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:

Wednesdays with Coach Tim: Standing Up In Closed Guard

Standing up in the guard is a basic move that I've struggled with throughout my time training BJJ.  I seem to be able to drill it properly (if slowly), but during sparring I very rarely make it to standing and breaking the closed guard.  Instead, I (1) try not to get stuck in someone's closed guard or (2) break the guard from sitting (which exposes me to a higher risk of triangle or omoplata submissions).

In class on Saturday we worked on what to do to prevent the double ankle sweep once you've stood up in guard, but that implies I've gotten to standing!

Coach Tim, to the rescue!

Today, I've identified where I find I have problems standing up in the guard during sparring, and asked Coach Tim to help me out.

My Attempts to Stand up in the Guard:

First, the grips I usually get are the lapels and the hip.  I'm able to keep my posture secure at this point, keeping my opponent away from me.

Second, I step forward with the leg that is on the side I have a grip on the hip.

Third, I get stuck.  One of two things happens:  Either I literally feel stuck to the mat, unable to stand up, or as I start to stand up my opponent hooks my foot, my brain yells "DANGER!" and I sit back down.

Help!

Coach Tim's Advice: 

Let's look at the major steps encountered with standing up:

1) Frames / Arm Position: 

Before you even think of lifting up your knee and replacing it with your foot, you must place yourself into the best position possible. Just like everything else in Jiu Jitsu, once you complete a movement, the stability of that position is your platform for launching your next movement. If this setup is even a little bit off, your attempts at moving forward will be easily thwarted.

Whether you prefer to control the lapels and the hip, both lapels, the lapel and sleeve is not as important as the position of your elbows for these grips. Always turn your elbow-pits and armpits away from you (creating external rotation, the same you use for a proper pushup), anchor your hands to the gi and completely close your hands. Position your elbows before you grab the gi! If you grab the gi first, the hand position will determine the elbow position. It is better to have perfect elbow position and allow your hands to fall and grab whatever material is available so we do not compromise elbow positioning.

Another good rule of thumb is to keep your head behind the belt-line of your opponent. Bringing it further forward than that places your center of gravity over the fulcrum of their hip. This makes it incredibly easy to break your posture down by pulling forward with the legs and if that is not enough, this forward pull will enable the guard player to sit up and grab your head, which, barring a huge strength discrepancy, will ALWAYS break down your posture (a spinal fault will always be addressed by your body, even if this means opening your elbows and allowing the rest of your body to fall into poor position).

Lastly, you cannot allow for any slack in your body positioning or grips. This means that wherever you hand grabs, it grabs all the material until it flush with your opponent. Your hands don't slip around, rather they attach like they're bolted into place. Your core and hips are engaged to stabilize your upper body, there is not looseness in your spinal structure. While you don't have to flex like Arnold trying to win Mr. Universe, you should have enough tension throughout your upper body that your movements do not break down the structure you have built with your grips, arms, torso and head.

2) The first step up:

We are traditionally taught to step up one leg at at time. Later, it becomes appropriate to jump both legs up simultaneously. For the purposes of learning proper bracing technique, one leg at a time is best. The most important aspect to remember about the first step up is that you are transferring weight from your hips and legs (you are sitting on your ankles, after all) into your hands so that you can step up to your foot on the mat. In order to do this, your hands must be in position to support your weight. Go back and review step #1 if this is not the case. If you are trying to stand and your training partner is pulling you with their legs, having your weight in your hands will still cause your legs to "feel light enough" to lift off the floor. You need to step forward far enough to create a 90-degree angle between your foot / ankle and your knee. Then, you need to turn this knee is so that your training partner's hip is contained between a) your knee on one side and b) your hand / elbow (depending on your grip) on the other side.

If you feel off-balance here, either a) step #1 was incorrect and you were not able to properly brace your weight or b) your foot positioning is preventing you from creating torque off of the ground which would stabilize you enough to step up your second leg. Regardless, as always, if you do not feel strong and balanced at this point, advancing forward will only make it worse! Go back and correct if necessary.

3) The second step up:

The second step up is tricky because you have elevated your entire body (relative to our starting position) yet your hands are in the same place and are still required for you to properly brace your weight. Instead of making the mistake of rounding your back OR dropping your hips below your knees (both are done to make it easier to place weight on your hands), use your braced core, grips (elbows turned in!) and knee position (turned towards their hip) to elevate your opponent's hips (rounding their back and destroying their posture) and balance on their hips. If any weight is not braced against your knee and hand positioning, your remaining leg will feel very heavy. Shift the position so that you can feel your second leg free itself from the load so you can step up.

