Tag Archives: cutting weight

2013 IBJJF New York Open Video and Experience

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I competed at NY Open this past weekend. I got 1st place after 3 tough matches. First here are some video highlights (with the usual monotone commentary) and then some random notes on the whole experience.

Megabus awkwardness

I took Megabus up to NYC, and slept obnoxiously the whole way up, sitting next to a huge dude who kept saying sorry for touching me with his elbow. It made me realize that when two dudes have to be touching on a bus, it’s best not to acknowledge this. Also, “sorry” like “fuck” are words that are good to use in moderation. The more you use them, the more they lose their power to convey a genuine message that they originally carried.

Subway musicians

I love the New York subway. It’s a giant grab bag of characters. I took the 1 train uptown to City College of NY and it was stuffed to the gills. And remarkably, a couple of stops into my trip, a group of four musicians got on (with drums, guitar, etc) and started playing a bluesy soulful song. They got a ton of dirty looks for taking up valuable space, but I enjoyed the hell out of the show. Given how crowded it was, it felt like we were all on a sinking Titanic listening to the last band we’ll ever hear. It occurred to me that there are not many cities in the world where I could’ve experienced this. I would’ve given them money but I only had 20 dollar bills. And the show was not quite THAT good.

David Jacobs knows who I am

David Jacobs (see interview) is a well-known and respected long-time black belt competitor. I’ve encountered him only online as basically a voice of reason on the jiu jitsu forums. It so happened that he was the ref for all of my matches. The funny thing is I felt a bit of pressure because of that. I wanted to make sure I don’t stall and that I use clean technical jiu jitsu. If I ever get a stalling call, I’m always disappointed with myself, but especially if the call comes from a competitor I look up to. Anyway, after my matches, he briefly stopped me and said “I just realized that you’re Lex”. More than anything else, that seemed like an acknowledgement that I am slowly becoming one of the “regulars” on the competition scene.

Moving up a weight division

After a full breakfast, two snacks, and nonstop nervous drinking of water at the tournament, I weighed in at a remarkably low 182 lbs with my gi (just a half lbs over my usual weight class of middleweight). But I decided earlier in the week that I will move up a weight class to work on making sure that I will never let myself use “I’m not at my goal competition weight” as an excuse for not competing. My first opponent weighed in at 194. I was proud of myself for taking a step in the direction that I felt was right based on the circumstances. As many people do, I let conventional wisdom influence my thinking too much. Part of competing, is gaining the confidence to explore and figure out what works for you. Luckily I did well, but the biggest challenge is when I fail not to blame it on any one aspect or decision but to continue exploring.

Coaching and competition training

I am lucky enough to train with a lot of top-notch jiu jitsu folks. In the last few months Tim Carpenter, Josh Vogel, and Drew Vogel have been running competition training sessions that helped get everyone mentally prepared for competition. I think these sessions have also helped bring the team together. I’ve competed at many tournaments where none of my friends or teammates were there, but the NY Open was the opposite of that this time. A lot of people I train with were there to cheer each other on. It was great to see Tim watch over my matches. A few times he would gesture what I need to do technique-wise, but mostly he was a reassuring presence which is a huge advantage mentally. Dan Haney and Stefanos were screaming their heads off, all great very technical detailed instructions. Jeremy, Myles, Lollie, Charlie, Barry, Mike, Henry, Alex, and many other buddies of mine were there as well. My judo coach Ray Huxen (and Eric too) were there. Ray is the best human being ever, period.

Enjoying good conversation with good friends

This tournament, like many, allowed me to see some of my favorite people. I’m often too mentally preoccupied (aka nervous about competing) to enjoy myself, but that’s getting better. Ultimately, I want to be the guy who needs zero time to mentally prepare for a match. I want to be able to joke around one second and the next be ready to step on the mat for “battle”. Those are two different worlds, but I don’t see why switching from one to the other should require more than a couple of seconds.

Next up

I have an insane month of work with deadline on top of deadline so I’m not committing myself to anything but just enjoying regular hard training, drilling, etc. However, I am distinctly aware of the fact that I enjoy competing more when I compete more. So I hope to get in a couple of tournaments in May (both judo and bjj). I am keeping my eye on Worlds but am likely not going as it is sandwiched between two trips (Chicago and San Fran) for me. But as with a lot of big tournaments, I may just get the stupid urge to sign up one of these nights, and do it on a whim.

