Tap or Die

Swimming With the Rips

Administrator — Thu, 23 May 2013 16:25:43 +0000

The act of going slowly is a concept in jiu-jitsu that I really believe in. It’s something that takes time to both understand and develop throughout one’s jiu-jitsu life, but it’s important. It’s worth the work. When we first begin jiu-jitsu going slowly is really difficult. It seems almost counter intuitive, almost against our nature, it feels weird and unnatural, and it’s something in my opinion that can’t really be taught. You can be reminded to go slowly, you can be put in certain situations were going slowly will benefit you, but your instructor cannot teach you how to go slowly. That’s something you have to do on your own. It’s a realization, an epiphany, that going slowly actually is more effective than trying to “Hulk Smash” your opponent. Most of us at some point understand this concept and try to implement it into our game.

But there are some people that don’t, or can’t. They just can’t slow down. You constantly remind them to slow down, you team them up with the most sloth-like dude in class, you do the opposite and team them up with a guy or girl that goes as fast as they do and they still don’t get it. They have no sloth-like tendencies; they’re all jungle cat, they’re all whirlwind and wrecking ball.

My friend and Student, Carl Sims, is like this—mostly in tournaments. He cannot conserve his energy. He is all smash and trash and although he tries to slow down, he rarely does. It’s almost like he can’t. So, during his last tournament Carl and I had a discussion between his matches. Usually this is the time that I remind him to slow down, don’t be reckless and overly aggressive (which he’s heard from me a thousand times), but this time I decided to say something different. We talked about rip tides.

A rip tide or rip is a current of water that moves out to sea, usually through a surf line. Typically, rip tides move faster than humans can swim, so swimming against one is not practical, a lot of people die trying to swim through that current. It’s best to swim parallel to the beach to get out of the current then swim back to shore. Anyway, I told Carl to stop trying to go slowly, just go fast. Don’t swim against the rip tide; swim with it. Stop fighting your natural instincts, use it to help you. Carl took the advice and as I watched him win his division, I noticed why going fast helped him win.

Carl had created chaos in his matches. Everyone he went against was trying to go slowly; they were trying to do what they had been taught, to go slowly, to slow the pace down, to conserve energy, to be controlled and calculating. So, when they went with Carl all of a sudden they’re in a tornado. A place that was unfamiliar to them, a place of unconventional movement, of possible head butts and stray elbows, of crushing pressure, and force, and speed. In the academy few people train like this so when they’re exposed to it for the first time it can be overwhelming—it’s hard to slow down a tornado. Carl gave in to his rip tide; he swam with it and ended up doing very well.

Although I am a fan of the sloth, although I teach and believe in going slowly, of not relying on speed and strength, sometimes you have to swim with your rip tide.

Just a Whisper

Administrator — Wed, 22 May 2013 16:36:47 +0000

It’s time to write again, actually it’s past time. I’ve been pretty inconsistent as of late, so I’ve decided to come back with as little fanfare as possible, just writing for me and jiu-jitsu. I’ve been reading and studying and teaching and learning and I’m as excited as ever about the art of jiu-jitsu. It’s amazing how this excitement hasn’t diminished. It only seems to grow.

That’s all for now, just a whisper about writing again, nothing big, just resuming the simple and daily act of writing.

A Thought on Straight Spines and Frames

Administrator — Mon, 29 Apr 2013 01:59:45 +0000

Matt Edlund, from New York, sent me a message the other day that I thought I’d share. In my classes I talk about having a straight spine to help apply pressure, and Black belt Jake Johnston, from Gracie Zion, talks about having a straight spine for another purpose which Matt has seemed to have discovered for himself, pretty cool stuff:

Hi Mark,

I saw your blog on posture and had a thought. I wanted to send you a PM, well because I’m scared of sounding like an asshole, ha! I’d love to know if you think I’m on the right track. Here it is…

It all goes back to framing. Posture is a frame. Spine straight hands posted on the hips, while in the guard, forms a triangle. A frame. The bone structure of one person verses another’s. Whoever’s is compromised is at a disadvantage.

Break the frame to move or frame to move. We’re all bishops & rooks. Everyone can only move diagonally or forward and back. It’s all about the angles. 45, 90, or 180 degrees. Very few can move like Kings & Queens. Which can do what both a bishop & rook can do combined.

But is posture a placement of your body in relation to your opponent or just having a straight spine no matter the position?
I believe posture is your spine, alone, being straight. Ryan Hall talks a lot about this in his deep half DVDs.

Having a straight spine is important while shooting double and single legs. It’s important while sweeping using butterfly sweeps, deep half sweeps, or half guard sweeps. It may not be apparent in the set up. But the “tipping point” of all sweeps begins with the person sweeping having a straight spine. Every submission is immensely more effective while the practitioner applying it has a straight spine.

