Back to training

So apologies for the complete lack of posting the past two months but with the injury rehab and work I have been kind of preoccupied.

In terms of the injury – the rehab has gone much better than I could have hoped for. The physio is amazed at my Wolverine healing powers which are still in place luckily and I am well ahead of the average rehab time profile for this type of operation.

I have pretty much got full range of motion other than a couple of planes of movements and have been given the green light to start light training again already.

So this week I made my way back to training.

Firstly – I am pretty chuffed with myself for being so strict in my rehab exercises to get back in training as in the past, my aborted attempts to train BJJ have been disrupted by injury and then drifting away from the sport whilst rehabbing, due to not taking the rehab as serious.

This time I have been like clockwork as far as my rehab protocol was concerned.

In the weeks running up to the surgery I was still training but training very lightly when rolling, trying to use no strength and only technique. It sounds cliched but it made a real difference and I felt I got a lot better a lot faster through doing this.

This week I actually rolled a couple of rounds using my bad arm stuffed in my belt and going very light. That aside, to be rolling 6 weeks after this type of surgery is really good going.

Rolling one handed was bizarre as I was kind of lost. Just basic things like guard passing were really hard one handed and I found myself having to really think about what i was doing but still it was worth it.

Its a good time to come back as this week we are hosting Julio Cesar Pereira for a seminar and grading. I don’t expect to get my blue belt today as:

– my competition performance this year was shit
– I have lost a few months of hard training time in the run up to it

and I think whilst I hold my own against the blue belts there’s more to it than that, but it will be a great experience to attend any way as Julio is a legend and one of the top coaches in the world seeing as he is the head coach of GFTeam and personal coach of the likes of Rodolfo Vieira, Ricardo Evangelista, Jaime Canuto, Vitor Henrique amongst many others.

Anyway – I’m going to continue to take it light for the next few months as I have a baby due in a few weeks, then xmas and so a March timeframe for full sparring is what I am really aiming for – with a plan to jump straight into competing as soon as I can

Pushy Parents

As readers of this blog will know I am a proud parent of a brilliantly funny, charming little boy with another on the way (due xmas).

One of the things I’m looking forward to, as most dads do, is doing sport with my boys. I grew up in a single parent household for many years and while I’m not saying this for sympathy, it did mean participative sport was not huge on the agenda.

I never did the youth football thing and was too small for rugby at the time which were really the two main sports in our small town.

I did however use to cycle.

Now for people that have recently got into cycling due to british success in the sport have NO idea what it was like being a teenage cyclist in the mid 90s. Cycling was most definitely NOT cool like it is today. I raced due to my mum’s boyfriend’s (at the time) involvement with the sport – not through any wish to participate of my own.

This guy’s son was a very good cyclist (now race director at a top pro outfit) and we used to trapse around the country each weekend watching him race. So I got forced into it that way despite hating it at the time.

However things came to a head when the boyfriend managed to get me a ‘trial’ with a top youth coach at the time whereupon I proceeded to trundle around the track at a leisurely pace, embarrassing the mum’s boyfriend and leading the coach to comment “he looks like he’s on his fucking paper round” much to my amusement.

Anyway – what this rather long winded intro is for, is to preface my thoughts on pushy parents in sport. I read about an incident this week involving an unsavoury character at one of the UK events who is pushing his underachievement baggage on his kids in BJJ competitions leading to ugly scenes when they lose (threatening refs, kids foul language directed at refs etc).

I would LOVE for my kids to eventually do BJJ with me as I think there are a hundred different benefits to doing the sport but when they do it I want them to do it because they enjoy it and not because they feel forced to do it.

I’d hate to be THAT guy stood there screaming and putting pressure on his kids and embedding ugly behaviour and attitudes in them.

