Wednesdays with Coach Tim: Tap Early, Tap Often

Last week, I was rolling with a new white belt.  He doesn't have a lot of technique yet, but he's strong.  I've been struggling with being too passive lately, and he got me in positions that would have ended me if another blue belt or higher had gotten them.  He was trying really hard to beat me with awful chokes that were uncomfortable (my cheekbones hurt the next day), but not dangerous.  At one point, he was trying to secure my back and he crossed his ankles in front of my waist.

Never, ever, ever cross your ankles directly in front of your opponent's waist if you have their back.  This is why: 

The moment I realized he had crossed his ankles in front of me, I scooted my butt down, and crossed my legs over his ankles.  I kept the hold tight, and modified the hold so that I was in a figure-four lock (his ankles were in the crook of my left knee, and my right knee was securing my left ankle).  The instant I secured the figure-four lock, he stopped trying to choke me.  He stopped really moving.

But even though it hurt enough for him to stop trying to choke me, he did not tap.  I know how to finish that ankle lock, but he's new, and this particular lock is dangerous.  So, instead of finishing it, I made it tighter.  He still did not tap.

I was torn on whether to let it go, tell him it was dangerous, or finish it because finishing that ankle lock can break the ankle.

I decided to finish it by lifting my hips.  He tapped.  And then he limped off the mat.  I talked to him on the way out, checked to make sure he was alright, and told him to be careful about where ankles are crossed when you have someone's back.

I felt awful.  Had I done the right thing?  Was I just being a bully blue belt teaching a young, strong, white belt a lesson?

I still don't know.  But the whole thing got me thinking about the mentality of tapping, and I asked Coach Tim to give advice to new BJJ practitioners on knowing when to tap and when to hang on and try to get out of a submission.

Coach Tim's Advice: 

At what point in sparring / competition is it appropriate to tap and end that particular grappling instance? Obviously, each individual will have different answers for different occasions. For example, tapping during the demonstration of a technique is much different than tapping out during the finals of the black belt Mundials at the Pyramid.

Tapping signifies that you and your partner must stop grappling for the safety of the person tapping.  Problems with learning to tap arise in two ways:  (1) students refusing to tap despite immediate danger of injury and (2) students who tap to the slightest amount of discomfort and pressure.

Solving the problem requires coming to a universal solution to both ends of the "never tap" and "always tap" spectrum.  Coach Tim has grappled with this idea (and would like you to know that there is super extra pun intended, since he'd been thinking of this pun all morning because it's so bad.) throughout his training and coaching career.  Thus far, Coach Tim's conclusion is that the appropriate time to tap is about tempering the ego (for the "never tap" candidates) and cultivating durability (for the "always tap" cadets). 

Just like other aspects of Jiu Jitsu, the mental apparatus has physical consequences - drilling and sparring (physical) with proper intention / visualization (mental) will foster your own powerful growth. In the case of tapping / submitting, tapping early will stifle your growth by slowing your body's adaptation to the physical stress of the Art. On the other hand, tapping late will result in injury and, more subtlety, the more experienced students, the ones who are able to submit you, will begin to avoid training with you. I have never met a student that likes to injure their fellow students and it is a disservice to lose more experienced training partners because submitting during training causes duress.

The Take Away: 

Do not let your ego keep you from tapping, because not tapping can keep you from being able to train and scare away higher level training partners.  Conversely, do not let discomfort or pressure cause you to tap, because tapping before you are in actual danger or unable to escape the submission will stifle your ability to adapt to the physical aspects of BJJ.

SoCal Women's BJJ Open Mat

Today was like my BJJ Christmas came early.  This month's SoCal Women BJJ Open Mat was held at my academy!

SoCal Women BJJ is a Facebook group run by Jill Baker, a brown belt training out of Bakersfield Brazilian Jiu Jitsu and Riveters BJJ.  Once a month, Jill picks a SoCal academy and rally's the Facebook group to meet up at the designated gym for a three hour open mat.

Today was our turn, the second time Robot has hosted.  I think we had a pretty great turn out!

52 participants! Can you believe it!?  Every belt level was represented today, from all over SoCal.  I don't have words for how happy days like today make me.  Osss!

For My FemmeBots

This article is important.

It isn't about jiu jitsu, but it is important. I've starved myself before eating 800 calories a day of fish and lettuce while doing three hour workouts 6x a week just to see the scale move a few pounds and hope that maybe I'll get back down to the Size 2, 105 pound, 15 year old body that I had when I met my husband. It didn't work. It made it worse. It made me hate myself. 

