Interview with Frank Forencich

Following my last post on human movement, I've been looking deeper into this issue and I think much of what I've found will inform my exploits in 2010 (more on that another time).  I've just finished reading Frank Forencich's book "Exuberant Animal" and wanted to hear more from Frank and also offer readers of this blog some of his insights, so Frank kindly agreed to a short interview.  Here it is - enjoy.

Al: Tell me a bit about your background, in particular your Martial Arts training.

Frank: I trained intensively in kenpo karate and then aikido for a total of about 14 years. The transition between the arts was very difficult for me, but extremely educational. I had to completely re-wire my body and my movements. I was also fascinated that so many teachers would lay claim to knowing the single "right way" to move. What was correct in one dojo was ridiculed in another, just down the street. This led me to a deeper inquiry and a search for common principles. In turn, I became intrigued with the study of human origins and was inspired to travel to Africa. I wanted to know about the universals of human movement, not just particular styles. I still do some martial art movement, mostly in the context of Exuberant Animal, play-based classes. 

Al: In relation to your “Exuberant Animal” philosophy, how do you perceive the martial arts should be approached/trained?

Frank: Like many, I'm a fan of Bruce Lee's philosophy of Jeet Kune Do, or "the style of no-style." Obviously, when you're in combat, there' s no way to predict how an opponent will move or behave. Therefore, it's just crazy to train in a single method. I've seen people develop extremely deep neurological ruts that would be a tremendous liability in a dynamic situation. The key, as athletic coaches are starting to realize, is to be "adaptable, not adapted." This calls for a diversity of training, a diversity of challenges and movements, always looking for general qualities of power, speed, flow, agility and grace. And in this sense, martial can share a lot with the world of dance.  

Al: You’ve spent time with some hunter/gatherer tribes – did you see any martial traditions there?

Frank: I did not. Primal peoples were extremely dependent on tribal cohesion for survival. Cooperation in the hunt was essential; this was the social priority. Population density was low, so battle between tribes was probably infrequent. Consequently, there wasn't a great need for martial training. We see some evidence of combat weapons (spears and shields), but compared with the modern era, these were probably used more for bluff than for actual killing. This, by the way, is what we see in chimpanzee behavior: males frequently engage in threat and dominance displays, but actual violence is not as common. Jane Goodall observed "warfare" between chimp tribes at Gombe, but we can't forget the bonobo, the highly-sexualized, peace-making hippie primates of Central Africa. We have both of these tendencies in our lineage.

Al: Are you familiar with Brazilian Jiu Jitsu- what are your impressions?

I've only trained a little bit in this art. I found it to be enjoyable and incredibly effective. It strikes me as high-quality physical education, although I also see a fair bit of macho chest thumping in the competitive ranks. 

Al: I’ve just read your book “Exuberant Animal” and what I loved about it was the warning that we risk losing what makes us human – our interactions with each other, the environment, our own bodies, but also that you offer thoughts and solutions on a way back. 

Frank: We're at a really interesting and exciting time in the history of the body. Our physical relationship with the modern world just isn't working  and it's time for trainers, coaches and physical educators to step up and lead the way to a new physical culture. We have to do more than just be good athletes who study high performance. We need to be speaking out and changing the culture, the schools and the workplace. In addition to training individuals and classes, we need to be writing and speaking, taking our insights to a wider audience. The forces of physical apathy are immensely powerful and well-funded. We need to offer a compelling counter-argument to the status quo. 

Al: I’ve got five year old twins and I love to watch how they play, move, even play-fight (parentally controlled of course!).  It’s so fluid and natural!  I mourn the loss of that.  What can I do to ensure my kids retain at least some of that and try to recover some of it for myself, even in the face of the onslaught of the “Human Zoo”? 

Frank: Rough and tumble play is essential to child and human development and we need to keep it alive. Above all, we need to get outdoors as much as possible and avoid the lure of computers, TV and video games. The real leader in this regard is The Barefoot Sensei. See the website for his story and his inspirational lifestyle. Take off your shoes and feel the earth as much as possible. Keep sensation alive in natural settings: walk more, touch the land. Also, devote more time to authentic communication with other people. Avoid email. Real-time, face-to-face communication is the core of tribal cohesion and in turn, social health.  

Al: I’ve noticed a trend recently for lots of “back to basics” exercise regimes – Kettle bells, hitting things with sledgehammers, clubs, but they all still seem to me to have the gloss of a “brand” – a trend.  What are your thoughts on this?

