Goals.

As I begin this post, I must stress once again that I am not a sophisticated blogger. Also, I'm not an original blogger. As such, I saw a really cool blog a few weeks ago in which the owner had hashed out a list of goals in several areas of his life and had put them into his blog profile or something along with his progress on said goals.
I have goals, and I'm going to list them, but since I have no idea how to put them in some sort of special post that requires a bunch of clicking to get to, they'll be right here. Right in the middle of all the stuff you can scroll through.

As of August 20th, 2012, these are my jiu jitsu goals. Until I think of more. Maybe I'll figure out how to put updates in a different color or font or some jazz.

Short-term BJJ goals:

• Make a savings account for BJJ spending (accomplished this afternoon!)
• Research and set an overall diet for myself (in progress...slow progress)
• Set a weight cutting diet and menu (see above)
• Read The Gift of Fear (in progress)
• Plan and budget for DC training trip (not yet)
• Find partners to train with during open mat times (in progress)
• Compete in Open weight division at an IBJJF (not yet--2013)
• Work on organizing Tap Cancer Out charity tournament in Chicago (in progress)
• Work on gathering seminar instructors for my school (vaguely in progress)

Mid-term BJJ goals:

• Gather list of 2013 tournaments and decide what to attend (in progress)
• Establish a budget to attend 2013 tournaments
• Establish a budget for future grappling camps
• Research continuing education options
• Train 2x year with camp people (outside of camp setting)
• Win my division at an IBJJF
• Win Open weight division at an IBJJF

Long-term BJJ goals:

• Start self defense program at the Center on Halstead
• Progress through the ranks
• BLACK BELT!
• Teach/Coach professionally
• Coach a few students to an elite level 

That's all I've got for now. More than likely I'll change, drop, add and otherwise adjust this list. But, it's a start.

Summer Chicago Open

A couple of days ago the team and I competed in the IBJJF Summer Chicago Open. It went okay. This was my first tournament with the team (only my fifth overall) and I'm told that we often dominate on the medal stand.
Today we dominated bronze, flirted a bit with silver, but didn't dare to touch gold (unless you count the people in uncontested divisions, of which there were two). The competition was tough and the matches were mostly very close, so everyone seemed to come away with a sense of accomplishment, even if they finished out of the money.
I had a pretty brutal weight cut (Friday night I found myself running five miles in a hoodie and my fall running tights) and stepping on the scale at the venue, I was petrified. It read a full pound under, so I had some of the first water I'd had in about a day and maybe a bite of fruit leather that brought me up to .5 under.
I was in a division of four. I only got to fight once, losing to the eventual champion via triangle. The match went a little something like this: Combate! I went for a grip, she slapped it away, she went for a grip, I slapped it away. We circled, looking for an entry. I gripped first, establishing sleeve and collar and got to work pulling her up and down, trying to see how she would react. I squared up for just a second, I think while switching grips, she must have decided I was after the takedown and she pulled guard.
I was able to keep base for a while, but ultimately she brought me down and I postured. She was really great at snapping up then down from the closed guard to break my base, which she managed twice. Both times I got back up, the second time breaking her guard in the process. Once it was open, I went hard for the Toreando pass. I switched sides a couple of times, hoping to find a hole. I thought I did to her left but as I brought my weight down, I saw her hips swivel back and I was in full guard again. Unfortunately, she was on the leggier side and managed to catch me in the triangle during the transition. First I postured, didn't work, so I went for the last-ditch escape we had worked that week, but I didn't get my remaining arm in in time and tapped to the armbar/triangle combo.

After the match, I watched the video and made a couple of mental notes:

1. I need to keep my base wider. I postured well and didn't do anything stupid, but she was good and my knees needed to be wide enough to keep my butt pretty much on the floor.
2. I need to use an inside cutting pass with quick people, rather than the looping toreando. It's a solid pass, to be sure, but using my body as a wedge to keep the guard open is probably the better tactic against someone weaker (she was, marginally) but faster than I.
3. I have to find takedown entries that don't require much squaring up. I need to spend some time emphasizing takedowns from grip fighting, rather than from established grips, as well as using the push/pull in direct conjunction with the takedown.
4. Still need to work on my posture, though it wasn't so bad here.
5. Arms in. Always in.

