Blue

It happened last Wednesday. Luciano was giving out extra stripes to some of the white belts. He gave a couple of white-belt teenagers their first stripe as well, to recognise their commitment. Then he said,  “and I have one belt to award”…

Almost two years ago, on Tuesday 30 January 2007, I walked to the Budokwai for the first time. As I passed by the millionaires’ houses in the road that leads to it, the only thing that kept me moving forward was the thought that if something terrified me this much, I had to conquer that fear or never respect myself again. I did not turn back and go home. I took the next step – and the next, and the next. I went in. I signed up, I bought a gi, and I started my first martial arts class ever.

To list the highlights and the low points of the 23-month journey to my blue belt would take a very long time. To list the people I came across, and what they have taught me and done for me, would take a lifetime. But I have to mention Luciano Cristovam, who has run the Wednesday night beginners’ class since it started in February 2007.

Belts in BJJ

There is a very strong bias against devaluing belts in Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu. This is good because it means that when you do finally achieve a belt, you know it’s been worth it.

Here’s a good comparison between belts and academic achievements:

White belt – none yet.

Blue belt – university entrance (matriculation).

Purple belt – first (bachelor’s) degree.

Brown belt – master’s degree.

Black belt – doctorate.

Instructively uninstructed

For reasons that aren’t clear yet, no instructor turned up to teach us this evening. It could not have come at a more embarrassing time. Two new people had come along for their first ever class. They had bought their gis, they had paid their year’s subscription, they had psyched themselves up, and… nothing. A third guy had been just twice before – and he had had to cross the whole of London in the rush hour to get to the class, and… nothing.

For the honour of the academy, we decided to hold a class anyway.

How we learn

The job of an instructor is to cause us to learn. Quite often they do this by teaching us; but it’s not the only way.

Time and power

One thing I discovered last week was how important it is to think of time as well as power.

Before now, I’ve tried a move, been countered by my opponent, and therefore immediately gone on to try something else. Only last week did it occur to me to ask myself: how much is this costing him?

Because if it doesn’t cost me much to maintain the pressure, and he’s in a weak position and using every ounce of his strength to resist me, it makes a lot of sense for me to wait a few seconds and see if time is on my side.

Like all big discoveries it’s utterly obvious but it’s made a big difference to my game. Whenever we reach a momentary stalemate I make this test – and if I think that he’s going to run out of steam before me (usually because I’m in a better position than I thought, but it might just be that he’s weaker than I thought) then I apply less strength but more weight, count to five and see how things evolve.

Now I have to get rid of the related bad habit: when trying a move you’re not sure of, try it at half strength first and if it feels OK then really commit yourself to it. In other words, give your opponent notice of what you’re doing! It’s an easy habit to get into if you’re not confident and surprisingly hard to kick.

Royler and Helio

This is a lightweight documentary clip that’s good for explaining to your friends what this BJJ thing is all about. It’s good to watch how Helio moves.

Thanks to B Stuff et cetera for pointing it out.

Principle: weight placement

Over the past two weeks my BJJ game has changed fundamentally. Suddenly, instead of thinking in terms of the moves we’ve been taught, I find myself thinking in terms of the underlying principles.

For example: when on top in side control, I stopped thinking about putting my arm under his head (item 3 on my “side-control” checklist, as if I was a pilot preparing my aircraft for flight). Instead there came the simple idea that it would be good to arrange things so that if he turned a way I didn’t want, he’d choke himself without me having to do anything.

If you like, it’s a process of forgetting the moves so that you can invent them for yourself as you go along.

I’m rather at the forgetting stage just now, so the overall performance can end up worse than it was, but deep down it really is progress. I’m moving from doing a less good thing well to doing a better thing less well. Eventually, once the process is complete, I’ll be able to think about moves once more, but the way the blue belts do. Listening to them talk, they do talk about moves, but the moves are a description of what they’re doing, not a definition of it.

Eventually.

Anyway, the new thinking has had its successes. Yesterday, rolling with Luciano and practising getting out from under his side control (he’s 83.5kg on the scales but 120kg when he’s on top of me), I suddenly felt, in the middle of my shrimp-and-shove attempt to get him into guard, that the position was unstable. I gave it a bit of a push in the right direction and sure enough, we toppled over and I was in a side control position on top of him. I couldn’t tell you what the move was called and I don’t want to know just yet because the knowledge would confuse me, but that moment of “something funny in the equilibrium here, let’s try to use it” is exactly the sort of principle thing I’m trying to convey.

Here, appositely, is a YouTube clip about weight placement:

Being a principle, you can bear it in mind anywhere – as opposed to a move, which only fits in one place. I saw this on B Stuff et cetera (thanks, and good luck with the operation!).

How we learn

Now that I’m beginning to get the ghost of an inkling of what BJJ is all about (and so I should, since I got awarded my third stripe on Wednesday: thank you Luciano, I’ll try to deserve it), I think I can understand the learning process a little better.

Our class is fairly standard. Our instructor shows us a move – armbar from side control, or whatever. He breaks it up into the individual stages, the grips, the shifts of weight, and then he puts it back together again. Then we pair off and practise.

By then we’ve already completely forgotten how it’s meant to go. It was obvious when we watched it. It was so obvious that we were bored with being shown and impatient with the one guy in the class who wanted to see it just one more time. And now – our minds and bodies are blank. We have to call the instructor over and get him to show us on our own bodies what to do.

The same comes when you try to learn any physical activity and the reason is always the same. They can teach your mind, but it’s your body that has to learn.

Injuries

“Why don’t you blog more about BJJ?”, a commenter asked. The answer is that I don’t think I know anything about it yet. But then I thought that not knowing anything about BJJ is where we all start. So I’m preparing a deep and meaningful posting about the learning experience.

But meaningfulness takes time, and meanwhile, Forlogos’ stiff neck made me think of injuries. He got his latest one from riding the subway doing neck stretches in public, “Look, I’m this really fit guy who works hard on maintaining his body even on trains, look at this stre— Aaaaaaargghhhhhh!”.

At least I got my BJJ injuries from BJJ!

BJJ blogs I read

There are more and more blogs on Brazilian jiu-jitsu. I try not to read too many of them, because for me BJJ is something you learn with the body, not with the head.