Mind Games For Competition

Here are a few quick little tips for ways to get inside your opponent's head before the match starts. I like to have some rituals, doing some sort of ritual relaxes me, the worst thing you can do or have happen is be overly nervous before or during a match. If you're super amped up for a match, you will have an adrenaline dump and wonder why you're so tired 30 seconds into the match. You need to learn how to relax. Devise a ritual that calms you, I like to breathe in through my nose and breathe out my mouth, long deep breaths. Have a set way you warm up for a match each and every time. Don't change up your ritual, do the same thing each time. In warming up, I do a little jog in place, but I have a particular rhythm it gets my blood going, gets my body warm, my muscles loose without making my heart race. It's really important to get a sweat going before a match starts. That way you are less likely to have an adrenaline dump due to your heart pumping and endorphins releasing from the warmup. Last off, you need to have a ritual when you step on the mat. When I finally take the mat, I like to walk around the whole competition area. I'll walk right past my opponent, the ref, everything. Just a normal pace claiming my territory. It gives you a sense of confidence that you own the mat and gives your opponent a sense of uneasiness as he/she can see your confidence.

Ego - Bitter/Sweet

I know this topic has been done to death, but I'll keep beating that dead horse. I've probably scratched the surface in previous posts, but here are my true thoughts on it. I believe it is a necessary evil in terms of one's progression in BJJ. Too much of it will get you hurt, too little will slow your progress. The old saying "leave your ego at the door" is what we say to new guys, but once you've been around I absolutely believe you need to have some.

Why is ego a bad thing in BJJ? If you are so full of yourself and too damn proud to tap to anybody you will get hurt, it is inevitable. No matter how long, how hard, how experienced, how strong, etc... you are or you think you are, if a 1st day white belt or anybody that you believe you are better than you puts you in a submission that you cannot escape you need to tap. It happens to everybody, everybody gets submitted. At the end of the day, you need to put your ego aside and admit to getting caught, admit to not being able to escape. You can grow so much from your mistakes. Getting caught in a submission means you have a hole in your game or you made a mistake. You need to learn why you were put into that position, why you left a hole in your defense and learn how to not make that same mistake again. Having an ego and fighting to the point where something pops is stupid. You could possibly still learn from what you did to get caught in a submission, but you will learn that your first mistake was not tapping. And you will have learned it the hard way. Getting hurt and having to take time off due to not tapping is stupid and unnecessary.

Why is ego a good thing? A little ego is needed to progress your training, I think the correct word would be confidence, but there is a very fine line between the two. Again having too much may make you feel safe in positions you should not feel safe at all and too little will keep your mindset on the defensive. I wouldn't go so far as to think like Rickson Gracie, he once said "I'm afraid of everything," I think that is too extreme, but you do need to know where and when to feel confident. If you have no ego, you will likely be stuck at the same level you are at. Not to say you won't learn anything, but it will make it tougher on you as an individual to push yourself. For example, if you are going to roll with somebody that always beats you and submits you in 1 minute and you believe that it will always be that way, then it probably will. You need to learn how to tell yourself that you are confident enough to survive for 2 minutes! Tell yourself that he/she can't possibly submit you in 1 minute today. If it happens, it happens. However, if you fought hard to avoid getting submitted for 2 minutes then you have broken a barrier of yours and made a step towards your progression in the art. Keep in mind too that BJJ is a two way street, when you push yourself you also push your training partner, your teammate. So when you get better, you also make your training partners better, no matter who submitted who more.

It is difficult to find the right balance of ego when you train. I know I struggle with it from time to time and I've been training for over 8 1/2 years. Just keep in mind that it isn't always a bad thing, but that also too much of it can be a very bad thing.

Supplementing Your Training via Books or Video

This is a topic I go back and forth with. Obviously NOTHING substitutes a real class with an instructor there to correct your technique. However if you are like me, you are always trying to find ways outside of class that will improve your game. The biggest sources out there for inspiration and knowledge are books and videos. There are probably around 100 or so bjj instructional books (probably more, but ones that you could randomly find at a bookstore). I own a number of them and I would say that a lot of the techniques from the ones I own are great solid techniques. Unfortunately, not all of the techniques are great. Generally the earlier bjj books were better because they focused on the basics, something for the beginner. Each one would have the same sweeps, guardpasses, submissions, etc... one book slightly differing from another. That's not a huge problem, but it is kind of annoying having overlap in technique, the problem lies in the "advanced" sections of these same books where some instructors flourish while others fail. Some of the advanced techniques I learned in books, I still use today, some of them I have never even been able to execute on a 1st day white belt that weighs 30 lbs less than me. There is a lot of garbage technique that can look fancy that some instructors put in books in order to sell more copies. Instead of showing something that is advanced, tried and true, a technique that somebody consistently hits at the highest level, they will show a very obscure sweep that more likely than not throws your opponent over your head so it seems really "cool."