In a larger sense, there were a few things I learned about tournament prep:

1. I need to practice cutting weight in between tournament times, just to make myself more efficient at it. This will also give me the opportunity to get used to rolling in a lighter body. Over the 10lbs of this cut, I noticed a huge difference in my speed and pressuring abilities, though very little in my strength, I'm happy to say.
2. I need to roll more with the guys in my class. They are much more capable of pushing me right now.
3. I need to work on tournament routine, especially with a warm-up buddy who knows how to keep me calm and happy, which is when I feel the best.
4. As Val advised, I need a "competition emotion" a go-to feeling that puts me where I feel the absolute best about jiu jitsu. I'm 90% sure it's a happy, lighthearted place, but I'm willing to experiment.
5. I need to allow myself time to nap if I'm to make the open division (I really wanted to this time, but the day and weight cut had taken their toll and by the time 5:30 rolled around, I was looking and feeling pretty pathetic), even if that means missing a few teammates matches. In hindsight, I'd understand if they did the same for me.
6. If I'm having trouble making weight, I need to break down and buy an ultralight gi. I hate them, but I hate being DQed more.

Oh, after I collected my medal, I found out that my opponent had four years more experience than I and owned her own BJJ school. That doesn't automatically make her better than I am, but it really did make me feel happier about that almost guard pass!

Jiu Jitsu Toolbox

A common metaphor for skill acquisition in jiu jitsu (and probably just about everything else that has a long learning trajectory, really) is that you are a toolbox. When you begin your BJJ journey, you start out with a few tools in the toolbox: your body, your hands, your feet, your brain, your teammates and your instructor are all tools should should have at your disposal. As you learn new techniques, they are added to your toolbox.
The more techniques you know, the more tools you have, however, once you acquire a few basic tools, the objective might switch from gathering more tools to sharpening the ones you have. Repping out that classic armbar or collar choke time and time again is going to sharpen that technique. Improving your physical condition, gaining strength, endurance, grip strength, etc. are also ways to sharpen your existing tools. Additionally, every time you get really proficient or learn a new setup or shortcut to improve that armbar, you slowly upgrade from a hammer to a nail gun to (hopefully) a pneumatic construction-grade power nailer.  
At camp, I noticed a common complaint amongst some of the less-experienced ladies was that during rolling, they frequently found themselves without the tool they needed and consequentially, they kind of shut down, giving their partners the upper hand in the round.
So what do you do when you don't have the necessary tool or your version isn't good enough? In the long-term, one would do well to sharpen the tools or add some to the toolbox. But in the moment, when time is not on your side, what do you do? I'm not an expert even a little bit, but I'm going with do something...just about anything.
Lacking a hammer, I once hung a picture using a hairbrush. It didn't do as efficient a job, but the nail went in, the picture went up and it stayed up. I feel like this analogy holds up pretty well when thinking about rolling. Sometimes the technique or transition you feel most able to execute isn't the most efficient, but it's almost always better than doing nothing. And if, somehow, trying out an incorrect tool does land you in a worse spot, at least you know you need to go looking for new tool for your kit.

CAMP!

Because I'm a terrible blogger, I neglected to mention that I was going to a women's only grappling camp in San Luis Obispo, CA. I went, I'm in the airport waiting for the weather to stop destroying San Francisco and now I'm beginning to unpack the experience.

IT     WAS    AWESOME!

I've never in my life been popular. When encountering new people, "friendly" would be an awfully generous term to attach to me. In most circumstances I'm a wallflower to the extreme, not just blending in with the wallpaper but camouflaging myself in order to do it better.

But not this week. This week I came alive. I made friends, I told my story, I...shared. And it was amazing. I owe a debt to every woman at the camp for contributing to an environment that allowed me to comfortable nearly instantaneously.

What a transformative experience to find yourself grinning constantly, bursting at the seams with energy, actually laughing out loud in the throws of what can only be described as pure, undiluted joy.

