HOW I LEARNED TO STOP WORRYING...

...about my training journal. And by that, I don't mean this blog. Instead, I'm talking about the actual notebook that I scribble in every now and then.

I've got this thing where I'm mad about brand new notebooks. I love everything about them: from the way the pages smell, to the sound they make when you flip the pages, to the feel of high-quality paper. It's especially the case for high-end notebooks, like the kind with the built-in rubber band, so they don't flop open, and the pocket in the back for loose sheets of paper.

I just hate writing in them.

It kills me when I have to start writing in a really nice book, because it's like I've just condemned it. Its future is now etched in stone. If I rip out a page so I can use the book for something else, I've just taken away a little part of its soul.

The worst part, though, the WORST part? There was a time when I was absolutely horrified of writing anything in my notebook about my BJJ classes until I had - and I know how this will sound - positively every aspect of every technique ready to put into print. Never mind the ignorance of assuming this was even possible. Let me explain.

Guy obsessed with getting everything positively right the first time with a notebook + constantly evolving system of combat sports = not fun. To illustrate, imagine the following internal dialogue:

"OK, right. So. I'll just start writing the alphabet in this book, with my ballpoint pen. So...whatever I write...will be permanent. So I need the first page for 'A', the second page for 'G' and the third for 'Y'...OK I can do this, I can do this, just breathe. Just breathe. Relax. I'm just going to write down some letters in a book. In order. But great Caesar's ghost, what happens if THERE'S A LETTER BETWEEN A AND G?!?!"

You get the idea, I hope.

Yes I know, there's something a little wrong with me. I mean, I'm no Tony Shalhoub. I think this is the only thing I ever really get all OCD over.

I've had the same book since last september. I started writing in it after last year's Australian BJJ Nationals, when I was on the train to Geelong for a visit to John Will's gym. The train was really jerky so the writing for the first 10 pages or so is frighteningly sloppy.

When I got back home I found some old notes from a seminar earlier in the year. I didn't want to lose them, so I copied them into the book. Pretty soon I started using it to take notes on CMD classes. Thoughts and things I had learned about coaching also made it into the notebook. I ended up writing in the book from both ends, so now there's just a bit of space left in the middle.

I'm trying to save enough space to make it last until after this year's Australian Nationals, at least, so I've been going back and looking for pages where I didn't write on both sides of a page to scribble in the latest notes.

When I look back at things I wrote just a few months ago I see rubbish and I wonder what I was thinking. That's OK, because I can flip just a couple of pages and be reminded of something I may have forgotten about, and have it become a meaningful addition to my game after some drilling. And who knows, a few months from now I may look back through my notebook and yesterday's 'awesome' will have become today's 'this is a joke, right?'.

I can, with some embarrassment, trace the progression of my game through the kind of notes I take, which for me is really cool to think about. It's also helpful that having a notebook does not mean I can just totally forget about stuff. In addition to the mat time I spend drilling something, I've also taken the time to write it down, which makes me think about it and analyse it enough to be able to articulate it.

The purpose of this is to say, just get a book and write in it. To an extent, it doesn't matter what you write, just as long as you get started. Write down things you learned in class, things you feel, things you think won't work, whatever. I mean, not to sound facetious, but if I can do it, I think anyone can. The trick is, if you are even half as obsessive as I am, don't think about it...start writing before your OCD defense mechanism knows what hit it.

It also helped that my notebook is ringed, and not bound with glue. It drives me absolutely up the wall when the spine on one of my books is damaged.

NEITHER RAIN NOR TRAFFIC NOR BITES OF MOSQUITOES...

...Stays these crazy kettlebellers from getting it on in public.

I've just arrived home after our first Kettlebells In The Park workout, held in TTDI park. The KDT bunch was joined by Jonathan Wong and friends from the Pushmore gym, which was really cool.

We got off to a late start, because it was raining a bit and there was also a pretty big event being held in the park, so there was quite a lot of traffic in and around the area. Fortunately I was one of the few who got there on time and managed to score myself a parking spot. The area where we got to work out was actually quite far in, so just getting there, while hanging on to a kettlebell, was a good warmup in itself.

I had made the decision to switch down in weight for today's session, passing my current 20kg kettlebell over in favour of a 16kg (fortunately they were both Pro Series kettlebells, so nobody could tell I was cheating). It turned out to be a pretty smart decision.

The KDT group was the first to arrive so we were already doing snatches, swings and squats. When the Pushmore gang joined and everything got under way, though, it turned out to be a really good workout! We did another several hundred swings, snatches, presses, jerks, squats and slingshots.

For me, the killer was when we did our sets of swings. First Cliff, then Thong and finally myself, each counted out 50 swings (25 each hand) and everyone followed along. In between each set, nobody could put the kettlebells down, and we were made to do slingshots as an active recovery exercise. By the time I was done we had gone through about 150 swings - which was really challenging for me, first thing in the morning - and we weren't even halfway finished!