Instructional videos give the illusion that techniques work. They show a technique from a number of different angles and even have variations included due to the way your opponent would defend against the particular technique. Like the books though, you can run into the same issues of learning some bogus techniques. There are guys out there putting out instructional videos on youtube that don't even hold a blue belt. It is absolutely ridiculous. Again, just because a big name grappler has an instructional video doesn't mean it is gold. I have seen some multiple world champions show a fancy technique that I have never seen them use in competition nor have I been able to emulate. So you definitely need to be careful.

What has helped my game immensely has been competition footage. I recently competed at the Mundials for the first time and did horribly. I did however get a chance to watch a lot of high level competition and learn what they are doing. You get to see what the top guys rely on against the toughest competition. My mind has opened up a lot from the experience. I really encourage my students to do a lot of mental training, but also to watch a lot of competition footage. While at a lower level, it may prove difficult to learn or emulate techniques that the top black belts are doing, but at least they can see what techniques are being used and can always ask how to perform those techniques.

Short Realization About Passing

I was training the other day and I came to a realization on passing the guard. Maybe I'm an amateur because I just realized this, but in case you haven't yet, here you go.

The guard is a position where you use each of your limbs, gravity, hip movement, etc... to create angles and get into different position where you can sweep or submit your opponent. In order to pass the guard you need to either take advantage of a mistake a guardplayer makes or create an opportunity to pass. The realization I made is that you need to really isolate the hips, prevent them from moving and turning. Doing this will make your opponent's legs less effective and reduce the chance of being swept or submitted. I know this is something that I do regularly but I never realized exactly what the purpose of me pinning my opponent's hip to the mat was other than simply allowing me to pass.

Beating BJJ Plateaus

BJJ plateaus are a common problem. Generally they manifest themselves most commonly when you're a blue belt or a purple belt, though they affect individuals at every level. There are different reasons why this happens and different ways to defeat this. Sometimes the plateaus last for as little as a few weeks or as long as a few months.

One common plateau happens due to over training. If you're training 4-5 days/week sometimes twice/day, it's not uncommon to get a sense of feeling that things aren't improving. You need to take a break. Your mind gets tired and doesn't retain as much as you would like to. Sleeping and eating patterns too can help or hurt depending on if you're sleeping enough or eating correctly. My recommendation for beating this is taking a week off. Your mind and body both need a break.

Another common plateau is the feeling of not improving. I feel this one is most attributed to the fact that it is VERY difficult to gauge your own improvements. You are in a training environment with at least a dozen other people and generally everybody improves. One day you might be "beating" Joe then a week later Joe is tapping you left and right and it makes you feel like you hit a plateau. Generally, Joe is just improving faster than you are, but you are still improving. Sometimes you need to take a step back, analyze what your mistakes are, where you need improvement and work on one or two aspects the next couple of weeks.

I feel that the best way I break plateaus is by working on something new or working on something I haven't done in a very long time. I get bored easily doing the same techniques over and over again, I have a "go to" guardpass that I can get on just about anybody, but I feel like it becomes too easy so I start playing around with new things. You need to find new reasons to motivate your learning. The motivation is key, if you've been training a while and you go to class not knowing what you want to or need to work on, then I feel that's the start of a problem that can end up as a plateau, already your mind has reverted to a state that it just wants to attend, but not excel. My professor Keith sometimes asks what techniques we want to work on, when nobody says anything, his response is "What? Are you all experts? You don't need to work on anything or learn anything in particular?" Fortunately for me, I always have questions, there's something I always want to work on. It's good to think about things in that sense.

Bottom line is, first you need to diagnose your problem. Are you having issues due to overtraining, are you having issues due to motivation, are people around you getting better than you, etc... There are other reasons you might start plateauing but generally they aren't as relevant. Once you figure out why you feel no improvement, then see which way best suits you to find the motivation to improve (and I really don't mean saying "I just want to get better", SPECIFICS are the key). Hope this helps you get over your BJJ humps.

Being a Good Student and Training Partner

This topic was requested by one of my students, and I believe it's very relevant. I would say that the majority of people fall into the "good training partner" category, however there are some that fall outside at one extreme or another. I'm taking this a step further into what it means to be a good student. First we need to establish what a good training partner is. Everybody who goes to a bjj class receives some kind of instructions, the first step in being a good student is really listening and watching the instructor, if you don't understand something then ask. So to be a good training partner you need to be a good student. As an instructor, there have been cases where I show a technique then ask my students to drill it and see some of my students trying to do it, but it looks nothing like the way I showed the technique. Now if it was difficult to understand and interpret, then that is my fault as an instructor, but if it was straightforward and the student wasn't really paying attention, then he wasn't being a good student. So first off and most importantly be a good student and pay attention. Pay attention to what the instructor is doing, listen to what he has to say.