You know what makes me love myself? Being able to do whatever I want to do physically, having my doctor tell me that people would kill for my cholesterol and blood sugar numbers, even though I still think I'm 40 pounds heavier than I'd like to be. No number on any scale makes me love me. No bikini I can wear without cringing makes me love me. Being exactly who I am makes me love me. 

Each and every one of you is beautiful, inside and out. Each and every one of you is different, and inspires me in a different way to train harder, be kinder, and love more. Be healthy, be strong, and be happy. 

Wednesdays with Coach Tim: Balancing Act

One of my very favorite things about working with the new white belts at Robot is how much I learn from them.  Things that my coaches have been telling me to do for years are seeming to finally make sense as I roll with new white belts and see where they are struggling and answer their questions.  This week, the importance of keeping your balance and keeping good posture has been in the front of my mind.

Keeping my balance has been something I have struggled with from day one. For the first year I trained, I'm pretty sure I swept myself more than my partners swept me. The most common thing I would hear my coach telling me during a sparring session was "don't fall, don't fall, don't fall!"  I just could not get a handle on how not to fall over when I was trying to get out of someone's guard.  I still struggle with being the standing partner for Spider Guard and De La Riva drills because I seem to be the human equivalent of a bowling pin -- designed to topple over!

At Robot, when someone is being coached on how to stay balanced and grounded, they hear a coach telling them to "posture up."  When I hear "posture up" I instantly note the alignment of my head and spine and I make them as straight as possible.  I square my hips, square my shoulders, relax my neck, and typically look at the ceiling (which for some reason seems to automatically cause me to straighten up and become stronger).

This week, I've asked Coach Tim to give some advice on the importance of keeping your posture while training -- even during the most basic drills.

Coach Tim's Advice on Posturing Up: 

The number one issue with posture is that we all unintentionally come to understand posture, for example during guard passing, as having your head above your hips and your back (spine) straight. This is only partially true and is the center of problems for students of all levels.

What Does "Posture" Mean?

The first step to unraveling this issue is to understand that the term "posture" as "to engage the entirety of your core in a manner that stabilizes your spine against faults in positioning."  

What in the crazy does that mean? 

It means that your brain likes itself. It doesn't want to get hurt and it doesn't want its precious spine being hurt either. Selfish, yes, but guess what else? Your brain makes sure that your arms and legs do whatever it takes to keep the spine (from the skull, through the upper torso and down into the pelvis) in a strong, braced positioned.

Legs tend to flail and arms push frantically for space when someone applies strong, twisting pressure to the head or the hips because the brain is making sure your arms and legs are trying to keep your spine straight. This can result in a sweep (when the other person is unable to use their legs to catch their balance), a guard pass (when the other person is unable to use their arms to push and create space), or submissions.

How to Properly Posture

Instead of thinking of posture as "head above your hips and your back straight" just think that if you can engage (flex) your butt, hips, stomach and lats, then you are either in good posture, or very, very close to it. This is because engaging those particular muscle groups is only possible when your spine is in a stable position.

The next time you are in Spider Guard and your elbow is separated from your side, try to engage your lat.  You will find that you are unable to engage your lat in the same way you would if your partner didn't have their hooks + grips.  The inability to engage your lats means you have poor posture in that moment.

It is important to remember that good posture during guard passing doesn't require your hips to be directly under your head.  For example, one of the purposes of the using the Spider Guard, transitioning to the Leg Lasso and then moving into the De La Riva is that the first two guards (Spider -> Lasso) will cause your opponent to begin stepping their feet towards you if they: (a) begin to tire, (b) don't understand how to pass, or (c) use a posture that requires them to get their hips under their head.  If you've worked on controlling Spider Guard, you've probably worked on getting your hips forward (under your head).  Once the guard passer walks in, the guard player can transition to the De La Riva or Reverse De La Riva and begin a series of back attacks, submissions and other sweeps.

A more effective strategy than putting your hips under your head would be to create stability in your entire body by ensuring that your hands are always gripping, your elbows are always twisting in towards your hips, your glutes, stomach, and lats are stabilizing your spine and your feet are straight. More precisely, the big toe and knee joint on both feet are pointed towards whatever surface your are using as a fixed point on your opponent. From here, you can more effectively apply torque to your opponent and pass their guard, keep your balance, etc.

tldr; The Take-Away: 

Keep in mind, "back straight, head up and over the hips" isn't wrong, but rather that positioning is not the only way to achieve good posture.  Rather, an understanding of what "posture up" is actually referring to will help the individual decide what exact expression of posture is most appropriate for that moment.

Posture is constant because the core muscles are always engaged, but what proper posture looks like changes continuously because the positioning of the hands and feet change as the sparring develops.  Since the positioning of the feet, knees, hands and elbows all determine your ability to engage the muscle that brace your spine, it follows that your limbs must maintain proper posture as well (this is where "elbows in" comes from: you cannot engage your lats effectively with your elbows away from your body).

