50/50 Sure Likes to Wrestle

It's funny how at a BJJ school, our most populated class on a regular basis is the wrestling class. More of the colored belts show up consistently on Wednesdays than any other day.

Usually we go pretty slowly through a lot of movements. Penetration steps, penetration steps into shots, walking in a stance, sprawling, how to get up properly after you sprawl, etc, etc. And we did do that but this time we went through it with no stopping for instruction/correction. Anthony is trying to get us to the point where wrestling class is run more like a training session and less like a seminar/instructional.

After learning a couple techniques, we practiced some great positional drills. Then he had 4 people go in the middle of the room and the rest of us lined up to get our turn to wrestle with them. First person who wins stays in, but instead of using wrestling rules - this time we went until you could secure a position for 3 seconds, so lots of BJJ was getting thrown in. It was so much fun to put the two arts together that way and we worked our asses off. It felt GREAT! It made me happy to see how psyched Anthony was, he said it was finally looking like the majority of the people knew how to move properly. Definitely a testament to his teaching ability IMO.

Then Ryan and I had our once a week wrestling lesson on Thursday with James. It's funny because I sit and watch while Ryan works with him for an hour and then Ryan was working out with a couple of the guys while I had my lesson but James tends to teach to us both when we're in the room so it's almost like a 2 hour joint lesson - at least as far as explanation goes. And this time James stuck around for a bit and watched Ryan teach the basics class. He was so surprised at how similar BJJ was to wrestling. Of course he teaches Greco and Folkstyle and he did Judo and he was a big leg-rider in wrestling so he's somewhat unconventional.

Ryan is lucky because James was a very high-level college wrestler and he is close to Ryan's size. But with me sometimes, it's hard for him to tell if I'm doing something excactly right because I'm so much smaller. I'm hoping to try to get one of the girls I used to wrestle with when I did the group lessons with James earlier in the year to come by once in a while.

On the plus side, I'm excited because Ryan says it's okay for us to start doing lessons twice a week for a a little while instead of just once a week, so I think I will be able to retain a lot more.

p.s. Another new girl signed up for BJJ at the gym this week! Up to 11 ladies now! And Shanna just quit her job so she can come to the women's class on Sundays from now on and Kate is starting school so she will be leaving her job and will be able to train much more frequently. Woohoo! :)

I'm back

Well, partially anyway. My ringworm disappeared faster than I expected (prescription drugs are definitely the way to go). My cold seems to be disipating slightly as I feel better all around. But I can thank my asthma for the continued rattling in my lungs - which will likely remain for at least another week or two.

I knew my lungs were going to be shot so I decided to go in early for basics class followed by marathon roll instead of going to the advanced class later in the evening. Unfortunately, I didn't last more than 5 or 6 rounds in marathon roll before I had to stop as I felt an asthma attack coming on. Mmm - phlegm...Ick!

We had 4 new people sign up yesterday - woohoo! We might actually break a hundred students by the end of the year. Guiness Book of World Records fastest growing BJJ gym anyone? Lol!

Basics Class last night was fun because we went back to the movements involved in escaping the bottom of side control with Ryan's "new" shrimping motion - that he stole from Rickson Gracie. =)

I ended up sticking around to watch advanced class as they were going over interesting open guard attacks to the single leg, the back, and blast double-like movements.

Ryan is taking some internet flak right now for an interview he did on lockflow.com this weekend but 99.9% of people are missing the main key points of what he was saying - even the ones who think they agree with him, lol! Oh well, better for us when it comes to understanding the "game" I guess...

Funk

Haven't really felt much like doing anything this week - especially write on my blog.

I woke up Sunday morning with ringworm and woke up Monday morning sick as all hell - double whammy. I went to work Monday but was barely productive. Then I took Tuesday morning off work to go to the dermatologist to get prescription meds for the ringworm (totally worth it) and then went home and slept for 6 hours - through the rest of the work day. Veterans Day I spent time hanging out with Ryan and at the gym wishing I could train - but not really even feeling up to it, I just hate being there and not training.

We had another new girl come in this week which is pretty awesome. And now we have plans for a pretty spectacular BJJ chick to visit next year. I can't wait to train but am likely to have to wait a minimum of 3 - maybe still as many as 7 more days. Stupid dirty fungus. Stupid.

Anthony has his first superfight this weekend at a tournament in West Virginia so Ryan went out to coach him. Ryan will likely end up competing as well. Good luck to them both!

New Training Partner

I am so incredibly excited about BJJ right now!

1. Last night was Son's first official class at Fifty/50 BJJ. Even though he's actually a smidge bigger than me, he still feels super tiny, lol! From now on I should never have a night where there isn't a colored belt under 140lbs in the room to roll with. Woohoo!!

2. Plans are in the works for an absolutely incredible group of people to gather for a Pan Am 2010 training camp at Fifty/50. It will likely include a number of high level black belts from all over - some of whom are small-ish as well. And I can't WAIT!

3. I'm a little bummed about missing No-Gi Mundials because I can't miss my grad school class monday morning (who schedules a tournament on a sunday anyway?) and because I was late resuming hard training due to the moving of the gym. It makes it worse that I missed No-gi Pan Ams because of my trip to Florida and there are no big tournaments around between now and January. BUT to make up for it, Ryan said he wants me to go to the CBJJ Europeans with him! Portugal, here we come!!!

4. Our TENTH woman signed up last week - she switched over from a local gym. All of our injured reserve ladies should be returning to training in about a month or so. I'm really happy with all the ladies but especially with Mary Ann and Kate's progress. The two of them are learning quickly and are light years ahead of where I was with their amount of time in training BJJ.

