cool guy handshake (dap)

When women begin to study jiu jitsu, there are some things that take getting used to. Our hygiene standards diminish. Good hair days after rolling become few and far between. And we are expected to practice new social greetings.

 

No, don't be ridiculous. We may roll around on the ground for fun, but we are not animals. 

 Bingo!

In the BJJ community, dap is the greeting of choice. If you are unfamiliar, I would describe it as a type  of cool guy handshake. This is what Wikipedia says about it - "Though it can refer to many kinds of greetings involving hand contact, dap is best known as a complicated routine of shakes, slaps, snaps, and other contact that must be known completely by both parties involved. Dap greetings sometimes include a pound hug." 

Cool guys have been greeting each other this way for decades. It gained popularity among soldiers during the Vietnam war and it continues to be popular among male musicians, athletes, and other cool guys. 

Most women, however, don't do this. We typically greet each other in one of two ways:

Formal

Familiar

So, when a coach or teammate extends his hand for a friendly exchange of dap, it is easy for a female BJJ player to misread the signal and fall back into her previous pattern of greetings.  

This is what happens when dap collides with a hug:

Don't let this awkward exchange happen to you! Learn dap and drill it until it becomes natural. As with any BJJ move, dap can be developed through regular practice. In time, you too can build muscle memory and add this move to your repertoire.   

Mundials Recap

We are back from the mundials! Overall, it was an awesome experience. From the time we stepped on the plane to Long Beach, we were surrounded by jiu jitsu all the time. (You think metal detectors and security guards help you feel secure in an airport? You should try getting on a plane with a half a dozen jiu jitsu black belts).

One highlight of the trip was the opportunity to spend time with my gal pals:

 with Penny Thomas and Leticia Ribeiro 

Gabrielle Garcia

Ronda Rousey

Of course, by “spend time with,” I mean to pose briefly for pictures. And by “gal pals,” I mean world-class bad asses who didn’t run away from me when I followed them. Either way, it was a surreal feeling to rub noses with the jiu jitsu and judo celebrities that I aspire to be like. 

The other highlight was that two of my teammates brought home medals! Jason Mask and Jeff Shaw both took home bronze metals in the senior 1, white belt division. This was the first time that anyone from North Carolina had medaled at this tournament.  I know it’s something they will remember for a long time. (Jason wants to get a mundials tattoo in case he gets dementia or something, but I am doing my best to veto this idea).

Days before the tournament, I got to work Google-stalking my competition.  It may sound weird and creepy, but rest assured that I did not do this in the dark, in my parents’ basement, or while eating a sandwich. My mind was innocent - I just wanted to know who I was up against. It was a tough field; many competitors had won major tournaments. But I believed that I had as good of a chance as anyone. 

After brackets were posted, I felt my odds start to drop. In my first round, I had the luck to get paired with the defending blue belt world champion. She also had just won the gi Pan Ams in the weight class above mine. This was going to be tough. I knew that I had to treat this match like it was the only one I would have. To give anything less than 100% would mean getting smashed. I had to respect my opponent enough to put everything I had on the mats.

I reported to the bull pen game face on, ready to go…and then I had uniform problems.  First, the patches on my pants didn’t pass inspection, and my teammates had to rip them off with coins and their fingernails. Then the sleeves on my brand new Fenom gi were deemed too short.  (Really the gi fit fine, but I was standing like a hyper-extended  zombie, instead of like a normal jiu jitsu player up for gi inspection).

How normal people stand for sleeve inspection:

Hyper-extended zombie:

They told me that I had to change my gi and that I had 5 minutes to do it. Luckily, I had a spare gi in my bag. Of course, the brand logo on my other pants didn’t meet approval either and this time it was not removable. Jason ran as fast as he could to buy me a gi from one of the vendors. I tried on the third gi and it fit me like a sack. Jason ran to exchange it, and finally this new gi passed inspection. Right in the nick of time!

my match video

I pushed the gi drama out of my head and fought my match. Six minutes flew by before the ref could say could say "combate!."  Before I knew it, there were 10 sec left and I was up 4 to 2! All I had to do was not get swept and I would win. My coach was yelling at me to base out on my knees, but I couldn’t hear him. I stayed on my feet in her guard…and sure enough, I got swept. The score was tied 4 to 4, but I was down 1 advantage (for some reason I didn’t get awarded an advantage for my kimura). And so I lost the match.

For an hour or so I was absolutely heartbroken.  I knew that it wasn’t rational to feel the way I did, because I had done really well, against a really good opponent.  But it was hard to come to grasps with the fact that I had put so much into training camp, took time off work, flew across the country, and had nothing to show for it. All that time, money, and work for just 6 minutes. But that’s how it is with major tournaments.  