4) Once you are standing:

You must keep your elbows tight, turned towards your body, with your elbow-pits and armpits turned away from you. Your knees should meet underneath your opponent's hips (your feet must be pointed straight forward and will be fairly close to each other). If your core is braced and the previous criteria are met, once you are standing your opponent should have their back bent and be supporting themselves only with their weight. Properly situated, they will be unable to use the double-ankle sweep because they do not have their shoulder blades on the ground and therefore cannot create the torque to push you away while controlling their ankles. In addition, if they release their closed guard, your positioning will cause them to recede away from you before their knees can make contact with their body, giving you the chance to begin passing instead of having to defend a sweep.

With regards to grip and actually opening the guard, that can take a number of directions based on a) how insistent your partner is in keeping their guard closed, b) whether or not they sit up with you as you stand and c) your relative height.

If I am opening the closed guard and my partner is shorter than I am, using my knee (same side as the hand on the hip) in their tailbone (ON their tailbone, not next to it, with your foot precisely under your knee) and then stepping my remaining leg back while using that same side hand to push their knee down is the preferred way to open the guard. This capitalizes on the height advantage by creating so much space inside the closed guard that they cannot keep it closed.

If they are taller than you, that same knee in the middle will instead slide up between their legs and you can open the guard from the kneeling combat-base position. Again, the exact mechanics used to open the guard will vary depending on height, but having a stable position (posture) to do this from is of utmost importance!

Long story short, the most appropriate way to think of standing in the closed guard is to simulate the way you sit up out of a chair without the use of your hands. Instead of trying to stand straight up vertically, which is difficult because your weight is set behind your knees, you will tend to lean forward, brace your core, and then stand up. This is the same movement for standing in the closed guard, with one additional caveat: because your partner is trying to pull you into the ground, when you begin to stand up, you arms provide a frame / brace for you to bear your weight on when that pull comes into play. This is why it is incredibly important to have the proper hand/elbow positioning so that you don't lose your own progress in standing up just because your opponent pulled down on your gi.

Working out the Kinks

The Saturday morning women's class is always my very favorite class of the week for several reasons.  This week it was my favorite class of the week because we had visitors from M3 Fight and Fitness in Montrose, CA.  The owners of M3 came up under Robot's instructors, and Rich was able to organize their ladies to make a trip to Robot.  They even had a lady purple belt for me to play with! So awesome!

This week, Coach David led the class and we worked on getting the kinks out of two things:  (1) Preventing the sweep when standing up in closed guard and (2) securing the De La Riva guard.

(1) Preventing the Sweep 

A pretty common response to having someone stand up in your closed guard is to open the guard, drop your hips, grab the ankles, and push the standing person over.  I'll admit to being a big chicken about standing up in guard because I so sincerely hate getting swept like this.

Previously, I had focused on staggering my legs as soon as possible when standing up in the guard, so that the opponent playing guard could not grab both of my feet.  Today, we worked on preventing the sweep by pushing our hips forward over the guard players hips as soon after they open the guard as possible.  From there, it is a matter of securing the guard player's legs and moving to the side -- essentially a stack pass.

The more we drilled this the more I saw how important my posture and my balance is when I'm dealing with preventing a sweep from an open guard position that hasn't hooked my legs yet -- specifically spider guard.  I've been struggling the last few weeks to figure out what to do with someone who's spider guard grips are so good that I can't pull their legs down to the ground.  Though I've been told over and over to push their legs over their head when they do that, making my hips heavy to control them, I hadn't understood it until this morning.

(2)  Securing the De La Riva (DLR) Guard 

Though we did work on several sweeps from De La Riva today, what I got out of it was (what I hope) is the final piece to figuring out why my DLR guard is so hard to maintain.  Earlier in the week, I talked several times with Coach Tim about feeling like my opponents could just step around my DLR and that the leg "stretching" them out never seemed long enough.

Coach Tim and I came up with two solutions to that problem.  First, I hadn't been fully engaging my abs.  Rather, I was letting my head and shoulders drop to the mat, which does about zero to break my opponent's posture down.  Second, because I am a super shorty (I'm only 5'2" with t-rex arms and short legs), I need to be more assertive with the pull on the sleeve, and probably even reach up and switch to the lapel grip in order to break down my opponent's posture.

Today, Coach David saw another piece to the DLR puzzle.  I get my DLR hook in, but as soon as my opponent starts to move, I drop it.  I hadn't even realized I was doing it.  I just drop it straight down.  It sounds so stupid to not realize that's what was happening, but it's the truth.  All I know is once I started actually paying attention to keeping hooked in, my opponent was having a much harder time getting out.  Now, if only I could grow some size 13 feet so that the hook would stay on a little easier! Maybe I should wear swim fins to train...

