Marcelo Garcia on Training Intensity: "To Make It Harder for Me"

Metrics: May 3 - 9

Training Days: Tue / Thu 

Four Week training average: 2.0

Techniques of the Week

GB Curriculum Week 2

Strength

shoulder shocker - Thu

Conditioning

LSD - 2 mi - Thu

Weight

165.2 lbs. (Tue pm)

162.2 lbs. (Thu pm)

Live Training

15 min / 2 sessions

Training By the Numbers

Even if I trained every day for the rest of the month, it still looks like the 2014 training year* will be my weakest since I began keeping track back in the late summer of 2008 (beginning of the 2009 training year). I could probably do the leg work all the way back to August 2005. But I think this gives me a good sample of my training since getting a few stripes on my blue belt.

2014: 98 - 108

2013: 162

2012:  161

2011: 135

2010: 162

2009: 139

Another reminder of how brutal this training year has been in terms of mat time.

That said, what I like is that even though 2014 is shaping up to be a pretty lousy year in terms of training frequency, I still managed to make my 2x/week minimum. I also have to take a step back and pat myself on the back for what is a pretty impressive history going into 2014. 

It goes without saying that I want the 2015 training year that begins in August to be one of the best years ever. My dream is to make personal records for every month of the year or, failing that, to top 196 training sessions in a year, which would represent essentially the same thing. The travel in my new job makes this kind of goal-reaching more than a challenge. But what I wouldn't give to hang a "200" on the board before I'm through ...

*Since I began training jiu-jitsu in August 2005, my training year begins in August and ends in July.

Chase Performance, Not Fatigue

As I look to emerge from what feels like a partial jiu-jitsu hibernation, Christian Thibaudeau's take on high-frequency training as it relates to bodybuilding seems like good advice for (relatively) high-frequency training as it relates to any high-intensity activity.

And especially jiu-jitsu. Fatigue is the friend of some sort of training, especially when maintaining technical competence is not the priority. But there is often a misplaced fatigue fetish when it comes to training, a syndrome that leads too often to poor but hastily executed technique.

I don't think that gets anybody anywhere. HICT training, resistance training as a secondary goal, 45min+ LSD training ... all of these are worthwhile activities for fatigue-chasing. But if we agree that more training > less training when it comes to skill improvement, then strategies that "activate rather than fatigue" are going to be the more valuable ones over time.

Galvao, Cornelius, Training

Training Day: Monday

Live Drilling: Pull half guard from standing / Knee Cross pass with crossface / Side control to north-side armbar via watchdog to mount

Pull half guard from standing / Knee Cross pass with crossface / Side control to north-side armbar via watchdog to mount / Hitchhiker escape / Pull half guard / Watchdog hold counter to pummel underhook hipswitch Knee Cross pass / Knee on belly / Drop knee to choke

Pull half guard from standing / Knee Cross pass with crossface / Side control to north-side armbar via watchdog to mount / Hitchhiker escape / Pull half guard / Watchdog counter to pummel underhook hipswitch Knee Cross pass / Knee on belly / Choke attack  / North-side armbar from knee on belly

Scale: 171.1

Ralph Gracie in Action

There are a few people whom I've never seen footage of in training. Ralph Gracie, a legendary Gracie especially here on the West Coast, is one of them.

 Not sure what it means that my first jiu-jitsu post of 2014 is of Ralph Gracie. But I'm going with it.

Toward Training Every (Other) Day

With one month to go before the end of the 2013 training year (my training year begins in August), it's nice to see that even with subpar training in May and June (i.e., less than 12 sessions), I'm still in a good position to finish out the year at a new annual PR of more than 161 sessions in a year (average of 13.4 sessions/month and 3.35 sessions/week). A 12+ July is all it will take, which is imminently doable.

That said, what I need is a 15+ July in order to match TY2012's six months of training 15x or more. I don't think that should be too much of a challenge either, especially if I can fit in a Saturday or two. The July Revolution is the 13th (a week from this Saturday), so that will be one less opportunity to get my number.

