Tag Archives: dan gable

The Role of a Coach in Preparing an Athlete for Competion

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A post by Marco Perazzo about what makes a successful competition team got me thinking about the coach-athlete relationship before and during the “competition season”. It may seem absurd for me (a purple belt) to write about the role of a coach, especially given that majority of jiu jitsu tournaments I competed at I attended alone. But I’ve always worked best under a coach, and have gained an understanding of the kind of relationship that works for me. It’s all complicated by the fact that I’m 29 years old with a more-than-full-time career, and am not as focused on sport as I may’ve been when I was 16 on my high school’s wrestling team. So this blog post is about coaching, but from the perspective of a competitor with zero coaching experience.

I think that a coach has three roles in relation to the athlete: (1) on the mat, (2) in competition, and (3) off the mat. That’s in increasing order of time and mind that it takes from the coach. Loyalty, trust, and respect develop with time, and I believe the athlete has to earn the coach’s time through hard work and dedication. A coach’s time is kind of like a father’s approval. Many of us go through our whole life without getting it, especially the  dudes that cry during the Lion King scene where the father dies.

On the Mat (at the School)

The coach sets the mood of the training, provides technical fixes to techniques, and makes sure to push the people that need to be pushed. Not much special one-on-one attention is required here. In many ways, the coach is the conductor/general, and it’s the training partners that really push the competitors to step up their game.

In Competition

I always loved having a coach on the sidelines. I draw a lot of strength from being able to look up and see someone who has been by my side for a long time, who has seen me win and lose tough battles. A coach can provide step-by-step technical instructions, watch the time, the ref, and the score, or most important in my case: yell at me when I’m tired and need to step up the intensity.

Off the Mat

This one is the most scarce forms of a coach’s attention, but I believe it’s one that can have the biggest effect on a competitor. It’s where you sit down and plan out your goals with a coach. Together you outline the competitions, the training regimen, the drilling sessions, the competition a-game, the b-game, the competition strategy. A lot of times all of these things are already known, but they are put on paper, they become hard reality. They become a guiding principle and motivator and a source of strength through the days when the last thing you want to do is drill, train, and watch competition footage.

Coaching an Amateur

1983-dan-gable-with-tim-rileyThe problem, of course, is that most competitors in jiu jitsu, even those obsessed with the sport, are not willing to do whatever it takes. They have work. They have family. They have other aspiration and responsibilities. The following story about Dan Gable as coach is only possible with someone who has a singular unbroken focus on a goal of winning. Coaching someone like that is much easier than coaching a part-time competitor. This is an excerpt from a 1984 Sports Illustrated story:

“You’ll get pinned.” The words snarl and snap as they come from Gable’s mouth. How could anybody allow himself to get pinned? Suddenly, he’s focusing on the efforts of 126-pound Iowa senior Tim Riley, who’s clearly at the brink of mental and physical exhaustion. “Riley,” barks Gable, “you have to move your feet more in order to create openings.” With that, Riley quits and walks off the mat.

“Sorry you couldn’t make the end of practice,” Gable calls after him.

“I could have made it,” says Riley, “I just didn’t want to.”

“Naw,” says Gable. “You just weren’t tough enough to make it.” Gable shakes his head sadly, as if unable to grasp how an athlete—especially one of the best collegiate wrestlers in the country—couldn’t finish practice. The next day, of course, Riley is back with an apology and excuse, and of course Gable takes him back. And Riley redoubles his efforts. But Gable muses softly, “In wrestling, you don’t break down, you don’t quit. See, that’s the problem in life. It’s too easy to turn on the TV and pull up the covers.” Gable has never pulled up the covers. He’d have to be tutored to learn how to quit.

Training Hard When Life Tries to Get in the Way

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I’ve been busy with work, sleeping very little. It’s a state of life I’m learning more and more about. The mental wear and tear of jiu jitsu gets amplified significantly when the stress of deadlines at work gets added to the mix.