Sometimes it’s not about how many matches you have or even how you place. There is a certain amount of chance involved. You might get a bye in the first round, you might get an easy opponent, or you might get paired with the defending world champion. I am grateful to have had the chance to see how I stack up against the very best in my division. And I think this experience will make me more confident and better prepared the next time I compete.

World Jiu Jitsu Championships

Tomorrow, I leave for Long Beach to compete in the mundials (Portuguese for "world championships for folks who want to break your arm or choke you unconscious").  My coach Seth Shamp and my teammates Ryan Hanseler, Hameed Sanders, Jeff Shaw, and Jason Mask are going to compete as well. It's the biggest and most prestigious tournament that I have ever participated in, so I am a mixture of excitement and nerves.

Since I've had my blue belt for less than a year, I know there will be people in my division who  have been training for a lot longer than I have. There might be someone more technical, more knowledgeable,  more flexible, faster, stronger, or with better cardio. But my competition is not something that I can control. The only thing that I can do is bring the best Kim Rice that I possibly can. And that's what I've been working on!

My training camp has consisted of the following:

1) Lots of drilling and positional rolling. I figured out my strengths and weaknesses and did my best to improve both. I don't focus on advanced moves. At my level, I don't feel like I need them, as long as my basics are solid. What I do need to know are the counters  to advanced moves, so that's what I've been drilling.

2) I've been trying to get as flexible as possible. I'm no yogi pretzel, but I've been doing a lot of Bikram yoga. I gradually feel myself getting more bendy and that's translated to some noticeable improvements on the mats.

3) Getting swoll. For the first time in my life, I've made it my mission to get as strong as possible. For better or worse, I have the body type that if I casually glance at a barbell, I start to put on muscle. So I decided to embrace it. I started doing crossfit, and yes, I got a lot stronger (see exhibits b and c).

Here's a picture of me before training camp:

exhibit a

and this is a picture of me now.

exhibit b

Even more frightening, here's a picture of me, post-training camp and post-pug snuggle:

exhibit c

As you can see, we both mean business.

All in all, I'm feeling pretty confident. My jiu jitsu is solid and I'm in the best shape of my adult life. Yes, a given person can beat me on any one of the above mentioned areas (technique, flexibility, speed, strength, cardio), but no one is going to beat me in ALL of these areas. I feel somewhere between "pretty good" and "very good" across the board. If I lose, it will not be because I didn't train hard enough. It will be because my opponent was legitimately better than me. But I am going to show up at check-ins with the very best Kim Rice of 2012 that I can bring. And that in itself is something to be proud of.  



 

motor learning, part 3

Last weekend was the US Grappling NC state championships, a tournament that I was using as a tune-up before the Mundials. I had some very good competition and ended up taking 2 golds and 2 silvers.  More importantly, the tournament served the two purposes I'd hoped it would - 1) it was a big confidence booster for me and 2) I got plenty of feedback on things to work on before the Mundials.

It also emphasized to me the importance of motor learning in jiu jitsu and pointed out some things that I really need to drill before the Mundials. Which beings me around to FINALLY posting part 3 of my motor learning blogs.

Here's what happened. Before the tournament, knowing that I have trouble taking down larger opponents, I came up with a go-to take down and drilled it about a thousand times. I drilled it with my instructor, my training partners, and my husband at home. Indeed, our house became an unsafe living environment, as I was constantly looking to set up this move. However, all the aforementioned people are right handed, so I drilled it only on the right side. Then at the tournament, my opponent reached for me with her left hand and I absolutely froze. I had no muscle memory for that side. My brain knew what to do, but my body did not. The move was of no use to me. I fumbled around on my feet for a while, before I myself got taken down.

I don't want something like this to happen to me at the Mundials. When I am adrenaline charged and rolling at tournament intensity, I know that the only moves that I have in my arsenal are those that I have successfully replicated time and again in practice. So as I step up my drilling these next few weeks, I will keep the following principles in mind, to maximize results.

•  The greater the amount of practice, the greater the likelihood that motor learning will occur. This is why drilling is so important. The more you practice a move correctly against no resistance, the greater the likelihood that you can access it during more stressful conditions.
• Practice should occur as frequently as possible. Four fifteen minute practice sessions spread out throughout the day is more conducive to motor learning than one full hour session. Drill something 5 min a day, everyday, for a week, and you are well on your way to having that move in your repertoire.
• Variability is important.  Vary the stimuli and the context of a behavior, so that it can occur in different situations. Drilling kamuras from guard is great. But consider drilling kamuras from guard, half guard, and side control if you want to generalize the skill to other contexts. 
• Target complex, whole movements, instead of simple pieces of movement.  Complex behaviors will generalize to simpler ones, but not vice versa. Drilling advanced moves, even if they seem above your head, can help you sharpen and refine basic movements. 
• It's better to receive feedback after, not while, a move is being performed. Do your best to talk yourself through it - then find out what you did wrong. If you rely on someone to walk you through it, performance decreases when that someone is no longer there. 
• Sensory learning is uber important. Paying attention to how a move feels, rather than the mechanics of it, increases the likelihood of motor learning. One of my instructors likes to close his eyes while drilling and sometimes rolling. It seemed silly to me at first and a good way to grab someone's boob or maybe a handful of ass-fabric. That is, until he made me try it. Now I'm a believer.

