Jiu Jitsu Journey

Foundation must be strong, that´s why I always return to the basics. 

Not because fear of learning new techniques (although most of them includes new movements which often get me confused), but to conquer that simple first choke that I learnt.

The first one that I learnt was the Triangle.

It was the first time that I noticed the magnitude of what I was doing. I was practising a sport that can actually kill a man. Or a girl, but let´s be honest here, who would kill a cute jiujitsu gal? Not me! 

There are lots of Triangle types, but if you get the first one right, the variations are only mere differences on how to approach you opponent.

In order for it to work, you have to isolate one arm and contrict it with your legs along with your opponent´s head. Seems easy enough? Well, let´s see…

Suppose you have isolated (from the guard position) one of your opponent´s arm, like the figure [a]. In this case, you first have to get your right leg to your opponent´s neck. To do that, you have to impulse yourself with your left leg, sliding to the side and getting your right calf right deep into his neck [b].

Once you got that right, you began to feel him secured. But something is missing, and if you don´t close your left leg over your right one [c], he can easily escape.

Once you have him secured with your legs, your calf deep into the back of his neck and your left leg huging your ankle (make sure that it´s your ankle and not your foot, you can get hurt), you need to apply the pressure.

Some say that you can use your arms too (like figure [d]), grabbing your opponent´s head with both hands and pulling it into your belly button. Some say it´s legal to do it if you are blue belt, but not white, but this rules are constantly changing. So I decided to practise it without this feature, using my arms just to position myself and helping avoid possible escapes.

In this final stage, however, it is still possible for your opponent to avoid the choke regaining the sitting position, so stay focused on closing really good your legs and always grabbing the opponent´s arm to help him lose stability.

Now, all you have to do is close your knees towards each other. Try to imagine yourself hardening your abs, getting your head to your knees, closing your inner space like reaching the fetal position. That´s the movement.

I´ve learnt that the triangle works for me only when my opponent is not heavier or larger than me. If it´s heavier, generally I get crushed by the weight when s/he realizes I´m going for a triangle (so I can´t breathe and let go… or go blue), or maybe his neck it´s too thick for my legs to properly close the choking. And because I´m fairly small, I often fail to reach the neck of taller people.

With time, all of us get to realize the pros and cons of every technique from a personal point of view. Well, that´s the idea!!

Some Tips:

• Do not let any space between you and your opponent, it helps him to escape.
• If you are directly in front, it´s not gonna work. You have to really slide your pelvis to one side and finish almost crossed.
• When positioning your calf in your opponent´s neck, make a sudden movement, like cutting it up. It helps getting it deeper.
• When you lock your position, the leg in the neck´s foot should stay with your toes looking to the sky. If not, the other leg can slip easily.
• Don´t ever lose control over his arm, even if you fail closing the triangle, it could lead to an armbar or another arm based technique.
• Don´t kill your partner, please. Be aware of the tapping and any choking signs, like his head going red… or the ambulance siren. Please.

For more info:

http://www.mmatraining.com/articles/how-to-do-a-triangle-choke/ (video)

http://www.martialartsresource.com/DA/bjj.html (lots of diagrams!!)

The past 2 years were really hard for me. 

I almost lose my life at it was, almost end up back at my parents house, with a dog and an xbox (all my belongings btw, how sad). I was really bad at work. All that I wanted to do was run away. To another country, to somewhere new where I could begin a new life, with a new job. 

So, in the middle of this identity crisis, I channel that energy to do something for me, apart from changing my life upside down. Of course I spent a lot of time whinning, crying and thinking about my future too, but I needed to become stronger, better, to understand myself and get to like me in the process.

My Body

I started a plan to loose weight.

It was not a “I need to loose 10 pounds before january, I have a wedding” thing. It was a life changing decision. All my life I hatted myself. My body, my way of thinking, so limited, always wondering if I could, someday, be better, slimer, great at something. 

Sick of it, I had to do something to finally be whoever I wanted.

Of course I consulted a nutritionist, and to the day I still control myself once a month to stay fit. I am not saying that diets doesn´t work, don´t get me wrong. I wasnt looking for a kick fix, I was looking to learn how to feed myself correctly for the rest of my life.

So, in the mean time, I lost 44 pounds (20 kilos) and learnt that almost everything I ate was wrong. Today, I still strugle with the urge to eat a whole pizza full of fattening toppings, and I think that I will never get pass that barrier. But its ok. And I´m winning over that voice in my head that tells me to staying at home laying in the couch, getting to the gym every single week day. 

My Mind

And I had to be good at something. I had to choose a healthy hobby, an area in sports that would become, with time, my way of life. So I choose JiuJitsu.

In the middle of a crisis, it could surprise you how much a sport can benefit your mind. 

Even those days when bosses yell at you and your colleagues are dummer than ever leaving you to do all the work, accumulating anger. When you feel like crying because everything went wrong and you don´t know where your future is going. Those days when all you want to do is stay in your bed, with your pillow over your head doing nothing at all.

SPECIALLY those days.

Get up and go to the gym.

You are not going to a stinky gym (well, probably you are, they are smelly all right), you are going to a place where everything else than learning, looses importance. 

