Tag Archives: public transit

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!

One Year as a Blue Belt

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Coming up is the one year mark of my having the rank of blue belt in brazilian jiu jitsu. The year flew by, and feels kind of like the first shot of vodka when a good friend comes to visit and is down for some serious philosophical conversation. It’s a hell of a good beginning… Time to get to work.

My main goals for this year are:

  1. Compete and medal at No-Gi Pan Ams, Gi Pan Ams, and Gi Worlds.
  2. Compete 1-2 times a month in jiu jitsu and once a month in judo.

Someone said to me a couple months back that most people that quit jiu jitsu seem to quit as blue belts. There are a lot of reasons to quit training seriously: work, family, injuries. However, I think the real reason people quit is that they run up against the first major mental barrier where expectations are crushed. Where a passion for the sport is met with the reality that there is no shortcut to the top. Significant improvement (with accompanying competition results) at every level requires a lot of work, a bit of luck, and constant frustration / tension / discomfort. You have to constantly catch errors in your mindset, your technique, your intensity, and fix it, always trying to solve problems, evolve, and come back. And at the same time you have to believe in your training, and stick to it, for thousands of reps, hundreds of mat sessions, and (shudder) hundreds of bus rides.

I don’t know if any of that makes sense, but for example, I decided early on that I would relax as much as I possibly can, and not bring my overblown ego onto the mat. There was no “losing” in practice, and that as long as I do a technique correctly, it’s okay to have it shut down hundreds of times. I stick with it, believe in it, and drill the crap out of it until piece by piece it begins to click.

It’s been tough training hard and often, while at the same time focusing on the #1 priority: my research. I choose to sacrifice things like a social life, girls, etc for the most part.

There’s a couple of people that help me progress, that for some insane reason don’t mind seeing my sorry ass week after week, and I’m lucky as hell for that and am honored to known them.

Attacking the “Too Much Work” Excuse

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dilbert-too-much-work

How do I know a competition is coming up? I start stressing about how much work I have to finish, and the realization floods my mind that I cannot “afford” to “waste” a full day at a jiu jitsu or judo tournament.

I’ve sacrificed a lot to be able to pursue my goals in academia while still training frequently. Specifically, my social life is non-existent. And my “love-life” is the equivalent of getting a McDonalds burger at a truck-stop drive-through.

I’ve learned to utilize public transit to remain productive in transit to and from training. In fact the long train/bus rides to training are some of the most productive periods of my day. I put in ear plugs, and turn off the world, focused on the text I’m reading.

However, this all falls apart for a tournament. I never took public transit to a tournament, but more importantly I was never doing work in the large spans of down time that is often part of the tournament “experience”. Of course, there are big tournaments, when many of my teammates are competing, and it only makes sense for me to focus on my matches and doing the best that I can. However, for smaller more casual tournaments, when it’s just me and one other teammate (or just me), I really have no excuse except nerves and laziness not to get work done while I’m waiting.

In other words, I do have too much work to compete every weekend, if a competition means I spend the whole day doing nothing. But if I can get a good amount of writing and reading done on the way to the tournament, while there, and on the way back, then a competition is hardly different than any other training session.

So, I’m switch my approach to smaller tournaments (and by smaller I mean everything that’s not Pan Ams, Worlds, NY Open, etc). If at all possible, I’m choosing public transit as the mode of transportation (unless several other teammates are going) and I’m pulling out papers and notebook as soon as I get there, working until I have to warm up, and working all the way in transit to and from the venue. For example, tomorrow, I’m going to North Bergen, NJ for the Hudson Judo Promotional Tournament, which requires taking a bus, then train, then bus. The total cost is only $15 each way, but the planning of routes is a major pain-in-the-ass.

All this probably sounds excessive. It’s not, because it is necessary to achieve my goals. In order to actively compete while pursuing a career in academia as a productive researcher, this is what I have to do in order to provide a convincing solution to the “too much work” excuse.

Wash Your Gi

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A not insignificant part of the judo/jiu-jitsu “life-style” is spent in transit to/from training, showering, and doing laundry. It sounds ridiculous, but it’s at least true for me.

Suppose you want to be serious about training judo and jiu jitsu. Suppose even that you want to train every day or twice a day. As a friend of mine, Eric, reminded me yesterday with his blog post, infection is also a big part of training. Or rather preventing and fighting infection.

I get mat/gi burn on my feet and hands quite often. It’s incredibly frustrating and leaves me vulnerable to infections, both minor (ringworm) and major (e.g. staph). I think that’s a problem (a.k.a. pain-in-the-ass) everyone has to deal with. Here are some things I do to help prevent infection:

  • Always train in a clean gi. Even if I didn’t sweat at all while wearing it last time, I still wash it.
  • Spray my gym bag with Lysol. I just recently started doing this based on advice some other blog gave.
  • Invest in good tape, lots of it, and tape all open “wounds” like mat/gi burn, scratches, etc.
  • Shower as soon as possible after practice, with antibacterial soap. Some people recommend Defense Bar Soap, but at $6 a bar, it’s a little steep for me. I hear that a good alternative is Super Soap, that’s more reasonably priced. I’ll have to try it.
  • Drink a shot of cold cheap vodka right after every training session. It’s a well known fact in Russian medical journals that bacteria hate vodka, especially the cheap crap that comes in plastic bottles. I recommend Gordon’s or Smirnoff for the individual with a refined taste.

It’s funny but most academies I’ve attended don’t stress these ideas in class, or maybe I just don’t notice it. The higher ranks learn it through word-of-mouth, but I often find beginner students not wash the gi more often than every several practices as long as it dries in-between.

If you want to see something disgusting, google “staph infection” and click on “Images”. Here’s a link. It should serve as a good reminder to follow the steps above.

Public Transit in Siberia

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Some training sessions push you to the edge of your conditioning and beyond. And I love those, and am always deeply greatful for the excellent jiu jitsu players and judoka that make those happen through their hard work and determined spirit.

But there is one thing that is harder than the hardest training sessions, and that’s waiting for the god damn trolley in freezing windy weather. Twice already I’ve been broken by a 30 minute “waiting session”. I’m mostly joking, of course, but I have on two occasions had to miss a training session because the trolley never came.

Public transit in general is a great way to get to training. I don’t have to worry about parking, driving in traffic, etc. I can just relax with a book, eat an apple, or let my mind focus on the training ahead or behind me. But in winter, it can get a little rough when I rely on buses or trolleys, because they often do not at all follow their schedule (unlike subway trains).

In a weird way, not letting the cold discourage me has become part of the training process. It’s just another moment when my mind says “why the hell are you doing this?” and it’s my job to respond “because i love it”.

Oh, and the above-pictured naked dude in ice cold water with an axe is my hero.