A good student is somebody that treats a BJJ academy like they would any other school. While there is no assigned homework, thinking about bjj shouldn't end when class ends. When you're bored, go over the techniques you learned in your head, the more you think about it and analyze it the better chance it has to be ingrained into your memory and hopefully your game. Also being a good student means being proactive about the techniques, if you have a question about the execution of the current technique, ask ask ask away, it's better to ask and receive an answer than to not ask and continue to question yourself. At the same time, students like to ask questions irrelevant to the current technique. While it's great to see your enthusiasm, wait until after class to ask questions on other techniques.

When drilling with your partner you don't want to be a dead fish. I see people practicing a sweep with enough holes in it that you couldn't sweep your grandmother with it, but their training partners fall over none the less. I look at it this way, I give very little resistance when my training partner is doing the technique, as he becomes comfortable with it I increase the resistance just ever so slightly. I never get to a point where I'm actually fighting to be swept, but I do want my partner to know what it feels like to have a little resistance. If my training partner botches a technique, I don't let him execute it. If somebody goes for a sweep and it doesn't sweep me, then it doesn't sweep me. You need to look at it this way, make it seem realistic without the resistance. There are some guys within a minute of showing a technique, one guy is trying to sweep with 100% strength and the other guy is trying to resist the sweep 100% and neither guy gets better because of it. Something some people need to understand is that instructors teach techniques in a particular way with attention to detail because that's how the students need to learn it. I see it every day, students just WANT to skip steps they want to get from A-Z in 1 step instead of going from A to B to C etc... Do the techniques RIGHT.

Tournament Strategy

Here is an important one that many beginners and even higher belts don't really follow. When you go compete have in mind what you want to do. The most frustrating part of watching people compete is watching the standup, where the two competitors don't know how to wrestle. First off, if your wrestling sucks, don't try to wrestle, you have 2 main options. Option #1, if your top game is your strong point, be patient, your opponent WILL EVENTUALLY shoot so be ready to sprawl and fight for the top position, option #2, if your bottom game is solid, pull guard, but please learn HOW to pull guard before you go into a tournament, I have seen one too many people pull side mount rather than guard. Once you progress you will have other choices, if your wrestling sucks, and you want to end up on top, work on a "go to" sweep. Have one sweep in your arsenal that you KNOW you can hit every time and learn how to pull guard into the exact position you like to execute that sweep. This is so crucial in sport bjj. You have 5, 6, 7, 8, or 10 min to either submit your opponent or score more points than him. It is much to your advantage to always play into your strengths. The obvious thing is to learn how to wrestle, but that takes years to really make effective, but if you do, then you can have the confidence to be either up 2-0 in every match or start on top from opponents who just pull guard.

When you are training in class, you know what you are good at, what positions you are comfortable in, what attacks are effective for you, etc... Classtime is where you work on your weaknesses, try to add more techniques to your arsenal, etc... So many times I see a classmate or student of mine try something in a tournament they don't EVER do regularly, nor do they ever really practice. That is not the time nor place for that. The really frustrating part is they come and sit next to you and sulk about it. Sorry, no sympathy for you, you did something stupid and you got punished for it, don't cry to me about it. Losing sucks, if you give it your best shot, tried to stick to your gameplan, listened to your coaches and you lost, then you get my respect 100%. Even if you made a few simple mistakes, or situation was out of your control, you still deserve 100% respect. However, if you go out there and try a flying triangle (you don't even do regular triangles in class, you saw it on youtube and wanted to do it), get your guard passed then choked in 30 seconds, when our strategy was "pull butterfly guard, sweep, then work your top game" then you need to slap yourself in the face.

While it's always good to picture in your head what you're going to do in a tournament, and have a strategy going in, don't have the strategy be SO straight-forward that if it veers off path, you're screwed. For example, a student of mine thought he was just going to run in and guillotine everybody to a gold medal. He ended up losing to a tough guy in his first match because he missed the guillotine then didn't know exactly what he should be doing the rest of the match. You need to create a tree of techniques and situations you go through in your head for every position, know what you need to do at X to get to Y. If you plan on passing the guard, but get swept in the process, what technique are you going to do? How are you going to get back to where you want to be? You need to know these things before you step on the mat.

General competition mindset is one of the most overlooked aspects of tournament strategy. I've spoken to a bunch of people about what they like to do in tournaments, and the majority say "I just go in there and do what I can, if I win great, if not, well at least I tested myself." That honestly boggles my mind. While tournaments aren't gonna break your wallet, I feel like that type of mindset is like tossing out the tournament fee. You pay sometimes $100+ to compete. I don't compete for the sake of competing, I compete to win. I absolutely hate losing. I go in there knowing what I want to do and wanting to win. I feel like it's a absolute waste if anybody competing thinks otherwise.

