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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Sick Days

Well, I'm sick.  I guess it was just meant for me to be off of the mats for a little while.  I had been grappling with my injured arm a little bit, this looks like God's way of telling  me, "hey slow your sh** down, before I bust your elbow up again."  Sucks not being able to train.  I stopped by the gym today and watched every one else roll.  I can't help but think about how all the guys that I will compete against next month are training right now and getting better while I stay stagnant.

This is why I don't ever take days off for any other reason but illness or injury.  I get sick relatively often, for whatever reason.  In the long run though, everyone will get sick or get injured, but not everyone can say they trained on every holiday, every birth day, and every time there was a big party that they had to miss out on.  That's how I get ahead.  If you train every day that you can train, the days that you can't train will be canceled out. 

I hope this doesn't set me back on reaching my goals that I set a couple posts back.  I think they are still reachable though. I'll just pick up the pace when I get back in a few days. 

Well!  Time to say goodbye to this little shot of NyQuil and pass the out!  I want to include this video that relates to the point I made above.  I've watched it a bunch of times; I used to play this in the beginning of my work outs when I felt super tired.  Take some truth strait from the mouth of Al Pacino!

Thanks for readin' guys,

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Nick

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My Ego | Leg Locks| Jiu Jitsu

So once again I'm humbled by Jiu Jitsu. Any time you let your ego get ahead of you in this sport your bound to get thrown back down to earth real quick. Since my arm is still non-functioning I have been working alot on my leg lock defense, like I have mentioned in previous posts. However, I have had a reality check in the last few days, and it has been frustrating, I have to admit. I have learned a few things though.

I thought I could learn to defend leg locks in a matter of weeks. My progress in this area, however, is coming pretty slowly. What I realized is learning leg locks in Jiu Jitsu is a completely different bread of the sport. It's not like learning one move, its a huge range of moves, and you have to know them all. If you do Jiu Jitsu you are probably thinking that I'm stating the obvious, but like I said I guess I got ahead of myself.

There are so many different intricate positions when it comes to leg locks that there cannot be just one defensive move for every submission type. Every detail, every angle, and every foot position changes the game up. It takes more than just practicing a few escapes, you have to be in the situation in a live senario, learn each detail of the position, and learn how to react to them. A lot of it, I think, is specific to you and the way you grapple, so you have to learn them yourself, through experience. So i think after a week of asking everyone I know for leg lock defense moves and scouring every leg lock video on YouTube, I'm changing my game plan. I'm just going to do leg wars (since I still can't roll) and learn how to defend leg submissions from my own experience. I feel like, I was tought a million ways to defend against a choke, but none of them worked for me, it wasn't until I got choked out 10,000 times that I figured out how to stop it my own way. There's no way around the need for mat time.

Thats the great thing about Jiu Jitsu though, you can spar over and over, loose to your sparring partner, but be able to learn from it and improve the very next day. In boxing, when you do bad in sparring you leave with a massive headache and a need for 2 Aspirin, and 3 days to recover. In Jiu Jitsu, you get tapped, you learn, you go righ back at it. Soooo.... let the tap-out-fest begin. Because I expect to be heel hooked, ankle locked, and kneed barred about 100 times each this week. Time to let that ego go and get back to square one!

This has been a pretty big reminder of what I long road it is to try to master this sport. You hear it all the time though, it's just a matter of time. If I put in the time then I'll get the results. So any ways back to the gym tonight for some leg wars. Over and over and over!


Thank you all for reading,

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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,
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Nick

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What is Jiu Jitsu?

I'm just going to leave you guys with this tonight.  It made me laugh and I had to share it.

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Thanks guys,

Nick

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Setting Goals for Jiu Jitsu

I read an article in Grapple Arts that talked about how it's important to set goals. Ze Mario Sperry, former three time world champ and former time ADCC champ, was talking about how he used to set goals, write them down, then post them all over his house so that he saw them every where he went. The article talked about making them reachable yet challenging. This way you can evaluate the quality and progress of your training. Also, achieving a goal of any kind will help you feel confident in your ability to accomplish things.

So, these are the goals that I'm setting for my self...


1. Survive 5 minutes in a leg-war roll with a particular guy in my gym that has an excellent leg lock game by the end of February. (Leg-wars is when you start in 50/50 guard and go only for leg leg locks)

2. submit or sweep 10 fellow blue belts using Rubber Guard by March 20th. (I can't start working on this until I'm fully heeled from my injury so hopefully that will be March 1st).

3. Get my purple belt by my 22nd birthday. My birthday is December 18th.

I think all of these are pretty reachable.  At the moment the first one is probably the most important thing to me.  Since leg locks are the weaker part of my game, achieving that would show significant improvement for me.  I challenge all of you guys to set goals of your own!  Don't take it from me, take it from Ze Mario. 


Here's the article I was reading.  It actually has a lot of other good stuff in it.