I am an EXTREMELY competitive person in all facets of life and its led to be reasonably successful in my field of work but it is something I need to restrain which has taken me years to learn and my fear is some of that reflectively seeps out if my kids start competing. As much as I would be proud as punch for my kids to do well at BJJ, its more important to me that they enjoy it, as I think a healthy interest in sport as a youth is a fantastic thing and if it keeps you out of parks and street corners or sitting behind a computer screen I’m all for it.

Equally though – even the non-aggressive pride can be a bad thing. I was recently at a seminar with Rodolfo Vieira and a guy had traveled down from the North for the seminar with his son who was about 9 or 10 and wanted to film his son in a ‘match’ with Rodolfo. I was training privately with Rodolfo earlier in the day before the seminar and this guy came down early before the seminar specifically for this ‘match’, which they did after we got changed after training.

Rodolfo, to his credit, then had a couple minute ‘match’ with this kid, selling it like he was in the WWE, while the dad filmed it on his ipad. It was extremely cool of him and the kid looked slick as hell for a small child.

We spoke to the dad (whose wardrobe had caught full on affliction-itis) and he told us the kid had been doing boxing, wrestling, judo and BJJ since he was 4 years old and proceeded to start showing us loads of news articles about his son from local papers and photos of the kid with various top black belts that he had on his ipad…..

Holy shit!!

I was gobsmacked. All of a sudden my perspective on this cool little event flipped. This kid had basically been in full time MMA training since he was a toddler as an expression of his Dad’s obsession with MMA, who it turns out was not even training himself but has only come down to film his son with Rodolfo.

I went from being impressed to more than a little disturbed.

No kid at 4 years old makes the decision, “you know what dad I want to train various combat sports 5-6 days a week”. That to me is the opposite of a healthy interest in sport and is more than likely to burn the kid out before he is at an age where he can compete for real – that’s assuming he survives his childhood injury-free.

Unfortunately parents like that and the guy before are the reason I am not likely to let my kids compete if they do want to train BJJ as the hyper-competitive attitude expressed by these ‘adults’ and the desire for the kids to seek the approval of their parents is likely to lead to the ‘ego’ that adult BJJ so expressly seeks to avoid. The last thing I want is my 12yr old son injured in a comp by some other kid trying to tear his arm off because he is so desperate to impress his sted-head dad.

BJJ and Self Defense – Part 2

I said I’d also add a story regarding using BJJ in a real self-defense scenario as well so here goes:

It was around the time of my first stint training BJJ back in 2000/2001 so I had been training about 6mths. I’d been out drinking at an outdoor music festival in my home town with friends and my mum and was walking back home through town.

A couple of guys approached us and started to harass my mum throwing some pretty horrible slurs at her.

They were angling for a scrap and in hindsight we should have ignored them and just walked on as a first course of action but I engaged them with the classic, “Have you got a fucking problem?”.

This was EXTREMELY out of character for me as I was very passive growing up and avoided fights like the plague but had a belly full of dutch courage and 6mths of BJJ under my belt so was feeling a bit brave.

I won’t go in to the slick trash talking exchange that followed but what happened next is classic small market town stuff which is where a lot of people don’t believe me, but for anyone who grew up in small market towns where fighting is all the local yahoos have to do at a weekend, it will probably ring a bell.

It ended up in him ‘offering me out’ to fight in the shopping precinct round the corner. So off we went round the corner with my mum, her friend, and his friend as an audience.

We squared up at a distance and he adopted the ‘Liam Gallagher ‘ pose as he approached me (arms down and flared, chin up), I ‘put up my dukes’ into a regular boxing pose (I had done a bit of thai boxing too by this stage), got close to him, threw a jab to feint before double legging him, mounting him and then getting him in an Americana from the mount.

It lasted a matter of seconds and I made sure he knew who was in control before he was begging me to let go of his arm, which I did.

What followed next was where it got a bit bizarre.

So after getting off him he was nursing a sore shoulder and a bruised ego before insisting he wanted to go again because I was a ‘wrestler’ and ‘ that’s cheating’…..