For many people, jiu jitsu is a break from the outside world. There is something about grappling at near 100% that takes you away from the concerns and stresses of work, family, and life in general. On most days, jiu jitsu is that for me as well. But it’s not too rare when showing up to train hard requires a significant amount of willpower.

I think I read an interview with Carlson Gracie, Jr where he said that you should only compete when you are absolutely excited to be there. I think the same applies to training as well, except that if you are training for competition you shouldn’t just be excited to “be there”. You should be excited to try and work so hard that you hit your limit and are forced to overcome it or deal with the disappointment of having failed to do so.

It’s the Dan Gable ideal that he often talked about. Gable’s goal in practice was to work so hard that he would not be able to get off the mat on his own strength, but would need to be carried off. He never succeeded at that, but he always worked harder and harder to try to reach that point. The reality is your body can take nearly infinite punishment. It’s your mind that’s almost always the limiting factor.

I know this, but still it’s hard to remember it when after an hour of training, I feel my jiu jitsu game breaking down, frustration rising, physical and mental exhaustion seemingly setting in. And then the fact that I’m several days behind a deadline for work starts creeping in, and then life’s nagging questions start crowding my already weary brain.

I think about this a lot when I’m planning out my day, and I think anyone who is juggling priorities has to think about this and be brutal in saying “no” to things that take up time and do little to help you progress towards your goals (“enjoying life” being one of those goals).

Anyway, the two practical goals I would like to work on in training this week and beyond are:

  • Be quiet, train hard, and don’t be afraid to be friendly in conversation and drilling, and  yet intense on the mat (with good clean technique, and making sure to do everything possible to avoid injuring my training partner). I find myself at times unwilling to turn up the intensity especially against people who are much better than me. I owe it to them and to myself to try my hardest (again, with clean technique) to sweep them, to pass their guard, and to challenge them in whatever way I can.
  • If someone accidentally knees, elbows, or hits me in hard training, I will not complain, will not show it on my face, and will not take a break. But most importantly I won’t get frustrated. Frustration leads to bad technique, use off too much energy, and opens the door for ego to enter the session.

Training for Domination: The Frank Molinaro Approach

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I look to college wrestling for inspirational stories of athletes working harder than many believe is humanly possible. They train two or three times a day, at incredible intensity, while maintain a ridiculously low weight. Iowa wrestling represents that lifestyle completely, from Gable to Zalesky to Brands. But there are also wrestlers that pop in other programs that are shining icons of that hard working philosophy. A good example of that is Frank Molinaro of Penn State. Here’s him doing a nice circuit that’s designed to take his legs to exhaustion:

It’s clear that he has done this type of session many times before, and can effectively hit the wall and go past it pretty quickly. Workouts like that are just as much mental as they are physical.

As I see it, he is an example of a guy who is aware of his weaknesses, hates them, and works his ass off to eliminate them. I like that type of honesty in self-analysis in an athlete. This interview right after he won the NCAA title this year (after falling short the year before) is a great example of the honesty and toughness that he embodies:

He stepped up the training for his last college wrestling season and went from being good to being great, dominating most of his opponents, and going undefeated. He is definitely an inspiration.

And here is the finals match from the year before that Frank lost and arguably created the “Gorilla Hulk” of the 2011-12 season:

It’s painful to watch. Dake really stepped up for this match, and made a statement.

The Value of Boring Old School Roadwork

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Circuit training is popular these days in preparing for judo, bjj, mma, etc. You basically pick 3-5 exercises and repeat them in a circuit at high intensity, taking timed short breaks in between. The goal (in terms of time and intensity) is to simulate a competition match. I’m a big proponent of this kind of strength and conditioning, because it’s fun. A lot of programs are effective, but not all are effective and fun. The variety of circuit training makes it fun.

Same goes for simple interval training on the track. It’s quick. It gets the job done. And in a sick kind of way it’s “fun” as well.

Okay, now to the topic of this post…

The term “roadwork” is something I’ve heard boxers (and no one else) use to refer to the old school jogging of 3 to 5 miles done early in the morning by many great and not-so-great boxers of the past. It’s boring as hell, but that’s why it’s good. I feel like in all the craziness of kettlebells, ropes, hammers, tires, etc, people might forget to train patience as well, in the quiet of the road where you are left alone with your thoughts.