Thanks for reading guys,

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Nick

A blessing in disguise: Leg Locks

I think that there are always good times and bad times in everything that you do, but I believe that there is a positive side to every negative event. It takes practice, but if you cant find a way to turn set backs into opportunities, your going to be a hard force to stop when you set your mind to something.

As I shared earlier that I got hurt last week; partial tendon tear in my elbow.  Its improving at a surprisingly fast rate, thanks to acupuncture and God! But the doc says that I need to stay off of it for another three weeks even if it doesn't hurt any more. When I first got hurt, I can't lie, I was super frustrated. I didn't want to take time off. So I decided that I wouldn't let my injury stop me from improving my game.  I realized that my elbow getting blown out of commission could possibly be exactly what I needed to take my game to the next level.

I've noticed lately that the biggest weakness in my game is my leg lock defense.  I've been getting tapped with ankle locks, heal hooks, and toe holds more than any thing else.  Now normally, I don't enjoy practicing leg locks or leg lock defense.  I think its boring.  However, with my arms in a useless state, I got nothing but time to hone in my leg lock defense.  I'll be doing nothing but that for the next three weeks.  When I can finally get back to my real rolls, I'll be unleglockable! Not really, but I'll have made a serious improvement.

This is perfect timing too because NAGA is coming up in Las Vegas and all leg locks are allowed in this tournament.  Its funny how things always tend to work out.  These things always assure me that God has a plan for me.  Even the worst things in life can turn out to help you with something that you never saw coming in the future.  I'm telling you, there is a positive inside of every negative, you just gotta find it.

So I'll be doing more leg locks in the next few weeks than I ever have before.  I'll try to get some videos up here and share the moves that I learn.  There's even a leg lock seminar coming up that is being put on by a Gene Le Bell black belt.




Thanks for reading guys,

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Nick

Why Do I Fight

When you truly dedicate your life to something, and you put that something above all of the other things that happen in your life, people think your crazy.  You get asked a lot, "Why do you do it so much?" or "Do you really enjoy doing it that often?"  To me, those people are missing out.  They're missing out on having something that they're so passionate about that the question "what do I want to do with my life?" doesn't come into their reasoning.  Maybe I am an extremist, but name any great man or women in history that wasn't?  So when someone asks me why I do it, I tell them some of the few things that I know for sure.  I know that I want my life to have an impact on others.  I know that I don't want to settle for an average career.  I know I want to die knowing that I accomplished something, and I know that I want to live a life that is worth living.

Its always been important to me to reach others with my life.  I think, ultimately, the the thought of eternity scares me.  I want to know that when I die I will have done something that lasts longer than I do.  If I can share my passion with someone maybe I can put some passion in their life. When you have passion in your life you have happiness.  I feel that if I can share passion and happiness with people then I'll be leaving the world a slightly better place.  I hope that maybe I can do well enough that I will reach a platform high enough to truly reach a lot of people.  Most importantly, growing up I've always been in the average group when it came to athletics, I've never been terrible at them, but I have never been exceptionally good at them.  If I reach the goals that I have set by myself, then it will be from nothing but hard work and God's blessing.  I hope that in doing this I can inspire so many more people to really work hard for their goals.  Imagine what kind of world we would live in if every one strove to do something great?

Photo by: Elisa Alves

I have never been someone who could handle any mundane activities.  I feel like so many people underestimate their abilities and settle for a middle of the road job.  Now, let me make this clear, there's nothing wrong with working hard at a blue collar job to take care of your family.  There is, I think, something wrong with working a job that you never wanted to do, because you don't think you have what it takes to do what you really want to do.  I have never been able to accept being average, or to accept the statistics that people recited to me about how many people actually grow up to live their childhood dreams.  I have a need to do something that stands out.  I have a need to do something special.

When I am ready to die.  I want to sit there and think back on my life, and think, "damn, that was cool.  I really did it."  I want to know that I left my mark on the world with the things I did and the people I inspired.  Will fighting really do this for me?  I think so.  In the end, it isn't really about the fighting, its about overcoming extremely tough obstacles and getting past everything in my way to get where I want to be, and showing other people that they can do what they want to do.  All you have to do is try; really try.


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Thanks for reading,  :)

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

In a Rut: Jiu Jitsu

Last night I was feeling terrible on the mats.  I was getting smashed by everyone I rolled with.  I was rolling with some pretty good guys, but usually they are people that I can keep up with.  I guess I was just having an off day.  But still, I'm back at it today.  Getting ready to leave the office and go train right now actually.  Jiu Jitsu is full of its ups and downs, trials and errors, triumphs and short comings.  I know, though, that if I keep training, I'll keep getting better. I hope none of you let your bad days keep you down.  Keep pushing and come out on top.


"I fail more than I succeed in life, its my ability to pick my self up and keep going that makes me successful."
- Matador.