His mate, who seemed to find this funny, informed him he had been fairly beaten and that I could have smashed his head in but didn’t which seemed to placate him. So we shook hands and agreed that was the end of it.

As we are walking off in the same direction he asks if we wanted to go for a beer in the pub (please bear in mind weekend scraps are such a regular thing in this area of the world, this is not that unusual). I wanted to go home but my mum’s friend decides to take them up on the offer, so my mum goes in to get her and I follow them all in.

Inside the pub is pretty much the entire family (brothers and cousins) of the guy I have just scrapped with. My spidey sense is tingling at this stage and I’m looking for the exit when the guy says to his brothers, “Me and this guy just had a scrap outside and he kicked my arse. He’s some sort of wrestler”.

The family then proceed to find this extremely amusing (as I looked as far from a hard-man as you could imagine) and buy me drinks so I can tell them all about the wrestling I did.

Very strange. Anyway, as scripted as I know that sounds, it absolutely did happen. With witnesses. I’ve even left some details of the build up to the fight and the fight out as they make it sound even more unrealistic despite them all happening. However fights almost never end up as amicably as that one did and to be honest I was stupid even getting into it in the first place but 6mths of basic BJJ enabled me to completely shut another guy down (who had a reputation as a bit of a hard nut at the time) without causing him any damage beyond a bruised ego.

So that’s my experience of a live situation and, with a family and responsibilities now, hopefully my last…..

BJJ and Self-Defense – Part 1

Inspired by another blogger’s take on JJ and Self Defense (The Tattooed Chimp) I thought I would unashamedly plagiarise his post topic and talk about my thoughts on it and a ‘self –defense’ story I had involving BJJ. This started out as one post but I’m going to split it in two to make it a bit more digestible.

Firstly I’d say that the easiest method of self-defense is avoidance. 99% of people (made up stat) go through life never having a fight – which is the way it should be – simply because they avoid putting themselves in situations that might lead to a fight.

Cool new pub/club in a dangerous part of town? Not worth the risk

Walking through town centre at kicking out time? Get a taxi

Aggressive drunk guy in the pub angling for a scrap? Go drink somewhere else.

Not to mention when you do get in a fight, the risks are so high its crazy when you think about it. Lose the fight and you run the risk of disfigurement, brain damage or death, win and you risk the flip-side of prosecution for any of those things. Life-changing stuff for both parties. Fights almost never happen as a ‘square go’ with both parties shaking hands at the end (stay tuned for the next post with a funny story about when that does happen)

But on to BJJ.

Clearly the sport vs self-defense argument is a bone of contention in some circles and you only need to look on the BJJ forums to see it near the top of every message board as a discussion topic. My own personal view is simply that BJJ as a sport is just that, a sport. Train it, develop it and enjoy it.

People seem to be getting all het up that modern BJJ isn’t the all-encompassing self-defense system it may have previously been and whilst the criticisms of ‘impractical’ BJJ styles seem to be leveled at the elite inverted guard players, I think it’s ludicrous to suggest that in a ‘live situation’ some random meathead would be doing anything other than ending up unconscious if they got into it with a Miyao or Mendes brother.

Equally, amateur boxing has been watered down into a near mockery of the professional game but put an international amateur boxer against an untrained meathead in a live fight and it will last all of 10 secs if they are lucky.

Just because the competition rules of a combat sport have limitations that certain stylists exploit for competition success AGAINST OTHER COMPETITORS IN THEIR SPORT, doesn’t mean those same athletes can’t execute the bread and butter of their combat style if they need to.

Like learning how to throw a solid left right combo and some basic punch defense, the basics of BJJ will provide you with enough of a self-defense basis for almost any situation with an ability to incapacitate your opponent without running the risk of serious damage (just remember to let go of the choke….).

So just relax, train and stop looking for monsters under the bed.

