BJJ personality quiz...what training character are you?

I'm a sucker for online quizzes. I take them all the time. I've been assessed to be everything from Buffy the Vampire Slayer, to imperial China, to a complete slob, to a Saint Bernard. Obviously, these quizzes are all extremely accurate and I take them all super-seriously.

In this same spirit, I decided to design my own  BJJ personality quiz. Now, there are sites that will give you entertaining lists of just about every BJJ personality you can imagine, but for the sake of simplicity, I am including only the top 7 that I encounter. Of course, these are all grossly exaggerated and I am thinking of no one in particular as I come up with these caricatures. I am also making fun of myself as much as anyone else (if you train with me on the reg, you can probably figure out who I am among these choices).

Ready to begin? Let's see where you stack up!



1. Choose a gi:
a)

 

b) I don't train in a gi. There are no gis on the skreets 

c)

d) I left my gi at home. I can't train today

e)

f)

g)

2. Choose a song:
a) Tu-Pac "Hit em up"
b) The walkout song for the cage fight I have been planning for years
c) DJ Khaled "All I Do is Win"
d) Bruno Mars "The Lazy Song"
e) Right Said Fred "I'm Too Sexy"
f) Nicki Minaj "I am your Leader"
g) Lynyrd Skynyrd "Ew that Smell"


3. If your training partners could describe you in 1 adjective, it would be:
a) mouthy
b) douchey
c) competitive
d) whiny
e) hot
f) helpful-ish
g) smelly

4. How do you react when you get tapped?
a) Run my mouth and bait him to do it again. I've got something for him next time!
b) Punch a wall. Then ice my hand
c) Think about what the Mendes brothers would have done differently
d) Know it is only because he is bigger, stronger, faster, and more flexible than me
e) Worry that my gorgeous face is now covered in gi burn
f) Teach my training partner how she could have tapped me better
g) Fart on her

5. What is your training pet peeve?
a) rules that prohibit talking during instruction time
b) sporty rules
c) people who roll for illegal moves in practice
d) to be honest, I haven't trained in a while
e) mat hair
f) people who don't listen when I am trying to help them
g) idiots who try to make me wash my belt

6. How do you spend your free time online?
a) blogging. Or talking smack to my training partners
b) watching street fights on youtube
c) watching BJJ tournament highlight compilations
d) emailing my instructor to explain why I haven't been at class this week
e) shopping for a cute new rashie
f) sending words of encouragement and helpful hints to those who need it
g) I can't find my computer right now. It might be buried under my pile of dirty dishes and laundry

7. What is your training motto?
a) Talk big to roll big
b) Stand and bang
c) A win by advantages is still a win
d) I'm going to start training again next week
e) Stay pretty and always protect your face
f) I am the assistant to the instructor
g) Get as much use out of my gis between loads of laundry as possible

8. What do you do when you are stuck in a disadvantageous position?
a) Talk smack to bait him to move on
b) Curse, panic, and spazz out. This would be death on the skreets
c) Scold myself for losing tournament points
d) Remind my training partner of my bad wrist/knee/shoulder/neck/pinky toe
e) Trust my raw sexual magnetism to get me out
f) Show my training partner how she can set up a submission from there
g) Wait for him to give me space voluntarily, due to my offensive odor

9. Choose a "going out" outfit: 
a)

b)

c)













d) I can't go out tonight. I need to call my grandma

e)

f)

g)

Ready for your results??

If you got mostly a's...
You are a Mouthy Grappler. The one thing you enjoy more than training is talking. Whether you are blogging, gossiping, or talking smack, you always have something to say.

If you got mostly b's...
You are a Tough Guy Wannabe. You are untrained but don't realize it. Eventually, you'll learn. Tough don't make up for stupid.

If you got mostly c's...
You are a Sporty Grappler. Winning tournaments is your bag. You don't tell anyone, but you keep track of advantages while you are rolling.

If you got mostly d's...
You are an Excuse Generator. There are a million reasons not to train, and you have a dozen on hand at any given moment.

If you got mostly e's...
You are a Good Looking Grappler. You kick ass and look hot while doing so. Carry on.

If you got mostly f's...
You are a Self-Appointed Assistant to the Instructor. No one in the gym will ever be as helpful as you think you are.

If you got mostly g's...
You are a Stinky Grappler. You are no one's favorite training partner, for obvious reasons. When there is a staph outbreak, everyone looks at you.

