BJJ in the University? Oil and Water or perfect fit?

For some time a colleague and I have been batting around the idea of a University course along the lines of Sociology of Budo, Sociology of the Martial Arts or something of this ilk. The name is, really, irrelevant. Along the lines of what is taken for granted at many Japanese Universities, this year we proposed a course that would take the ethics and mentality of the martial arts quite seriously. Despite our dedication and enthusiasm for the project the University powers turned down our rather modest request. It wasn't our intention to modify curriculum of the Faculty nor to alter substantially the course of the University. We simply wanted to teach one section of the course.

At this particularly university most faculty members design, propose and eventually teach courses which are in their area of expertise - I would hope, anyway. I already teach several core topics in my field and teach somewhere in the neighbourhood of 600 students per year (depending on the year). My colleague, similarly, teaches core high enrollment undergraduate sociology courses (intro, theory, etc.). In fact, for the bureaucratic rationale that we teach so many students per year could account for our rather lukewarm reception.

I think this is an important course - one from which students will learn a great deal and derive significant benefit. Gaining acceptance and understanding of BJJ in the wider community is paramount to my research and my work. Pushing for this course, likewise, is elemental to this  end!  

The Great Canadian Death Race

Somehow or other I have been convinced to get involved in the Great Canadian Death Race. If you have never heard of this grueling treck, you should check out their site. The DR's skull logo concerns me more than a little. More so, the description of the race from the site, which goes as follows:

For nearly a decade, elite racers have come here to cheat Death in one of the world's toughest adventure races. The 125 km course begins and ends on a 4200 foot plateau, passes over three mountain summits and includes 17,000 feet of elevation change and a major river crossing at the spectacular Hell's Gate canyon at the confluence of the Smoky and Sulphur Rivers. During the August long weekend each year, extreme athletes, individually and in relays, push themselves to the limits of their endurance against the breathtaking background of the Canadian Rocky Mountains. Each year, well-trained and totally committed, they battle heat, cold, altitude and themselves. There are no big cash prizes for winning: finishing is hard enough. And the bragging rights are priceless

There are some individuals with questionable sanity who chose to run the entire 125 km race. Although many have questioned my mental constitution, I'm not sufficiently mad to think that I can run up and down mountains over rivers in both daytime and nite for 125 km while still training BJJ 4 or 5 times a week. So, I've agreed to do one leg - a mere 20 odd km up a mountain. No problem!?

I do not profess to be a runner, never mind an "elite" one. I do not particularly enjoy pounding the pavement for mile after mile and I confess that I'm more than a little concerned that training for the DR will effect my BJJ. Until recently my training outside of the dojo consisted of High Intensity Interval Training (HIIT) and heavy olympic lifts. Like Valerie over at Prancing and Sucking I periodically cycle Crossfit type workouts into my schedule. It seems to me that Long Slow Distance (LSD) training is at odds with the demands of BJJ. By contrast, BJJ involves shorter periods of high intensity work followed by rest intervals. After several years of training both inside and outside the dojo/gym I can roll comfortably for considerable periods. Certainly, some of this 'wind' is a condition of technical efficiency, but at the same time, my body has adjusted to the demands placed on it by BJJ. I'm curious to see what happens to my BJJ endurance as I become more seriously immersed in training for the Death Race. I am anxious to hear from anybody out there who has experience training for marathons or adventure racing while doing BJJ.  

So, if I'm not particularly fond of running, why did I sign on for this? For a number of reasons. First, peer pressure. Many of my good friends are running and we are planning on having a great time at and after the race. Second, it's a challenge. The Death/Life Race provides me with yet another opportunity to push the limits of my self and get insight into my being. Third, the race is not a road race. It is a cross country jaunt across rivers and mountains...which sounded fun at the time?! Now I just have to get training?!

The grind - self defence

Self defence was a grind when I began my BJJ journey. First, because after being enticed by the first UFCs I couldn't understand, really, why we couldn't just get to the fun stuff and roll. Second, self defence training was painful. Being thrown (I wasn't adept yet at breakfalling), having my arm bent in odd directions, being twisted & etc., is marvelously harrowing for my body that was more accustom to more genteel pursuits like golf (yes, I know) and the odd daring foray into cribbage (not to be confused with cabbage!). Third, I wasn't convinced how effective all of this was against an aggressor. Finally, it wasn't pretty. I had gotten over the fact that the aesthetically pleasing puts bums in movie seats. What I was being taught may have a certain beauty to the trained eye, yet to my neophyte gaze all this seemed quite unpleasant. 