Instructionals

One of the biggest differences I have noticed when I compare my training (and the sport) of 2013 vs 2000-1 when I first started is the sheer abundance of instructional videos. What I am not going to do is in depth reviews of instructionals and the merits or otherwise of each individual one – visit slideyfoot.com) if you want to read a quality take on instructional videos.

My take on them is simply my perspective having remembering what it was like training back in the early 2000s as a white belt.

When I first started out, I used to train up in Manchester and for anyone that is familiar with the city (especially students) you will remember Affleck’s Palace. A fantastic student-centric shopping bazaar in the center of Manchester City Center it sold a mixture of drugs paraphernalia, independent music, ‘fashion’ and bric-a-brac.

It was also home to a chap who had a trade in pirate videos (VHS for those that remember it…..).

Having first had an introduction to MMA and BJJ through the copy of UFC 1 that was passed around my thai/self defense club in my home town circa 1996 I quickly became obsessed hunting down as many vids as I could, which in those days were restricted to the selection available in HMV and Blockbuster (UFC 1-5, Ultimate Ultimate if you were really lucky and the old russian vale tudo tournaments with Igor V).

When my friend and I found this guy we discovered he had copies of all the UFCs to that point and more importantly Pride events which were the holy grail of mma tapes at the time. One video that he also had that I bought however was Mario Sperry’s old instructional set which I bought a pirate copy of for some daft amount of money. It was a hilarious tape to watch but, along with Gracie basics or whatever it was called, was pretty much the only instructional you could get hold of back then

Now you only need to go on youtube to see the sheer wealth of instructionals available from pretty much every top level competitor down to local instructors with self promoted content of varying degrees of quality.

Now I know some people (i.e. higher belts) are not huge fans of instructionals but for me personally I really like them. I do think however that they are pretty much useless unless they are aimed at white/blue belts as I imagine higher belts don’t need to ‘learn’ new moves and details and are instead refining their existing skillset.

I’m quite a visual learner, in that I can watch an instructional tape and pick up stuff that I then later apply in training. Now I know a lot of people will say, “Well you are won’t be picking it up correctly from a video vs an instructor” but to be frank I am probably applying it about as well as I would the first few times after having been show it by an instructor. I can always work on it in training and ask for help from the instructor after the class.

I’m not proposing this type of learning replaces class instruction, but it has been a big help to me at the level I am at and some of my most high percentage moves have been ones that I picked up from instructionals. Plus, with the limited time I have, its also a great way to while away the hrs when I am in hotel rooms travelling with work.

The ones I find to be really good are the ones that focus on principles, the details of the basics and top game focused ones – Stephan Kesting’s youtube channel, Demian Maia’s Science of JJ, Roy Dean’s Blue belt requirements, Saulo Ribeiro’s and Rafael Lovato’s Pressure Passing are some I particularly like.

As a beginner these all cover things like why a move works and the mechanics behind it and options from a particular base position etc All things I find helpful.

Some however, just miss the mark for me. I watched some of one the other day from a top level practioner and it was so complex and clearly aimed at higher level belts that I took nothing from watching the section I did.

And here’s my point (finally) its all very well aiming your content at higher level belts with the fanciest and latest sport moves that work for that athlete partly because of unique natural attributes, but the level of player they are aimed at are precisely the sort of people I expect are least likely to benefit from video instruction.

As a white belt I can actually take a lot of new information in from videos as there are still so many holes in my understanding and knowledge but I would hope that by the time I get to Purple and higher I have developed a style that works for me and don’t need to shoe horn my style in to that of a someone just because they are a competition monster at the world level. Anyway I guess to sum up I DO think there is merit in video instruction via instructionals when you still a beginner so long as it supported with classroom instruction (from a higher belt…..not in a garage) and sparring and there is some really fantastic content out there

Roving trainer

I’ve mentioned before the challenges I have in finding time to train – and I know this sounds like a lame excuse, but it genuinely is a struggle for me. My job sends me all over the world, often at very short notice, which means getting a consistent run of training up is difficult.