Of course, I'm not an expert. But these ideas help me teach my kiddos at work to say their S's and R's. So maybe they can help me learn jiu jitsu too.

Upon closer inspection, my glass is half full

Yes, I'm over my little funk. I'm usually a "glass is half full" kind of girl, but I had a brief  "my glass is half empty because a big jerk drank my Gatorade" moment. But I am happy to do the sport that I love with dozens of people who train respectfully and productively with me. And I can be better about establishing boundaries when necessary.

On another note, I have finally decided on a jiu jitsu tattoo, which I plan to get after the Mundials. I've been thinking about getting one for a while, but haven't found anything that really grabbed me - until I saw this:

The Celtic tree of life symbolizes balance, harmony, and strength. Now, you are probably looking at the image, thinking "That's a pretty tree, but what does it have to do with jiu jitsu?"

Well, jiu jitsu is a life long journey. Strength and balance are important in the martial art. Plus, trees are cool because they grow throughout their lives and sustain creatures around them. But I'm going to make a few adjustments to the image to make it more relevant:

1)  Instead of the butterfly, I'm going to put the characters for jiu jitsu. I'm thinking of adjusting the shape of the trunk, so I can fit one character on each side.
 
2) I'm going to omit the 2 interior daisy-shaped flowers, so that there are 5 in total. The first flower I am going to color in blue. When I get my purple belt, I will fill the next flower in purple...and in due time, there will be a brown and then a black flower. If I live long enough to ever get a red belt, well, there is a flower left for that one too. By that point the tattoo would be extremely wrinkly, but I would walk around with full confidence in my ability to defend myself against other residents of my nursing home. What do you think?

mental health break

I'm having a  real "fuck jiu jitsu, maybe it's time to quit and do triathlons" moment. I don't think it will go that far, but I think it's time I've taken a few days off.

I believe in doing what you love and loving what you do. Jiu jitsu doesn't pay my bills or feed hungry children or do anything great for the world. I do it because it's fun, and when it stops being fun, I know it's time to take a step back.

Women, in my experience, tend to be more selective about their training partners than men are. We want to be safe, we don't want to get smashed with strength, and we want to look ok when we go to work the next day. I don't like making the choice between rolling with someone who is going to play dirty, or sitting out the round. More often than not I choose the former, but that leaves me frustrated and, more than anything, just plain hurts my feelings. I believe a couple of things:

1) When I get tapped, it should be because of one of the following - the person is better than me, is trying something new, or caught me before I could defend. When this happens, I will most likely compliment him or her on the technique and try to learn from it. But if someone flat out beasts a move, it doesn't help either of us. Doing something to me that could not be realistically done to someone one's own strength does not help that person learn. It just makes me want to roll with someone else. It took me a while to learn this, but when I train with smaller girls, I make a conscious effort to tone done my strength. Sometimes this means I get tapped, but I learn more from that than by plowing through somebody.

2) There is a time and a place for heavy cross-facing, choking with your forearm, covering someone's eyes with a gi, or grinding your elbows or fists into their face - tournaments. Or street fights, if you are so inclined. Personally, I flat out do not do these things to my training partners. If these are things you want to do in practice, I suggest doing them with partners who match your style.

In Jiu jitsu, people are our training equipment. Good equipment will stick with you for a long time and will help you improve. Bad equipment will wear you down or get you injured.

Back in  my swimming days, I had a very fancy racing suit that I used to wear in my open water races. It was hydrophobic, which means that it repelled water, giving me less drag. Also, the material was super buoyant, allowing me to ride a little higher in the water. It was a fast, fancy suit, but it had one flaw - when I least expected it, it would expose my left boob.

Often this would happen at the end of a race, when I would quickly go from horizontal to vertical. As I would run out of the water, trying to overcome vertigo, my left boob would pop its way out of my suit, exposing my goods to the spectators. In my mind, racing trumped modesty, so I would just keep going. But after several embarrassing race finishes, I finally I accepted the obvious - my fast, fancy suit simply did not fit.

 

You didn't REALLY think I'd post a picture, did you? This is the new suit I bought, one that keeps both my girls covered.