Frank: Yes, well, everyone has to make a living and this is a bit of a conundrum. When you get right down to it, all you really need for basic conditioning is terrain, gravity, momentum and human bodies. Add in some rocks and sticks and you've got a pretty complete outdoor gym. If people want to promote this as a "style," I'm not too concerned. Just don't try to lure me into a big-box gym packed with machines!  

Al: I feel that you and people like Erwan Le Corre have a lot to offer to society at large at a time when the human race seems hell-bent on doing everything that is counter-intuitive to the species, but it feels like a “quiet revolution”.  Is this how you see it? 

Frank: Yes. But perhaps it's time to stop being so quiet about it! I keep looking around for more passionate voices in defense of health and the human body, but I'm not hearing much. Where are the militant PE teachers? Where are the militant coaches and trainers? The militant doctors, nurses and therapists? We need to speak out and speak up. 

Al: What are your plans for Exuberant Animal?

Frank: 2010 will be a big year for us as we refine our identity as a "Health leadership organization." We have some extremely talented people on our team. They have diverse physical training backgrounds, but all are inspirational health leaders in their own right. We will soon have a certification process in place and a lot of events coming up. And of course, I'll be speaking up and speaking out whenever I get the chance. My new book "Change Your Body, Change the World" is due out later this year. 

Al: Frank, thanks for taking the time to chat.  I hope to catch you at a UK seminar sometime and wish you all the best for 2010!

Frank: Yes, hope to meet you in the flesh.

Many thanks to Frank!

Frank is holding a seminar in London in April, hosted by Wild Fitness in April

Check out Frank's Website at www.exuberantanimal.com

Check out some examples of Frank's training here on You Tube  

A happy and healthy 2010 to you all,

Al

I like to move it move it!

Over the almost five years of my children’s lives so far, I’ve sat through many kids’ films. Some of them are tedious beyond belief (bloody Barney the Dinosaur!) but many of the Pixar/Dreamworks etc films are excellent fun. One of them, “Madagascar”, details the adventures of a bunch of animals from New York Zoo as they make a bid for freedom and somehow end up in Madagascar. From their pampered lives in New York they find themselves ill equipped for survival in the wild and comedy ensues as they slowly discover what it is like to be wild animals back in their natural habitats.

Through a series of magazine articles, I’ve recently picked up on the notion of “the Human Zoo”, a term first coined in his book of the same name by Zoologist/Sociobiologist Desmond Morris back in the late 1960s. He drew remarkable similarities in humans with captive zoo animals and looked closely at the aggressive, sexual and parental behaviour of the human species under the stresses and pressures of urban living. The theme of the Human Zoo is also picked up by Frank Forencich – a human movement and health expert who heads up his own movement known as the “Exuberant Animal”. Take a look at this article. It’s clearly a fictional, sociological and political commentary, but it highlights the absurdity and dangers of what we’ve largely become – urbanised animals, detached from our natural environments, conditioned and unable to move the way nature intended and eating processed foods that are far removed from what we evolved to exist on. Forencich promotes exercise through play and drills such as this (taken from Jiu Jitsu Brotherhood) are perfect.

Once you start digging into this philosophy that we have unwittingly become captives in this “Human Zoo”, you start to uncover a wealth of complimentary viewpoints and movements that subscribe to this outlook.

First up is the “Paleo Diet”, created by Professor Loren Cordain, based on his own, and others’ scientific research into the diets of our hunter/gatherer ancestors. Cordain hypothesises that our modern western diet which contains high proportions of processed foods and cereal grains has only been with us since the advent of agriculture, which, in human evolutionary terms, is the blink of an eye. Simply, we have not evolved to cope with the modern diet and should, in the interests of health, return to a diet closer to that of our ancestors. This diet, not touted as a weight loss programme, but a healthy way of eating, follows simple rules such as, if you can pull it off a tree, out of the ground or kill it, then you can eat it, or lean protein and as much fresh fruit and non-starchy vegetables as you want. In his book, Cordain sets out the scientifically proven advantages of this way of eating, dispels some myths (such as those surrounding eating fats and red meats) and makes a compelling case for how and why we should make this diet part of our way of life once more. I’ve been following a self adapted version of this diet for about a month now and have found that I always feel full, have plenty of energy and, considering I’m eating almost all day (mainly snacking on fruit and nuts), my waist line is dropping! I’m eating tasty lean meats and fruit in probably greater quantities than at any time in my life. It just makes sense…to me at least.