The last bit is learning to study your opponent. If you're a lower belt, chances are your opponent isn't going to be a recognized name, so you go into the first match blind, however, you do get an opportunity to see who your next opponent is and what his game looks like. Watch all the matches in your division, know who you're going to compete against, figure out his strengths and weaknesses so you can try to exploit them. I've been fortunate enough to see some of my opponents on youtube to study them before having to compete with them, but that's not always the case. If I see somebody that's got a REALLY strong guard game, maybe I'll pull guard and go for a quick sweep, don't allow him to pull guard on me so I can find a way to still end up on top with a score of 2-0. With that scenario, it forces my opponent to become desperate, especially if time on the clock is ticking down, desperate grapplers often go for techniques and open up holes in their game that allows for passing or submission opportunities.

Hope this post was helpful, and hopefully you guys think about your bjj differently especially when it comes to competing.

Physical Attributes vs. Technique, Importance?

This topic for the most part is a no brainer, but seemingly comes up all the time. I wrote in an earlier post that if all technique were equal between two opponents, the one who has some sort of physical attribute advantage over the other will most likely be the victor. I made this topic a little bit more general since people always complain to me about "what do I do against somebody that weighs 100 lbs more than me," "what do I do against somebody that is stronger than me," or some sort of similar complaint. Really the bottom line is to get better. There is no magic, no secret technique that nullifies any opponent. If you are an individual not gifted with size, strength, speed, stamina, etc... there are ways to improve your body and make you excel in each. Some people focus so much on certain aspects believing there is so much importance to being more physically imposing that they end up hurting themselves in the long-run because of the lack of focus on technique.

Generally, I consider myself a Brazilian Jiu Jitsu addict. I want to train all the time, I enjoy everything about it, but I'm not obsessive to the point where I go lift tons of weights because I want to be stronger and have better technique. I believe there is SOOO much one can gain just by doing BJJ itself, not to discount the fact that doing other things above and beyond to improve your stamina, strength, etc... is awesome, but I feel that you can do so much of that simply by practicing alone. I won't use professionals as an example here because it is their JOB to be in peak physical form for when they have to perform. I'm talking about the every day joe. If you feel like your cardio is terrible, chances are 1 of 2 things is happening. Most of the time it's because you are simply out of shape, you haven't trained in a while, haven't done any physical activity, your body isn't used to using the muscles you use in BJJ, etc... Whatever the reason is, you can gain more stamina by simply doing more BJJ. Roll as long as you can. Take a few breathers, go back out there, if you're too tired to go hard, find a partner to drill moves. Without resistance, you're still getting a workout AND you're working on your technique, it's a win/win situation. The other reason people gas is because they are going too hard. Everybody knows somebody like this, they treat every roll like it's the black belt finals of the Mundials. Honestly, you need to have goals in mind when training with your partner and that goal shouldn't be "tap him out." I believe it's important to REALLY emphasize this with new students. New students usually come into the gym wanting to learn how to "KICK ASS." No matter what the reason they tell you is, their inner reason is to be a walking bad ass. They feel the need to go as hard as possible every single time, try to never lose. If they don't break that habit early on, they are going to have a very rough time excelling. Of course the scariest guys are the ones that go hard all the time and really learn how to use the techniques, but guys like that are 1/1000, chances are you aren't one of them.

So to wrap things up, train as much as you can, but be productive with it. Did you learn a cool technique in class? Try to use it when you roll, or work on your weak spots if you're training with people weaker than yourself. I'm in a situation where I have no peers, I have 2 AMAZING black belt instructors, a purple or two, and a bunch of blue belts to train with. I'm constantly putting myself in bad situations, trying out new techniques, tightening up little things, etc... It wouldn't benefit me to ONLY work on my strengths, to have a NEVER lose mentality, if I get tapped, just figure out why and fix it. It's kind of frustrating almost irritating when people get really upset in class to being tapped, especially when I see them do some really great things. It shouldn't bring you down, it should make you think in a different way, should open your eyes to your weaknesses. What you should focus on in training is just improving, who taps who doesn't matter nearly as much as how much you are improving.

Gi vs. No Gi: The Neverending Debate

One topic that comes up quite often is the debate about gi vs no gi. One argument is about whether the gi helps people with their no gi or their no gi helps people with their gi. I'm going to take the stance that no gi helps the gi game MUCH MUCH MUCH more than the other way around. There are things that help each other obviously, but at the end of the day I don't care what Marcello Garcia or Demian Maia say, but it's like this: would you be running marathons in order to compete in the 100m? Sure you're running in both, but they're very different.