Lately, my boob has been popping out on the mats, metaphorically speaking. Some of my training equipment does not fit me well. I'm tired of leaving the mats in tears; And I've already watched a couple of good blue belt women quit training because they felt like they were getting smashed.

So it's time for a little mental health break. I have a lifetime to learn jiu jitsu, so a couple days off won't kill me.

women competing in men's divisions

This weekend, I went with several teammates to the Combat Club Submission Only Tournament. It was a bit of a drive for us, but one of the major draws of the tournament was the absolute super fight division. All competitors could enter this division - all sizes, shapes, and ranks - and the ultimate winner would get a sweet set of swords.

But, as with many tournaments, the women's turnout left something to be desired - there were 8 of us, in total. After our divisions were over, they told us there was not enough of us to run an absolute division.

I was disappointed. Two hours was a long way to drive for two, quick rolls. My teammates tried to convince me to enter into the men's division. If I asked, they argued, maybe I could at least be paired with someone my size. Still, I was extremely reluctant. I thought some more about it...I've gone against girls more than 100 lbs bigger than me without much hesitation. How much more dangerous or less fair could it be to go against a man my size?

I talked to one of the event organizers, but the matter was not up for discussion. "No," he told me. "The guys would not want this. It would look bad if they beat you, and it would look really bad if you beat them. It's a no win." Then he went on the loudspeaker and recruited people for the women's division. Some ladies from the hosting team, who weren't planning to compete at all, joined in. And I got what I really wanted in the first place - more women to compete with.

A similar situation happened to me once before. I went to a US Grappling event last year with no women besides myself entered in the no gi division. Again, I was very disappointed.  Here too, my teammates wanted me to go ask to compete with the men. "You do fine against us in practice," they argued. "You'll do fine against guys your size in a tournament, too." Truth be told, I really didn't want to find out if this was true. But my friends were persuasive and I didn't want to look like a wuss. I was caught between a rock and a steel cup. And then I remembered something...

I walked over to the registration table and asked if I could compete in the men's division - but I did so only because it is written in the published rules that "Women will not be permitted to compete in men’s divisions. Men will not be permitted to compete in women’s divisions." I knew for a fact they would tell me no and that is exactly what they did.

But I can't really blame them for it. The  more that I think about it, the more strongly I feel that men's and women's divisions be kept separate. This opinion is controversial, because jiu jitsu women tend to have a very admirable "women can do anything men can do" attitude. I respect and usually share this attitude. But I feel this way about tournaments for 2 reasons:

1) Mainly, because I have been an athlete all my life. I feel that protecting the women's division protects opportunities for women to excel in the sport of jiu jitsu. I'm one of those feminist, Title 9 supporting, hooray for female athletes!, types. I think it's important not only to provide opportunities for women to PARTICIPATE in sports, but to EXCEL in them as well. It's a slippery slope - will allowing  women to compete with men lead to expecting them to do so? More often than not, the women's turnout at tournaments is sub par. And sure, there are women like Hillary Williams,who are super awesome and who have done just fine in men's divisions. And certainly, if Kyra Gracie were to show up at a random, local tournament, I'd expect her to excel against black belt men  her size. I'm nowhere on par with these women, but I've flat out won my share of open water swimming races, beating all the women and  all the men as well. But I think it's important to note that these examples are the exceptions, rather than the norm. Based on current times, if men and women had to compete with each other in swimming, there would not be a single female on the US Olympic swim team. If they had to compete with each other in basketball, how many women would make it onto college basketball teams? Onto college soccer teams? I'd bet that answer would be zero, or close to it.

2) It could be a little dangerous. In the open water races that I have won, guys at the finish have often fought tooth and nail to avoid "getting chicked." Some are not shy about telling me so afterward. Some women are offended by this attitude, but I choose to be flattered instead. However..."fighting tooth and nail" is just an expression...we're not actually fighting in the water. There might be some body-checking, maybe an accidental kick or elbow, but there is no risk of getting your arm broken. Jiu jitsu, of course, is a different story. And a "win at any costs" attitude carries much different risks on the mats.

I am lucky to have great training relationships with most of my male training partners. What I mean is that we feel comfortable and safe rolling hard with each other. Because, at the end of the day, we are still teammates...we know how far is too far. In practice, we would never intentionally hurt each other in order to "win." First and foremost, we are there to learn and get better.

Yet, tournaments have a different set of rules. Protecting the safety of your opponent takes a backseat to winning the match. This could be dangerous for a woman competing in a men's division, if her opponent's main goal is "not to get chicked." My main goal in jiu jitsu is to still be rolling when I am 90, so this is not a game that I want to play.

So, ladies, PLEASE enter more tournaments! We have so much to learn by competing with each other. And that way, we can leave the boys out of it.