All in all, a really great day of rolling.

Wednesdays with Coach Tim: How to be a good training partner

Welcome to the inaugural "Wednesdays with Coach Tim" post!

Every Wednesday will (ideally) feature a post reflecting collaboration between me and my coach, Tim Peterson. Coach Tim has been training BJJ exclusively since he was 15, and received his black belt from Giva Santana in December of 2011.  He's also ridiculously photogenic:

This week we are covering something that is critical to learning BJJ, but that isn't formally taught:  how to be a good training partner.  There are three aspects to being a good training partner: (1) Basic etiquette, (2) drilling, and (3) sparring.

(1) Basic Training Etiquette:

• Come to learn and help your training partners learn
• Coach Tim often says you cannot learn BJJ alone.  You can't learn to submit anyone unless someone is willing to be your grappling dummy and roll with you.  You will not win every time.  A lot of learning comes from getting tapped.  Stop thinking of tapping as "losing" and start thinking of it as learning. 

• Have good hygiene 
• Clean and healthy body 
• BJJ is a close contact sport.  Be kind to your training partners, and keep yourself clean and your skin healthy.  Do not roll with contagious conditions like ringworm, athletes foot, or a cold.  

• Clean gi
• Do not roll if you do not have clean gear to roll in.  Not only does it smell (and yes, an unwashed women's gi has a funk to it), but it is unsafe for you and your training partners.  Unwashed gis and gear increase the likelihood of a staph infection.  And seriously, no one wants to be the smelly kid. 

• Trimmed nails
• Fingernails and toenails must be kept short and free of jagged edges.  Not only can a nail seriously harm your training partner, but it can get bent backwards or ripped off if it snags on a gi.  Carry clippers with you and double check your nails before class. 

• Make-up free 
• I violate this one on accident all the time, but women who roll should carry some sort of make up remover cloth with them and try to get rid of as much make-up as possible before class.  You don't want your mascara staining your training partner's gi! 

• Smile
• I overheard Mike Martinez, one of my very favorite coaches and an amazing human being, telling a little boy crying after losing a tournament that if he wasn't having fun, he wasn't doing BJJ.  I've kept that little piece of advice with me, and it has helped me keep my head straight when I'm rolling.  BJJ is a tough sport, mentally and physically.  If you aren't having fun, why are you doing it?

(2) Drilling

• Picking a Drilling Partner 
• When I first started training, I had no idea who I was supposed to train with.  Luckily, I was one of two women training and that made it pretty easy.  I'll be honest that we picked each other because we were the only women, but we also made pretty good training partners because we were the relatively the same height and weight.  Finding a drilling partner the same height and weight is important, especially when you start out, so that you aren't trying to figure out how to deal with someone 100 pounds bigger or 6 inches shorter than you in addition to mastering a completely foreign movement.  

• When there are both women and men on the mat, often women are the last to match up with a training partner.  Why?  Because the awkward goes both ways! Women are more likely to be newer at BJJ and not know as many people, and men (I think) are nervous drilling with someone who is (often) much smaller.  My solution?  Come early to class and introduce yourself around to the people stretching and warming up.  Get a feel for who is attending the class, and who is your size, and do the asking when it comes time to pick drilling partners.  The more you come to class, the more people you get to know, and the easier it is to pick a training partner.

• Drilling -- To be a limp noodle or a stiff cockroach?
• Neither! 

• Coach Tim's Advice: 
  
  
  1) A good visual guide for being a drilling partner is to try to imitate what the instructor was doing during demonstration. For example, if your instructor is teaching the armlock from the closed guard without a follow-up sweep, then during drilling the person being submitted should maintain enough tension in their body so that they don't topple over. Remember that you are generally trying to emulate your instructor's movements as closely as possible, so having your training partner imitate the sequence during instruction is vital!
  
  
  2) A good tactile guide for being a good drilling partner is to remember that tension in your core is always important and tension from your limbs is less important. An example might be useful:
  
  
   Using the same instance of the armlock from the guard we can see how core tension is appropriate. If you are using the armlock on your training partner and they have slack in their core (their abs / hips / glutes are not engaged at least slightly), then the steps that comprise the armlock (moving their arm across your body, pivoting to the side, breaking their posture and finishing the arm lock) ALL have the potential to cause your partner to topple over in an unrealistic fashion. However, if you partner maintains 20% - 50% of their tension in their core and keeps their limbs relatively relaxed, it will be easy to move their arm and drill the submission without having them a) topple over during a transition that wouldn't translate to sparring b) resisting so much with their arms that the position cannot be practiced. This is because keeping tension in your core forces your spine (from your head to your pelvis) to move in unison, which is always our goal.
  
