lasted 8-10 minutes.) Tuesday’s sparring class, while not as exhausting was still intense involving lots of good matches. By the time Wednesday sparring rolled around I was a little tired. By the end of the class I was flat out beat.

On one of the last matches of the night, I started in mount. In a matter of seconds I was in guard (as I’d been rolled out of mount.) We fought there for a little bit, my partner then went to knee mount and finally mount. At this point, things slowed down a bit for me. What I mean is, my opponent is in mount, and I see he’s in mount, I feel he is in mount, my mind is saying “You got to get out of here, Nate.” But my body wasn’t listening. Then he got one hand in my collar and I could tell he was setting up a choke. I was thinking, “I need to get out of here. I should shrimp, or defend, or something.” But my body didn’t comply.  Sure enough, a few seconds later I was tapping out.

I wasn’t operating on instinct and muscle memory there. I was operating on my brain telling my body what to do and hoping that my body would listen.  By the time I thought that I should defend the choke, it was too late, he’d already started to set it in. 

 

 

About a month ago, we started an evening no-gi class at our gym. The lunchtime class has had a no-gi class at least once a week for quite a while now, but nothing in the evening. So far, I’ve only been able to go to two of the classes because of work and other things. But one thing I noticed right away, it’s a completely different game in a lot of ways.

As the name implies no-gi involves practicing (or trying to practice) jiu jitsu with out the gi or at least without the jacket. Usually guys just wear shorts and t-shirts or rashguards. Additionally, you can’t grab shirts or shorts in no-gi, whereas in gi you can grab both (provided you don’t stick your hands down their sleeves.)

Being able to grab a gi slows things down dramatically. If you want to tie someone up, you can get a grip on their collar and hold on to them, or if they start to pass your guard you can grab their pants and try to move away. But that goes both ways, because it’s also easier for you to escape. There’s less friction which makes it easier to slide your knee to your elbow, or to pull your arm out of an armlock. It’s not simple, just easier.

This also makes it a lot faster. If you go for an armbar, and I can escape quickly, then I can start working a pass, and you can start to shrimp away or escape. All of that can happen in a matter of seconds. It can happen in the gi as well, but it usually takes a lot longer.

The other thing I noticed is that I have fewer attacks from different positions. That’s not saying there are fewer attacks, simply that I have fewer. For example, at one point today I got into side control and couldn’t really get much so I moved to north-south. At that point I realized I only know one or maybe 2 chokes from north-south. Both of which involve grabbing the gi. So I move back to side and think about going to the mount, but my favorite attacks from mounts are chokes that again involve me grabbing the gi (either mine or my partners.)

Those are the two observations I’ve had after 2 classes. I had heard that the two were different games, and there is a lot of truth to that. At the core, though, it’s still jiu jitsu. Things like weight distribution, base and position before submission are still true.

Month:

Technique: 19 hours
Sparring: 11 hours
Strength & Conditioning: 11 hours
Total: 41 hours

Note: Includes 4 hours of seminar with Rodrigo Vaghi.

Year:

Technique: 66 hours
Sparring: 34 hours
Strength & Conditioning: 21 hours
Total: 121 hours

Weight: 188 (+3 since last month – got a little lazy without the competition)

Statistics were tracked using MatTime, my Jiu Jitsu Tracker.

Yesterday after a seminar a fellow white belt and I were talking. He was remarking that one thing he hates about being a white belt in BJJ is that people don’t typically understand how long it takes to get a colored belt in BJJ. For example, I had a former coworker who got a black belt in Tae Kwan Do in 3 years. I’ve met guys at our gym who were white belts for 3 years (or more.)  So when the average person hears that you train a martial art, and they ask what belt you are, and you tell them white, they start to think about their neighbor/niece/cousin/friend that has been doing “karate” for 2 years and is already a brown belt, they think you must really suck at this “jiu jitsu” stuff.

And that is in deed annoying.

However, as I was thinking about it today, I realized that it’s actually good for me that there are only 5 belts. I think back to college. I typically did pretty good in classes, and would often do well on tests. However, when I was graduating and doing interviews, I’d get questions about designing a circuit that does X or they’d draw me a circuit and ask me what kind of output that circuit would have. I’d often have little to no clue (or at least I felt that way.) For me, there was school and testing and then there was application. I could do well in the academic, but wasn’t as quick to get the real-world applications. It’s not that I can’t get the real world applications, it just doesn’t seem to come as fast as the academic side.

I’m seeing some of that with jiu jitsu as well.  For example, within 3 months of me starting BJJ, I had taken and passed the “white belt stripe test” as Mid-America. That meant that I could execute one or two specific moves from each position (for example, I knew the proper technique to two separate mount escapes, against a non-resistant partner.) Then I went to my first sparring class, and realized very quickly that “knowing” the right technique and “executing” the right technique were two very different things.  It was back to the class-interview dichotomy for me.