From my conversations with people, the reason roadwork has been and still is popular is because so many people did it in the past and in the movies. That might seem like a ridiculous reason to continue doing it, but not to me. To me, I just think of guys like Rocky Marciano that religiously did 7+ miles per day, and dominated many 15 round fights.  Not to mention the wrestling greats such as Dan Gable.

There is something to be said about building not just the kind of toughness that gets you through an intense workout, but the kind of toughness that gets you through a long boring workout day after day after day. This prepares you mentally not just for the years of brutal training, but for the long tournament days where you may wait hours between matches.

Pure Technique vs Pure Guts

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Most of my formative years (high school, college) have been in the United States. It’s in the U.S. that I was introduced to wrestling. For better or for worse, wrestling coaches (at least in my experience) are warrior philosophers. There is a definite aura of introspection, wisdom, and insight about them. Every sentence they put together, no matter how cliche and it’s usually cliche as hell, somehow always rings true in a way that nothing else does (at least for me).

And what school of philosophy do wrestling coaches hail from? It’s the school of Animal Farm’s horse Boxer, whose motto in all matters of life was “I will work harder”. It’s the Gable ideal. Americans romanticize the athlete who often takes himself to the limit and pushes beyond it. One way to view that is “toughness”. I think another way to view it is passion. And in my mind a passion for a goal doesn’t have to channel itself into toughness. It can be channeled into an obsession with perfect technique, an obsession with drilling the crap out of a set of moves until all you are is that set of moves. That system is your identity. It’s what you eat, sleep, think about.

I understand this kind of existence, and hold it as an ideal, not for sports, but for my academic life. But it very much influences the way I approach grappling. It’s important to be real tough, but you don’t have to be the toughest dude out there. It all depends on your personality, and where you’re best at channeling your passion for a goal.

So, it boils down once again to a question for the wrestling coaches: are you a Cael Sanderson or are you a Dan Gable?

When In Doubt, Watch Dan Gable Videos

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I was always attracted to the idea of the kind of life where you give every ounce of your being to one thing. You embrace an obsession so fully that it defines everything in your life: every decision, every activity, every minute really. I never saw the “unhealthy” element of it. I always thought that “unhealthy” was something people would say about a life that they themselves don’t have the guts to lead. Crash and burn is just as healthy as anything else. I think “healthy” is an idea that it’s good to go through life peacefully, without trouble. But I think that assumption ignores the absurdity of our short little stay on this planet. So yes, to me, there is no such thing as “healthy”. It’s just a damn excuse.

That said, I’m willing to admit that I don’t have the guts to live a life like that, but I admire it, and strive to do it as much as I can (to a socially-acceptable degree). For me, mostly, my passion is my research. Sport (judo and jiu jitsu) is a “relief” from that daily grind, but I’m passionate about them as well. In fact, I call it a relief to justify doing them at all ;-) It’s the “healthy” thing to do. There is that stupid word again.

Anyway, when I’m feeling warn out by it all, by the lack of sleep, by the excessive amounts of coffee, by looking at pages and pages of math or code, I like to remind myself of Dan Gable. He is one of the rare individuals that lived exactly the kind of life I mentioned at the beginning of this post. Life is a god damn mess. Why the hell not give everything you got. I love that idea.

Alright, enough of that, here’s the man himself:

Russian Wrestling vs American Wrestling

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I “believe” in technical wrestling. Similar to the spirit of jiu jitsu, I believe that technique can beat power and aggression. That’s a tough thing to believe because it involves being crushed a lot as part of the learning process.

That’s why I’m a fan of Mike Denny-run wrestling practice. He’s a Gable guy, with that Iowa wrestling mindset, and at the same time he emphasizes crisp slow drilling of technique. To take a quote a bit out of context, Tuesday he said “Russians are the best wrestlers” for the reason that they drill and drill and drill with clean technique.