Sharing some ground with Forencich and linked to the “back to basics” approach of Cordain is Erwan LeCorre and his MovNat concept. Central to the MovNat philosophy is the need to be “fit to be free”. LeCorre’s training methods involve natural, functional movement, lifting, running, jumping, fighting, swimming, bounding - anything that intertwines your movement to the world around you.

It’s a philosophy that, once again, makes perfect sense. Our ancestors, who created the evolutionary need for our bodies to become what they are today didn’t stand in front of mirrors, in rows of treadmills, weights machines and MTV in order to become physically fit, they simply got on with the things they needed to, using their bodies as they were designed. Sure, the world has moved on and we do not hunt for our food or fight off wild predators, but there’s no reason that we should not get outside, connect with nature and get our bodies working in the myriad ways that nature intended. Gyms have constrained our fitness by limiting the body to a collection of named exercises, range of movement limited by pulleys and pivots, done under fluorescent lights in sweat-tainted air conditioned rooms, headphones on and no social interaction. (recent research has shown that exercising in groups is more effective and boosts happiness). The futility of the gym is borne out of in own experience. BMF puts my body through tougher workouts, more ranges of movement and is infinitely more enjoyable than the gym ever was. And how about Jiu Jitsu? A raw physical workout that’s often more like play, with friends and some crazy body movements that challenge even the most accomplished. It’s no coincidence that LeCorre has studied Brazilian Jiu Jitsu and Forencich is an accomplished Martial artist including studying Aikido.

Even what we wear holds us back. There’s growing evidence that training shoes have changed the way we run and actually cause more damage than they prevent. How many hunter-gatherer tribes do you see wearing trainers? Those that do have footwear have little more than rudimentary foot coverings. Trainers change our natural running motion, decrease sensitivity and feedback to our bodies. Even Nike are in on the act with their Nike “free” – an attempt to reduce a trainer to the minimum and allow the foot to move as it was designed. I’m not in any place to ditch my trainers, but I find the evidence presented by people such as John Woodward, Mick Dodge and Ken Bob Saxton among many others, compelling. Do we wear trainers in Jiu Jitsu? No! We need the use and sensitivity of our feet to both attack, defend and give us feedback on our base and balance.

In Jiu Jitsu, a form of conditioning has evolved and is taught at The Jiu Jitsu University under Alvaro Romano, known as Ginastica Natural (I’ve mentioned it before, here); a blend of gymnastics, yoga and Jiu Jitsu movements, using the body as a tool and minimal equipment. Once again, it’s a back to basics system of exercising the body and rejoicing in the possibilities of human movement.

I’ve recently been reading “The Last Wrestlers” by Marcus Trower and, as I sat at my desk, vegetating and ruining my posture as an exhibit in the Human Zoo, the following words resonated like a clanging bell:

"I couldn't really believe that people really took office world seriously, that this was where they really wanted to be and what they fundamentally wanted to do..."

"I thought everyone knew that the real route to happiness was through the body..."

As a society, we marvel and celebrate the physical courage and achievements of the select few “professionals” as if full and effective use of our body is reserved for an elite minority. I’d argue that it’s a shared inheritance and one that we all need to get back in touch with before it’s too late. We’ve become conditioned by the confines of the human zoo, obsessed with rules and what is deemed to be “safe”, sleepwalked into a shockingly unnatural way of moving, eating and living.

Jiu Jitsu shares a lot of ground with the philosophy of those trying to find ways to escape the zoo, but we need to keep an eye on what Jiu Jitsu is really about. For me, it’s simply the joy of human movement and possibility – an effective method of self defence is an added bonus. The rest is frippery.

Let's get back to basics and just move.

Review - myprotein.co.uk

Bit of a review and a plug, but thought it may be of interest.

Recommended by a BMF instructor, I had a look at www.myprotein.co.uk - a sports supplements company trading solely on the internet selling “unbranded” sports supplements in bulk at a snip of the price of other brands. BMF’s pretty tough and with this, combined with Jiu Jitsu, I need all the supplementary help I can get to recover my weary muscles.

In the past I’ve dabbled with sports supplements – mainly protein shakes as a post-workout recovery drink. The main brands I’ve tried until now have been Myoplex, Maximuscle and Protoplex (Holland & Barrett). The first two are typically expensive (around £30 for just under 1kg) and Protoplex about the same cost for slightly more.