The goal continues to be a training year with an average monthly training of 15+. That would make for 180+ sessions a year, and give me the "I train every other day" equivalent I've been longing for.

Why (and How) to Train Hard in Jiu-Jitsu

I'll admit that I didn't entirely get this the first time I saw it.  Marcelo has been known as an advocate of "jiu-jitsu" as the best conditioning program for jiu-jitsu.  But I'm not sure if his approach has been properly appreciated.  As with all things Marcelo, a brief example makes the point clear.

I will add that this is something that Prof Carlos has been talking about more and more recently in asides before or after class.  Maybe it has something to do with his focus in advance of the Pan Ams (coming up in just a few weeks!), or something broader about the approach to training he wants to pursue.

In either event, for those of us who have only so much time devote to anything not revenue-generating, Marcelo's point about training intensity is worth keeping in mind.

The Masters - at GB Seattle

I'm really enjoying our "Masters" Over 40 class that Professor Rodrigo has been developing over the past few weeks.  We've got a class on Friday nights at both the Bellevue and Seattle locations (Professor Doug and, I think, Professor Carlos, have been running the Bellevue/Eastside session).

One of the things that we've really been focusing on is self-defense.  We managed to train three different self-defense techniques last night: countering a punch, a kick, and a "grab."  I'll defer to Professor's preferences, but I think there's real gold in building the Masters class around self-defense.

We also did some work on escapes, specifically side control escapes and reguarding.  The nice thing is that we continue to work with the curriculum (these escapes are part of Week 11).  But I've been using Prof's variations and adaptations to suit the specific needs of our folks.

All in all, a lot of learning about how to teach jiu-jitsu most effectively.  I'm having a great time and if you're in the area and over 40 (or even close to it), consider stopping by some Friday evening for some great, efficient  training with your fellow grown-ups.

"When a Week of Rain is a Year"

One of my favorite lines from Roethke is a great way to describe being off the mats for even a short period of time.

My latest challenge have been these meio-pesado blue belts.  What they've been exposing is the downside of my relatively static half-guard game.  My initial reaction had been to try and develop a more dynamic half guard, moving more toward a deep half game, for example.  But I'm having second thoughts, for most of the obvious reasons.

There was a line in a recent retrospective on Terere that caught me.  It suggested that Terere felt claustrophobic when playing from the bottom.  And because of this, he focused on having an exceptional top game.

This reminded me that one of the more important things for a black belt to do is to carve out his or her jiu-jitsu out of the whole stone.  You are what you is, to steal a line from Zappa, and you're better off figuring out how to make that work rather than wasting your time wondering what life would be like if you were someone else with someone else's game.

Everyone is different.  There's a lot of jiu-jitsu out there.  Some of it, arguably most of it, is ultimately there just to keep you from being ignorant.  The rest, on the other hand, is all yours - if you'll have it.

There were a "few tricks with a knife I used to do" - to continue my lyrical larceny - when it comes to having the kind of game that will accentuate my positives.  2013 will be largely about trying bring that back.

162.4 on the mat post-train.  Another back-loaded training week with four sessions scheduled between tonight and Saturday, including the Masters class Friday night.  I'm looking forward to being lighter.

January: Mid-month Update

My first goal for the New Year in general and January in specific was to pass the ICP by the 15th.  With that behind me, the other major goal for January was to try and get a sense of what kind of training schedule I can count on reliably.

This is all the more important now with the Friday evening, over-40, "Masters Class" I'll be teaching every other week or so.

One tricky thing will be to keep my week from starting out strong and then fading.  Prof Rodrigo used to talk about a MTWF schedule being optimal for training.  But because I can't count on getting to train on Fridays (there could easily be a scenario like last Friday when I taught the morning class and didn't teach or train for the Masters class), the danger is that I would go four days without putting in some serious matwork (Thursday through Sunday).

Swapping out the Wednesday for Thursday helps - and I think training Thursday night and training/teaching Friday morning will be good over the long-term.  But it still presents the possibility of going three days in a row without rigorous training.

