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It seems like the dedicated are always tired; the passionate are always pooped. If you’re working hard at what you’re doing, if you’re losing sleep to get things done, you may have found your passion. Man, I’m always tired. Between teaching high school English and running an academy and raising three kids, I’m beat. There are a lot of people who work way harder than I do and I appreciate their dedication to the things they do.

There are some jiu-jitsu people who have dedicated themselves to the art. They are the ones who never miss a class, buy and study DVDs, stay after class to work on moves, buy books and read blogs about jiu-jitsu, go to seminars, and keep notebooks about what they’ve learned. I’m sure some days they’re tired too. But, I’d like to encourage those people to continue what they’re doing. Your passion will pay off.

Finally, West Side has two women who are training at the same time. There are some schools that are blessed with a solid contingent of female grapplers—West Side hasn’t been that fortunate. We have had a girl or two, but never at the same time. It’s nice to have Natalie and Lauren in class, mostly because they are really serious about jiu-jitsu and already have shown a great desire to be technical.

I hope their example will motivate other women to try jiu-jitsu, if not at West Side at least somewhere. Jiu-jitsu will change your life, and that’s no exaggeration. We’re just glad to have them and hope they will encourage more women to join us on the mat.

The two-handed wrist grab is always a dangerous technique to teach little kids, they always seem to hit themselves in the face some how. No matter how many times I show them the proper way to do the technique, someone is going to mash their own nose, or poke themself in the eye. It’s inevitable.

The two-handed wrist grab defense is used when someone grabs your wrist with two hands, you make a fist and with your opposite hand pull the other free. It’s Bully-Basics 101. Kids dig it, adults raise an eyebrow, but the physics of it are legit and once we understand how it works, it only helps us understand the mechanics of other techniques.

My three year old son loves bugs; he may be a budding entomologist. His favorite bug right now is the Armadillidium vulgare, the rolie polie, the potato bug, you know, the one that can turn itself into a ball.

In jiu-jitsu we have guys that can turtle very well, their defense is tough to crack, but then there are guys that are more like rolie polies, all balled up and barricaded; there is no space in their defense; these guys are hard to beat, hard to unfold.

My son gets very impatient waiting for the rolie polie to unroll itself. After a while one of two things happens, one, he wants to smoosh it to make it come out (which I really discourage) or two, he throws it down–essentially setting it free.

A guy or girl with a great turtle (or what I would call a potato bug defense or rolie polie) can frustrate us. Sometimes we get impatient and try to force them out of their position, which rarely works and makes us tired, or we back off and let them move out of the position—essentially setting them free.

The world always has lessons for our jiu-jitsu and in this case it comes from the rolie polie.

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So I bought a home recently and I’ve been looking at it with a critical eye, things I need to fix or change or both. Sometimes we can be too critical with our homes or our families or ourselves. When I think of a critical eye I always think of people who go overboard; I think of Michael Jackson and a lot of other people who take plastic surgery into the realm of freakishness—some people are too critical of themselves.

The house I bought was built in 1917, it needs work, and a critical eye is important. I feel the same way about jiu-jitsu; you have to have a critical eye to improve your game, you must see the flaws, the chipped paint, the cracked plumbing, and any cracks in the foundation. We have to have a critical eye for flaws, but we can’t be too critical. I will not tear down my house because of it’ flaws; I will fix what I can and will work on the rest, but I know my little house built in 1917 will never be perfect, much like my jiu-jitsu. It won’t ever be perfect, but it’s important to see what needs to be improved.

Okay, I closed on my house today, writing and normal life can resume. Stay tuned for daily blogging on Tap or Die, sorry for any inconvenience.

Herb Dean was in town to promote a new grappling tournament called S7. He visited a bunch of local schools and we were one of them. The tournament sounded pretty cool (It’s July 28th, if you wanted to know).

Anyway, I asked if Herb and his partner if they could stay to meet some of the kids from the high school jiu-jitsu class. They stayed. The kids were in shock. Some of the kids recognized Herb from the UFC and one kid who never watched a UFC event recognized him from The UFC game. I t was pretty cool. You never know what’s going to happen at the academy.

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I just bought this book on Amazon (for the Kindle). It seems pretty good. I’m not sure how accurate it is, but so far it seems worth reading.

One thing that I read that raised an eyebrow was that Maeda was undefeated in all of his fights (except for two tournament matches) and was purported to have over a thousand no-holds-barred fights. That’s more victories than Rickson–is that even possible? He was also thought to have challenged professional wrestler Frank Gotch, and Gotch was afraid to fight him.

Anyway, if you’ve read this book, let me know what you thought of it.

There was a lot of teaching going on in the academy tonight; it was awesome. Everyone was sharing their knowledge—and it was good knowledge too. That’s the kind of academy that I’ve always wanted to be a part of. I feel like that atmosphere was passed down from professor to professor and a little bit of that goodness seeped into West Side. I’ve always believed an academy is defined by the people who train and live and learn there. So, to all my West Side brethren, both in Ogden and Logan, to the ones who have moved away or passed away, we are West Side. Thank you.

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I was listening to NPR (National Public Radio) the other day and they had a Jamaican track coach on. He said something that coincides with my thinking about how fast one should go in jiu-jitsu, at least a little bit. He said that when we watch a sprinter come from behind to win a race, we’re not seeing that runner accelerating; they’re not getting a sudden burst of speed. What we’re actually seeing is that runner maintaining a certain speed and the other runners slowing down. I had to think about that for a minute. What he was talking about was consistency. He talked about the other runners exploding out of the blocks, but then slowing down, and the come from behind runner maintaining a consistent speed throughout the race.

I’ve seen the same thing in jiu-jitsu, a guy or girl down on points, who are being dominated by their opponent. Who suddenly seem to have found energy from somewhere and end up submitting or reversing their opponent to snatch victory from certain defeat; maybe it ‘s what the Jamaican coach was referring to. Maybe the jiu-jitsu guy or girl was maintaining a certain pace, and what they’re really doing is outlasting their opponent, and the come-from-behind-victory is really about a consistent pace. Maybe a come-from-behind-victory has more to do with consistency and less to do with heart. Hmmm?

keep looking »