Posture exists in all positions and should always be checked, adjusted and then re-adjusted as necessary because often we think we have good posture when in fact, elbows are slightly separated or our back rounds under stress, etc.  If you cannot hold the position you are in comfortably for a long duration of time, your posture is off and needs to be readjusted.

White Belt Survival Tip: Just Keep Training

After I was promoted to blue belt, my husband (who has a year of training on me) told me he could finally tell me the truth about my first year of training:  I was awful.  I was really, really bad.  He was really proud of me for not quitting.  

I've thought a lot about why I didn't quit, even when I was the shortest and slowest in class and when I seemed to get hurt every time someone put a little pressure on me and I went almost a year before getting my first submission or pass.  True, I just loved my academy.  I love the smell of the mats in the morning and the guys I train with, our stupid inside jokes, and my ability to let everything go once I got on the mat.  

But I also had upper belts and more experienced white belts encourage me.  Upper belts noticed when I started moving better, and offered suggestions on how to get even better.  People asked where I was if I missed a few classes and asked me to roll.  When I got a good pass or position, my training partners told me so.  Just a few words of encouragement from a training partner meant the world to me.  

I remember that every time there is a new white belt on the mat.  I remember how hard it was to put myself outside my comfort zone and try something so new.  I find something about each white belt I roll with that they have done right.  Maybe they won't remember it, maybe it doesn't mean anything to them, or maybe it will be the thing that helps them show up to the next class and keep training.         

Wednesdays with Coach Tim: Understanding How to Train

There are a ton of great resources with tips for beginners in BJJ. To avoid redundancy, Coach Tim has come up with some pointers that we haven't seen anywhere else.  We've also included some basic pointers, since many of you may be so new to the sport that you haven't gotten into other blogs yet.

Obviously, this is not an exhaustive list! In fact, these tips may be harder to adopt than advice given in other columns. On the plus side, these tips are not only for beginners, but they are tautologies that can carry a student through black belt!

1) Brazilian Jiu Jitsu is a tactile sport, not a visual one -

We are often exposed to Martial Arts through striking disciplines, such as Karate, Muay Thai or Boxing. In these arenas, most of your skill development is centered around your visual acuity being tested against your opponent's (speed of strikes, speed of reaction time, speed of footwork, etc).  In Jiu Jitsu, however, we are responding to tactile cues. The placement and removal of weight / pressure, the application of torque, the removal of slack from a system, etc. Long story short, the skill we are trying to improve requires that we receive a tactile input and match it with an appropriate tactile output.

What all that blah blah blah above means is: Have your instructor demonstrate the technique on you after you have seen it, if possible. Tim tries to go around his class and do the techniques on everyone if there is time, because the slight differences in pressure and the order in which we acquire an anchor, use it to apply torque, re-anchor, re-torque, etc. is very subtle and often difficult to see or understand from an explanation.Practice your techniques on your partner and instructor, have your instructor do the technique to you and your partner and continue this triad so you can continuously focus on the tactile input / output instead of trying to understand Jiu Jitsu through visual input / output.

2) Positions are Relative -

Without an understanding of human movement patterns, grappling movements will initially seem counter-intuitive. This is normal! It can be overwhelming to try of think of what you should do ("Do I move first?" or "Should I wait until my partner moves and try to counter them?") in tandem with what your opponent is doing ("He grabbed my sleeve!" "She's making me fall over!"). Instead of trying to process what you and your opponent are doing and then coming up with your next move, just focus on your own body positioning. You should always feel like you have your balance, your spine (from the top of your head to the bottom of your pelvis) is straight and braced and you feel like you are strong and fast. Regarding the last point, feeling strong and fast in your positions, remember we are not trying to rely on strength and speed; however, if you are in a position where you can normally move 100 lbs., then you should never settle in that position feeling like you can only move 50 lbs., because this means that something (spine, hand, grip, etc.) is misplaced and obstructing your force production.

If you are consistently able to place yourself into optimal positioning, then you don't need to worry about your opponent! Since we are in contact during drilling and sparring, if my positioning improved, then your positioning has regressed. This simple axiom allows you to narrow your focus down in the beginning of your training and makes it easier to understand the purpose of each step in a technique.

3) BJJ is not magic -

"Before I learned the art, a punch was just a punch, and a kick, just a kick.
After I learned the art, a punch was no longer a punch, a kick, no longer a kick.
Now that I understand the art, a punch is just a punch and a kick is just a kick."