The first thing people need to realize is how different they are. To the untrained eye, it's still guardpassing, submissions, sweeps, etc... How you execute the techniques are extremely different. There is a plethora of moves you can't do without a gi on, and there are a bunch of techniques that wouldn't work if you have a gi on. Example: there is no real no gi version of the cross collar choke, on the other side, it's very difficult to rear naked choke people with a gi.

People have a misconception that no gi is not as technical, that you can get away with more because there are no grips, it can get slippery, and that speed can make up for a lot. I think it's important to note that no gi is incredibly technical BECAUSE you have very few grips (underhooks, headties, etc...), you need to learn how to use them. I have always believed in using speed and strength, but when it's appropriate. At the end of the day when all technique and cardio are equal, the faster/stronger opponent is going to win 9 times out of 10. Training without the gi needs to be treated like a different animal than gi training. You need to learn how to use the grips properly and you need to really learn how to use your weight and pressure your opponent. With a gi you can grab a handful of it and pin a part of your opponent down, with no gi you have to learn where to put your body, how to hold your opponent, and how and where to put your weight on your opponent to accomplish various techniques.

When debating about whether gi helps no gi or no gi helps gi more, I truly believe no gi helps gi much more. First off, like I said previously about the pressure you need to learn with no gi, you can translate that to gi, where if you only trained gi, you may not have had the opportunity or need to learn how to put that extra bit of pressure. Techniques translate from no gi to gi very regularly, but don't necessarily go the other way. It's not always the case, but it's true on a large scale. My game works very well for both gi and no gi, it translates well back and forth. I know for my guard game, I'm actually much more dangerous with a gi on because I have many more grips to play with, but that doesn't mean I don't find a good deal of success without the gi on. I feel that my gi game got much stronger because I spent nearly 2 years training no gi and mma rather than sport bjj. Obviously my no gi game excelled, but adding all those techniques also taught me how to use underhooks, overhooks, etc... and I also really learned how to put pressure on my opponents so they can't weasel out of positions. No gi has made my gi game MUCH tighter. I always say that my instructors weigh a metric ton when they pass my guard, I hope to gain that ability some day. When Keith or Kenny get mount, it feels like I'm drowning and there's nothing I can do about it. I'm eventually going to get submitted, if I try to escape, I get my back taken then choked. It's a very helpless feeling, he's so heavy there, and simply doesn't allow you any space to try and escape. While I can't measure it, I really believe their mount is so incredible due to training without a gi on.

I'm sure this debate will go on forever, but I've taken my stance on it. Everybody is entitled to their own opinions, these are my opinions on the debate and I'm pretty sure I'll always believe that no gi improves the gi game much more than vice versa.

The Evolution of Desiring, Perceiving, and Receiving Belts Part 2

The time it takes to go from belt to belt is interesting to me. I try to think about how the sport has evolved, how online resources, and print resources are widely available compared to when I started, and I wrestle with the question "Are people progressing faster now than before? Or are the belts getting watered down?" I believe it is a combination of both. Back in the day, even when I started BJJ was a very unknown martial art. Aside from my belt, belts did not come easy. The average blue belt took 2 years at least, blue to purple took 3, purple to brown took 3, then brown to black took 2. 10 years of hard dedicated training, the average has definitely lowered since then.

Looking at blue belts back then vs. the blue belts of today, on average they are the same skills, however the blue belts of today seem to have a much wider disparity in skill levels. Actually, I believe you can attribute that to every belt level aside from white (yes there are undeserving black belts out there). BJJ is no longer what it was, at least not across the board. The standards at some schools are lowered to "keep their students motivated and excited about the belts." While other schools are holding back belts to get more recognition increasing the sandbagging problem. Classes used to be very casual, warm-ups were rare, and generally was light rolling, there was no bowing to your sensei, nothing that screamed "Traditional Martial Arts." Fortunately or unfortunately, BJJ is now much more business oriented. There's a reason why the "bow to your sensei" model was working, look at a tae kwon do school, some have 1000s students. You're lucky to see 100 students at a bjj school. The general public, the every day man wanted to see a structured environment. He wanted to see his progress in real time, so what used to be a casual subjective decision by the instructor for promotion has now evolved into a structured "know exactly what you need to know" system that people focus their energies on. I believe this is a good thing to a point. When you have a school where white to blue belt is a curriculum that people follow and know exactly what they need, it works beautifully, beyond that... it fails miserably.

I remembering being in Dallas a random weekend and going to the Carlos Machado Academy and seeing 70 people in there for what I thought was a class. I found out it was a promotion day and everybody there was testing for one thing or another. Each person was vigorously studying a packet of techniques. 15-20 techniques per stripe or belt promotion. What really got to me were 2 4 stripe blue belts were walking around asking higher belts to teach them moves from the packet that they should have known being 4 stripe blue belts. Not only did they barely learn the moves, but they passed and got their purple belts. It's a disgrace in my eyes. I was already a 4th stripe purple, but one stripe had come off in training months before so I was "testing" for a 4th stripe again, I thought it was funny. What irritated me was I found out there was a testing fee involved. If I had known beforehand, I would not have even shown up. After I got my 4th stripe for a 2nd time, I had to pay for it. Is that fair? Really? Anyways, I digress...