This week I found myself in Aberdeen and so lined up some training with the guys down (up?) at Team Lagarto Aberdeen.

For anyone that does pass through Aberdeen (and many people do given its prominence in the offshore Oil & Gas industry) I can’t recommend these guys highly enough. A quick email to Ken, the purple belt that takes the training, was all it took to sort out – no politics, no nonsense.

Situated under converted railway arches in the center of town, the team at the Aberdeen Combat Centre have got themselves a fantastic facility. Very spacious mat area with a cage and ring at either end and weight room by the entrance.

The guys at the club were all very accommodating and welcoming and no hint of ego – not to mention they had a couple of beasts down there including one particular young guy who, whilst technically just about young enough to be my son, absolutely manhandled me when rolling.  Watching him roll with about 6 people back to back and dominate them I’m sure he’ll have a very good future if he keeps it up.

We drilled guard passing the evening I was there and a couple of sweeps. We then did live situational rolling with guard pass vs submission attempts, rotating round the class attendees followed by general rolling.

I’m going to veer into slightly technical discussion now which I know is not really the intention of this blog/journal but as usual the big thing I took away from the session were the smaller details. When I have done the bullfighter pass I’ve normally used the ‘steering wheel’ style where you rotate the legs like a wheel in order to pass.

Ken showed us a style where you pull the legs back and pin them to the floor to pass which I found worked very well for me –  particular thanks go to John the other roving trainer who was there for the day on his way through Aberdeen as well. A purple belt, he displayed a great amount of patience with me when drilling and gave me some very insightful small adjustments in my body positioning and weight distribution which worked a treat. If he ever gets bored with his job offshore, a new career as a full time coach awaits him.

Ken and the guys there have got themselves a very good setup there and overall I had a great time and look forward to going back there at some point again

You’re the best! Around!

Who has had a conversation that goes along these lines……?

Friend/Workmate – “Oh wow you are doing a competition? Is it like the UFC?”

Me – “No, its kind of like a judo competition”

Friend/workmate – “Oh ok. So what belt are you? Are you a black belt?”

Me – “Errr…no, a white belt”

Friend/Workmate – “Oh….. OK. That’s nice!”

Most of us I am sure at some stage.

One of the biggest drivers for my return to training BJJ was a desire to compete, having never competed when I first started training.

I had come close before – I was actually due to compete in my last stint 8-9 years ago when, the week before a planned competition,  in a particularly wild rolling session at the end of a class, I badly tore the ligaments around my elbow joint attempting to escape a submission.

It was a nasty little injury that took months to heal and is what made me stop training last time round. In fact it still gives me grief to this day if I’m honest. I’m my own worst enemy in that regard to be fair. I’ve always had a very large range of motion in my joints which allows me to resist submissions far longer than is healthy. Combine that with a white belt ego and it has led to some nasty injuries where I should have tapped way earlier.

I actually thought I’d done it again recently when, rolling with a very good MMA fighter (and extremely competent BJJ player) at the gym, I got caught in a keylock and tried to escape as he increased the pressure until…..*pop* “Oh shit!!” (his words, not mine…..). Luckily it has turned out to be relatively minor and hasn’t required any treatment – but was a timely reminder that tapping early is significantly more preferable to putting myself into enforced recovery timeout from training.

So about that competition – when I started up training again a few months ago, one of the first things I told the instructor was that I was keen to compete,  and was encouraged from the get-go to enter the British Open which at that stage was 4-5 weeks away.

So I signed myself up and set to preparing myself – in the 5 weeks running up to the competition I dropped around 7-8kgs to get myself into the <94kgs category to stay away from the big boys. 

So after 5 weeks of dieting, training hard watching Saulo’s instructionals over and over, I began to feel like I was ready, I’d seen my bracket and googled everyone in it and was ready to go when, the day before the competition, my wife got ill. I wont expand further on the previous post I made regarding family and training but suffice to say I canceled my participation.