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Thanks for reading,

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

competition week: 10th planet in house tournament

So, I didn't get to compete in Gracie Nationals.  I had a bit of an issue with the money, but its okay, there are always more tournaments.  This weekend is the invitational 10th planet tournament that we are hosting at 10th Planet Riverside.  All of the other 10th planet gyms are invited, along with a few of our surrounding local gyms, such as Gracie Barra Corona and Sequence Jiu Jitsu.

I saw my bracket a few days ago, and I have some guys that I have met before in it.  They are good guys, I am looking forward to the challenge this time.  Still though, I feel that as long as I keep up with the long hours of mat time, and go out there and enjoy myself, I will win.

I think for some people tournaments can be an event of extreme pressure.  For me I always remember that as long as I am well prepared, I may not finish first in every tournament that I do, but I will always do well and at least metal.  I always want first place, but if not, I will still respect myself for the tremendous amount of work that I have put in to this.  I go into tournaments and try to have fun, because if I am not having fun, what's the point of even doing it?  I want Jiu Jitsu to be my career because I love it and I want to share it with others, not because I have a need to dominate others in competitions.

I am relaxed and ready for this tournament, I feel confidant that who ever I face is not as dedicated as I am.  If they are, I feel confident that I have a mental edge on them.  My relaxed state of mind, my confidence in myself, and most importantly my confidence in God gives me a one up on my fellow competitors.  I go into tournaments knowing that I will win, and I will win simply because I know this.

This should be a good tournament so I should have pics and videos up soon.



Thanks for reading guys and girls,

Nick

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10th planet HQ: Denny Prokopos guillotine

Last night Eddie Bravo invited everyone from 10th Planet Riverside to come down to head quarters and train in Hollywood.  It was a pretty cool experience.  Denny Prokopos was also teaching, and he is a world class teacher.  Man did these guys like to talk though.  Eddie's class was 80% Jiu Jitsu and 20 % stand up comedy.  The guy was freakin' hillarious though.  All in all they were both great teachers.

Denny showed some stuff on the pretzel grip guillotine.  It was pretty cool.  He showed me something that was pretty eye opening.  If you put your hands in a regular guillotine grip,with your choking hand with its palm facing you, and pretend your choking an invisble person, look at the space between your forearm and bicep.

 When you turn your choking hand so its palm is facing away from you, then squeeze the guillotine.  The gap closes.  Pretty interesting stuff.

When you try this grip at first the squeeze takes a lot of effort, it's very uncomfortable.  However, Denny is a pretty nice guy and he gave me some tips on how to practice the squeeze when I am by my self.  Mainly, pretending you thigh is a neck, strap your guillotine around it, and choke out your thigh.  This will help develop your squeeze.  He said, "don't practice to get a tap, practice to put someone to sleep, because if you can hold your squeeze long enough to sleep 'em, you can definately hold it long enough to tap 'em." 

Eddie didn't teach much because Denny was teaching for most of the time, but showed some techniques using Z guard to get the hand to the mat and transition to rubber guard.  It wasn't anything that I hadn't seen before, but it was his attention to detail that impressed me.  From the angles he explained to the various ways to use your wrist control.  The guy really new his stuff. 

After class I said thank you to Eddie and he struck up a conversation with me.  Which, in my experience, is rare for alot of famous Jiu Jitsu guys.  He was an extremely nice dude, super easy to talk to, and really funny.  He ended up inviting me to come back next week and said he would get a roll in with me.  Can't wait to feel what its like to be inside of a real rubber guard.  I hear that his clinch is unbelievable.  I will let you guys know how that goes and hopefully get some videos up here. 

Hope this new guillotine grip helps out your game guys,  thanks for reading.

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.

be humble or get humbled

This post is about my weaknesses, and what I need to work on as a grappler.  The list is longer than I care to mention.  However, there are two that really stick out in my mind and need to improve on.  One is posture.  I have learned that posture is everything one of the most important aspects of jiu jitsu, no matter what the position you are in, you will always have more power if you posture is good.  My posture is okay when I am in a closed guard and simply avoiding submission, but I make the same mistake I say many of my peers do, and that is loose my posture wants I begin to maneuver around and put pressure on my opponents legs.  Guard passing will be something I will try to drill a lot this week.  To establish the posture in my muscle memory. 

The second is my hesitation.  I read a great article on the grapple arts website, they collected tips from all of the top grapplers and compiled them into one article.  In the article they quote Wallid Ismail saying, "To make the move work, you’ve got to believe it will work."  This is something that I think will develop in time.  Confidence, after all, is bred from success.  This probably goes back to drilling, if I have drilled a move 1,000 times, I will not even think about it in the roll, it will just happen with no hesitation.  I will just know the move. 

It looks like both of my problems, like most problems in jiu jitsu, can be solved by drilling.  Drills, drills, drills.  I have my work cut out for me.

Thanks for reading guys and girls

Nick