5. A small female blue belt is visiting from out of town on Sunday and I'm looking forward to training with her and having the other ladies train with her. I love visitors!

6. I'm going to start giving my first set of regularly scheduled lessons with a non Fifty-50 student this Saturday.

Whew! =)

p.s. Thanks to everyone for all their encouraging comments, especially Georgette!

Highs and Lows

I started out this week with a serious grappling high on Sunday. After instructing the ladies class, I was able to get in a few great rolls between Ryan and Brian. I finally felt as though I was beginning to move the way I need to - and without gassing out.

I went to my class for grad school Monday morning then went in to work, and by the time I got to the gym I was pretty burnt out. Luckily, Ryan noticed that I wasn't myself and instead of pulling his usual "toughen Jen up" mode, he was extremely encouraging. I think he's trying to turn over a new leaf in how he talks to me and the desired effect was achieved. However, I seemed to have lost the sense of BJJ ease that I had arrived at on Sunday afternoon.

I woke up this morning with a renewed desire to work hard at developing my BJJ and the fire was stoked even more when I heard from my friend in Richmond, Son Duong. Son is moving back home, and his home happens to be here in the DC area. Why was I so excited you may ask? ...because Son is a 115 lb man who also happened to place second in the adult blue belt division at the Mundial this year!

Tonight, I ended up with a training partner slightly larger than normal and one of the drills we were doing just didn't quite feel right. I made an unconscious adjustment due to the size/height difference - which was right - but due to one crucial piece missing it took Ryan a little bit to see that I wasn't just trying to be difficult, I was having a specific difficulty (my explanation skills are still lacking sometimes). And my "fix" made it harder for me to feel the piece I was missing and for him to see it and explain it. Ryan noticed though and changed tactics so I was finally able to understand what he was trying to get me to do and, of course, it ended up working in the end.

This slightly frustrating class was followed by a less than ideal rolling situation. Despite two good rolls with Brian - one where I finally got his back (he is the squirmiest dude I've ever met), I left feeling less than thrilled about BJJ.

Something odd that I've noticed the last few days.

Ryan is the first person who has ever coached me (in anything) who is harder on me than I am on myself. He has yelled and demanded more when I had given my all. We had a conversation about my mental needs as a student/competitor last week (thanks, Alex!) and he has noticeably changed his tactics to be more encouraging instead of mentally debilitating. Ironically enough, now that he is going slightly easier on me, instead of being mad at him for talking to me a certain way, I am suddenly instantly harder on myself. Talk about some sort of unintended reverse psychology...

Someone actually PAID me to travel and teach BJJ!

So I'm a little late on posting this which may make you think I wasn't completely stoked, but in reality the complete opposite was true (I've just been super busy b/t the new place and my day job and grad school).

A little while back, I received a phone call from a friend who used to train at Lloyd Irvin's (in Baltimore) with us. His name is Fred Ramie and he is a Gracie Barra Brown Belt originally from Boston BJJ. Fred called me to ask if I would come down to his new school in Orlando (non-affiliated) and give a private lesson to one of his girls and teach a few classes. I was so surprised it was ridiculous. I had to tell him maybe because I needed to check with Ryan on what I should charge since I had never been asked to do something like this before. He actually wanted to pay for ME to come down there AND pay ME to teach Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu. It was nuts!

Long story short, we worked it out as I happened to be traveling to Tampa on Oct 3 for a wedding anyway. I actually got PAID by someone outside my own program to teach other people (men, women, and children) BJJ. He must have been crazy, lol!

I definitely can't thank Fred enough for believing in me and giving me such a fantastic opportunity! Plus we had a blast catching up and that girl he has is going to be kicking ass very soon.

To me this experience represented a big step forward in my growth in BJJ.

And now I am teaching the ladies two times per week!

BJJ Rocks! :)

Fifty/50 BJJ is MOVING!!!!!!

That's right. It's done! We have officially signed the lease on our new location and construction is expected to be completed by the end of next week.

We will have approximately 1500 sq ft of mat space, all completely OPEN! No columns or anything and TONS of windows. We will have two locker rooms (one for men and one for women). On top of that, we are bringing in another Muay Thai coach and are about to almost DOUBLE the amount of classes we offer.

And BEST OF ALL, the women's class will now be TWO days per week! Thursdays and Sundays the ladies are taking over! And second best of all, now that we have full freedom of the space, my wrestling coach can come to our gym and work with Ryan for an hour then me for an hour and I no longer have to drive out to Fairfax. Woohoo!

I'm so excited because we've only been open 10 months and already outgrew our original space. Our new address and schedule will be up on the website very soon! Fifty/50 BJJ

Only bad thing going on now is..I feel a little guilty about encouraging Ryan to compete last weekend. When I picked him up from the airport late last Wednesday night (he just arrived back from Spain), one of the first things he says to me is that he doesn't feel good and doesn't want to compete at NoGi Pan Ams. Knowing how many times he's pushed me when I didn't feel like doing it, I encouraged him to compete anyway since he was going to go coach regardless and he'd already paid for it. This was the first time (in 3 years) Ryan has EVER told me directly that he really didn't want to compete so maybe that should have raised a red flag that something wasn't right. But I continued to push him towards competition every time it came up.

Things of course didn't go so well at Pan Ams, he was sick AND still jet lagged. He is so hard on himself whenever he thinks he screwed up and this time I feel like it's partly my fault since I pushed him to compete when he clearly was in no frame of mind or physical condition to do so. I'm sorry sweetie, from now on I will listen to you and help you make a better decision. I promise.

In the meantime...YAY for the new place! I'm so proud of you, Ryan, for managing to deal with all the coordination, lease agreements, construction issues on top of training and competing for ADCC. You are MY hero!