It was the right thing to do but still, I had trained and it was going to be a shame to waste it. Mentally I think I needed to find a competition quickly as my concern was that if I put it off then I will just find more excuses not to do it. Luckily there was another good size competition just around the corner…..

I am under no illusions about the level of my ability, I am not the local phenom that starts tearing through the divisions at all the local comps in his weight and belt class, but I can acquit myself respectably when it comes to rolling with decent guys in my category and occasionally a belt grade up. Going into the competition though I really had no idea what to expect; was I, as a causal trainer, going to get torn up by some 7 times a week training monster? I figured 50% of competitors at the comp lose their first match so if I did lose, I would take learnings from it.

The atmosphere on the day of the competition itself was good fun however. We had a black belt guest from brazil over with us and a decent turn out from the club in the competition so everyone was buzzing around getting each other prepped and ready. Not to mention there was more than a little ‘All Valley Karate Championship’ vibe in the hall. In fact I’m a bit disappointed there wasn’t a giant bracket board up on the wall…..

Anyway, when my category got called to weigh-in I stepped on the scales at 92kgs – comfortably within the 94kgs limit. All still nice and relaxed.

Then I get called to the mat and I start to get very nervous.

My number one fear was the thought of getting completely tooled – like, 3 second flying armbar tooled. All the game plans, prep, visualisations I had done suddenly went out the window. I started panicking that I wouldn’t hear my coach and everything felt like it was unraveling. We get called to the centre, shake hands and its on…….

I won’t go into massive detail on the match as I may actually just post the video up at some point but here’s the quick summary (with my major mistakes):

I engage too passively and he pulls closed guard.

I pass to half (and forget to control his head) and he turns in.

I take his back (and don’t get hooks in) and he escapes out the back.

I try and get an omoplata (sloppily) and he escapes it and gets side control (3-0)

I fail with my hip escapes and he gets knee on belly (7-0)

I reverse him and end up in his open guard.

I pull off a toreando pass and get side control (7-3) but AGAIN forget to control his head

As he tries to escape I take his back again but don’t quite get my hooks in fully.

As he tries to escape I switch to mount (7-7)

I try a sloppy lapel choke which is no way near on and he reverses me and ends up in my guard.

At this stage with 30 secs left *I think* I was up on advantages and watching the video back I can hear my coach saying “Keep your guard closed! Keep your guard closed” but in a moment of madness I try and spin into a sloppy armbar and he escapes to side control (10-7) where we finish the match.

Immediately after the match I thought I had been tooled but everyone was telling me it was really close and was a really entertaining match to watch. I was devastated though.

Since then I must have watched the match a couple of dozen times, picking out mistakes, a grip here, a leg position there and have compiled a litany of errors that I made. However the more I watch it the more I realise I actually did put a decent showing in despite the obvious lack of experience.

What’s important I feel, is that I do study the match and I do list all the errors I made, as each one of those is something to work on, something that I can use to structure my training. With limited time to train I think one of the most important things you can do is go in to training with a goal or an objective, like “I want to hit an escape from side control tonight”. Even if its one simple move and you hit it only once in 4 rds of rolling then its worth it.

It was a great experience though and I am glad I popped my cherry as far as competitions go. Now I just need to get training for the next one which is in 5-6 weeks and see if I can go 1-1 in all competitions…..

***25th June edit. So I was just looking at the IBJJF rule book (http://www.ibjjf.org/docs/rulesibjjf1stedition.pdf) and realised that knee-on-belly is only two pts, not 4. That means I was actually 7-5 UP when I decided to throw away the match going for the armbar. Oh well. Live and learn.

BJJ and Family

One of the more appealing aspects of BJJ for me is the concept of BJJ as a family. With principles such as lineage and affiliation (and on a less positive note; aspects of politics and rivalry) playing such an important role in the identity of a BJJ practitioner, its easy to make the connection between family and BJJ.