I did manage to find one thing out for myself though. Placing my kettlebell on the floor with the handle perpendicular to me, and my hands on either side with my fingers pointing towards the ground, pushups are a great way to stretch out my wrists. Being that the swings only tired out my forearms, wrists and fingers - my triceps and pecs were still right fresh.

Lots of fun was had by all, and I'm seriously looking forward to the next time we get to drag ourselves out of our warm beds at 8 in the morning on a rainy Sunday to go hurl my kettlebell in a park with all the joggers and mosquitoes!

I'll be looking to put up pics of the workout, though since I didn't bring a camera, I'm rather at the mercy of those who did.

BJJ - CHESS REDUX

This isn't meant to be as rambling a post as my previous effort on the topic. Instead, I was inspired to write something after reading Garry Kasparov's book, "How Life Imitates Chess".

I've also been affected by a spot of blog inertia, so aside from the not-unwelcome chance of spurring me on to more entries of greater insight, I hope that this post will actually be of some use to its readers, and in so doing prove to be somewhat more than an exercise in creatively bankrupt indulgence.

I won't go into very much detail here - because I really do recommend this book to anyone with more than a passing interest in Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu - but I will bring up some of the highlights.

Strategy vs. Tactics:

The words 'strategy' and 'tactics' are routinely used interchangeably, a waste of many useful distinctions. While strategy is abstract and based on long-term goals, tactics are concrete and based on finding the best move right now.

A tactician feels at home reacting to threats and seizing opportunities on the battlefield. His problem is how to make progress when there are no obvious moves, when action is required, not reaction.

Just think about all the times when you started rolling with a "I don't know what I'm doing, but I'm doing it" mindset (which for me would be...alot) and you start to get a sense of the gold to be mined from them thar hills.

Challenges, Competition and the Path to Growth:

Feudal and caste systems might be dying out in most places but they are alive and well in the chess world...First category players aren't allowed to participate in the second category competition, any more than a twenty-year-old could play in the under-twelve championship. Of course there are no restrictions in the opposite direction...No one could complain that it was unfair when I won the Soviet national under-eighteen tournament at the age of twelve.

If it is challenges that help us improve, why then - apart from prize money - shouldn't everyone want to play in the open section of the tournament? Would we not learn more from nine losses to very strong opponents than from six wins and three losses against players roughly our own level?

...Finding the correct balance between confidence and correction is up to each person. 'Lose as often as you can take it' is a good rule of thumb...as much as we enjoy winning, and winning every time out would obviously be ideal, it is important to realise that setbacks are both necessary and required if we are to make progress.

I think it's quite obvious just from this passage that this information is relevant to a great many things, including of course, Jiu-Jitsu. I often feel like the times I grew the most in my training were the nights I got repeatedly, quickly and sometimes uncomfortably tapped.

I would hope I'm not just preaching to the choir here, but trust me, if there's anything that will make a fast learner out of you, it's getting flattened into a white-and-sometimes-blue stain on the mats by guys who are just so far above you in skill that it's not funny anymore, but you laugh anyway. (thanks, Adam!).

I found a whole lot of good stuff from my first read - much, much more than has been presented here, so treat this strictly as the teaser trailer before the summer blockbuster - and will definitely need to have another go.

BETTER LOOKING THAN RENZO GRACIE...

...And here's proof!



Vince edited this video of a CMD class we recently had, the whole time we just did really light "MMA" sparring. No elbows or knees, but kicks, takedowns and grappling were allowed. I'm the fellow with the dark blue t-shirt (also designed by Vince), the black Fairtex shorts and the light blue gloves.

I found it tremendously fun, though pretty draining. As you may guess from the sloppy takedown, much of the video was shot close to the end of class. I think I did alright as far as endurance is concerned, and I have only Vince's conditioning classes to thank for it. If you're looking to train for MMA or even standup, I'd really recommend some kind of interval training regime, the benefits to be had are simply immense.

I had loads of fun integrating BJJ into my sparring. I can't get enough of it as is, so any opportunity to throw in some grappling is always cool. It was really interesting to again take note of how much the dynamics of "normal" BJJ training shift when not only do you not have a gi to slow things down, but someone is also trying to punch you in the face.

JOHN WILL @ KDT, APRIL 2008

Entry 1: In roughly 14 hours from now, John Will rolls back into KDT to conduct his second-ever Malaysian BJJ seminar. It's been about a year since he was here last and I'm really pumped up for this. Not trying to oversell him but John is probably the single best BJJ coach I've ever met.

His teaching style is, to me anyway, excellent - he moves along at a good pace and always manages to never leave anyone behind. What's more, right before the seminar starts, there will be a 2-hour open mat session. I'm really looking forward to a thoroughly awesome day of training.

