I wrestled for a summer or two as a kid. I can't remember if I was in elementary or junior high. I don't remember anything more than the fact that I was wrestling. Soon after I do know I ended up studying a "real" martial art in Korean karate, Jhoon Rhee's tae kwon do, which was a big deal in the Washington, D.C. area back in the late 1970s and early 1980s. I trained for a little while as a 12,13, 14 year old karate guy, earning my tae kwon do black belt on April 21, 1981.
I've never had a problem with my TKD study. Most of the instrutors were professional fighters with the now-defunct Professional Karate Association. Joe Lewis, Bill Superfoot Wallace, Jean Yves Theriault, Benny Urquidez ... all of these were the fighters that our instructors - Michael "The Cobra" Coles, Rodney "Batman" Batiste, and my own personal instructor, Dan Magnus, the first professional athlete ever to successfully return to competition after open heart surgery, trained day after day to topple.
So my TKD was filled with the sort of kata that is now widely ridiculued in a post-vale tudo, post-MMA world. But there was as much if not more live sparring with gloves, footpads and headgear (for non black belts). In that way, it was half very traditional Korean tae kwon do, half sport kickboxing with live kicks and punches to the head.
While I've always defended by karate background, I've been much less vociferous in my support of my wrestling. In addition to my prepubescent stint as a young wrassler, I spent my senior year on the Dulaney Senior High School wrestling squad. Why it dawned on me to try out for the wrestling team in my final year of high school is something I don't remember. I had spent two average years on the football, lacrosse and track teams as a sophomore and junior (JV hotshot, varsity backup), and the notion to try my hand at wrestling came largely out of the blue (though I do remember being mesmerized by the wrestling, coming of age movie, Vision Quest that was out at the time.)
I was a pretty mediocre wrestler. I was athletic, and stronger than the guy at 136 who had been on the team for years. This meant that about half the time I would beat him in the trials to see who would compete at the coming tournament. Unfortunately, because my wrestling technique was horrible, I lost almost every time.
But I loved wrestling. It totally a "where have you been all my life?" kind of moment. It was a better combination of individual and team that I found in football and lacrosse on the one hand and track and field on the other. Wrestling also put me in better shape than any other sport ever had. It wasn't even close. I still remember coming home one day after practice - I'd been a latch-key kid since 2nd grade - and dropping down in the living room and cranking out 50 pushups like it was nothing. I had never been able to do anything like that before (or, probably, since).
Flash forward some 20 years ... When it comes to jiu jitsu, my love of wrestling is pretty damn apparent. My guard game is the most wrestling-esque in the form of the half guard. And my top control is clearly the most advanced part of my game. Whenever I doubt that I deserve the faxia roxa, it is my top game - particularly my top control - that I hide behind in defense of the belt I wear.
Unfortunately, my top-oriented, wrestling based jiu jitsu has one glaring weakness: guard passing. While my psychological hangups about takedowns remain a challenge, it is when I'm trying to open and pass the guard during which my purple belt too often starts to look a little bluer than it should.
This, more than anything else, is my top priority for 2009. Yes, I need to regain the feel of Twist Back. Yes, I need to get comfortable with the Rap Star suite. But the difference between having true confidence on the mat and wondering if I'm going to embarass myself in front of God, Rodrigo and everybody else lies in my guard passing ability. It has to be the alpha and the omega of everything I do.
I was reviweing an excellent little snippet from Mike Fowler's No Gi Made Easy series, where he talks about some passing guard passing fundamentals. They dovetail and amplify what I've been working on and thinking about in terms of locking down the hip and limiting the guy's mobility. I'm extremely anxious to get back on the mat and work on some of these techniques.
Like I said recently, I lack an "agenda" when it comes to opening and passing the guard. The closer I get to one, the better my guard passing will be - particularly against the rising crop of blue belts who whose footsteps I increasingly hear behind me
But more the point: if I'm going to be a "takedown, pass the guard, top control, submit:" kind of guy, then I need to make sure every link in the chain is tough. And right now the link that represents guard passing is more aluminum than iron. Over the next three weeks, that has to change. Lloyd Irvin says that it takes "21 days of straight corrective practice to break a bad habit." With the tournament three weeks away, that doesn't leave for much time.
So what does this have to do with Georges St. Piere? In short, that when it comes to me and jiu jitsu, I have a lot in common with the Quebecois champion. We are both athletes with traditional karate backgrounds who have above average wrestling despite sub average wrestling pedigrees. We both share a jiu jitsu that is more positional than submission based, and we are far more comfortable fighting from the top than the bottom.
Size differences notwithstanding, when I think about GSP v. BJ Penn, I think of all my fights against guys with great natural ability, flexbility and hip movement. Guys who are true kings of the guard: leggy, constantly luring you deeper and deeper into the trap of their submission or sweep. Sauleh, probably represents this better than anyone else right now of people I have trained with or competed against - though I think these qualities are very much the signature of the lighter weights.
What I need to do, and what my reflections on guard passing are reminding me, is focus on my strengths, to embrace the wrestling that is so obviously at the core of my sense of what grappling is all about and to use it to help figure out what my jiu jitsu should ulimately look like, what a black belt version of myself will ultimately look like.
That means recommitting to the kind of takedowns that am most comfortable with, fancy or not. And that means committing to passing the guard as a primary goal for 2009. Every single time I'm on the mat.. Every time I'm even thinking about jiu jitsu, I need to be asking myself, "Am I ready to pass the guard? Right this second, do I know exactly what I need to do?"
If I can bring my guard passing game up to the level of my half guard game - even if my half guard doesn't improve by a single inch - then I'll consider it a win for this year.
