Hi folks! A couple of longer posts are in the works, but for now I just want to do a quick one announcing a couple of new offerings from Toro BJJ.
I haven’t been doing a ton of design work lately, since I’m organizing Toro’s first card of local BJJ superfights (more on that later). There’s a new shirt out today, though, and it hearkens back to those innocent days of getting up early to eat cereal and train:
I’ve been leading a 6 a.m. drilling group for a while that has now morphed into an early morning fundamentals class, and I firmly believe training is the best way to start the day — hence the shirt.
You can buy it here, and if you use the discount code “free15” you’ll get free shipping.
I’m also really excited about a forthcoming rashguard. You can’t buy this yet, but it’ll be available soon and I can’t wait to share it. (If you’re really psyched to get early previews of new gear, you can always follow me or Toro BJJ on Instagram: most of the works in progress get shared there first).
This one was inspired by the era where, in the words of Vast Aire, “when every video game was 8-bit / and you get popped in your mouth for …” … well, you know the rest.
There are some details I want to tweak, but here’s the gist:
And the close-up view, featuring inside jokes about the De La Riva guard:
Thank you for putting up with these commercial messages. We now return you to your regularly-scheduled programming.
A couple of long posts planned: Mundial recap plus a historical post I’m excited about. But Toro just released a shirt I made, which is a bit of a regional in-joke, but if you’re from the south and like biscuits, maybe you think it’s funny.
Have you ever apologized after a loss? If so, stop it.
I’m not talking about the extreme situations here where you do something foolish that causes a loss — failing to prepare properly, or making a huge mistake ignoring your coach’s advice during the match. If you do those things, go ahead and say you’re sorry.
That’s not usually what happens, though. Most often we lose because we had a tough matchup, or because we’re learning and growing and ran into a situation where we didn’t know the right thing to do.
Mostly, I’m talking to myself here: I used to apologize when I got knocked out of tournaments. I used to feel like I’d let my teammates, coach and training partners down if I lost.
There is no “I” in “emo,” but there is a “me.”
This is very different from my perspective now. I have begun think of tournament competitions as just an extension of training: instead of training with the people I roll with everyday, I’m putting myself in a different situation with an opponent whose techniques are unknown. This is an extremely valuable training experience, since you aren’t going to know if your opponent wrestled, did judo or anything else.
Changing this viewpoint took me a long time. The impulse to say “sorry” is understandable: your instructor and training partners put a ton of energy, sweat and bodily risk into helping you prepare. You want to run strong for them.
But I came to realize that it misses the point: it misses the process, the journey. It misses what makes you proud about your gym and teammates. When I sat down and thought about what makes me proud of my instructor and teammates, competitive success barely made the list.
I’m proud of the way we support each other. I’m proud of the way nobody lets anybody else quit during a hard workout. I’m proud of my friends’ competitive achievements, yes, but I’m just as impressed by the grinders that show up and train every day even though they haven’t had tournament success — maybe even more so. I’m proud that, like any family, we sometimes bicker but we get over it and keep helping each other get better.
What’s a medal compared to that? What’s a great day at a tournament — even the best day — compared to years of that shared experience?
Win, lose, whatever: you get back up.
A loss might end a tournament for you. It might sting. It should sting: if you’re preparing right, you’ve put a ton of effort into the experience. That tiny part of your jiu-jitsu journey might end in that painful fashion.
But a loss won’t stop your gym, and a loss won’t stop you. The journey goes on. The effort you put into training, the work you put in and the sacrifices you made don’t go away. They’re the ingredients that have made you improve, at jiu-jitsu and at life.
The process is the big picture. Think of a tournament as just part of training, a necessary but impermanent part of your permanent, day-to-day practice.
So go out there and win every match if you can. But if you lose, you don’t owe me, or your teammates — or anyone — an apology. You don’t owe anyone anything but, where applicable: “thanks for helping me out: see you in the gym tomorrow.”