Myprotein’s Impact Whey Protein costs about £12.50 for a kg of flavoured powder. The cost alone makes them a winner.

But there’s more. The taste is excellent – so far I’ve tried, Strawberry, Banana and Chocolate and all taste like reasonable milkshakes – not too sweet and a decent flavour. Some of the other brands taste pretty bad, almost “stale”. Then there’s the mixability – shaken up in a blending bottle (also available from the website), the result is a smooth drink – not gritty like some others. A big plus for me is in the ingredients – myprotein are transparent in what their products contain and importantly, contain nothing artificial, especially Aspartame. It seems that you can’t buy anything these days without Aspartame being hidden in it and from what I’ve read it’s not something that I want anywhere near my body. Just google it – nasty stuff…take a look at this for starters.

Take a look around at the rest of the site and there’s plenty of stuff to keep the hardcore bodybuilder happy, but even everyday supplements like multivitamins are cheap here and good quality.

The customer service is excellent – delivery is usually within a couple of days and you can choose what service you wish to use. I’ve phoned their helpline for guidance a couple of times and the call handlers are friendly and knowledgeable about the products.

If you want to give them a low-cost try, most of their products are available as 99p samples, most of which is recoverable on placement of a full order.

If you want to give them a try, enter the code MP135819 when you checkout your first order and get a 5% discount.

Great products, great service – not much more you could ask for.

Hear the drummer get wicked!

I need to open this post with a big “Congratulations” to Roubel who got his Blue Belt at the end of May. Roubel has been training for something like eight or nine years (with some breaks) and in my humble opinion was at Blue belt level a good few years back. It’s always been the lack of opportunity to grade within Rickson’s Association that has meant some pretty long-held belts within our club. Under the Association, gradings are formal affairs and administered by “licensed” Black Belt examiners (of which there are now only a few still in the Association).

But the times have changed.

Rickson’s Association seems to be really only that by name. Rickson is back in Brazil doing his own thing and running his seminars. Many of Rickson’s Black Belts (whilst still loyal in spirit to Rickson) have gone on to do their own things. Association is mainly through loyalty to Rickson’s name and this is the case in our club. Rickson is Dean’s Instructor…that’s a strong enough link for us to be a “Rickson” club, but the loyalty is to him, not necessarily the Association – the two seem to be increasingly separate entities. It’s interesting that even Kron competes under the Humaita banner…

These changes ultimately enabled Dean to speak with his friend, Romolo Barros, one of Rickson’s Black Belts and close friends and seek permission to award a well earned belt. It goes without saying, but Dean is well qualified to understand how a Blue Belt should perform against the standards that Rickson sets and it was this, combined with Romolo’s knowledge of Dean’s Jiu Jitsu that allowed Romolo to sanction the award.

This is great news for Roubel and I’ve confessed to him a degree of envy that it was Dean who gave him his belt. I’ve said it before, Royce is a good name to drop, but ultimately, it is Dean that is our instructor and has guided us through, and I know that Roubel cherishes this accolade. I also feel that I can now wear my belt with some credibility – despite knowing (and having been told) that I’m the worthy holder of a Blue Belt, it always felt strange wearing it knowing that there were guys better than me still wearing white belts – sure, it’s all cosmetic and about opportunity, but nonetheless….

Roubel’s one of the nicest guys you’ll ever meet and since he’s been back training regularly his Jiu Jitsu has become just great, aided by his naturally good movement and athleticism. When I roll with him, he reminds me of all that good technique and movement in Jiu Jitsu is…something that’s easy for me to forget. It’s great as I feel that between Roubel’s technique and movement and my size and strength, we can both develop each other’s games.

Training

Training’s going OK at the moment – we’ve been covering probably one main technique per session and really drilling it for the whole session. This is a really great way of learning as you get to fully understand the technique and the movement variations that can occur. If we’d have done this a few years back I think I’d have been impatient to move on to the next technique, but now I really value the depth of understanding that I can gain within each technique. It’s the difference between good and very good Jiu Jitsu. A lot of what we’ve been doing has also really highlighted the use of efficient leverage, which, when combined with sensitivity and movement is really what Jiu Jitsu comes down to. It’s great and adds a whole new dimension, but it’s tough trying to overcome the mind and body’s natural urges to use strength as a substitute. It’s great training.