Days Leading Up to a Big Tournament: Training, Weight, Work

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ibjjf-new-york-open-2013-banner

I’ll be competing in the IBJJF New York Open next weekend. If I win every match, I’ll have around 7-8 matches. I’m of course only thinking about the first match, but it’s still good to go in knowing that I very well could have a long day and to be mentally prepared for it. Here are some thoughts off the top of my head at this moment on the week leading up to the tournament…

Moving Up a Weight Class

I have a tough week at work and my experience taught me is that lots of work means I’ll be sleeping less, and that staying on diet will be harder to the point where I very easily could burn out and not enjoy the competing experience. I’m currently 2.5 lbs under without the gi which means I’m probably over by 1-2 lbs with the gi. So I’m deciding to move up a weight class. I am confident I can do well against any size opponent. Most of the stress that comes with competing for me is derived from having to cut weight.

It’s tough to fight up a weight class in a culture that sees weight cutting as an absolute necessity. I’m sure many of the people that train with me will read the fact that I’m “1-2 lbs over” as an obvious case where I should cut those two lbs without question. But I really believe that I need to develop the ability to enjoy tournaments more, and that means doing nothing different than I do in training. I don’t cut weight for training. There are many days after training when I’m exhausted but happy. That’s how I want to feel at the end of next Saturday.

It boils down to this: I want to continue competing into my 40′s, 50′s, 60′s, and in order to do that I want to build a mindset that allows for that while having a more-than-full-time-career, family, etc. It might be different for different people, but from my experience of myself and people around me, a failed plan to “get in shape” is the main reason people stop competing. I want to compete when I’m skinny, I want to compete when I’m fat. It doesn’t matter. That mindset requires practice. I’m starting this weekend.

Bas Rutten: Competing for Yourself Only

I heard Bas Rutten (of all people) give two excellent pieces of advice on the Joe Rogan podcast recently. First, he said “if you fight, you can’t lose”. He explained that to mean that if he gets in there and gives everything he’s got, then he will be proud of himself at the end of the day. The only way to lose is to give less than you can, to give up, to quit. So I’m thinking less about winning and more about putting everything I have behind the techniques I’ve drilled over and over.

Second piece of advice the wise old Bas Rutten gave especially struck a note with me. I don’t remember the exact phrasing but basically he said that the only nerves and stress he felt about fighting is because of others: expectations, judging, etc. He said something like if he was locked in a room with a dude looking to fight and no one would see it and no one would hear the results, there would be no stress and no fear. It’s just another chance to test your technique, your conditioning, and your heart. That’s what I love about competing. The trick is to put myself into that state of mind. That, too, requires practice.

Competition Training

We’ve recently done a bunch of high-paced competition training sessions. That helped me develop a more aggressive pursuit of improving position in terms of wrestling, guard passing, sweeping, etc, but mostly it helped me deal with the feeling of being too tired to keep going. Last two big training sessions I came in mentally tired which was great because I got a chance to hit “the wall” early on and pushed through that.

My Experience at the IBJJF Chicago Open

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I traveled to Chicago this weekend to visit friends and to compete in the Chicago Open. It’s put together twice a year by the IBJJF in Chicago. I don’t like to compete that far away from home, but I’m using the tournament as a way to ensure I see my friends at least twice a year. Speaking of whom, to the left is a picture of Matt, Allen, and me half way through the long day.

I was able to get silver in my weight and bronze in absolute (see results page). It’s not the result I came there for, but the experience was great. I got a lot of matches and learned a lot. That’s why this blog post will probably be way too long, and filled with random thoughts. I’ll try to write about the small and big lessons I learned, at least the ones that are easy to put into words.

The best part was being reminded how much I love the people in the  jiu jitsu community. The kind of folks that compete at these tournaments are a rare breed. They come from all sorts of different backgrounds, but all have grounded character, a weird sense of humor, and an exceptional drive to succeed in all aspects of life.

Overall, I enjoyed the matches I won (a bunch, all by submission), but my mind has been going over and over the two matches I lost. Both of them I lost 2-0. Both were against good aggressive guard pullers that play the de la riva, berimbolo, fifty fifty games.

So first, here is the video blog I put together about the experience, and after that, is a bunch of random lessons learned:

I apologize for the monotone and at time ridiculous commentary. I try to let the coffee do the talking but that usually only lasts about 20 seconds. Alright so here are some “lessons”…

Gi Size: Avoid Surprises

Against my better instincts, and general common sense, I competing in a new gi that I’ve only trained in a couple of times. It was a Gameness Air gi, which I bought because of how light it is (like 0.5 lbs makes a difference…). It’s a great gi, generally speaking, but in my experience, what makes a “great” gi is mostly how well it fits on my specific body. I have 5 Fuji A3 gi’s and all fit differently. Anyway this gi was too big on me, especially in terms of the length of the sleeves. I got swept in my first match with the sleeve pulled all the way over my hand which was a new and disorienting feeling. There are technical details here that I’ll have to work on that have to do with left-sided base and scrambling in an entangled gi, but the main lesson to keep in mind is: compete in a gi that has already seen many battles in training (and preferably competition).