With this in mind we would half ass our way through the motion until it was time to roll or work on some cool choke. Through this admittedly dreadful attitude I was missing out on some really important messages that are imparted more implicitly. Moreover, the nuance of self defence and, by extension, BJJ was completely lost on me. It wasn't until I did a private lesson with an individual who earned the Master rank in BJJ did I learn some of the subtleties of self defence that make all the difference. This was about 2 years ago. Since then, although I still enjoy rolling the most, I have attempted to understand the essence of self defence. 

I see and hear all the time that BJJ wouldn't work in a street fight - even though the early players tried and tested many techniques in such situations. While we can debate the merits of this line of thinking around and around, such discourse seems to overshoot an important point. Separating the assault mindset from that of the competition may help us here. In his book, Meditations on Violence, Rory Miller makes the distinction this way: "The assault mindset in a sporting competition is completely unacceptable. From the assault mindset, if you are scheduled to fight a world champion heavyweight boxer on Thursday, you shoot him on Tuesday." It follows that self defence is about survival and doing everything possible to make it out of the unfortunate situation alive. As is often the case, this is about controlling the situation, as much as is possible, and escaping. Getting out of there, rather than continuing the fight. Jeff Joslin makes a similar point here. There are simply no advantage points for "almost" choking a guy who pulls a knife and there is no reason to continue (or even start) the fight once the situation is under control.

Self defence in the gym or dojo setting can be fun and relevant provided it is trained intensely and incorporates an element of surprise. To this end, one of my training partners who is a higher belt will randomly attack me when I least expect it. I am forced to defend the attack because they will continue until I have controlled the situation. So if you ever meet me and notice I have a nervous shoulder shrug you now know why!? 

Of course all of this still lacks an element of realism and I would not suggest otherwise. Little can prepare you for the aggression and violence of a surprise attack. Working in a youth detention centre gives you a great deal of perspective on the carnality of violence and of what humans are capable - both in attacking and defending. It is amazing what people can accomplish when fighting for their lives. An anecdote from Miller gives some perspective: 

"One of my students was concerned that she couldn't hurt a large man. I told her to imagine a two hundred pound man holding a small cat. ... imagine I throw a bucket of water on them. What happens?"

"The cat goes berserk and starts scratching the guy up."

"Does the guy let go?"

"Probably."

"So the cat wins?"

"I guess, Sure."

"So you're telling me that an eight pound cat can hurt a big man and you can't?"

"The cat has claws and teeth"

"And you don't?"  

Self Defence

My training partner recently sent me this wonderful video of the Migliarese brothers demonstrating self defence in honour of Grandmaster Helio Gracie:

At our school we only intermittently practice self defence. It seems that many of the students only want to work the flashy and sporty techniques while neglected the antecedents of BJJ as a sport. While many can effortlessly pull off an omoplata, they have great difficulty blocking a punch or defending a two hand choke. I'm curious, does your school practice self defence? If so, how much time is devoted to it?Do you enjoy learning about self defence? 

BJJ is like air

One thing has become abundantly clear through my research to this point: people who do BJJ are a passionate bunch. One of my respondents said that the art is akin to air. For her, BJJ is a necessity. It is part of her being and fundamental to her identity. This respondent trains 4 to 5 times a week - sometimes more. When she's not training she has her nose buried deep into Gracie Magazine or has her eyes glued to competition and instructional DVDs. 

I wonder if this is an advantageous attitude? Is there a greater chance that someone with this much commitment will "burn out" much more quickly than someone who takes a more casual approach to training? I'm really curious about this because I fall into the former camp such that I'm somewhat addicted to training. Does this obsession (as my wife calls it) set me up for disappointment, burn out or let down somewhere in the future?

Or, is it the case that early obsession becomes tempered the further along in our progression we proceed? Is it that formerly obsessed BJJ players mature into a more relaxed, but still dedicated attitude? Awa Kenzo, the teacher of Eugen Herrigel in the classic text Zen in the Art of Archery (if you haven't already, I encourage you to read this wonderful little book!), boasted Ten Commandments for his archery students. One of the dictums suggests that one does not shoot obsessively. At the same time Kenzo was a dedicated teacher and archer who trained whenever his body would allow and claimed that: "If you train with the Bow everyday, you have a new life everyday" (Kenzo 2007, 46). Setting aside the obvious Zen connotations for the time being - I'll come back to this another day -, what I think is important in Kenzo's discourse is how we need to reconcile daily training on the one hand with tempered engagement on the other. 

What I think is important and what Kenzo is getting at is a mature dedication to an art or, in his case, a Way that comes from years of dedicated training. The difficulty is getting to this point without "burning out" before maturity and sophistication set in. To help me understand a mature attitude toward BJJ I am convinced that I need to replace the air metaphor. 

walking the injury tight-rope

A question in which I'm particularly interested concerns training injuries. In fact, my survey queries respondents about their experiences. I'm fantastically curious about training injuries - for example, how people feel about inflicting them and how the injured negotiate the impairment. 