At the moment, I’m training 2-3 times a week, which is great as I love it, but work seems to be getting in the way a lot lately – a bit of travelling and a few overnight stays. Another problem, (but an infinitely nicer one to have) is that the summer brings with it, more opportunities for family days out…don’t get me wrong, this isn’t a complaint – I wouldn’t have it any other way, just it necessitates the odd missed session here and there.

My back has been playing up a bit again recently too – not sure what’s going on but it’s certainly not as bad at it has been in the past. This has meant that my movement has not been all that I want it to be and when I’m rolling with the likes of Roubel, this is highlighted even further. I think it’s this that has led to a bit of frustration for me in my training recently. I have known and felt a better way of rolling…at times my movement has been good – now it sometimes feels like I’m regressing. I’m hoping that just as past “dips/plateaus” have come and gone, this one will too, but it’s always tough when you’re in the middle of it.

BMF

I’ve been going to BMF for a few weeks now and I’m still really enjoying it. As with Jiu Jitsu, work has been getting in the way of the two sessions a week I’d like to attend but overall it’s going well. Gains? I’m not sure…I think I’m upping the intensity slightly, but haven’t lost any weight as yet (need to fix my diet!!!). In my last entry I told you how I’d plumped for a Blue (novice) bib. Well last Saturday we had a Fitness Test. These are held roughly every two months and consist of a timed 1500m run, max press ups in 2 mins, max sit ups in 2 mins, max burpees in 2 mins and timed 15x 20m shuttle sprints. In doing this you are able to assess where your fitness lies. I set myself the target of getting the minimum scores needed for the Red bib group. I managed this in all but one of the exercises, which I was really chuffed with – to be wearing a red bib, you need to get “red” scores in at least three of the exercises. Sit ups was my worst exercise as I find these really make my back hurt…and I’ve got rubbish abs!

Still, I hit my targets and next time I plan to wear a red bib. Granted, I’ll be at the bottom of that group, but it means that I’ll get worked harder and have something more to aim at. Another good feature with the BMF Fitness Tests is that all your scores are put into a series of graphs in your member’s area of the website. They show your exercise scores overall and then your scores for each exercise against the highest, lowest and average scores for the group. These are great for me as I work well with targets to hit, so now I’ll have scores to beat at the next test.

One thing I am struggling with at BMF and have done with Jiu Jitsu also, is what to eat when. Tuesday is fine as it’s after work so I can plan my eating at work and time it well so I’ve got enough energy but am not full. Saturday morning however is harder as the time between waking and training is short so trying to eat enough but without feeling bloated and getting stitch is a challenge. One week I’ve felt close to being sick, another I just had no energy and lagged at the back of the group all session. It’s just a case of experimenting and finding a formula that works I guess.

Kodo

One last thing that I have to mention is the show that I went to this last weekend. I went to the Royal Festival Hall to see the Kodo Drummers from Japan. Now, the linkage here with Jiu Jitsu is tenuous at best, apart from, maybe a shared Japanese lineage and physical exertion, but I just had to post about this. I’ve always been interested in all things Japanese – I just think it’s a fascinating culture. I first heard of Kodo from a mate of mine who shares an interest and he told me about how he was blown away by them, so I’ve waited about a year for them to come back to the UK.

Before the show, I was lucky enough to attend a talk with Kodo’s Cultural Director who gave a bit of history of the troupe and their work and lives, which was fascinating. Kodo are an ensemble of musicians, dancers and mainly Drummers who live on Sado Island in the North of Japan and their mission is to preserve the traditional Japanese cultural arts. For them this is done mainly through the use of the Taiko - the drums. The drums themselves are amazing – the larger ones hewn from single tree trunks and covered with animal hides.