Jiu jitsu and aging...another year older, with one hand deeper in your collar

I'll be honest with you - I'm not a huge fan of birthdays. Don't get me wrong, I'm happy to be aging, since the only alternative to doing so is death (there - see where my mind goes?). But my birthday is generally something that I dread as it approaches and then try to embrace at the last minute as it finally rears its head.

My main beef with getting older is twofold:

1) I had a fairly religious upbringing and did 13 years of hard time in Catholic school. Yet, I am not much of a believer myself. I've spent too much time immersed in religion to not give serious thought to aging and what finally happens when we stop. But I can't tell you what ensues from there. It is possible that I am slowly inching my way toward becoming worm food, and that's a hard concept to grapple with (pun intended).

2) Before I even found jiu jitsu, being an athlete has been a huge part of my identity. Kicking butt in sports is a major aspect of who I am. Yet, reality dictates that we start to lose our athleticism as we age. Over time, we become slower, weaker, less flexible, and require longer recovery time. (Yes, thinking about getting older makes me into a bit of a Debbie Downer).  

So far, I have refused to compete in the IBJJF masters division because I am still competitive among the younger folks. Eventually, though, I expect this to change. I will fight it kicking and screaming, but one day I will come to a point where I can no longer safely or effectively compete with the 18-year-olds in my skill division.

This week I turned 33 and, true to form, I did not acknowledge my impending birthday until the last minute. When I finally did, I began telling people I was "23 and 10." 33 is a really high number that I didn't want to cop to. But "23 and 10?" That's not nearly as bad.

But here's the awesome thing about jiu jitsu - technique is more important than strength and athleticism. I know for a fact that 33-year-old Kim could beat up 23-year-old Kim. Now, 23-year-old Kim was a pretty tough gal - she was strong and quick and spent her free time doing marathon open water swims. But she had never even heard of jiu jitsu and knew squat about fighting or self defense. I could choke that bitch, without a doubt. And I am certain that 43-year-old Kim will one day be able to choke out my current self.

And that's what drives me to keep training as I get older. Technique overrules physical attributes. It motivates me to know that I will continue to get better, and to spar better, for a really long time. So if getting older means getting better at jiu jitsu, then maybe it's not so bad.








 

IBJJF rule changes - new female weight divisions and new black belt requirements for the mundials

The International Brazilian Jiu Jitsu Federation has made a couple of rule changes over the past few weeks:

1) They have added 2 new weight classes for women. Since weight classes were lacking for the lightest and heaviest gals, the IBJJF has added rooster and superheavy weight divisions, beginning this year at the mundials.

Until now, the lightest weight class available for women was under 114 lbs (118lbs with a gi on). There has been a grassroots petition circulating on social media to add an under 105 lb division and it looks like the petition was answered!

Also until now, the heaviest weight class available for women was heavy weight - over 158 lbs (163 with a gi on). 158 and up is a pretty huge weight range. That meant that women who couldn't make 158 have had to compete in a weight class with no ceiling. Adding a super heavy weight division, in effect, puts a reasonable ceiling on the heavy weight division (somewhere around 170 lbs).  

I cut weight to make medium heavy and have always said that I only do so because otherwise I would be in a weight class with no limit. Well, as it turns out, I was full of shit. Even with a new division available, I will continue to compete at medium heavy at the mundials because I feel faster when I am a bit leaner. The new division does take some of the pressure off to cut weight for lower tiered tournaments, however.

My only concern with these changes is that having too many divisions for women makes our divisions too small, with too few competitors. However, I had the same concern when women's masters divisions were added, and those divisions are growing steadily.

Read here for more information: New Female Weight Divisions

2) The IBJJF is now restricting which black belts can enter the mundials
The new rules state "Athletes eligible to participate in the 2015 World will be:
- Black belts with minimum of 50 points in the IBJJF black belt adult ranking
- Former Black Belt adult World champions
- 2014 Brown Belt World Champions (all weight divisions)."

I am all for making the mundials more competitive, since doing so legitimizes our sport. After all, the world championships of most sports are extremely hard to qualify for. But it is ridiculous that any white, blue, purple, and brown belt can sign up for the mundials without restriction, while it is only the black belts who have to qualify. 

Earning a black belt in BJJ is an ernormous achievement in itself. If anyone should get a free pass to compete at the mundials, it should be the black belts. If the goal is to make the mundials more competitive, it would make more sense to eliminate the white and blue belt divisions altogether, than to impose these standards only on the black belts.  

Winning the mundials as a blue belt was one of the athletic highlights of my life. Yet, I am well aware that I only had to go against blue belts to win. The true world champions are the black belt world champions. While I am excited to go back to the mundials to compete this year as a purple belt, I recognize that every single black belt has more of a right to be there than I do. That is why I don't like this rule change.