-- Bruce Lee

Tim started teaching Brazilian Jiu Jitsu soon after he started training (as is natural in class, anyone, even a white belt, can help the less experienced students in certain areas).  Tim had studied Martial Arts since he was 4, and loved showing other children what he had learned.  In explaining Jiu Jitsu fellow students, however, Tim realized that a punch (armbar / guard pass / etc) had become so much more than a punch and a kick had become so much more than a kick.  In explaining techniques to fellow students, Tim realized teaching was giving him greater insight into the art and helping clarify the techniques in his own mind.  Somewhere within Jui Jitsu was a governing set of principles that comprised the architecture of grappling on the whole. It was more important to find the roots of this tree than to foolishly try and memorize the infinite pattern of branches that sprouted from these roots.  In that way, a punch could once again become just a punch and a kick, just a kick.

Those governing principles are the same in every sport, every martial art, in fact, every human movement. Understanding how an anchor can become a brace and then be used to generate torque, which is the determining factor in who controls the space and slack in a grappling match. This control then dictates who will create faults in the other person's positioning, eventually leading to a submission. If this last portion doesn't quite make sense yet, don't worry! That's why we train!

4) Mistaking an Ouchie for an Injury

I was in pretty good shape when I started training. I'd been doing spinning and Pilates classes 4 times a week just over a year, and I was getting really strong. One of the reasons I started training was because I wanted to use my muscles for something. My husband was training, I was getting to know the guys at the academy, and it seemed like it could be fun.

It was so fun. I was completely and utterly exhausted and covered head to toe in sweat the first night, but I insisted on buying a gi and signing up on the spot. I couldn't wait for my next class. That first month of training was the most painful month of my life. Every single thing hurt, but nothing was a injury. I very clearly remember sitting at the kitchen table after training one night, looking at my dinner, and crying. I was trying not to be a drama queen, but I was so sore! I didn't want to pick up my silverware because I knew it was going to hurt! When my husband asked what was wrong, I remember choking out: "This is the hardest thing I have ever done in my whole life."

It is true. BJJ is the hardest physical activity I have ever done in my life. I have had injuries that have kept me from training, but if I didn't train when something felt sore I would never be able to train.

This is not to say you should train through an injury. Rather, you should learn to listen to your body and tell the difference between an injury and the soreness that comes after a hard workout.

5) Declining a Roll Because You are Tired

Rolling (sparring) is exhausting, especially when you first start out. There are several reasons this happens; for me, I was holding my breath during rolls without realizing it. I spent months concentrating on mindful breathing during rolling before I figured it out.

I will hear newer students speculating on how easily they are "gassing out" or "need to work on their cardio." These same students will also sit out half the rolls during the training session because they are tired. How exactly are they going to improve on their endurance and strength if they don't push through it?

Yes, you will get sweaty. Yes, your face will turn red. Your muscles will feel tired and sore. But learn to know the difference between exhaustion and intense training. Push yourself. Some of the best rolls I have had have come at the end of the night when I am so tired I think there is no way I could possibly defend anything or be the least bit aggressive. It is when I am most tired that my technique gets sharper, because I can't cheat on a position by trying to muscle through it.

6) Not Asking Questions

If you aren't understanding the technique being taught, ask your instructor to help. Most instructors ask for questions on a position after they've demonstrated, and then walk around assisting students. Good instructors will ask the students again, after they've drilled the new position, if there are any questions.

There are always questions! If you have one, chances are the guy next to you has the same question or a similar problem. Additionally, asking questions helps your instructor improve their teaching technique/method and cues them in on details that the class is struggling with that need to be addressed.

7) Negative Thought Patterns

Ah, the ego. If you've done some lurking on BJJ blogs or the posts on www.reddit.com/r/bjj, you've seen a lot of talk about the need to train without ego. But what does that mean? Does it mean you should stop trying to get a submission during sparring or otherwise "win?"

Not exactly. For me, so far, training without ego means I understand that "losing" (i.e., getting tapped, swept, or otherwise dominated during a roll) is actually learning. Training without ego allows me to learn because I'm not so caught up in "winning" that I'm not willing to try something new or take a risk during a sparring session. Training without ego means that I ask questions when I don't understand something -- I'm not afraid of sounding stupid. Training without ego means that when an upper belt asks me to roll, and I'm completely exhausted, unless I'm injured, I accept the roll. I know I will learn from them, even as I struggle to keep up.

It isn't easy. I struggle with checking my ego at the door often. For me, remembering that BJJ is fun, and if I'm not having fun I'm not doing BJJ is the key. If I'm not having fun, chances are I have accidentally let my ego get in the way of learning.

Jiu jitsu is a tough sport to learn.  But remember: