How Bad Do You Want It?

There's a story I heard by a guy named Eric Thomas, to paraphrase the story he told:


There was a young man that wanted to be success, and one day the man went to see a guru.  The young man said, "Guru, I want to be as successful as you are.  I want to accomplish what you have done." 


The Guru said, "okay, if you want to be successful meet me at the beach tomorrow at 6:00 A.M."


The man said, "The beach?  I want to make money.  Not go for a swim."


The Guru said, "If you want to make money, meet me at the beach."


So the young man gets to the beach the next day at 5:45, wearing a suit, and he sees the Guru out in the water.  The Guru calls for him to go out to meet him.  The young man walks out into the water and walks until the water is waist high.  and he says, "okay I'm here, now what?" The Guru tells him to come further.  So the young man walks until he is chest high and says, "okay I'm here, now what?"  The Guru tells him to come further.  So the young man walks until he is up to his mouth in the water.


The Guru grabs the young man by the neck and holds him under the water.  The young man kicks and scratches and fights but the Guru holds him under.  Not until the young man is on the edge of unconsciousness does the Guru lift him from the water.  He asked the young man, "when you were under the water, what did you want to do?" 

The young man said, "breath."

The Guru told him, "When you want to succeed, as bad as you want to breath, then you will be successful."

Make a list of things that would take priority over breathing in your life.  It's pretty short.

For more on Eric Thomas, check out his site.  www.etthehiphoppreacher.com/

Thanks for reading,

Nick

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GOOOOAAALLL!!

I'm pretty stoked tonight because I was able to put a check next to one of my goals.  If you don't know what I'm talking about, last week I wrote a post about setting goals to improve your Jiu Jitsu game.  My first goal that I set was to survive 5 minutes in a leg war roll with a guy that is one the best leg lock guys at my gym.  I was actually able to "one up" that.

I rolled with this guy and not only was I able to survive and not get leg locked, I actually ended up coming out of it with a full mount on him.  I didn't counter or submit him, but my goal was to survive and I actually did more than that.  Now,  he tapped me 3 consecutive times right before that, but like I said, I learn how to defend submissions by getting tapped, analyzing, getting tapped, analyzing, getting tapped, and then analyzing. 

Also, tonight I rolled with another one of our resident leg snatchers, who is a brown belt.  He did catch me in a toe hold once buuuut.... tap, analyze, tap, analyze.... the second time around he went for a quick succession of heal hook variations and I was able to fend them all off and secure the superior position.  I'm pretty exited that I reached one of my goals.  Ze Mario was right, achieving goals does give you a confidence boost in your game. Again, if you don't understand the reference go the post that I linked above.

Another thing that I was able to prove to myself tonight was that when you suck at something, just keep doing it.  Keep showing up every day and eventually you quit sucking. 

Okay well thanks for reading everyone,

Nick

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Training Injury: Couldn't Stay Off the Mats

  I have to say, pick a career that you can't wait to get there and work.  It's a great life to have.  Imagine if you were legitimately bummed out when your boss gave you a day off of work.  Except.... I don't make any money doing Jiu Jitsu right now... but I will soon!  I'll be sure to post about the first Jiu Jitsu dollar that I make.

I wasn't suposed to roll today because of my elbow injury but I couldn't help it.  A brown belt from 10th Planet Headquarters came down to Riverside this morning though, so I couldn't resist the chance to roll with someone new that was high ranked. It was actually cool though, because I had to do everything with one hand.  If you can keep someone from passing your guard with one hand then you can do it with two.  I wish I had pictures of the roll.  I just have this one though.

I gotta say, my arm hurts a little bit more than it did before!  That's okay though it was worth being able to roll.  I missed it :'-).

Any ways even though my arm is a little sore now, I'm recovering at such a fast rate I'll still be back on the mat when I planned to be.   I'm off to do electrical stimulation therapy on my arm.  I highly recommend this by the way.

Thank you all for reading,
Please, help this blog grow by sharing it on Facebook or Twitter

Nick

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Training Injury

So last night I was training, and it was slightly more eventful than my usual roll. My average training day doesn't usually consist of rolling with a top 10 light heavy weight fighter, then getting my elbow blown out by a purple belt, comin' at me like 120 pound spider monkey.  Over all it was a mixture of good and bad things that left me lying awake with a whole lot of mixed emotions.

