On Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu

The following was originally posted on November 15, 2020, on my other blog. I’m glad to be back.

The last time I rolled was March 4, 2020. It was a good last roll as my buddy Mike and I got the chance to do some practice matches. It got my blood and heart pumping. I was supposed to compete in a local BJJ tournament. It would have been my first tournament. I was working more on my cardio, and I even started intermittent fasting to keep my weight under control. But alas, COVID hit us. It hit us hard. In the first couple of months of the lockdown, I was still working on my solo drills, but now after 8 months, I’ve neglected my solo training. It’s an understatement to say that I miss Jiu-Jitsu, but I’ve been trying to channel that energy into something constructive (information security, blogging, meditating) and not just be depressed.

I was optimistic at first. I thought that by now (November) things would have been back to normal. But things are far from normal for us in the USA (we’re having the highest infection rate since the beginning of the pandemic) and it looks like we’re heading to another shutdown. Some of my in-laws are COVID-positive. I also have a good friend from work that was seriously hit by COVID and was transported to San Francisco for treatment. He’s been bedridden and has recently been well enough to be home. Being bedridden for so long, he lost a lot of muscle mass and is now going through physical therapy. I was hoping to get back to training in 2021, but that doesn’t look real anymore.

But I digress, let’s get back to the topic which is jiu-jitsu. Jiu-jitsu is a martial art that I knew very little about and is truly an area that took me completely out of my comfort zone. But since starting jiu-jitsu, I’ve appreciated grappling much more. Watching UFC is different now thanks to my newly found knowledge of the ground game.

So why did I start jiu-jitsu? Because I realized I was helpless if someone was to take the fight to the ground. My standup isn’t great, but I think it’s adequate for self-defense. Give me a sword or knife and I’m more than just adequate. But when the fight got to the ground, that’s when I realized I didn’t know anything about ground fighting. I was helpless and I didn’t want to be helpless in a life-and-death situation. Hence I started jiu-jitsu.

Coming from a traditional martial arts background (kendo) and going into BJJ is a drastic change. There were some elements of Japanese martial art-ness to it, but then it wasn’t. I’m used to bowing when I entered the dojo, bowing when I stepped into the practice area, bowing before practice, bowing after practice, bowing to senpais, and bowing to sensei. The atmosphere in jiu-jitsu was much more relaxed. In jiu-jitsu, there’s maybe only one necessary bow. When I started kendo, I swept the floor before every practice since I was a total noob until I was sensei (yon-dan/fourth-degree black belt). Even as a yon-dan I still find myself sweeping the floor. In jiu-jitsu, the person sweeping and sanitizing the mats are the coaches or assistant coaches. It wasn’t the noob. The coaches don’t expect you to help either. That was a different change. But old habits die hard and I would sweep the floor if I was not completely wiped out from the rolls. An aspect of kendo that has found its way into my jiu-jitsu is folding my gi. I folded my hakama and gi after every kendo practice. You gotta keep those pleats nice on the hakama. I guess in kendo, there was a lot of judging based on how well you took care of your training gear. Wrinkled hakama? Why should we bother watching your promotion if you can’t even fold your hakama? Jiu-jitsu is again, very relaxed. Coach is not going to chew you out because your gi is a bit wrinkled.

Jiu-jitsu was also the first time I am in a martial art with an actual belt. In kendo, there’s rank but no belt. It’s something that kendo practitioners are proud of: “There’s no belt to distinguish us apart. The only way to know someone’s level is to “cross swords” with them.” There’s some beauty to having a belt as well. Especially if it faded, frayed, and dirtied from all the rolls. The stripes system also help keep us motivated to keep striving forward.

As with kendo, there is sparring at the end of each practice. I’m a big advocate of sparring. That’s the time for the techniques that we learned to really stick. That’s the time to fine-tune our technique to our bodies and the bodies of our partners. But more importantly, I find that I am always humbled during BJJ rolls. Whereas kendo can be a bit subjective, in jiu-jitsu, there’s no contesting getting strangled, choked out, or submitted. You can either acknowledge and tap or go night-night. In kendo, there’s always some debate where a strike was an ippon (clean strike). Due to egos, some folks will never acknowledge that it was an ippon. They would comment on your form and timing or that you were using too much strength and not enough finesse, or make up some other critique to point away from the truth that they had an opening and it was exploited. If you don’t accept defeat while rolling, you’ll go to sleep or will get hurt later. “Tap early and tap often.” Every rolling session was a humbling one.

What I wanted to say when I started this post was that I miss jiu-jitsu and that lately, it feels like I will not be able to practice jiu-jitsu, Muay Thai, or any martial arts again. When I get those thoughts, I feel a bit depressed. Martial arts training has been therapy for me since I started kendo. But I just gotta do what I can with what I have.

Never give up the faith. Keep the lighting buring.

Ip-Man from The Grandmaster