This means that I'm going to have to make Thursday a real blow out session - making sure I spar at least three times and probably some HICT training afterward.  This way I don't have to rely on Fridays being a strong session from a training perspective.  I can probably get to the academy every other Saturday, which will also help a lot.

Another possibility is sneaking in for a nooner on Friday, i.e., just the Live Training session, to make up for whatever I don't/can't get Thursday or Saturday.  Not something I can count on every week, but something that might be available more often than I think.

Tuff E Nuff?

One of my New Year's resolutions for 2013 is not to complain about my on the mat performance unless my four-week moving average of training frequency is 3.5 or better.  This is a A-/B+ minimum standard, which I can accept.  Any time my training frequency drops below this level, there is no sense in being self-critical save to say simply, "I'm not training enough."

And given my current four-week moving average of 2.75, all I have to say about tonight's effort on the tatame is: I'm not training enough.

Finding the Art in Martial Arts

Socrates, via Plato, is alleged to have asserted that the only true antidote to misanthropy was art.  As someone who often suffers from the former, I'm looking forward to testing the potency of the latter - in martial terms - as cure.

A good day on the mat.  Getting quality training time is a bit of a hustle these days.  But I'm hoping that will be less the case as I get more and more used to the flexibilities of my current Brotberuf.  It's always nice to get to work with white belts and blue belts, and the opportunity to lead the class in an instruction (tripod sweep) was much appreciated.

Struggling to make the ICP deadline next week.  I've still got a few courses to take, and I'll probably work on the essay over the weekend.  I will write the required technique essay.  But recent events have encouraged me to send an additional essay, one that touches on many of the themes that the much-maligned Gracie Barra curriculum and philosophy emphasize and, perhaps, too many in our jiu-jitsu family forget.

Training Days: Mon, Tue, Wed, Fri (2x)

Another good week of training in the books: Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, and twice on Friday.  A part of me realizes that this training pace won't last forever.  But given the circumstances, it's been a great way to spend the summer.

A lot of training in back control, which I think reflects an academy-wide effort to keep our training as modern as possible.  And right now, nothing is more important in jiu-jitsu than developing good back control.      It seems as if we've spent a month on different entries and set-ups - which is fine with me.  I'm a big fan of focus when it comes to training and spending this much time working on such a specific - and critical - area has been a godsend.  It doesn't hurt that back mount is one of the weakest parts of my game, either.

The interschool event is tomorrow.  I'm going to try and get there early and get a good spot since all of the adult matches are going to be on the main mat.  I'm not scheduled to help ref (thankfully), but if I can help out I'll do what I can to keep score or even just help them keep the brackets organized.  We'll see.

As I tweeted the other day, I've changed up a few things in my sparring that has made life a whole lot easier. I've been trying to play a Marcelo Garcia-style sitting guard for about a year and a half and I'm pretty much ready to abandon the project.  Although Marcelo and I have (relatively) similar body types, I don't think our bodies want to move in the same ways - or at least not as much as I've assumed in the past.  I've been very reluctant to add core Marcelo Garcia moves to my game - the X-guard, the armdrag - and while I still want to look for ways to incorporate these moves, I'm thinking more and more there's a reason why my body just doesn't seem interested in playing along.

The good news is that I've been refocusing my game in many ways to resemble my Professor's game.  Ironically, it was a minor injury to Professor Rodrigo that got me thinking about the way I have been going about things and what it would mean to make a major change at this point.  Making key adjustments at critical junctures in your development is what allows for that development to take place and there was an interesting moment when it hit me as to what I need to do to get more out of my training.  And what's funny is the way that "the answer" has been right in front of me all along.

It's only been a few days.  But so far, so good.

Focus, Fortitude, and Other Effing

One thing that I definitely did not like about Wednesday's training was that I didn't get a chance to work on the Effing Series.  I did try to look for Effing pass opportunities during one roll, and that's how the opportunities are going to come up outside of drilling.  But I want to make sure I don't drift.