There are 2 main types of promotions (there's a 3rd, but it's the one where everybody knows that the guy didn't deserve the promotion. I'll write a politics post and discuss this topic and others later). One where there is no doubt in anybody's mind that an individual deserved the belt; he's the guy that's been in every class, you can see his progress, he took gold at the past 3 tournaments, etc... He's 100% ready for the promotion. The other type is the guy that's been casually training, making baby steps in his progress, but always exhibiting steady progress and potential. The first one jumps right in with his new belt and is right on par with everybody at his belt level. The second one is a guy that is still having trouble rolling with guys of his new belt color, but he will grow into it. Within a month he's starting to really catch up and after 2 months he's right there with the rest of them. If somebody doesn't feel ready to be promoted and their instructor has them take the test or promotes them, then generally they fall under the 2nd category and will "grow into" their belt. Either that, or the student is too humble and too hard on himself.

There is a popular outlook amongst some BJJ practitioners that the belt isn't very important, or isn't important at all, it's all about the technique. In a purist point of view, that's absolutely correct, but with no belts there are no measuring sticks other than what you see on the mat, and there is also a lack in accomplishment. Most people NEED belts and stripes to feel good about themselves and their BJJ. I'm one of them. Like I said before, my perspective on belts has changed, one thing that hasn't changed is that I have wanted to be a black belt since day 1. When I was a blue belt, I beat a few black belts in no gi competitions, though I'm fairly humble on the outside, on the inside I was thinking "I'm the shit! I can hang with black belts!" Little by little, I stepped away from the philosophy that it's all about who you beat and how you beat them and moved towards thinking it's about the techniques you know, the quality and quantity, the ability to use them on various skilled opponents, and now at the higher level, the ability to break down these techniques and teach them to others. Going back to the desire for belts, I want to get a black belt, I want to be at that level, but I don't want it until I'm ready.

I don't believe individuals have the capacity to decide what belt level they are when they attempt to objectively look at themselves. I have always and will always trust my instructors to make that decision for me. My current instructors are Keith and Kenny Florian at the Florian Martial Arts Center in Brookline, MA (www.florianmartialartscenter.com), I have been blessed to have met them, to be able to call them my friends, and to have them as instructors. I met Keith at a turning point in my BJJ career, I had a falling out with my previous instructor and I asked Keith to be my main instructor and decide when I am ready for promotions. I was ecstatic when I heard they were opening a school and even more excited when they asked me to teach some classes there (though I did bug them about wanting to). I was a 4 stripe purple then (funny thing, one of my stripes had fallen off again, so I got "promoted" by Keith to 4 stripes also) and I knew he has a high standard and a respect for what each belt level means. November of 2008, I was promoted to brown belt (twice in the same day! I seem to get the same promotions over and over. Reason for this was Kenny couldn't be there at night to see it, and my girlfriend couldn't come at noon to see it, so Keith had 2 ceremonies for it. I was also previously promoted to 3rd stripe blue and 4th stripe blue twice). I was a purple belt for a very long time, but never did I really say or feel that I deserved or wanted my brown belt, it was as if Keith knew the exact moment I was ready, and when I got promoted, I felt like I deserved it. I will trust him when he decides I'm ready for a black belt, I know I'm not ready now, but I'll know that I'm ready when he promotes me.

Final thoughts:

Each belt level should represent what kind of BJJ you have and what your goals are. I feel like it is fairly standard across the board no matter what school you attend. White belts should focus on simply getting a feel for what the martial art is. Slowly building on their technique knowledge. They should only be taught the basics. Nothing fancy, just techniques that focus on hip movement, solid tried and true techniques for a good foundation. It's hard for white belts to truly understand the concepts taught to them, but they should be ingrained in them and they should absolutely be taught these different concepts as a foundation for their learning (concepts like position before submission). The blue belt is mainly where you begin to learn what you like and don't like, it's also where you amass the most amount of techniques. You want to learn as many techniques as possible, whether or not you think you would or could ever use them, because down the line you never know when you will begin to like certain techniques and be able to use them. Purple belt is a difficult one because it's where you find your identity. This is where you begin to define your game. You already know where your strengths and weaknesses are and thus build them in ways to make people play into your game and at the same time finding ways to improve on the areas you are weakest. As a brown belt, I feel like this is where I have been focusing on becoming well rounded. I know my game, I know how (for the most part) to make people fall into my game, but this is the time for me to improve on everything from everywhere. I need to learn how to be good at everything, I need to be confident in my techniques from everywhere. I also believe it's important that at the brown belt level there is some instructing that needs to occur, whether it is teaching classes themselves or whether it is watching other students and being able to convey corrections and improvements to their technique. I feel it's very important to not only know how to do the techniques but also how to teach them, which gives you insight and understanding for yourself. Then there's the black belt. Though I'm not there yet, I feel that it is quite true about what people say about it; it's where the martial art really begins. You trained so hard to achieve that rank, but once you get there you realize there is still so much to learn and know. I feel that my outlook will be one where I focus on amassing much more technique with a lot of detail on the little intricacies that a purple belt can't catch. Maybe I've been groomed to think this way being so blessed to have gifted instructors. I can't remember a week where Keith didn't come in and show me something he discovered that turned out to be amazing. His mind is so open and he's so brilliant in finding out exactly why things work, how to make them work, and how to make them easy to implement. He is truly a genius of the art. I hope to have 1/1000th of his ability to invent and interpret techniques.