The fighter I rolled with was Lorenz Larkin.  He was a nice guy, he asked me to roll and introduced himself.  Its funny when you meet people that you see on T.V. and they are just regularly people, just like you, trying to achieve their goals.  I actually did pretty well with him.  I gave him a run for his money trying to pass my guard and was able to survive his submission attempts.  Granted, this was probably his 3rd work out of the day, and if we were fighting with MMA rules my head would of been smashed in, (It was clear that he was going easy on me though, he knew he had 60 pounds on me) but I was still proud of myself.  Lorenz was awesome, and he really had good technique for such a big guy

Then came the bad part.  I rolled with a guy that has a purple belt from another school, but comes and trains with us from time to time.  Now, I knew this guy, and he is a cool dude, but today he seemed to be goin kind of hard.  I'm a pretty relaxed dude when I roll.  Unless I am doing competition training, I like to go slow and think about technique and be calm.  So i was not expecting the leaping no handed cartwheel pass, flying passed me strait to my back.  I will admit, it was an impressive pass.  So the guy is on my back, I defend the choke, and I look to flatten out on my back to escape.  He decides to transition to an arm bar.  He transitioned quick and my arm was almost fully extended but I was just holding on.  Unfortunately, in the scramble my arm turned sideways, putting an Americana type bend in it, my opponent hipped into it hard.

It was at right then I hear the "RRRIIIPPP" coming from the inside of my elbow.  I knew something was torn.  The guy I rolled with felt pretty bad, but I couldn't talk to him.  I felt sick to my stomach.  It wasn't the pain in my elbow that bothered me it was the thought that after all of the long hours I had put on the mats I could possibly need to take 6 months off and delay the plans that I had for my career.

Don't ask me why I am so obsessed with training, I just am!  Haha.  After seeing the doctor though, it seems to only be a minor tear.  I should be back at it with in a few weeks.  Guess I'll be watching the UFC fights quietly crying to my self in pile of boredom until then.  I'm sure my friends will be happy though, they always complain they never see me because of my training schedule.



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Thanks guys,

Nick

Cutting Weight for Competition

So with the 10th Planet Jiu Jitsu Tournament coming up, it's time to cut weight.  I've done a good amount of research on weight cutting, also I work part time in the health industry and learn a lot doing that, so I have a pretty good system down to cut weight for tournaments so I wrote an article on ezine a few days back.  I thought I would share the link if any of you guys are looking for a good way to cut.

Check it out here ---------> WEIGHT CUTTING



Hope it helps you guys out.  If you like it, please share it on Facebook! :) thanks guys

Nick

drils drills drills, solo drills for jiu jitsu

Its always a personal goal of mine to stay in the gym longer than everyone else.  Not that I am competing with any one else in my gym, but i figure if i train more than any one in my gym, I probably train more than a alot of the other guys out there.  The problem with this is, I'm left in the gym alone with no one to practice with.  This is where solo drills come into play.  Solo drills have helped me tremendously, and when you cant train with a partner because of a cold or an infection, they can keep the rust off and help your game out.  Muscle memory is the name of the game here, and even though they don't seem to do much while your doing them, they will apply themselves to a lot of moves that you don't expect them to.  Here is a video that I found on youtube, It has helped me, hopefully it will help you guys.

Winning is a State of Mind. Not a Score on the Scoreboard

First off, let me say that in any of my posts, if i share an opinion or a claim, I am not in any way trying to pretend to be some Jiu Jitsu guru with this huge store of boundless information.  I am student of this game, absolutely nothing more.  This blog is simply a sharing of lessons that I learn, as I learn them.  That being said, I would like to share what I learned today.

I arrived early to class today, so I thought I would watch the kids wrestling class.  I heard the wrestling coach tell the kids something that was interesting.  He said, "Winning is a state of mind. Not a score on the scoreboard."  At first it didn't make sense to me.  I thought, winning a match in its definition is scoring more points than the other guy. 

But the phrase resonated in me, and I began to think bigger.  I don't think he was referring to one single match.  I believe he was referring to true winning; winning the title or the championship; consistent winning.  I think he was right, because sure scoring more points will win you a match, but to truly win, to be a champion, you need the state of mind.  It reminds of me of a quote I once read.  The quote was, "success comes from a state of mind knowing that you did everything that you possibly could to prepare."  This was my mantra for many of my tournaments when I thought I might face people who were more experienced than myself.

What I concluded from this lesson was that in order to succeed, you must have the right state of mind, and in order to get that state of mind, you must do everything in your power to make sure you are the best you can possibly be.  Work hard for your goals and you will reach them.