So what does this all have to do with me being glad there are only 5 belts? The way I look at it, if there more belts, I’d be constantly working towards the next belt, and specifically the next test. I could drill the moves, or names, or whatever else was needed for the next test, and completely miss out on learning the art. So with the realization that I will spend at least 2 years at white belt, I have the freedom to relax and actually LEARN BJJ.

In February there was a slight schedule shift in the technique and sparring classes. What it meant was we had more whitebelts showing up for sparring on Monday and Wednesday nights. It’s still taking some getting used to, because for the first few months of sparring I was working solely on survival as I’d continually face blue, purple and even the occasional brown.

But now that I’ve had some time sparring with other whitebelts, I’ve thought about what it’s been like to roll with each belt.

White:

It’s all about the win. Rolling with other whitebelts is an interesting experience. The newer whitebelts seem to come in and want to prove themselves. It rarely seems to be about working a particular move or position, but instead trying to see if in they can pull off a submission in the next 4-5 minutes.

Blue:

Relaxed but determined. Blue belts tend to be more relaxed. Part of it is that they’ve been sparring for longer than me, so they’re used to it and know how to move without consuming all of their energy. Part of it is that they’re learning some of the intricacies of BJJ and so they want to work on that. They may or may not have figured out their style of BJJ yet, but they’re willing to learn. They don’t always go for the jugular, they’ll let you work some, but they’ll also submit you, if for no other reason than to remind you that they can.

Purple:

Focused and teaching. Purples seem to fall into two categories: focused and teacher. It’s not that one guy can’t be both, but it seems that one roll can only be one or the other. When a purple belt is in their focused stage, they have a definite gameplan or style they’re trying to work. They’ll let you work too because they are trying to see how this gameplan stacks up against all comers (even those of us who do clueless things from time to time.) The other side of the coin are the teachers. When a purple is in a teaching mode, they’ll let you work and struggle to see what you’ve got. They might let you get to a dominate position to see how you’re going to transition from there, or they might put you in a bad position to see how you react. Then they’ll tell you some things that you can do better, reset and see if you can pull them off.

Brown:

Let’s see where  you are. The brown belts I’ve rolled with seem to put you in a position that either they know you should know, or they want to see if you know. For example, they’ll get in mount and start working to take an arm, because they know you know the armbar defense, and they want to see how you execute it. They seem to be least worried about submitting you, and more interested in seeing how you’re progressing.

Keep in mind a few things. First, this is my experience as a white belt rolling with these guys. As I progress through the ranks, I fully expect the interaction to change. For example, I’d expect purples roll with blues different than they do with whites.

Secondly, belts are a sort of spectrum. To some degree you can see this with the stripe system. Each belt has 4 stripes before being eligible for the next stripe. So while two people might both have blue belts, one might have no strip (closer to white belts) and one might have 4 (closer to purple.) So a 4 stripe blue belt might already be showing some purple belt tendencies when rolling, and conversely, a no-stripe blue belt might be showing some white belt tendencies.

Overall, it’s great to be able to roll with all the different belts because each one brings a different challenge to my own game. Rolling only against other white belts, would rob myself of the opportunity to grow and learn from the guys who have been there before.

Leading up to my first tournament, I looked at our sparring class as a chance to simulate a tournament. As a result, I tried to defend, sweep, mount and submit my partner. That was my focus. Sometimes I pulled it off, more often than not I didn’t. But for each match I focused on trying to “win.”

Then I went to Sasquatch Open. The matches didn’t go the way I hoped they would. I did some good things (like taking them to the ground on multiple occasions.) I did some things rather poorly, for example, maintaining my guard. In fact, one coach told me Monday “If you’re going to pull guard, you should have one.”  He said it tongue-in-cheek (I think) and I laughed, but there was more than a kernel of truth to that.

Immediately after the tournament, I started thinking about my gameplan. Did I have it wrong? Should I abandon my plan of pull guard, sweep, submit? Should I start learning some takedowns so that I can take it down and wind up in mount, bypassing the sweep step? The more I thought about it, the more I decided I wasn’t ready to be that drastic yet. The tournament highlighted two glaring errors in my game. First, not getting any sweeps off. In reality, I didn’t even really try any, once I got in guard, I didn’t want to unhook my legs to execute a sweep attempt. Secondly, I did not do a good job on pass defense. Once my opponent started to pass, they were able to relatively easily.

So that’s what I’ve been looking at in sparring the past two weeks. Right now I’m not even trying to perform sweeps, but rather working on retaining guard. I’ve given up opportunities for other actions, like setting up submissions, because I wanted keep my partner in guard and work on retaining it.

Sometime soon I’ll shift my focus away from retaining guard, and start trying to set up sweeps. Even if it means I get passed, or don’t retain my guard, I’ll be content to mostly work on sweeps.