I’m not sure how real it is, but there certainly seems to be a divide between the American way and the Russian way of wrestling. The former is a style of hard aggressive wrestling that wears down the opponent while the latter puts much more emphasis on timing and technique.

I like to watch the American way, but I like to grapple the Russian way. In practice, I try to relax and work on the right timing of applying technique with minimal strength. It’s very frustrating at times, because as long as my technique sucks, I get punished for it. But I try to remind myself that there’s no losing or winning on the mat during practice, and sometimes I even believe it ;-)

The Psychological Challenges of Injury

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Japanese judoka throwing his opponent on his headThis post is inspired by Lori who re-hurt an injury from Friday, and was standing at the edge of the mat at judo practice today with the look like she was about to start crying from frustration.

I’ve been there, many times, and wanted to put down in writing some comments on the mental side of an injury. To me an injury is a solitary experience. You’re really never welcome on the mat with an injury. It sounds harsh, but for the most part people feel that either:

  1. You should take time off to heal and recover
  2. Your “injury” is not serious enough to adjust training or, worse, to sit out

I’m a big believer that the vast majority of injuries are the kind of minor tweaks that prevent you from doing some parts of training but allow you to do other parts. If you can move, you can train something, and more importantly, train in such a way that minimizes the chance of hindering progress toward full recovery.

I also think that overuse injuries are not a reason to take a day off, but a reason to restructure your training routine in such a way that the affected area is not put under much or any stress. Especially when you’re starting out (first 1-2 years of judo or jiu jitsu), this is an essential part of learning how to use your body efficiently to execute clean effective technique, avoid useless over-exertion, and understand the kinematics of the positions that lead to injury.

Of course, it’s a constant challenge for a coach to understand whether he needs to tell an athlete to stop bitching or if he needs to accommodate the training modifications required to go around an injury. In my experience, coaches lean too much to one side or the other: either baby me too much or turn Dan Gable on me. Walking that line effectively both for a coach and an athlete is tough.

Just a little personal comment… I don’t complain about my shoulders almost at all anymore. But they’re often over-stressed and hurt. I just learned to deal with them. I ice them after every session. I do a bunch of rotator cuff resistance band exercises every morning. And when the pain becomes acute, I’ll only work techniques that don’t heavily utilize my shoulders in training. I don’t tell anyone about it most days. I’ve figure it out.

On the other hand, a new “injury” happened to me this week: a tooth infection. I bitched about it to everyone. However, I know next time, I won’t nearly as much, since I learned how to deal with it, avoid it, quiet it, and in general just weather the storm. No one really wants to hear about my injuries or anyone else’s. When it comes to injuries it’s a “don’t ask, don’t tell” world.

And now for a related poll… 

 

A Shot Won’t Save You From Being Taken Down

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This is the part of the blog post where I cry about little things that no self-respecting man should cry about. What I was dealing with last night:

  • Cauliflower ear
  • Trying to train in headgear so that the new cauliflower ear would heal up eventually.
  • One of my contacts fell out half way through training. Couldn’t find it.
  • Because of allergies my eyes were itching and nose was stuffed.
  • Only 4 hours of sleep the night before.

Okay now I will put my teddy bear and pink kleenex box down.

The no-gi training at night at BJJ United was solid as always. Hard warm up, and fast-paced technical drills for the first half hour.

One of the things Wilson Reis had us drill was the re-shot double. When the opponent shoots in for a double, you stop them with hooks and explosively lift them up a level to create the space for a re-shot of a double of your own. I really like this idea of shooting in on the opponent even if he shoots first. Usually, I sprawl and look to come around to the back, but if his shot is not low enough (or committed enough), then this is a great option.

Here’s a video of Dan Gable teaching a similar re-shot technique. Instead of lifting your opponent, in this case, he waits for the opponent to come back up on his own:

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p-BAya2rOuU

As always, thanks to BJJ United, they’re good people (Jared, Wilson, Sharon, etc). Email bjjunited@comcast.net or friend on Facebook.