I’ve had a couple of these questions already, so I wanted to explain my own philosophy on this. It’s different for every person (more on that below), but here are the general principles I start from.
1. Competition Is Very Valuable Experience For Everyone.
Even if you don’t plan to be a regular medal hunter, I think you — and everyone — should give a tournament a shot.
It’s a different intensity from daily sparring, and it’s hard to find that intensity elsewhere. It gives you the opportunity to roll against people that you know nothing about, so you can’t predict what techniques are likely to come at you. And it gives you the chance to set a goal, train hard for it, and go all-out for victory once the day comes. That’s great training!
Take it from the great Royler Gracie: everyone should compete at least once.
Apart from the standard benefits of competition, consider this: your training partners probably like you. Unless you are a jerk, but if you are reading this blog, then you are not a jerk. That means even if you roll hard, like we do at my academy, they are probably trying to be technical when rolling with you and avoid doing overly terrible things to you.
My training partners are very technical, have great cardio, and are relentless. We roll hard against each other. But if I get a collar grip and there’s hair in there, I’m not going to keep my grip and pull that person’s hair. If someone gets a choke on me, but it’s not a clean choke and they can’t finish, that person is probably not going to just facecrush me and give me gi burn.
… probably.
Where medals are at stake, though? Against someone who doesn’t know you? All bets are off. Facing off against someone who has no stake in you personally, knowing that person is trying to choke you or bend your joints the wrong way — and surviving that — is a powerful thing.
When a match ends, you know that person has done their level best to beat you up. And you made it out the other side. Competition gives you that satisfaction.
2. Have The Right Attitude About Competition
Especially during the first stages of your jiu-jitsu career, you’re there to learn. Period.
Thus, I don’t generally think new people should put tremendous pressure on themselves to win when competing. Don’t misunderstand me: You should always go out there with the goal to win every match, and the attitude that you’re going to win every match.
But you should also be able to put the tournament in perspective. If you lose every match, you’ve still gained valuable knowledge and experience. Now you know what it’s like to be around the hustle and bustle of a tournament, make weight, hear someone shout your name and push you out onto a mat to grapple against someone you don’t know.
That’s a huge win for you, even if you enter four divisions and go 0-4. Very few people compete their best during their first tournament. Getting the first one out of the way is a big step.
3. In General, People Should Compete As Early As Possible …
Don’t get me wrong, I don’t think you should register for the Pans after your second class. But assuming you know one or two things to do from the major positions, I say go for it.
Personally, I competed very early on — my first tournament was after I had trained for a month. I think that was good for me. I won some matches, I lost some matches, I made some cringe-worthy decisions that I look back on with laughter, and I learned a lot of things not to do. And I was hooked.
This is my first ever gi match. Danger: No Stripe White Belt Trying To Pull Guard
This part is significant: I don’t even notice the hustle and bustle and excitement of tournaments anymore. After that first one, I started competing as often as possible.But I had a huge adrenaline dump after my first match at my first tournament, and wow, was I unprepared for that. It can be overwhelming your first time.
Yes, I have video of that match. No, you can’t see it.
That doesn’t happen to me any more, and I’m glad it happened a month in instead of a year in. Getting your first time out of the way early on means you’ll be all the more ready for the next one.
4. … But If You Don’t Feel Ready, It’s Better To Wait.
I always tell people that if they have any doubts about whether they’re ready for the experience, they should wait to compete. Feeling comfortable is important! This is what you do for fun, so you should enjoy it. Being unsure if you’re ready isn’t fun.
Now, there is a balance to be struck here. Everyone gets nervous, and it’s easy to find an excuse. How many people tell you they’re going to start training “as soon as they get in shape,” and then never get in “good enough” shape?
Part of the value of competition is challenging yourself to get out of that comfort zone. It’s hugely empowering to feel overwhelming nerves, to not be sure you should even be doing something, and then come out the other side.
Here’s how I resolve the balance. Anything that keeps people training is a good thing, in my view. If a competition risks robbing someone of the joy of training, that’s too early. So if you feel like you can handle losing, and it won’t discourage you, I say go for it.