I hope this post will help some of you.  Thanks for reading.

Nick

Feelin Burnt Out

Jiu Jitsu and I have a love hate relationship.  Mostly love, but every once in a while I get burnt out.  I feel lazy in my rolls.  I get frustrated easier when I cant escape something or when I'm in uncomfortable positions.  Guys that I usually tear up give me a hard time.  I can't think that I'm alone in having this feeling from time to time.  It always passes though, I have one more training sesh this week then I'll take the rest of the weekend of feeling fresh.

I look at training the same way I look at competing, and almost everything in life for that matter.  If I"m not enjoying it, then whats the point?  Of course, you can't just go home every time you're not having the roll of your life.  It's like a relationship though, sometimes you need time away to realize how much you appreciate something.  I usually take Saturday night and Sunday off any ways so this will be a good time to get relax with my friends and get away from the gym.


I spend almost all of my time in the gym and sometimes I think maybe I train to much, but I can't imagine that guys like the Mendes bros are training only 2-3 times a week.  If this is what it takes to be champ, and I'm having fun, then why would I not do it?

Competition: Jiu Jitsu

Won gold in the blue belt division at the sub-fighter tournament.  Hard work pays off.  Each tournament  I compete in I have done better.  This may be an obvious statement, but there seems to be a direct correlation between training time and confidence in tournaments, also between confidence and success.  Every one seems to have these rituals when it comes to tournaments, few groups of people are more superstitious than athletes, whether they realize it or not.  But none of that matters when you know you have more hours on the mat than the guy on the other side of the ring.  With 5 hour days, 6 days a week, I feel that as long as I compete with in my division, no one can beet me.  I could be wrong, but I believe it was Buddha who said, "what you think you will become", and if I believe I can win, than I usually will win.

If you train harder than someone, and you believe in your self more than some one.  You will win.  Marcelo Garcia said in an interview that when he started competing he would always try to act and look tough; to show no fear.  However, as he started winning competitions he realized this had nothing to do with it his success, and that it came down to the simple fact he trained more than his opponents.  Perhaps I am wrong, with only 5 tournaments under my belt I am still a newbie to this sport, but it worked for Marcello and it seems to be working for me.

Gracie Nationals is this weekend, time to put my theory to the test on a slightly larger stage, trying to round up the money for this expensive tournament ASAP. ;)

natural ability: Jiu Jitsu

The thing i love about Jiu Jitsu is that everyone can do it.  Of course, there are those with severe situations, but no one will be held back in this sport by lack of natural talent, physical strength, speed, or any thing of the sort. Natural ability itself, is a western idea.  In Thailand, the Muay Thai gyms raise fighters from a young age, these kids eat, sleep, train at the gyms.  There is no physical ability test they have to pass, they just have to have to be young enough to be able to put a sufficient amount of time in.  In Jiu Jitsu, even the age hardly comes in to affect.  Thai fighters usually retire by the time they are in their late 20s, due to the physical toll it takes on your body.  In Jui Jitsu this is not the case, at my old gym, there was a brown belt that didn't have a single colored hair left on his head, and he was one of the best guys there.

The point is, all jiu jitsu requires is time.  If you can put the time in, you get the skills.  In a book called Outliers, by Malcom Gladwell, it talks about the 10,000 hour rule.  If you put 10,000 hours in to something, no matter what you natural ability level was, you will be a master.  There was a study done in Asia where they looked at the famous musicians playing in the big orchestras.  There was a connection made that showed if the kids growing up practiced 30 hours a week, they would become successful musicians.  There was not a single person who put in 30 hours per week, and just couldn't cut it.  On the other side of that, the study was full of musicians who were brimming with natural talent, and there for practiced less than 30 hours per week, these students grew up to be high school music teachers and other things of the sort.

When Marcelo Garcia started Jiu Jitsu, he lived far from the gym, so he could only train three times per week.  Eventually, he moved in to the gym, and reportedly trained for 4 sessions each day, with the sessions being upwards of an hour.  Marcelo Garcia is now widely considered the best pound-for-pound grappler in the world.  In fact, it was Marcelo Garcia's story that inspired me to commit to Jiu Jitsu and begin living at the gym that I train at.

Never get discouraged when you train.  Do not worry if you have what it takes.  If you have the time to commit, you have what it takes.  Just keep training and keep motivated, and you will reach your goals.  Take it from 78 y/o Gene Pace.  Check out this link to read about how he got his black belt at such an advanced age.