The Evolution of Desiring, Perceiving, and Receiving Belts Part 1

The belt progression of Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu is as follows: White, Blue, Purple, Brown, Black, then the unobtainable Red reserved only for the founders of the art. I always think back when I first started, I had leaps and bounds more grappling experience than my fellow beginner classmates, but in terms of BJJ techniques, I was far behind. However, within a month I was positionally dominating all the blue belts. Higher belts were still destroying me, having their way with me. I looked up to them as some sort of geniuses, admired them then and still admire them now. I didn't understand the concept of belts in the beginning, and maybe the conception of belts is subjective based on the individuals thinking about them. Either way, my perception has changed much and is continuing to change now. I received my blue belt after only training 3.5 months. People who weren't from my school, people who never trained with me said I was "full of shit." Looking back now, in terms of getting promoted, I don't know what I would have done if I were in Carlos Machado's shoes. I was training 6 days/week and often twice/day. So the mat time was there, but this was during a time that people would get their blue belts after 2 years of 4 days/week training. I was competing every chance I got and won every white belt match I had, even beating blue belts in mixed white and blue tournaments. After about 3 months I could submit every blue belt in class and a number of the lower ranking purple belts. I wasn't a prodigy, I wasn't on the BJ Penn path, I just had a lot more experience than a lot of these guys. Technique-wise, I knew about the same number of techniques as a 2-stripe white belts, but when it came to rolling I was right up there with the purple belts. I was given my blue belt right before I went back to JHU for my sophomore year, I could argue today either way whether or not I was deserving of it, but when I was a white belt, that's all I wanted.

Desire for belts is a really funny thing. I remember being a white belt and wanting a blue belt SOOO bad. I didn't have to wait long relative to my classmates. I talked about it constantly, not to Carlos, but to other students. I would be like "man, I tapped today, I wonder when I'll get my blue belt." It's funny, I see that same desire I had when I was a white belt in my students now. It's hard to distinguish desire for the belt for the sake of having the belt and desire to have the adequate technique in order to be deserving of the belt, at least when you're trying to objectively think about your personal progression. Maybe the desire for the belt itself is more important than the technique for the individuals, I don't know their thought process, but it seems very likely. I remember when I was wanting the blue belt, it was more for the challenge, and also the fact that white belts to me were like training with rag dolls. I had competed in 4 tournaments in about 3 months time beating white and blue belts with relative ease. My only close match was at my very first tournament against a very skilled white belt (Danny Alvarez, now a black belt in Arlington, TX with his own school). I beat him 4-0 in overtime. Every other match I won by submission or by a decent margin of points (one of which I won 27-0, not knowing there wasn't a technical fall type rule in BJJ, it was actually my very first bjj match). Going back to what I was saying earlier, did I deserve the belt? Honestly, I couldn't do an armbar from the guard, I knew 2 sweeps, took a private on triangles, but still couldn't do one to save my life... I was a mess off of my back, I usually would turtle up, escape the back then end up on top via takedown or a guard pull, that was my bottom game. My top game I knew about 4 good passes and a number of submissions from side control, I was just very good at doing them.

It wasn't until I was a blue belt when I began to realize how important a complete game was. I completely changed my mindset and began working extensively on building my knowledge base of techniques, especially from the guard. At my university, it was very rare for me to be able to train at a formal school. When I did train, it was with the Yamasaki School in Rockville, MD. I went MAYBE once a month. So during my time at my university I started a club, I taught the classes, which forced me to learn and understand the techniques. Looking back, I definitely taught some of the techniques wrong, but I did what I could and I didn't know the difference so my students didn't either. It was hard for me to see progress from week to week, and while I won't say I regressed, I was not improving as fast as my teammates who were living in Dallas and getting top notch instruction daily.