You are no longer that frustrated employee that wants to explode. You cross that door, enter that tatame, and you become a student just like the others. With no problems other that learning new techniques and passing a guard.

Your head will thank that space of peace, believe me.

I call it my ME time. 

Commited to a fantastic sport, and learning lots a week, I´m feeling a great progress in my life. And finally, I stop freaking out everytime the t-shirt roll over my belly and reveals it. I feel good about my body and flexible than ever. 

Crisis always have a positive side, you just need to find it. And if not, well, make it happen!!!

We live in a dangerous place. News all around the world tell us horrible things that happen just around the corner, and each day it´s worse. You can´t really tell if people are getting more violent or the media more fatalist, and all of a sudden walking down the street at night gives you the chills.

As a woman, you lack strength and most of the time, confidence. And confidence is key.

When somebody lurks the streets in search for a prey to assault, or maybe just mug a few dollars, they look for certain characteristics. A shy, timid girl with no muscles at all, who walks down the street looking at the floor instead of her surroundings, is perfect. 

Shyness means that there is a high possibility that she doesn´t even go to the police after the assault. Most women live in fear of what people may think of them. After this kind of situation, you are required to stay calm and go to the police right away. If you are scared and frightened, you may not be ready to confront a room full of people questioning and staring at you. 

Muscles means that she goes to the gym. Even if she doesn´t know how to fight, maybe she is a skilled runner and that´s an important obstacle for a burglar.

Of course we can take another precautions like pepper sprays and tasers, but if you are like me (so clumsy that you fear to spray yourself more than meeting a burglar), you should think in the alternative of learning how to defend yourself at least till you get the chance to run the hell out of trouble.

Me and my friend Gaby, practising very focused (omg the girl in the back xD)

Lucky for us, there are several basic techniques that can help in this situations, and we got a lot of skilled martial art professors willing to teach us. One of them here in Argentina, is Marcos Ríos. 

Great jiu jitsu sensei, black belt and founder of the Revolution Academy, he brings us interesting “one-day seminars” where we can learn specific topics.

Of course, only one day gets you just the top of the iceberg, but on the other hand it´s a perfect way to let you peek into a new topic or technique. If you stay interested after the class, you can ask for more particular classes or join the academy to get some more.

This particular Defense for Women class was awesome. It was fun and very informative, and we discover another fellow jiu jitsu female colleagues. Marcos got the help of another girl in the academy, Mechi Barcia (blue belt), to recreate some scenes and the possible responses. The two of them made a perfect team that explained step by step every situation.

One of the things we learnt, is that confidence in the way we walk and sit can change a lot our perspective. Our way of take every situation from the beginning can change the result.

There were a lot of girls in this class that seemed fragile and timid, but in the end you could see in their eyes that they had learn something very important. They CAN defend themselves, there is a way.

In the end, the most important thing is that you FEEL ready. Nothing beats confidence when it gets together with knowledge. 

The entire group :) Marcos and Mechi in the middle.

I really recomend all the ladies out there to try it. There are plenty of self defense classes, you don´t have to take them as seriously as you would take a martial discipline.

Nevertheless, I encourage everybody to get to know a martial art. Instead of a rigid and full of responsability environment, you´ll discover a group of friendly and supportive people on your colleagues, and a valuable mentor on your professor. On top of that, you´ll get a kind of knowledge and sense of fullfillment that most gym classes can´t provide. 

You want to avoid punching people or bags full of sand? Learn Aikido. You just don´t wanna get trown to the ground like a Judo student? In Jiu jitsu you are laying on it most of the class. Search and investigate, there are a lot of different martial arts out there to be discovered and every one of them is very helpful.

You won´t lose anything for trying, and believe me when I say that you may find one that surprises you, just like I did.

Check the Gracie´s JiuJitsu for women video here. 

For more info (in spanish!) and photos go to http://www.marcosrios.com

We reviewed different guard passes from an open guard, very helpful and direct, and this week we saw various techniques to avoid a triangle.

I really like this last topic, because I thought that there was no way to avoid it once you got caught. And believe me when I say that I get caught a lot, mostly from diving into my partner´s guard with one arm extended, like a dumb Super-girl (nothing super about that).

But if you move quickly, just before your partner closes/crosses his legs to complete the choke around your head, you can make a sitting posture with your head looking at the sky (this opens his legs, interrupting the triangle). If you don´t look upwards, you head can be dragged down again, which can cause your partner to retry the triangle.

Once you break it, there are a lot of things that you can do to regain control from that sitting position, so the basics are done.

Here is another way we are learning, the Sit & Pry. Check it here!!

We always begin with a warm up, which includes general workout like running, jogging, push ups, the regular calisthenics, and another specific strength exercises like neck movements, the basics of any grappler.

Face up on the floor, we do the NO movement with the head and neck slightly elevated, then we make the YES movement, and finally Shoulder-to-Shoulder. This series caught my attention at the beginning, but after a few classes I understood the importance of doing them. 

Jiujitsu involves crazy positions on the floor, so your back has to be flexible enough to be prepared for them. Your neck has to be strong too, to resist choke holds and stress during combat.