Renting a Car is a Good Idea

I always try to minimize the amount of money I spend on a tournament. In the spirit of that, I do things like bring my own food, don’t stay overnight at a hotel, carpool as much as possible, and if needed take public transportation. I usually embrace the chaotic labyrinth of transfers that is the subway and bus systems of the world. But this somehow becomes exponentially more difficult in many cases when used to get to and from a tournament. There are already a million things on my mind the hours before a tournament. The need to keep track of bus numbers and train stops adds too much to think about. Maybe I’m just over-stressing it, and once I get more used to competing at certain venues, public transit will be okay, but at least this time, renting a car helped me out.

This is especially true given that my division was on at 9am, and so I had to leave Matt’s house at around 7:30am. If I was taking a train I would probably need to be standing at a bus stop somewhere at 7am on Saturday morning, wondering why the hell I do such crazy things.

Cutting Weight is a Great Warm Up

When I arrived at the venue (at 8am) and checked my weight, I was 2 lbs over. I was ready for this and partially was hoping I was a little over, because I was also 2 lbs over at Worlds, and the experience was positive then. This may seem ridiculous, but being over by 1 to 2 lbs forces me to have a hell of a good warm up, the result of which I drop the 2 lbs. I calmly changed and waiting until 8:30am. I jogged for 10 minutes and then did about 100 burpees. From experience, I knew that the sweat I built up was more than 2 lbs by a little. I also knew that the test scale was a little heavy. When they called my name 5 minutes later, I was warmed up, awake, alert, ready to go, and 3 lbs lighter than 30 minutes before.

The lesson here is not to come in overweight, but rather that a good hard warm up is important, and very often skipped in competition. People for some reason are worried about tiring themselves out. That’s just an excuse we feed ourselves, and I know I do this a lot. So my goal for the next tournament is come in under weight, but still to go through a good 2-3 lbs warm up.

To be continued…

I jotted down a few more “lessons” in a notebook. This post is already ridiculously long, so I’ll save it for another post.

Overall the experience was great. I saw a lot of of the same faces, old friends, new friends, random facebook friends, and shady hipsters at the many Starbucks I visited to get some programming done.

By the way, I’m trying to maintain a good diet to get rid of some of that summer fat. This was my breakfast the day after the tournament. Roast beef and carrots!

Gyms with Saunas in Philadelphia

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There are a bunch of methods for cutting water weight for night-before weigh-ins. It seems the golden standard is sweating it out at a sauna. I hate this method, I prefer running (or any kind of exercise) in a sweatsuit instead, even if it kills my legs. I won’t get into why here, but suffice it to say that I like being in discomfort while doing something as opposed to not moving and not doing anything.

That said, the big weight cuts (which I try to avoid for dear life) seem to require at least some sauna. So, I decided to compile a list of gyms in the greater Philadelphia area that I know have saunas.  The list is small now, but I’m hoping to get some more suggestions from people. Please leave a comment if you know of another gym in or around Philadelphia that has a sauna.

I also created a custom Google map of gyms with saunas in Philadelphia. Check it out.

Fitness Works
714 Reed Street, Philadelphia, PA 19147
215-334-8190

City Fitness
200 Spring Garden Street, Philadelphia PA 19123
215-923-4114

LA Fitness
2425 South 24th Street, Philadelphia, PA
215-468-6741

Weston Fitness
1835 Market Street, 2nd Floor, Philadelphia, PA 19103
215-963-2700

Pondering a Weight Cut

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I’ve met very few top grappling athletes and coaches that don’t see cutting weight as an integral part of the sport. I think it’s an unfortunate but necessary fact of life for the pros. However, a major downside of that is that this mindset trickles down to the amateurs (such as myself and others I compete against), the weekend warriors, the lower ranks. I’ve often met guys going into their first tournament that focus exclusively on the weight cut without putting much emphasis on drilling solid technique, learning, and just enjoying (win or lose) their first tournament experience.

I am an academic by day, night, and weekend. All I do is read, write, think, and program. I’m often sleep deprived. On top of all that, I have a fat kid in my brain that loves food. I think my friends know me as someone who is very strict about his diet, but there is a reason for that. It’s because I lack the ability to stop eating bad food. The only way, I can live happily is by eating healthy and strictly controlling the portions I eat. But all that falls apart on days and weeks when I have tons of work and am not able to sleep as much as I want.