I can't remember ever wanting my purple belt, ever saying I deserve it. I do remember a friend of mine asking me when I would get it. I remember saying, I don't know, but when I get it, I'll know I was ready for it. My senior year 2nd semester, I got a phone call from Carlos Machado telling me that if I compete anytime soon, to enter the purple belt division. A very backwards, odd way for a promotion, but I accepted it. I came home for the summer and didn't actually receive a physical purple belt until a month later. I thought about the belt and what it meant. I saw the purple belt as a badge saying "I'm well-rounded." I noticed that almost every purple belt I trained with was good everywhere, and I for the most part was. I still lacked in a ton of areas, but I was comfortable from all positions. What I perceive a purple belt to really mean is the development of a game along with knowing not only how and what to do from most positions, but being able to execute the proper techniques as well.

How I got started in BJJ

December of 2001, I was a freshman at Johns Hopkins University. I spent the beginning half of the month feeling overwhelmed and a bit depressed. Finals were consuming my life, I was in a long distance relationship, and worst of all... wrestling wasn't fun anymore. I was a guy that always had it together, no matter how much stuff piled up, I felt like I could handle anything; this was the first time in my life that things felt really hard. Wrestling had been a humongous part of my life for the past 7.5 years and for the first time in my life, it just wasn't fun. Unfortunately, the primary reason was the program and not the sport itself, and I was left with two choices... Leave the school or quit the program. I chose to quit, my education was far more important than the sport. What was I going to do? Leave JHU and go to Iowa and be JV while getting a lesser education (no offense to anybody who went to Iowa and got an amazing education)?

Thinking about it now, it was definitely one of the best decisions of my life. I would be lying if I said that I didn't think about it and wonder what would have happened if I stuck with it, but I would never say I regret the decision. Deciding not to wrestle gave me a lot of free time. When wrestling season started at JHU, I never had free time. I would wake up early, go for a run, go to class, do homework, go to wrestling practice, study, go to the gym, study, then go to bed. A lot of workouts crammed into a day. I was never a fan of working out for the sake of working out and being in shape, and I'm still not. I am not the type of person that goes to the gym to get ripped and look good. I always had the purpose of going to the gym to get in shape for competition, to be in better shape than my opponents. Like Dan Gable said "when I picture my opponent working, I work hard, when I picture my opponent stop working, I work even harder." That's the mindset I had, but with wrestling gone, I really had a lot of free time on my hands, there was no longer an opponent to work against.

I had been a fan of the UFC from very early on. I remember going to Blockbuster and somehow renting the UFC videos. I was 13 yrs old, they had that red and yellow mature sticker on there, and my dad would never look or question it. I saw the first few in order and saw how Royce Gracie dismantled his opponents. I always thought about how a good wrestler would beat Royce. Along came Dan Severn, and 16 minutes or so into the fight, there went Dan Severn. Throughout the years I would rent a UFC here and there, was very excited to see guys like Mark Coleman and Kevin Randleman, both excellent wrestlers, guys I would always root for. I didn't follow the sport like I do now, there simply weren't enough resources then. The only news you would ever hear, see, or read about was how it was "human cockfighting." I didn't even have internet at home until I was 16 (mind you this was 1998, not everybody had internet then), and even then, the thought never crossed my mind to Alta-Vista search the UFC.

Back to December of 2001, with all my free time, I decided to look up the UFC on the internet and found out that UFC wasn't the only free for all fighting organization, first off, it was a humongous sport called Mixed Martial Arts and the popularity in Japan DWARFED the popularity in America. Things had changed a bit though, there were some rules now, and people wore gloves. The Pride organization had all the great fighters from the UFC that I remembered and then some. I started downloading highlight reels and ordered VHS copies of the fights on eBay. I noticed a trend, the guys that were winning, weren't winning with the wrestling style of ground and pound. Guys were winning with submissions. I don't know the exact point at which I decided that I wanted to learn how to submit people, but I do remember that I researched schools shortly before my Christmas break and found a place 10 minutes from my home in Dallas, TX run by one of the greatest BJJ practitioners and instructors in the world, Carlos Machado.

Sometime in early January of 2002, I went to the introductory class which had 4 people in it. A purple belt, James Brown, was going to teach the class, he asked me if I had wrestled or anything before, I told him I had for quite some time, he then responded "Oh, you don't need the intro class, go roll with some of the guys over there." I walked over to the other side of the mat, was very warmly greeted by the man himself, Carlos Machado. He asked me about my experience, then told me to go train with one of his other purple belts, Roberto Kaelin. We started on the feet, I took him down with ease, only to be getting choked about 10 seconds later. This happened about 5 times, I didn't know what was going on, but I later learned he kept putting me in a triangle choke. I was addicted, I wanted to learn how to do what he was doing to me. I signed up that night, and for the month I was home on break, I went to about 10 classes/week.

It has been over 8 years and my interest and love for the art continues to grow.