 
 

For more information, check the IBJJF website:
Black belt adult division requirements for the 2015 IBJJF Worlds Jiu-JItsu Championship

A week of firsts...reffing my first tournament and cornering my first MMA fight

I'm going to let you guys in on a little secret. Now, this may come as a huge surprise to many of you, but here it goes. Every now and then, I can be just a little bit of a dork.

Not in the sense that I want to eat my own boogers or anything like that. But sometimes, I can be overly enthusiastic - especially about the small roles that I play in cool events.

Like when I got to ref my first grappling tournament. I use "ref" in a very loose sense, since the tournament was submission only, which dumbed down the job by at least 80%. Since there were no points to score, my only jobs were to make sure no one did anything illegal, to keep competitors in bounds, and to call for medics when necessary. But that didn't stop me from being super excited about it. I did my best but made a few mistakes (twice I stopped matches when competitors only looked like they were about to tap, because ohmygod the arm is just not supposed to bend that way).

Reffin' ain't easy

I learned a few things in the process. Being a ref is a lot of work and not nearly as exciting as it looks.

• Reffing requires constant attention for hours at a time. If you look away for even a couple of seconds, you might miss something and make a mistake. 
• Refs have no friends. No one remembers the 50 good calls that you make in a day. It's the 1 mistake that stands out. The affected grapplers will think you are the worst ref in the world and won't be afraid to grumble about it.
• White belts are like the sun - you don't want to stare directly at them while they are rolling, especially when they are defending a submission. Otherwise, you might be tempted to tap for them, which is where I messed up.

This brings me to the other highlight of my week - cornering my friend Jojo in his MMA fight. Again, I use "cornering" loosely because my responsibilities were once again limited.  The other 2 cornerers were Jojo's jiu jitsu and MMA coaches, who would do the entirety of the actual coaching. My job was to help with warmups and to carry the bucket. It was a small job, but I vowed to carry the shit out of that bucket. I even practiced my swagger walk. (Later, I got promoted to banner carrier, which was equally exciting).

Joseph Poteat at the Bull City Brawl

Besides carrying the banner and supporting my teammate, I was there to get a behind the scenes look at what goes on at an MMA fight. Familiarizing myself with the routines and environment would reduce some of the novelty if I decide to fight (and thereby reduce my anxiety).

I learned a few things from watching Jojo:

• There's a ton of preparation that goes into a fight, both in the weeks beforehand and the day of
• Fighting is tough and scary, but it is no worse than what a fighter goes through during training camp
• MMA refs are every bit as human as grappling refs

In short, this week has taught me that what I lack in experience, I'm not afraid to make up for with dorky over-enthusiasm. But I am grateful for the learning experiences of both reffing and cornering. As a result, I am more sympathetic toward refs and more respectful of all the preparation that goes into fighting.

Pre-self defense...using my words and knowing when to act rude

So much of jiu jitsu self defense deals with situational awareness. We train for worst case scenarios, but for X to actually happen (when X = terrible, awful, shit gone terribly wrong scenarios), a lot of little things often go wrong along the way. In the eloquent words of Kurt Osiander, when you find yourself deep into a disadvantageous position, "you fucked up a long time ago."

If I am truly aware of my surroundings, then I will hopefully never get to the point of using Gracie self defense techniques. I'm not saying that women never get jumped unexpectedly while running on trails or while walking to their cars in a dark parking lots. But, while these occurrences garner media attention, they are actually pretty rare. Self defense confrontations more often have some kind of lead up...and that is where I am learning that my preparation breaks down.

I feel confident in my ability to hold my own in a physical confrontation. I have purple belt level self defense skills. Physically, I am strong as shit from grappling grown men on a daily basis. And I have intstincts to react violently when I think someone is trying to hurt me.

But here's the problem...I have a really hard time being rude to strangers. Even when those strangers are creepy or otherwise inappropriate. So I question my ability to stop a confrontation before it escalates to a bona fide self defense situation.

Take last weekend. I was in line at Walmart (I hate Walmart for many reasons, but I am trying to eat clean this month and eating clean is damn expensive, so off to Walmart I go). I was checking my email as I got in line and began absentmindedly unloading my goods onto the conveyer belt.  As I looked up, the middle-aged man in front of me leered in my direction and asked me where I got my boots. I felt uncomfortable but mumbled something about the store and what a good sale they were having. (This guy probably was not interested in shoe sales, but in my brain talking about the sale legitimized the interaction and made it less creepy). I scooted backwards down the aisle, turned away, and refocused my attention on my email.