My focus has changed, and my approach to sparring is starting to change. Rather than looking at whether I tapped or he tapped, I’m looking at “was I able to keep guard?” Or “What happened when I tried to retain guard, and he tried a standing pass?”  I’m actually starting to approach sparring with a specific gameplan that I want to work on, rather than consider it a mini-tournament.

At the end of the year last year, I was on a Jiu Jitsu forum and a guy posted his statistics for the year. How many classes he went to, which month he went the most or the least, how many days in a row he went etc. I looked at that and thought “That would be interesting to know.” So I created a spreadsheet so that I could track each time I went to a class.  I had it sum up the numbers at the top so I could see at a glance how many hours I’d spent at the gym

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After I used this for a month, I wanted to see how many hours I’d spent total AND how many hours I’d spent in the current month, so I made a quick change.  Then our gym changed schedules and we no longer had an “Intro” and an “Open” class, just a “Technique” class so I started looking to edit it again.  This time, however, I thought “Why  not just put this in a database so that if I want to at a later date, I could run all sorts of statistics on it.”

So that’s exactly what I did. I created a new website called Mat Time. It can be used to track what classes you go to and when. All that it takes to start using is a Facebook login. Don’t worry though, it will not monitor your feed, nor will it post anything to your wall. It simply uses Facebook to prove that you are who you say you are.

Once you log in, your screen will look like this:

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In the upper right is your name and picture. This will let you know you are logged in.  In the middle of the screen is today’s date. As well as a box asking “What did you do today?”  On the left and right are two sidebars. The one on the left will keep track of the top 4 activities for the current month. The one on the right will keep track of the top 4 activities for the year.

To add a new activity, simply type in the box and hit enter.  It will be added to that day’s activities as well as the two sidebars. If you want to add an activity for a different date, simply click through until you reach that date, and enter what you did.

After you enter some activities, your screen will look like this:

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So on March 27th of this year, I went to a conditioning class, a technique class and a sparring class.  For the month of March, I went to 14 technique classes, 8 conditioning classes, 6 sparring classes and one tournament. The monthly total is 29 classes.  For the year (at that point) I’d done 48 technique classes, 23 sparring classes, 10 conditioning classes and 6 competition training classes. The total for the year is 88 activities (it doesn’t show the 1 tournament I went to, because it’s only showing my top 4 activities.)

There are times you may want to add a note to your training. For example, maybe you’ve been working on a sweep and finally hit it while live rolling. Or maybe you want to note your record for a tournament. To do that, when you’re entering an activity, simply enter a ‘:’, everything to the right of the colon will be considered a note and will show up like this:

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For this activity I entered Tournament: 0-2 Gi & 0-2 NoGi at Sasquatch Open. It added tournament to my list of activities and created a note for that tournament.

So head over to http://track.couchjitsu.com and try it out.

March 2013

Technique: 13

Sparring: 6

Conditioning: 8

Total: 27

Weight: 185 (competed at 181.4) Down 21 pounds since starting, and down 6 pounds since last month.

 

Year Totals

Technique: 53

Sparring: 23

Conditioning: 10

Total: 86

One tournament match its worth ten sparring classes. One sparring class is worth ten technique classes. – Ed Shobe

By that logic, I went through 40 sparring classes this weekend. In that time I learned a few things

1. I’m not naturally gifted at Brazilian Jiu Jitsu. This just means I’m going to have to work at it, probably pretty hard.

2. I need to attack more. I got my grips. I was first. I took the match to the ground more than once. But I stalled out there. I need a more active guard, and be willing to open up for a sweep without fearing getting passed.

3. I can withstand a lot. In my second match, my opponent locked in a tight rear-naked choke. But I really didn’t want to tap. I worked to free myself. I didn’t, but I also didn’t go to sleep.

4. Tournament BJJ can be an odd beast. My last match I lost (decidedly) 12-0. But in that match, not a single submission was attempted. My opponent looked at an Americana, but didn’t really push for it.

5. BJJ can be really humbling. After my losses, I felt like I should apologize to my family. I felt as if I’d let them down. I felt as if I’d let down my teammates at Mid-America who tried to help me get ready. I heard from several people who told me that they were proud of my effort. That was very meaningful to me. At the same time, I know how I stack up against the guys on Saturday. I can’t delude myself, I lived through reality.

6. My losses didn’t change who I am. I’ve got areas to work on in my game, but who doesn’t? Saturday night, I went back to the hotel with my family. We ate. We swam. We went and got ice cream. I’ll wake up tomorrow and go to work. I’ll write some code I think is awesome, and the next day, I’ll realize it sucks. I’ll goto BJJ this week and get better. Nothing changes. I’m reminded of a story from seminary. A professor’s friend had his house burn down. As he and his son saw it, he asked “what is the chief end of man? (Westminster shorter catechism)” His son replies “to glorify God and enjoy him forever.” “What’s changed?”

Or as Charles put it Saturday “If you lose by points, nobody cares. There is no winning or losing in jiu jitsu. There is only learning.”

Nothing’s changed.