This kind of exercises seem difficult at the beginning, but with practice and consistency, it becomes easier and easier, and they can help you as they did to me, relieving my constant headaches and neck cramps.

Once we are all warmed up, the technical part of the class begins. 

Explaining in the middle of the tatame

First, some basic review of the armlock, triangle and omoplata moves, and then some kimura and guillotine. After resolving any doubts about this basic exercises, we proceed to a new movement. 

The professor gets in the middle of the tatame, and explains it carefully step by step, answering any question. Of course, you may have few questions when you see it (done by a professional); but when you start to replicate it, it´s very different. 

Is my arm supposed to do that? At first you try to answer your question yourself, with logic and comparing those moves with another one that you already know. When that fails, you try to watch another couple doing it, maybe you can copy the moves.

But when you realize that you are completely lost and entangled like a pretzel with no way out, then you call the sensei >_<.

A fight practise!!

Then we finish the class with several fight practises. I´m use to fighting just once, and there are days that I don´t even fight at all. After 2 hours of practising, fighting with all your strenght is very difficult. After just one minute of sparring you feel like a potato sack, so imagine the ammount of stamina you have left at this point.

Nevertheless, fighting musn´t be avoided. As a martial art it requires practice and learning from mistakes, so combat with a fellow practisioner is key. I´m still in the process to remember this every day :)

This is a very interesting topic to me.

Since I´ve started a year ago, I got lots of questions asked by my female friends. Most of them interested, but part of them repulsed. Attracted by the possibility to defend themselves, but on the other hand put off by the bruises that I showed, and by the fact that this kind of sport includes certain doses of people falling on top of you most of the time.

Practising and reaching a certain level of fitness, seems to interest them more than the sport itself. Bruises, however, have the opposite effect. They are intimidating and awful to look at, and most of the time they are complicated to explain in the middle of summer, with tank tops. No, my husband does not pokes me repeatedly in the arm (?). 

When I started, we were 3 girls (including myself) and almost 20 boys. One of the girls stopped eventually, forced by her motherly duties that could not be postponed. Forced by the fact that I needed to start a new activity (and it had to be a martial art), I went with my boyfriend to a class to try out jiu jitsu.

I loved it.

I Inmediately felt that it was everything I was looking for. It made me sweat so I could lose weight, it made me move on the floor and stretch my neck and back, which could help me with my neck cramps and resulting headaches, and could improve my flexibility on a long term.

I can´t stress enough the way that it empowers me. 

When I finish a fight and get out of class, I feel I can take on anything, anyone. I just got the tools for it, so don´t you dare crossing my path with an attitude. It doesn´t really mind if I´ve lost that fight, I learnt something from it. And maybe in the case of a real fight with a muggler I´d got really beated up, but I´m sure that I can learn from it too, and think of how much worst it could end if I´m not prepared at all.

As a defense method, jiujitsu has been proved more than efficient. 

Being a natural fighter, I always considered of importance to know how to survive in a fight. And I´m not saying that I´m some kind of natural fighter because of my awesome ninja skills, no. Believe me when I say that I´m capable of sticking a fork in the middle of my eye while I´m eating. I´m THAT skilled.

I´m just saying this in the sense that I don´t have any problem to finish a class covered in bruises if by the end of it I know how to punch something without breaking my wrist. I love to engage a controlled fight, it makes me feel really happy and I don´t know why.

But this doesn´t always happen, it´s rare to find a girl who doesn´t mind having a sweaty boy sitting in her tummy. Most of the girls feel intimidated by fights, but that changes 180 degrees when you ask them “wouldn´t you like to be able to defend yourself in case of a missfortunate event?”.

They realize that it´s not ok. Being weaker than most does not have to be an excuse to do nothing about it. Are you weaker? Are you smaller and thinner? Then you must focus on agility, you must learn how to turn your characteristics into advantages.

Girly girls prefer hip hop classes (which I love too, they are great and really enjoyable) but they don´t realize that, in the end, they are useless. You didn´t learn anything besides cool coreography, and you certainly don´t feel empowered at the end of the class.

Well, maybe you feel kind of a popstar…  

There is another fact though that stops most of the girls from practising JJ, and is the few quantity of them really dedicated to it. Having a constant partner helps a LOT. Whenever I got to the class and notice that mine isn´t there, I start to have seconds thoughts about it. I´m not going to lie to you, when I hear the professor saying “choose your partner” I get cramps all over my belly.

I don´t have any problem at all with most of the guys there. They treat me with respect; the matter of fact, I´m starting to feel like a sister to some of them. But the rest, as soon as they hear this words and realize I´m on my own, look away and avoid eye contact. 

I understand their reasons. 

I know that it´s uncomfortable to make certain poses with boobies in your way. But I don´t have a choice. And avoiding me is the worst part of it. Inside, I just want to run away and cry. That´s how I feel. 

But as I was saying, there is a little warrior inside me. So I don´t let that happen. I swallow my poorly developed self-esteem, my insecurities, and step forward and say “hey hi there, can I practise with you?” and laugh about things that go wrong, or get awkward.

And you know what? That´s fighting and learning too.