Roger Gracie made the point a year or so ago: you want to have a focus or a goal in mind every time you train. Most of the time, if you take the class before the Live Training session, then you probably are going to have to forget about that focus or goal for an hour or so, and try and absorb as much as you can from the lessons.  And when the Live Training comes - to say nothing of any specific training opportunity - it is always a good idea to try and incorporate some of what you learned or reviewed that day.

But this is also the time when you have to circle back to what your focus and goal is for the limited time you have (two 8-10 minutes sessions, maybe a third if we're lucky, for most of us, on average, three or four times a week). This is why it's a pretty good idea to have very general, limited goals for a stretch of a couple of months.  It can get chaotic trying to assimilate new information with every class, retain and improve upon what you learned a week or two or more ago, and still carve into muscle memory those familiar strategies and techniques that help you get from the bottom to the top.  Or finish from the bottom.  Or finish from the top.

The Effing pass gives me a unified field theory for the open guard.  But I'm not nearly as precise against the half guard as I should be given my preference for the half guard as an attack from the bottom.  I don't feel as if I'm running into a lot of especially sophisticated half guard sweeping attacks.  I'm just not taking a methodical approach to getting the pass.

At the end of the day, any one of the passes I've learned will be fine.  The trick, though, is to find something that fits as well as the Effing pass has started to fit when it comes to the open guards.  Backstep passes are very popular.  But I'll admit that as long as I'm not completely caught unawares, I feel like I've always got at least a 50/50 shot against a backstep pass.  I know that control of the inside leg, the ability to switch your hips as if to go belly down, is critical to winning that initial battle, that there's a roll to the back and a kneebar worth watching out for, as well.

What I've had the hardest time beating, though, is the "Base Switch Pass with Shin" as Saulo calls it (35-3 in Jiu-Jitsu University, which you should own.).  If I there's no space for the head, then it is easy to set up an irresistible pressure against the legs.  There's also a shin-slide, 35-6, that I remember using more frequently years ago.  It sets up a lot of pressure and is another of those half guard passes that I personally hate to defend against.

Another option, a third one to try and keep things "general" and "limited", is to bait deep half.  I don't have a lot of defenses against deep half.  But I feel as if I know a good response and can bring it faster than most deep half attacks I've had to deal with.  A lot of people are still treating the deep half like a "guard" like spider guard or closed guard or something, when it's a guard that should be as fluid as a takedown.  Arguably, deep half is an anti-guard, moreso even than the X-guard.  Arguably, deep half is a quantum guard that is both guard and sweep at the same time.

Other things, too.  But this is more than enough to get started.

Training Day: Wednesday

Finally back on the mat after about three weeks elsewhere ... It wasn't quite as bad as I'd feared.  I did a small workout before class, finished the Fundamentals session, then sparred twice - once with Professor Sean and once with Chris.  I was pretty worn out after that, but went ahead and trained once more during the Open Mat with a guy that was pretty eager to train and didn't have a partner.  I'm trying to understand how you turn down a guy like that.  You can't train jiu-jitsu by yourself.

What I may start doing, though, is limiting those mercy rolls to guard/pass guard specific or something.  If I'm too fatigued, then the chances of me getting anything other than altruism points for continuing to train are pretty slim.  Besides I'm always nervous about getting hurt, and that's all the moreso when training with new partners whose game I don't know and whose style I have yet to trust.  So if I'm going to wade back into the water when I'm already well-worn, I need to put some controls on just how far from shore I'm willing to let the game go.

The gem of today's training was the detail on how to apply the initial choking grip from mount, and how to loosen that grip and use it as a push lever if the guy tries to bump or roll out of the position.  Mount transition to S-mount, in other words.  Good stuff.

Nice to meet the new professor, Professor Alex.  He's good-sized, which will help with the increasing number of big boys coming to train.  I'm looking forward to learning more about his specialties.

A very sweet, 156.5 on the scale, post-train, gi and everything.  Much to love about being within five pounds of the featherweight/pena limit - the details of how I got here notwithstanding.

Training Day: Friday

One of the more helpful reminders about today's training was the importance of technical conditioning.  I've spent a lot of time lately working on my base conditioning, adding a little more standup work (i.e., forward and backward sprints) to better conditioning my heart for short-term maximal effort.    The idea has been to bring on the heat fast and early, and then settle into a high-grade, more aerobic pace for the majority of the conditioning session (i.e., alternating cardio power with HICT).