The school I have found since starting up training again is very proud of its lineage and history, as many schools are, and the idea that it is ‘more than a team’. There is a healthy desire for competition success at the school and I was lucky enough to experience how the team pulled together at a competition the other week to support each other.

For those of us that are young, free and single I can actually see why this is appealing giving support and camaraderie without many of the negative aspects of family politics, but as you get older, and certainly as I have experienced since starting training again, its important to strike the right balance between your BJJ ‘family’ and your real family.

Everyone knows there is nothing better for rapidly progressing your ability than lots and lots of mat time and with lower belts even training 5-6 times a week plus, its easier to see how the more casual trainer might progress more slowly. With limited free time I find that I need to manage my social time much more carefully these days – and as much as I want to get on the mats and train, I need to make sure I am not doing that at the expense of the real quality time I get with my wife and son.

As I write this, I’m sat in a hotel in Germany where I am away working for two weeks and where I am taking the missed mat time as an opportunity to rest up from some niggling injuries before getting back to London for training in a couple of weeks. Now, I am back at weekends which means I have a decision to make – do I go train on saturday morning, or I do I give my wife a break and spend time with my kid.

For me the answer is easy – time missed with my son is time I’ll never get back, but there will always be another class. As much as I get ‘that feeling’ about missing class, I made a promise to myself that if training ever starts interfering with family life then I know what side is going to win.

Some of you might see this as a lack of commitment etc and I respect that, but I’m in this for the long game now and if it means taking the next 25 yrs to get to black and having a great relationship with my kid and getting him interested in the sport vs throwing myself into training with every spare minute I have and having him resent the sport for taking my time away from him – its an easy decision.

So I’m going to find ways to help my game indirectly if I cant get mat time – solo drills in the hotel room (not involving late night German tv…….), interval training on the creaky rower in the basement or just running for cardio – every little helps and if it means I can strike that balance at home, then my personal relationships will be all the better for it and that will lead to a healthier environment for my training in the long term.

 

A return to training

So here it is – the first official post on this blog.

I created this blog after reading some of the excellent blogs on BJJ like http://bjjscout.wordpress.com/ and http://www.slideyfoot.com/ and thought that maybe others might be interested in my own ramblings. Even if not, its a nice way me to articulate some of my own thoughts.

So why ’13 year white belt’? Am I really that bad?

Here’s the back story. I started training BJJ way back in 2000 in the UK whilst at university, and then intermittently over the next few years whilst working in London at a couple of different schools. All in all I must have racked up 18-24mths of total BJJ training at that stage spread out across 3-4 years broken up by injuries, work, laziness. I never really got a serious run at training to progress in any way – never competed, never graded – just pissed about with it really.

Now at age 33, out of shape, married with kids and a hectic work and travel schedule, I got the mad idea to start training again and to take it a bit more seriously this time.

One of the reasons was coming across guys I knew back in the early 2000s that I could hang with that are now black belts and the thought that somewhere in a parallel universe there exists a black belt version of myself that stuck at the sport.

Another reason was simply that I love it. Back when I first started training I was more concerned with chasing girls and getting drunk and didn’t really appreciate the opportunity I had to have access to quality training – even though I used to love training itself. Now older, wiser (not to mention drinking a lot less, and chasing girls even less than that) I want to do something that keeps me in shape, is fun and is something that I can eventually share with my kids when they are old enough. BJJ hits all those marks.

So what is this blog going to be about – there’s lots of (great) blogs written by fit young folks who have lots of free time, train when they want and can give a great technical insight into the sport. However this blog is for the tired, the weary, the overworked and the under-pressure BJJ practitioner. The player who has 2hrs a week if he’s lucky to train and might have to go weeks without going to class and dealing with how to progress as a BJJ player in those situations.

I’m going to cover stuff like my first competition (already out of the way) and balancing training with work and family and other general musings.

So bear with me and of course I welcome any feedback as soon as I’ve mastered how this blog thingy works.