If I don’t have any deadlines coming up at work, and I get full 8 hours of sleep, dieting is easy. But without that, it becomes extremely difficult. So I decided some time ago that I won’t let weight get in the way of my enjoying competition. Whatever weight I am, I decided to enjoy the experience without cutting weight. It’s very difficult for me to beat out the wrestler mindset that wants to come in 10-15 lbs lighter than my fat weight, but I’m working on it, and trying not to letting the obsessive weight cutting of others affect me.

That said, there is a tournament coming up in a month where going to the 163 lbs division (from my current weight of 180 lbs) is good because in that division (light blue belt absolute) I have a chance to win a fully-paid trip to compete in Abu Dhabi. There are two divisions: 163 lbs and below, and 163 lbs and above. I have confidence that I can do well against 200+ lbs guys in terms of strength, but it’s the length (long and lanky) that I struggle with, and at 180-220 lbs guys can get really damn tall.

So the question is, do I want to cut 17 lbs in one month. The weigh-ins are the night before, so a lot of that can be water weight 24 hours before. That’s very important, obviously, since I wouldn’t make such a huge cut otherwise. But some of that (~7 lbs) will have to be real weight, which means dieting, which means more cardio (like running) than usual, which means suffering through the days when I have a ton of work, little sleep, and no chance to eat away the exhaustion.

I don’t know. I have to stay up tonight again, working. My knee is still hurt, and I don’t quite have that mental energy required to go to bed on an empty stomach, but I’ll give it a try. I’m going to compete either way, whatever the division, and am going to enjoy the hell out of it.

I’ll leave the post witha cool video of Krzysztof Soszynski making a big cut for a UFC fight.

Now, back to work.

I Just Tell Them I Wrestle

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I was asked by an athlete-type girl at seven eleven about why it is I had 4 apples in one hand and a one gallon jug of water in the other. The question caught me off guard so I defensively said that “I’m cutting weight”. She asked the natural follow-up: “For what?” At this point I came to a crossroads that I surprisingly haven’t come to often in my life. The problem was in explaining judo or brazilian jiu jitsu to a stranger with whom I’ll only likely have 30 seconds worth of conversation. I answer that question truthfully to friends and family with whom I can have at least a couple minutes to explain further if needed. But in this case, I thought about it and just said: “for wrestling”.

Her eyes lit up, and she said “oh cool, my brother wrestles”. And then, the seven eleven manager said: “Wrestling? My son is a wrestler”. Something tells me if I said judo or brazilian jiu jitsu, I would either get a blank stare or would have to hear about how they used to do karate when they were 8 years old.

Thanks to the UFC, mixed martial arts has exploded in the United States. So perhaps in the near future saying that I’m cutting weight for a BJJ competition will not need further explanation, but for now wrestling is the closest thing to BJJ and Judo that most Americans understand. So in the interest of small talk, I just tell them I wrestle.

Lying About Your Weight

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Dieting and cutting weight is a major part of all the sports in which I actively compete. There are weight classes, and it’s generally the case that fighting up a weight class is more challenging than fighting in your own. That’s why many people in judo, jiu jitsu, wrestling, mma, cut down. I would say that wrestling and mma take it to another level, cutting 20-30 lbs for important matches. Judo and jiu jitsu guys usually cut a lot less, as weight is slightly less critical in these two sports. I’m sure I’ll write many posts on this subject, as it’s probably one of the more challenging aspects of competition versus training.

What I’m writing about today is the observation that many people lie about their weight, saying they weigh less than they actually do. I’m not talking about soccer moms carrying a couple extra holiday pounds. I’m talking about wrestlers, fighters, judoka that are in good shape, great shape even. For example, I’ve been telling everyone who asks and myself in the last couple weeks that I’m 175 lbs. While I did hit 175 two weeks ago, I’m closer to 180 now from after the holidays. It may seem like it doesn’t matter, but I believe it really does. It matters not for some higher abstract reason but for the practical purpose of making weight. I’ve been thinking about it and I believe it’s important to be honest with yourself and by extension with others about exactly how much you weigh if you’re planning on competing soon.

For upcoming competitions, I have to weigh:

  • 178 in one week
  • 178 in two weeks
  • 175 in 4 weeks

My telling people that I weigh 175 (an exaggeration of 2-4 lbs) has made me relaxed and is more likely to lead to a stressful week of dieting before the competition. For me, hands down the biggest reason for not enjoying a tournament last year was if I had to cut weight (even a little) the day before or the same day.

And if you can’t make the weight you’d like without stressful last minute cutting, I believe the right thing to do is to work on accepting it early (as in 2-3 days before), and fighting up a weight class.