"Free for all" guard passing and sweeping is technical conditioning, the intermediate step between the jiu-jitsu conditioning I've been doing before Live Training and the technical drilling I've been doing often instead of that third and final sparring round.

We've been doing this "free for all" passing and sweeping for the past few months from time to time, and I think that as more of us become used to the freedom to do whatever we want during these drills, we won't just start to appreciate them.  We'll start to long for them.  I know that it's quickly become one of my favorite drills, and I always find myself scrambling to think of the pass or sweep that I've been wanting to work on whenever the Profs put this drill on the agenda (I'm talking about you, Double F pass ...)

Prof Carlos did a nice variation of this kind of drilling by combining "Free for all" with specific A/B guard pass or sweep options.  One of the things that is very effective about this approach, IMO, is that it reinforces the "game" or "play" nature of training, the controlled experiment environment that is most conducive to the kind of testing and retesting that makes technical improvement that much more swift in development.

One of the tropes of The Talent Code was the notion of Brazilian soccer players excelling due to a "play" environment that encouraged innovation, and East European musicians achieving perfection as a result of very limited,very focused, very deliberate and rules-based training.  More and more, I feel as if Profs Rodrigo and Carlos are combining both approaches, helping us build more movement, more muscle memory, more focus.  In many ways, I feel as if I'm training better than I have all year.

158.3 on the scale, post-train in the gi.  Watermelon juice uber alles.

Training Day: Thursday

"Swimming is not a sport. Swimming is a way to keep from drowning."
--George Carlin

These days, training jiu-jitsu is less a way of getting better and more a way of avoiding getting worse.

When I compare the hours spent on the mat, before class, during class, after class, watching instructional videos, watching competition videos, taking notes, creating drills, breaking moves down into the most elementary particles possible ... when I compare that with on my actual on mat performance, I weep like a pre-Socratic philosopher. It is hard to describe the sense of slipping, almost like accelerating on ice, and the panic of not knowing whether to apply more force, more energy to the system or to back off entirely for fear of spinning out of control and winding up in some ravine somewhere.

I've pretty much made my peace with the fact that I'm not getting any younger, faster, stronger or that much smarter, for that matter. But the feeling that my technique has not improved significantly in months is like a waking nightmare - and yes, the fact that the months in question are the few months with a black belt in my gear bag only makes it that much more bitter to taste and difficult to digest.

Some good techniques in Prof Rodrigo's class. And were I a better man, I'd probably spend a little time talking about them.

161.7 on the scale, post-train.

Training Days: Thursday, Friday, Saturday

Combining three training reports in one post is only a few parts laziness. It also means that I'm finally training at a really good clip.

This week marks the second week in a row when I've trained five times (Mon/Wed/Thu/Fri/Sat). My 4-week training moving average is above 4.0 for the first time in a very, very long time. And while I'm feeling a bit of the stress on the body, I'm pretty pleased at the pace and wondering if things will only get better as the weather warms up and coming out of hibernation each day becomes that much easier.

Training this much also has allowed me to focus on some of the lessons of the week better than usual. I got to train both the spin-move pass v.s. the butterfly guard, and the toreano/X-pass footwork on three different occasions, really helping to burn the moves into my muscle memory. That's especially true with the spin move, which integrates well with my growing crucifix guard passing theory (more on that later).

Some very good sparring over the past few days with some lighter folks - as well as my regular doses of casca-grossas like Professor Casey. I got to train with Bennie from up north on Saturday, as well as Joe, both of whom were very tough rolls as always and a nice mix up and change of pace from some of the smaller folks I've been lucky enough to train with of late.

OK, weights over the past few, nothing spectactular. The next two weeks will represent the real push to 154, a weight I've made before, but not in the gi (I've weighed in as low as 152.1 as a blue belt years ago, no gi).

Thu: 160.5
Fri: 159.1
Sat: 158.6