Posture is a frame? And having a straight spine is a fundamental part of framing?

It’s just something that came out after I read your blog. I’m not sure if it makes sense.

Breaking the Posture

Administrator — Fri, 26 Apr 2013 03:32:06 +0000

Man, I never realized how important breaking someone’s posture is. It’s really important; you can’t really do anything else effectively unless you have broken your opponent’s posture. I know it seems simple and obvious, but I don’t thinks it’s emphasized enough. When we work from guard (bottom), for example, in order to either sweep or submit or even replace our guard we need to have compromised our opponent’s posture; we must have threatened and corrupted their base before we actually attack. Once they’re off balance then we apply our move.

Jiu-jitsu is chronological; break the posture first.

Break Things Down

Administrator — Wed, 24 Apr 2013 18:34:10 +0000

My daughter (who’s twelve) asked me to run a 5k with her this June. Shit. I’m not really a runner; I’m more of a sitter and watcher. But, for my daughter and my own pride, I told her I would. In order not to get too discouraged, I set small goals for myself, like running all the way across the park without stopping. I couldn’t do it the first day; I couldn’t make it the second day, but the third day I did it. Making it “across the park” is a far cry from three miles, but it’s a start.

I look at my jiu-jitsu in the same way as I do getting ready to run this 5K. I break it up into little goals and then I work until I accomplish them. Otherwise, I won’t do it, it’s too big. That’s why I like things like belt systems. Who wants to think about the enormous task of becoming a black belt when you can concentrate on becoming a blue belt first? If we break things down, they’re easier to conquer. If I tried to run three miles on the first day, I’d quit–guaranteed. I hate running, but making it across the park, I can do that (even if it took me three times, the park is big, just so you know).

Break things down.

No Expectations

Administrator — Wed, 24 Apr 2013 02:06:54 +0000

There’s something that’s been on my mind as of late and that’s the idea of expectations. Expectations are something we create in our mind, and sometimes when we don’t live up to the expectations we’ve created for ourselves, we get upset or frustrated or angry.

I see this on the mat sometimes, a guy or girl relies on the BJJ belt system to predict the outcome of a roll. We build expectations for ourselves or others based on the belt they are wearing. On the other hand sometimes our expectations aren’t high for someone with a lower belt. It

The thing with expectations is that they are something we’ve created in our mind, they aren’t real. We judge others and ourselves by a rubric that we’ve created in our mind. I like the idea of not trying to guess what’s going to happen, to be open to everything. A black belt will probably beat a white belt, but sometimes it doesn’t go that way and when we don’t have expectations nothing is surprising, we accept what has happened as an ordinary event.

People always ask me why I’m so calm, and the answer is because I don’t spend a lot of my time creating imaginary results for the events in my life. When we don’t create results, we’re not disappointed by them. When we train, we should try we should be honest competitors and we shouldn’t have any thought of the result; we should have no expectation.

Attack the Thumb

Administrator — Tue, 23 Apr 2013 05:02:43 +0000

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I really like to connect jiu-jitsu to non-jiujitsuey things. I was teaching the “same-side wrist grab escape” the other day and it reminded me how we should look at things. How we should see our world. We never want to go against the fingers, there are four of them and it’s harder to get our wrist out that way. Instead we want to attack the thumb, and although the thumb is bigger, there’s only one–the path of least resistance.

Sometimes we make our life more difficult than it needs to be. We go against the fingers when we should go against the thumb; it’s just good technique. I remember reading a Taoist story about a horse in an alley way. This horse was mean and it would kick anyone who walked past it in the alley. One day a Taoist master came to the town and went to walk down the alley. All the people went to see what the master would do about the horse. the master took one look down the alley way and decided to go down a different one.

He attacked the thumb; that’s what we should always do–attack the thumb.

The Sane Quit

Administrator — Wed, 03 Apr 2013 16:40:42 +0000

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I just realized something totally frightening, something to do with the people who practice jiu-jitsu. This epiphany, this revelation came to me after doing an interview with Inside BJJ. We were talking about how some people quit jiu-jitsu and we also talked about how there are no sane people that do jiu-jitsu, how everyone that practices jiu-jitsu or does MMA are off in some little way. Last night, it hit me; I finally saw the connection between the people who quit jiu-jitsu and the people who don’t—sanity.

Maybe the people who quit jiu-jitsu are the sane ones. They’re the people who value their bodies, and their relationships, and their money. They’re the ones who don’t like to have their appendages bent in horrible ways; they’re the ones that like to breathe without someone trying to close their carotid arteries. They’re the sane ones; that’s why jiu-jitsu is full of crazy people, because the sane ones quit—the crazy people stay.