I maintained as much space as possible between me and the stranger in front of me, but as he finished paying, it was time for me to quit stalling and unload the rest of my groceries. The guy then turned to me and asked how high the boots went up. Now, clearly the correct answer here was NONE OF YOUR GODDAM BUSINESS. But like I said, I'm just not rude. Instead, I gave him the honest answer that they were only ankle high and tuned him out while I paid the cashier. I waited a few minutes before leaving the security of the store. Then, I remained on high alert as I walked out to my car.

Luckily, I turned out to be in no physical danger from this interaction. But as I drove home, I kicked myself for allowing this creep to take up so much space in my head. In hindsight, I should have told him off from the get-go, made it clear to those around me that I was uncomfortable, and cut off any further interaction with this guy right away.  

Failure to speak up for myself and use my "verbal jiu jitsu," extends to other realms of my life as well. I work in a job that has me going into homes to work with young children. Every once in a while, I go into a house in which the adults are acting inappropriately -  yelling obscenities, screaming insults at each other, or walking around inadequately dressed. None of these issues puts me in direct physical danger nor are they illegal. However, they could all be early links in a chain that might ultimately spiral downward to threaten my safety. But instead of speaking up, it is my tendency to find myself a quiet, hidden corner to work with the kiddos as best as I can. I shrink back and hide instead of confront. Again, I allow my hesitancy to offend others to give them the power to make me feel uncomfortable.

I have several jiu jitsu resolutions for this year. There are techniques that I want to become proficient at. And there are certainly competitions that I want to win. But my other resolution is to act proactively in situations that make me feel uncomfortable, thereby confronting and diffusing situations before they have a chance to escalate.

Something else happened to me this week, this time ending on a more positive note. I was between sessions at work, doing some paperwork at a cafe, when a woman approached me, holding her daughter's hand. They were ready to leave the building, but there was a group of men sitting outside who made the woman feel nervous. Listening to her instincts, she pointed her car out to me and asked me to watch them as they walked out. Now, this woman had no reason to believe that I trained martial arts or was any type of a badass - it was the middle of my work day and I was dressed like a pretty regular lady. I was just another body who could yell for help or call the police if something went wrong. Through the window, I watched the pair get into their car without an incident. I thought what a smart lady! This is exactly the kind of precaution I should have taken while leaving Walmart.  

Holy crap, I'm a purple belt!

I still can't believe it - last weekend I became a Royce Gracie, Triangle jiu jitsu purple belt! It hasn't fully sunk in yet. (A few days ago, I absent-mindedly said "I'm just a blue belt" and had to be corrected by my training partner).

Not much has changed, really. I roll the same as I did a few weeks ago. I still get tapped by the same people. The old maxim is true - "A belt only covers 2 inches of your ass. It is up to you to cover the rest of it."

Getting promoted by my now black belt instructor Seth Shamp!

In my job as a speech language pathologist, we have a maxim of our own - "Don't teach to test." In other words, the point of therapy is to improve someone's functional communication, not to improve standardized test scores. When therapy is successful, improvement in assessments may be the end result, but it is never the goal. The goal is to help a patient communicate in the world.


I think the same is true in jiu jitsu. Going up in rank is a measure of progress like standardized test results. They both are a nice affirmation. But achieving rank should never be the point of training.  Pedro Valente has said “No one should train for a belt. You should train for the knowledge, you should train for all the amazing benefits that jiu jitsu brings to our lives.”

I train quite simply to get better at jiu jitsu. Sometimes I train with a narrower focus, such as to win a tournament or to learn and incorporate new techniques. But the overall goal is to be just a little bit better than the day before. Changes in color are few and far between in our art, so if they become our goal, we are destined for frustration and discouragement.

My training partners Brad McDonald and De McFadyen got promoted too!

Getting a purple belt has never been the point of my training. Still, it is something that I have wanted from early on. When I was new, I saw purple belts as serious bad-asses. Now I see them as folks who are in it for the long haul and are likely to keep training for life.

So, yeah, I am totally psyched to wear a new color and to have a chance to compete in new divisions. Purple is my favorite color and my belt now matches most of my wardrobe. I am also psyched as ever to keep training for the simple sake of learning jiu jitsu.

My jiu jitsu tree has a purple flower!

Mixed gender bout Emerson Falcao vs. Juliana Velasquez cancelled

Much ado about nothing. Here's the link. Shooto cancels fake 'man vs. woman' fight in Brazil

Thoughts?