Entry 2: Well, I was right - it was another amazing session by John, focusing on the omoplata. We covered so much it such a short span of time, it was nuts. I have about 4 pages of "rough" notes in my book! There was so much pure gold to be found in his coaching style, his advice for us and even just things that he said offhand. I also snagged a set (2 books) of his new autobiography. I'm told it's pretty good reading so I'll be checking it out when I have time.

What's more, the day was capped off with Sam getting his brown from John! Excellent stuff and well done, coach!

Entry 3: We did a session based around the x-guard, then takedowns. I had seen the x-guard material presented before at one of his Singapore seminars but far from being redundant, I was amazed at how much more sense everything made to me the second time around!

Not to mention the fact that in Singapore, at the exact same time he was showing the x-guard sweep I was overcome by an upset stomach and had to run for the mens room...

The takedown material was pretty eye-opening for me. My experience with them is rather bad, to put it mildly, and this was a great primer on the single-leg. I'd be looking to try some of this stuff on Tuesday if I didn't have to fly off for wedding preparations!

There was also another grading - this time for Vince! Mr. KDT himself was graded to purple by John. A great achievement and much deserved. Way to go!

The whole thing was a really awesome BJJ experience. Besides the gradings and the techniques, it was cool to see Allen Chong and the BJJ Borneo guys in town again. Also cool was to see Laurent back on the mats again, he's been MIA since the CMD seminar, when he hurt his knee during a roll.

And yeah, it wasn't bad meeting John Will again. There are not many people who inspire me as much as this man does - who make me really want to be excellent in what I do...not just to stand out, but to go above and beyond. Whether or not such a fate is in my future remains to be seen, but man, I can't wait to get back on the mats and start working for it.

NO, SERIOUSLY, KEEP THE WRAPPING ON. PLEASE.

Last Saturday I had a sort of double celebration at the gym. My birthday was the next day (when the gym is closed)...and my wedding is coming up pretty quickly so it was also a kind of bachelor's party.

I wouldn't say I'm really a match for Steve Martin or Dan Aykroyd in the "wild and crazy guy" department, as I much prefer a nice, quiet evening of good, old-fashioned, brotherly violence with a room full of sweaty men, to say, a wallet-draining night out on the town that everybody and his uncle vows to never forget, but will all the same.

So it was with much joy that I made my way to a Bert-requested, Vince-approved KDT birthday-stag party: 6 hours of boxing and BJJ fun with isotonic sports drinks sponsored by yours truly!

I showed up at noon and spent about an hour on my own, just doing a light warmup, scribbling in my training notebook and doing a spot of reading. It was really cool just to have the place all to myself, I wish everyday could be like that...and as it so happens, it will in a few months!

Mike was the first to show up and we did some no-gi training for about another hour before more guys started to show up. I had a few marathon rolls with Rizan, Sam and Wee Li and then did a spot of boxing to finish off.

It was so much fun and just goes to show that the best part of any gym is the people who make it what it is. Usually Saturday open mats are over much too quickly for my tastes and it just leaves me wanting more (true, sometimes I just show up late). Today, though, it was a thoroughly excellent session with an awesome bunch of guys.

Times like this, I really recognise how lucky I am to have found this gym and I'm especially grateful to have been accepted as a part of this family. I'm really going to miss days like this when I move and start my own place, but hopefully I'll be able to make some more of these memories happen, somewhere down the road.

Or maybe I'll just close up shop for the day, hop on a plane and pop by KDT, who knows!

THE THICK BLUE LINE

When I first got my blue belt, I remember feeling like a complete poser. The sheer weight of my own expectations and preconceived notions was so intense, it was crazy. I felt really nervous, like a fraud waiting to be found out. It took me a while just to get used to holding it in my hand, never mind wearing it.

The thing that freaked me out the most was in my gym, there seems to be this thing where someone gets their blue, then either stops training or takes a sabbatical. I was so afraid that would be me as well. Over time, though, I slowly got used to it. I didn't stop training, in fact I started to enjoy it more.

So I doubt I'll be winning the Mundials anytime soon, but at least I don't beat myself up about it.

Tonight at the end of class, Patrick, Rizan and Wee Li got their blues. I'm really happy for them and I'm even happier that I get to train with them. For as long as they've been with the gym they've been really dedicated to BJJ and I'm proud just to be associated with them. Over the past two years they've come a long way, and they've still got a lot of potential, just waiting to be realised.

In terms of BJJ, or martial arts for that matter, today may just have been the best, most fulfilling day of my life. It was so cool to see these guys step up to take their belts (and beatings!), having watched them progress from the day they walked on the mats for the first time. I actually got in my car and started to drive home before realising that I was still wearing my rashguard and kneepads!

Plus, Vince got in his new BJJ T-shirts today, they look really sweet and I think I may be persuaded to buy a number for myself.

So congratulations to the new blues - well done and well deserved, boys. I really hope you stick around and see what happens, because it really just gets better from here. I promise.

On a side note, I also got graded today - as did Mike - to a blue with one stripe.

So that was pretty nice, too.