But that’s okay; I’d rather live with a band of madmen (and women) than the sane—too boring, too predictable, too average. Give me the insane, the madmen, the unbalanced. Give me the daft, the demented, and deranged, and from that group, from that band of humanity, I’ll show you true warriors. I’ll show you the tough, the passionate, and the brave.

Inside BJJ Podcast Interview

Administrator — Tue, 02 Apr 2013 03:47:42 +0000

So, I was interviewed by the guys (Tim, Ernest and Matt) from Inside BJJ podcast Sunday night. It didn’t feel like an interview, which is really a compliment to them. They have interviewed a lot of big names in the BJJ world and it was a privilege to be on their show. I’d like to suggest it now if you don’t already listen to them. (Click the link below)

Inside BJJ Podcast

My interview (I’m on at about 40 minutes in)

What is West Side?

Administrator — Thu, 28 Mar 2013 16:05:39 +0000

This is a repost from years ago. I’ve been really thinking as of late about the two things I want to dedicate my life to and they are my academy (West Side Jiu-Jitsu Academy and my jiu-jitsu business (Tap or Die Company). With these things on my mind I have dug up an old post in which I’ve tried to define West side Academy. This is West Side:

Have you ever taken the personality test where you’re asked to decide what kind of car you would be? You know, “If you were a car, what kind of car would you be and why?” I guess it’s used to kind of define yourself. I’m going to use this format to define West Side.

Here are the questions I’ll use: If you were a …color, car, animal, famous person, season, movie genre, music, shape, food, body adornment, a pair of shoes what kind would you be and why?
This is West Side:

Color-RedRed is the color of Mars and Mars is the God of war. I like red because it’s a contradiction. It’s the color of anger but also of love; it’s the color of blood and licorice and clown shoes and angry faces. Red is power and emotion and if you’re Chinese, it’s the color of luck. It’s the color of the Giant Pacific octopus. Red is Cupid, the heart, and the Devil. Red can’t be contained, it’s like jiu-jitsu; It is what you need it to be.
Car-bicycle(beach cruiser or three-wheeled bike)
Neither the beach cruiser nor the three-wheeled bike goes fast; jiu-jitsu can be fast, but should be practiced slowly, take your time and enjoy the journey. It takes a long time to get your black belt in jiu-jitsu; it shouldn’t be about the belt as much as it is about the journey towards the belt. Take it slow—there’s nothing slower than a three-wheeled bike–trust me I have one. So for this answer we’re not choosing a car, we’re going with the three-wheeled bike.
Animal-octopusThe octopus, the cephalopod, the devil fish, the soft, pliable, deadly, grappler from the deep. The octopus is jiu-jitsu.
Famous Person-Lao Tzu (famous philosopher)
Lao Tzu was a Taoist. He was responsible for the famous paradox “Those who know, don’t tell; those that tell, don’t know.” If jiu-jitsu was a person it would have to be a philosopher, someone who is open to enlightenment, someone who searches for knowledge to be at peace with themselves. We learn techniques in order to get closer to to the art of jiu-jitsu; to understand jiu-jitsu is to understand yourself.
Season-summerJiu-jitsu is hot; it is Brazil; it is summer.
Movie Genre-horror/comedy (think Shaun of the Dead)
One of my favorite movies is Shaun of the Dead. I love zombies. Shaun of the Dead takes what some people might think is scary—like brain eating zombies—and makes it comical, makes it less scary. Jiu-Jitsu does the same thing. It takes something that might be scary, like being attacked, or fighting someone in a cage and makes it easier to deal with, makes it a lot less scary.
Music-reggae (in a good mood), punk (in a bad)Reggae is smooth and has a slow rhythm just like jiu-jitsu, but the wonderful thing about jiu-jitsu is it can be turned up; it can go from reggae to punk in a millisecond.
Shape- no shapeJiu-jitsu is infinite, no shape can contain it. So for shape, the answer must be no shape. If we had to choose a shape it would be the triangle—the Gracie triangle of course.
Food-taco-cart tacosTaco-cart tacos are the perfect food. What makes them perfect is their simplicity, meat, corn meal, and vegetables—done.
Taco-cart tacos are available to the masses and they’re effective at giving the body what it needs—enough said.
Adornments-tattoosI really dislike jewelry. It’s expensive, it can be lost easily, and it’s a form of braggadocio. It’s safe to say I don’t like it. I do like tattoos only because you can express yourself and you don’t have to worry about losing anything. Tattoos become a part of you, much like jiu-jitsu. It’s not only part of you, but you’re not going to lose it like a watch. Yes it might fade over time, but you can always go in and get a touch up.
Shoes-Jiu-Jitshoes (flip-flops)Flip-flops are easy to kick-off to kick ass, and they have a built in rhythm just like jiu-jitsu.
This is West Side.

Your turn:
If you were a …
color
car
animal
famous person
season
movie genre
music
shape
food
body adornment
a pair of shoes
what kind would you be and why?