The show itself was like nothing I’ve ever experienced. Drumming stirs a primal energy in all of us and the power of these drums makes your entire body shake. The skill, composition and timing of the pieces performed was amazing, but what really blew me away was the sheer physical exertion put into each performance. The largest drums are beaten with what can only be described as baseball bats wielded with huge speed and power for pieces that can last over ten minutes. Even some of the smaller drums are beaten fiercely with Rounders bat sized sticks. The deep postures the drummers hold are essential to be able to wield the power needed to strike the drums and these postures alone would challenge even the fittest people – add knocking ten shades of ssss out of huge drums, in perfect rhythm for ten minutes and these feats are not only artistically awesome but also super human feats of endurance! One piece was performed almost exclusively on the largest drum of them all – about 2 ½ times larger than a man with the drummer wearing little more than a fundoshi (loin cloth). This served undoubtedly to keep the drummer cool as by the end of the piece he was dripping with sweat, but it also showed the strain of every sinew in his body as he struck the drum. With the loudest beats you could see his whole body lift the baton into the strike with the kind of audible exhalation that only comes with violent physical exertion. After this piece these drummers then moved onto smaller (but still huge) drums that were played from what I can only describe as a half sit up position. Simply awesome. Holding a half sit up for the duration of the piece whilst laying into a drum skin in perfect artistic timing… awesome is the only word that springs to mind. I couldn’t help but shake my head in disbelief at what I was seeing and hearing. The two standing ovations were well and truly earned.

If you have even the faintest interest in Japan, drums, performance or simply human endurance go and see Kodo if you get the chance. I was blown away.

Take care

Al

Stand by......GO!!!

Earlier this week I went along for my free trial class with British Military Fitness. This was something I’d written about doing in a previous post.

I turned up at their Mote Park venue in Maidstone nice and early and as 7.00 pm approached I noticed a group of healthy people gathering to the side of the leisure centre (ironically, most of the people to’ing and fro’ing the leisure centre looked anything but healthy, many red faced after their “workouts”, lighting a cigarette on their way back to the car!!).

Anyway, disclaimer in hand, I approached one of the instructors – a strong looking guy wearing DPM combat trousers, called “Danny”. All of the BMF instructors are either former or currently serving military – most Physical Training Instructors (PTIs), all with fitness instruction qualifications to their names. Danny gave me an overview of what would happen in the classes and talked me through the three different groups within the class – Blue bibs, Novice, Red bibs, Intermediate, Green bibs, Advanced. Unsure what these fitness standards meant in reality, I plumped for Blue… I didn’t want to overestimate my level of fitness and embarrass myself. Apparently it is for each individual to decide which bib they wear at any given session, which is cool as I guess you could up yourself and really cane it, or drop down if you needed to take it easy. I think the bib system is also good in terms of progress – it gives you goals to aim for, much in the same way as the belt system works in Martial Arts.

We jogged off to an area of the park for the warm up, which I had been warned would be the worst part. It consisted of a series of shuttle runs, gradually increasing in pace, with various exercises in between to warm up the major muscle groups. This was followed by a range of exercises and runs in groups, Greens, obviously running furthest and doing the most reps.

Then the whole group was split into two – one group of Blues with a few lower end Reds, the other group Greens with upper end reds. The session was then a series of short runs interspersed with various forms of abdominal exercises, squats, burpees (the exercise loathed by all who’ve ever done military PTI – we used to call them “bastards” in the RAF), various types of press ups and so on – all done in reps of 10-20, numerous sets so the overall number of reps is quite high. If you follow the PTI’s instructions and keep moving then you are doing something continuously for an hour, but there were a good few in my group that either found it hard to keep up or simply slacked off (which I have trouble understanding given that they’d paid to be there and to get fitter – each to their own). At the end of all this, there was a warm down run and some stretching.

The session lasted an hour and as I’ve said, if you keep moving, it can be an hour of non-stop movement which is good (how many gym sessions of an hour are a full hour of exercise?). The body weight exercises were in quantities enough to be challenging, but I found the aerobic aspect easy – I barely broke a sweat, but this has given me a bit of confidence in my existing level of fitness. I think, given that there was 1 or 2 lower end reds that were ahead of me and that I found some of the later press ups hard (damn you lactic acid!), I’m likely to stick with the Blues for a few weeks until I feel I can give a reasonable account as red – certainly I’d want to be at the head of the group I was in last night to feel that I was ready to move up….much like Jiu Jitsu – unless you’re at the top of the heap against all other white belts then you shouldn’t be thinking about a blue belt (IMO).

I went along to another session yesterday (Saturday) which was with a different instructor and was far harder - after some exercises my legs were like jelly and I found it really tough - great!! (Then I went and trained Jiu Jitsu for three hours straight after!!! - actually it was quite a good antidote.) Apparently there are some fitness tests coming up which should be a good way to guage where I am and also to track progress with future tests (approx every 2 months).