I was conducting an interview recently with a relatively new BJJ player. When I asked her about whether she considered injuries to be intrinsic to BJJ she looked at me as if I had horns and said, "Uh, that's kinda the point, isn't it?" Others have echoed her sentiment by intimating that BJJ technique, by definition, is designed to maim. What is an arm-lock if not a hold designed to break arms? 

When I think about my own experiences it occurs to me that a fine line separates tapping and the technique going a little too far and causing pain or injury. Or, between a BJJ player thinking that all they need is a little more room or a little more time to escape and the infliction of injury.

Practicing BJJ, it seems, is akin to walking an injury tight-rope. On the one hand, a BJJ player does not want to tap too early lest they could counter the move. For certain, we are all trained in ways to annul an arm-lock attempt. On the other hand, we want to return to fight another day. Taking these two sides into account (I'm certain there's more) at what point do we or should we tap? What responsibility does the attacker have to ensure our safety? ... while at the same time executing the technique?

We fight with you because we love you!?

During his last visit our Brazilian professor urged our club to hold competition style fights at the end of classes. Maybe once or twice a week the senior belt was to indicate two players of similar weight and similar ability to fight. Coaches and a timer would also be designated. His rationale was twofold: first, at its core BJJ is fighting and if a practitioner didn't want to test her/his skills thus perhaps another art where such tests are avoidable would be preferred. At first brush, this seems a little harsh, no? Upon further reflection such perception avoids what sets BJJ apart from other martial arts - that it can be trained at very high intensity. Damian Maia recently remarked after a triangle choke victory over Chael Sonnen that his goal was to demonstrate through jiu jitsu how fights can be won without physically destroying your opponent (I'm paraphrasing). Maia is an unbelievable talent and his BJJ is remarkable. But, what about two white belts? Do they gain as much from a fight as a more casual roll? Does such an encounter expose their weaknesses? Or does it simply confirm what we already know - that white belts have much to work on? Does this situation differ for purple belts? Can they learn much about their technique, what "works",  and what doesn't? 

Or, are these questions not what's at stake here? Perhaps these fights expose something of the character of the player. Perhaps they lay bare something uncomfortable that we don't want to admit. Whatever the case, not everyone in the gym is equally agreeable about the efficacy of these bouts.

The second reason our professor maintains we should fight each other is "out of love". "We fight you because we love you", he argued. Again this will seem perverse to the outsider. Indeed, even those on the inside may object. Fighters, no matter of what background, need to be tested before they enter the ring or octagon or step on the mat for their first tournament match. Getting punched in the face for the first time is daunting and disagreeable (not that I know anyone who 'likes' to get punched, although some of the tough guys like to think so). No doubt, having such an experience for the first time when it counts could be disastrous. The same holds for someone squeezing a guillotine or armbar with the intention of breaking it. What are you going to do when you realize this is for keeps? 

This kind of fighting, according to the professor, makes us better competitors and people. Each seemingly intolerable experience exposes us to the limits of our psyche and demands that we push past them in to the vast seas of the previously unknown. How many times have you been at the wrong end of a ridiculously heavy s-mount or particularly tight kesa getame and thought that tapping would end the pain, but instead you propelled yourself forward to reverse the position? Such experiences are not cheap. They come at a cost to our comfortable being in the world and show us much about ourselves. More importantly, they ask that we explore the outer limits of our being. 

Is it love that pushes us? I'm not so convinced that it is love that acquaints us with this other self, but whatever 'it' is, I welcome these experiences for the insight into myself and my limits they yield. 

If you build it...will they come?

After carefully selecting questions to appear on the survey, I then had to figure out how to recruit people to take the survey. A survey without respondents is no longer a survey, but an interesting hypothetical list of queries. A survey, by definition, requires contributions from others who did not create the survey. But how was I to go about recruiting participants? Especially concerning was the relative size of the BJJ community in and around Edmonton, I could not confine my search to this geographical region. Narrowing my focus to this smallish community would certainly not yield the kind of pith and nuance I'm looking for; especially given that my intention is to detail and examine experience among BJJ players from around the world. 

I initially thought about recruiting participants from among posters on various message boards (i.e. Sherdog and the Underground). However, I quickly settled on contacting Caleb at the Fightworks podcast. First, because I'm a huge fan of the show. Second, because his show reaches a relatively wide base (the "might 600,000"). I resolved to email Caleb with my idea. He responded quickly and we set up a time to chat about the project. Our phone conversation went well and he scheduled me to be on the show that week. 

The response to my call for participants has been overwhelming. Over 250 people have taken the survey. Thank you to all of you.

I'm still looking for people to interview over the phone. In my experience we can go into much more detail this way. If you are interested, please email me at bjjstudy@gmail.com