I doubt you're reading this, because really, no one is, but thank you, WGC SLO 2012, I dig you.

Top Bitch Syndrome

This is my term for the one girl in an academy full of meatheaded men (not implying all men, or all male grapplers are meatheads, just these guys). She has managed to gain their respect by being balls out crazy and/or really good. She defends this respect by giving the cold shoulder to any other women who may pose a threat to her position. She usually gets along best with the biggest guys in class (with whom she'll never roll) and the newer women she can tap at will.

This is something all the lady grapplers on earth have to watch out for. Clinging to Top Bitch status retards our growth on the mat. Being afraid to lose, afraid to look weak, afraid to make mistakes for fear of lost respect is crippling. If your training partners don't respect you for who you are and the effort you put in, you need to look two places to figure out why: first, look at yourself. If you make excuses or are a jerk, you may be the problem. If that's not the culprit, look at your teammates. If they're assholes who are only impressed by other assholes, its time to get a new team.


EDIT: It was suggested to me that instead of calling this term 'Top Bitch Syndrome', a less offensive moniker might be 'Queen Bee', or any number of other terms. Queen bee sounds less offensive indeed, but unfortunately, it does little to express the true nature of TBS. A queen bee might not want to roll with you or she might roll halfheartedly with you because she feels she is above you. A Top Bitch seeks to put you in your place, show you how silly you were to want to tangle with her to in the first place and altogether murder you if need be. If a queen bee is losing, she'll pretend she wasn't trying. If a Top Bitch is losing, she'll break out every cheap weapon in her arsenal of bad partnering to make sure she wins.

That's why it's called TBS.

So, it's two and a half years later...

What can I say, I'm back. A week or so ago, I was inspired by a teammate to reclaim my sad, abandoned  little jiu jitsu blog and actually make it into something that is a thing. The blog renaissance is going to have, I expect, three types of entries:
First: fun accounts and overviews of the stuff my team and I do together and my cool bjj experiences. Second: bjj technique logs and notes on rolling.
Third: philosophical ramblings about bjj and life.

The first and third types will more than likely be public, the second, probably private, as it will be really boring.

A few things have happened since I began training, and this blog, almost three years ago. I've stopped formally training Judo, which is disappointing, but the academy where I now train has a well-earned reputation for solid takedowns. We practice them every session, to some degree or another, plus we have two sessions per week dedicated primarily to Judo work.

I've changed schools...twice. The first school collapsed because of poor marketing and the second turned out to be a poor fit for me, though the jiu jitsu itself helped mold me into a fairly technical grappler for my level. I'm currently (and I really hope eternally) part of Copa Jiu Jitsu, or as we like to call it "Team Mack the Knife". Training here has afforded me more opportunities than any other academy I've called home. Mack is well-connected in the bjj world, the training facility is large and has a beautiful sprung floor and for the first time in my grappling career, I have more than one female teammate. In fact, I have at least ten.

I got my blue belt...don't think that one requires too much additional explanation. 

That's all I've got in me for now. Two years and change without blogging doesn't leave me with much stamina for my first post back. Hopefully I'll have more to say as this goes on.

--N (Kimura)

So, lately blogging hasn't worked out so well. Very little practice due to holidays and even less due to instructor changes. Far more BJJ than Judo lately, so here goes:

Guard pass with both hands on belt, elbows in. Knee behind uke's butt, walk other knee back and to the side to stretch the guard. hand on knee, push knee to mat. Immediately, same side leg over uke's leg, hook instep over thigh. grab under uke's head and on uke's other pantleg, bring leg close. Step non-hooked leg over hooked leg, bring hooked leg through and secure pants on other side. Sprawl.

Guard pass with both hands on belt, elbows in. Walk back on knees and force elbow into thighs to break guard. Immediately scoop both arms under legs, putting legs on shoulders and pull uke close. Grab uke's left lapel with right hand and drive left hand into the collar as deep as possible, forearm across neck. Remove right hand and grab uke's pants, behind the butt. Push into uke, putting pressure on uke's chest. Walk legs to the right of uke, shrug off uke's right leg as left hand goes under uke's head. Block hip and sprawl.