  
  On the other hand, if you maintain tension in your limbs but not your core, you are ingraining a habit of relying on limb strength instead of generating force from your body in a unified manner. To check for core tension, have your partner lie down on their back and lift their feet and knees off the ground as if you were going to practice a bullfighter pass on them. If your partner has tension in their core, pushing their knees slightly to one side will cause the entirety of their upper body to begin rotating in that same direction, albeit not always the same amount that the knees rotate. If they lack core tension, then their knees will flop to the side while their head will still be facing straight forward. In this instance, simply lifting the back of your head off the mat will usually engage your core enough for drilling purposes.

(3) Sparring

• Picking a Sparring Partner 
• Picking a sparring partner seems scary, seems like it should be complicated, but it is exactly the same as picking a drilling partner.  At first, focus on people who are your own size.  As you get more advanced, you may feel more comfortable trying sparring partners with different body types.  If you notice someone standing on the side without a partner, and you want to roll, ask them if they are still rolling.  

• Safety first:  If there is a person at your academy who has hurt you during sparring or drilling, who goes too hard, who has a bad attitude, or in general makes you nervous about sparring with them you are allowed to politely decline an offer to roll with them.  If your academy matches people up, feel free to talk with your instructor privately if there is a particular training partner you would like to avoid for safety reasons.  

• Sparring -- how hard is too hard? 
• One of the things I love about BJJ is that, unlike a lot of other martial arts, you can go 100% in sparring.  That said, if you spar like you are competing in the finals of the IBJJF World Championships in the Pyramid, you aren't going to have very many sparring partners who regularly want to put their bodies through that kind of aggressive roll. 

• Coach Tim's Advice: 
  
  
  Sparring is too hard if someone gets injured or is sparring while on the threshold of being injured. In general, the more experienced individual will match the intensity of the less experienced individual. With that in mind, if you are rolling with someone of a higher rank, it is great to have a hard sparring session, but keep in mind that if you set a certain pace, you are generally expected to maintain that pace for the entire round. Having someone try to take my head off is great practice for me, but if they accidentally poke me in the eye, knee me in the face and then retire to the edge of the mat from exhaustion after 2 minutes, then something is wrong!
  
  
  Another good rule of thumb is that there are three general categories of sparring partners: those less experienced than you, those more experienced than you, and those at your approximate level. As long as no one is injured and their is no other glaring physical discrepancy between you and your partner then each of these partner's has a different set of qualities that allow you to improve. 
  
  
  a) Those less experienced allow you to train your worst guards, your escapes, etc. and you can also teach them counters specific to your game so that they can provide reactions for you to practice against, yet still at a speed that allows you to consciously process your follow-up counters.
  
  
  b) Those at your level allow you to test your ability to draw them into your specific game and avoid their game. You can test your conditioning with them since your technical experience may not be enough to get ahead of them. Also, it is great to ask your instructor to watch you roll with people of your level because the feedback from that will be easier to implement into your game.
  
  
  c) Lastly, those above your level allow you to ask questions, train your best positions as hard as you can and also allow you to feel the different methods they use to exert pressure on you. Watching Jiu Jitsu is useful, but feeling Jiu Jitsu is much more important. You want to feel what high-level Jiu Jitsu feels like on a regular basis so that you are constantly trying to re-create that same sensation.

A Blue Belt is Just a White Belt Who Never Stopped Training

My very first post in over a year!

There have been ups and downs and injuries and improvements, and I'll get to those in time.   The biggest thing that happened in my last year of training occurred on June 15, 2013 at Robot Fight & Fitness:

That's right! This panicky white belt got her blue belt from Tim Peterson and Giva Santana! I was honestly shocked, and had stopped worrying about it ages ago.  I don't roll for recognition or accolades.  I roll for fun.  If I'm not having fun, I'm not doing it right.  Having fun doesn't mean winning.  It means learning and figuring out the puzzle and feeling the pieces in my brain click together with my body -- even if the moment that happens is right when I realize I've made a mistake and I'm about to get tapped.

I'm still processing the promotion.  Nothing has really changed for me, though I do notice that my training partners feel more comfortable going hard with me and that white belts seem to directly ask me for advice.  I did, however, finally come to some understanding of that old saying "a black belt is a white belt who never stopped training."  I'm not the biggest or the best, and I don't get many submissions, but I've put in my time and I have learned things.  I'll keep learning, I'll keep training, and I'll keep having fun.  And someday, the blue will be black.

OSSS!!!