As long as you enjoy yourself, you’ve won, even if you’ve lost every match.
5. Competition Gives You The Individual And Team Experience
You step out on the mat alone. No one is going to take that guy down for you, pass his guard, or choke him for you.
But you’re not alone. You didn’t train alone. You aren’t at the tournament alone. Your coach can’t armbar your opponent, but he or she can tell you where to move your leg so that you can do it yourself. And your team, if it’s anything like mine, will scream their heads off for you. Or, when your muscles are spasming right before the semis of absolute, they might even massage your forearms for you.
You can use this picture to guilt your teammates into massaging your forearms. You have my permission.
Why do I mention this? Because I believe jiu-jitsu competitions give you the best of both worlds. You get both the individual competition experience and the team experience. If you stink up the joint, like I did at the Pans in 2012, you still get to root for your friends and be thrilled when they medal.
If you do well, all the better. You stepped on the mat by yourself and did something most people will never do. Then you stepped off the mat and got mobbed with support by the people you train, sweat and occasionally bleed with.
Your team might not do this, exactly. But still.
It’s a special experience. And you can have it! So set a goal for when you’re going to compete, train hard for it, and remember: no matter what happens, you’ll have won by the end of the day.
It’s been a while since my last post for two reasons: first, a lot of great stuff is happening (a few long-in-the-works designs are about to come out); and second, I’m in the process of finishing up a snazzy new website where I’ll migrate the blog. Stay tuned on that.
To me, a nerd is someone that is passionate about something that is not mainstream. … BJJ is an immersive culture, as are many nerd subcultures as well, and I think that’s not a coincidence. I think that folks that get passionate about certain aspects of cultural experience, [and] there is a particular personality type that is drawn to that. For some of us, that may be Doctor Who or comic books. It may be science fiction or ren faires or Dungeons and Dragons. Or martial arts history. It’s different for everybody, but it’s kind of cool to see the two parts of my world that are important to me fold in on themselves.
Shorter version: Nerd Life, that’s my alibi.
TARDIS training!
Anyway, it’s a fun interview. Check it out if you’re so inclined: you’ll get a preview of some new designs I’ve got coming out!
Generally, I shy away from hyperbole, so kindly forgive the subject line. It’s a claim I don’t make lightly.
Don’t worry, I promise that the post doesn’t get emo. But it must start with this basic fact: I’ve never known my biological father. This is just fine with me, but means that I lack knowledge about family medical history.
A few months back, a friend of mine in a similar situation decided to sign up for 23 And Me. 23 and Me is a genetic testing service that (in exchange for $99 and a copious amount of your spit) reports on your genetic traits, potential inherited conditions, ancestry and more.
My friend said that her results were fascinating. She also said that she accidentally ordered two of the “spit kits” that they use to collect your DNA, and could use someone to take it off her hands. Sold!
It’s a commercial! 23 and Me needs to sponsor me. Hit me up for a gi patch, guys.
Frankly, I was much more interested in the ancestry aspect of the service. Like I said, half of my genealogy is a complete unknown, and due to immigration and a rumored family name change a few generations ago, it’s nigh impossible to find out much of anything further back than a century or so. But genetic markers can tell us a lot about where we come from, and I was excited to see just how Neanderthal I am, among other things (3 percent, in case you were wondering).
As I write this, my ancestry results are still incomplete. I can’t say anything about that. The health results came in today, and my jaw dropped.
Now, I’ve always been a healthy person. It’s extremely rare that I get sick and I’ve been fortunate in my life to avoid most major maladies. It sounds foolish — and it is foolish — but I think I started to take that as a given.
Then I saw this:
Two out of three Jeffs are gonna get heart disease. I’m trying to find something flippant to say and coming up dry.
Whoa. I’m 150 percent more likely than the average person to have heart disease. More than 66 percent of guys with my genes will have coronary problems.
I turn 40 next year. You can see why that might be sobering.
What you might not see, as yet, is what this has to do with jiu-jitsu. Don’t worry, we’re there now.
I started training about three years ago. As I said, I’ve always been on-balance a healthy person. But I also enjoy the occasional beer and the temptation of dessert. I’d never have called myself fat, but when I walked into the gym, I weighed more than I ever had in my life: 167 pounds. I was exercising, but infrequently, doing yoga when I could find the time.
Three months after I started training, I had caught the grappling bug. I started training five times a week, more if I could. I have never been focused on weight in and of itself, since that’s not a good metric of health, but the pounds started to melt off. Fast.
X-rays of my body reveal changes in my mind’s focus …
There was more. My conditioning was improving rapidly, but I felt a ceiling there. I noticed that there were days when I felt better than other days, and those days strongly correlated with how well I ate, hydrated and otherwise took care of myself.
I started researching nutrition. Nobody wants to feel like garbage and perform like garbage during training, so I stopped putting garbage in my body. Plus, if I was going to compete — and I decided early on that I wanted to compete — I needed to get a handle on this aspect of preparation.
Soon I was eating several small meals a day composed mostly of fresh fruits and vegetables, nuts, and grilled fish. I started drinking water constantly — a gallon a day on a standard day, more if a tournament was coming up.
I hadn’t been a real drinker in many years, and I found myself consuming alcohol very infrequently. Instead, I was drinking Acai and taking protein shakes, and supplementing those beverages with vitamins.
… and nutritional habits.
I felt great. Gradually, all the exercise in my life became jiu-jitsu training, and I worked into a cycle of training six or seven times a week, eating well, hydrating and getting lots of rest.
I wasn’t trying to “diet” — just to eat healthy. Still, I found myself naturally between 145 and 149 pounds. I knew that my new habits were healthier than my old habits, but that’s not why I made the changes: I just wanted to get better at jiu-jitsu.
This matters to the topic at hand because genes are only part of the story — 39-56% of the story, to be precise — in deciding someone will get heart disease. Your lifestyle matters a great deal, too!
Flash forward to yesterday morning. I get the news about my elevated heart disease risk. Shocked, I start researching what I could do to keep myself healthy. That included taking this questionnaire from the Washington University School of Medicine about lifestyle and heart disease.
Let me hit you with some samples of the questions they ask.
* Do you eat fish 2 or more times per week?
* Do you eat 5 or more servings of fruit and vegetables per day?
* Do you eat 3 or more servings of whole grains per day?
* Do you usually eat 3 servings of nuts per week?
* How many servings of alcohol do you have on a typical day?
* Do you take a multivitamin or a B complex supplement on most days?
* Do you walk (or do other moderate activity) for at least 30 minutes on most days, or at least 3 hours per week?
The point, as I’m sure you’ve already noticed: I’d changed all of these things for the better, without thinking about it, just by virtue of training jiu-jitsu. When I finished the survey, it came out like this:
Keep Yourself Alive!
There are lots of things in your life that are out of your control. You can’t change your genes. You can’t change who your family is.
Beyond that, it’s difficult to make fundamental, overarching changes on a number of issues all at once. If you tell someone they have to change their whole diet, and start exercising, and take vitamins, and pay attention to these other matters too … well, that can get overwhelming. And being overwhelmed can lead to paralysis of action. Ever had so many projects due you just feel daunted and take a nap? Same concept.
It’s better to find that one lifestyle change that fosters change in all the other stuff. I train because I love it, not because I’m trying to exercise. But training is exercise. And because I love to train, I drink lots of water instead of lots of booze, eat healthy snacks instead of donuts, and — all since I don’t want to feel like death when I’m doing what I love.
Of course, it’s still possible that heart disease is how I will go. I’m at peace with that, and I’d still make the same decisions about diet and exercise even if I knew they wouldn’t make a difference in my health outcome.
I’ve found one component of my life that inspires me to make better choices in many other aspects of my life. For me, that’s jiu-jitsu. Maybe it is for you, too.