I can’t really think of any downsides with the experience. The instructors are friendly, knowledgeable, approachable and game for a laugh and any images anyone has of a PTI shouting into your ear commanding you to drop face first into the mud and give them infinity should be dismissed. Even in the regular Forces, I never met a PTI that needed to resort to that to get the best out of people – they just have a genuine desire to see people give their best. Do that and you’ll get along fine. The other participants are friendly and encouraging (I’d guess that 70-80% of the membership are women), it was well organised and exercising with other people, in a sociable way, outdoors is simply so much better than the sterile gym, full of posers and slackers. The other advantage is that there are no limits that will create routine, which can be a killer of even the most committed gym-goers. I know, from what Danny told me, and from experience that every session will be different – all you have to do is turn up and do your best with what the PTI gives you to do.

I feel I can make rapid gains with this, so I signed up for unlimited sessions per week - £38 per month where I live (it does vary region by region) which is only 50p more than my gym membership which I intend to cancel. I’ll be able to attend twice a week normally – Tues eve and sat mornings. The other advantage is that if I’m away somewhere with work, there are enough locations around the UK to be able to pitch up and train anywhere now that I’m a member.

Overall, it’s a great sociable, directed workout which I think will motivate me far more than the gym. I also like the format which, if you have the right mindset will encourage you to push yourself further than being alone on a treadmill will. Big thumbs up from me.

Catch you soon.

Al

Mind, Body and Spirit

It’s been just over a month since I made my last post…and how time flies! So here’s an update on all that’s been happening (or at least what I can remember!).

Jiu Jitsu: The Next Generation

Some congratulations are due! On the 1st March, Dave and his wife Toyah welcomed their daughter Nieve into the world. Both of them train with us and are Sensei and Senpai respectively in Kyukoshin Karate…I’d imagine with that pedigree, young Nieve has got an awesome journey in martial arts ahead of her! On 16th March, Simon and his wife Anna finally (long overdue) said “hi” to Marcella, their second daughter. Congratulations to you both!! And it doesn’t end there… Ram and his wife are expecting their first and Ian (AKA “Monkey”) and his wife are expecting their second not so long away. A ready made batch of Jiu Jitsukas!

Really, congratulations to all of you…it really is the greatest thing a person can ever be bestowed.

We can rebuild him…

I’ve already written about my quest to get fitter and slimmer so I thought I’d update on this. Since Christmas I’ve now lost about three quarters of a stone. It doesn’t sound much but when I’m being uncritical of my self, it’s actually quite good. I’ve made lots of small manageable changes to my lifestyle – mainly in the food I eat (although I’m still playing with this trying to get the right foods, right amounts an frequencies to get maximum benefit) and the result so far is slow, but steady weight loss. All that I’ve read has said that this is the way to go if you want to keep the weight off so hopefully this is good progress. Certainly my trousers feel looser which is always a good guide. There’s a long way to go yet though.

I’ve also become somewhat obsessive about my fitness training…but in a good way I think. At the moment a typical week looks like this:

Mon – 2.5 mile run at work
Tues – Jiu Jitsu (min 2hrs)
Weds – Gym (4 mile run, 10 mins row, 10 mins cross trainer all at average 70-80% MHR)
Thurs – Jiu Jitsu
Fri – 2.5 Mile run at work or Gym (as above)
Sat – Jiu Jitsu
Sun – Yoga and /or rest

I think that’s pretty good, but I’ve now started doubling up, so, for example, last Friday, I did my run at work and then went swimming in the evening. Yesterday, I went swimming at lunchtime and Jiu Jitsu in the evening. Swimming’s great for this as it’s quite aerobic, but low impact.

The sun has been out all of this last week, which makes my runs enjoyable, but I’m also starting to think I should dust my bike down and start cycling to work again now the lighter mornings and evenings are here (believe me – I have lights and reflectors galore but have still had far too many close shaves to want to cycle in the dark!).. It’s about 6.5miles one way so I figure this could also be a good, practical and functional way to add to my weekly regime.

I’m in a bit of a quandary about what to do with Yoga. It has been great, but one session is not enough to really progress. There are no other sessions and we are encouraged to do daily practice (which I don’t!). I would say, after around four months of Yoga, I have a good idea of the principles of the basic poses and the things I need to be aware of (but there really is no substitute for a teacher making corrections!). I have a book by the founder of Iyengar Yoga containing the main poses. I’m starting to wonder if I actually need to get up every Sunday morning to go to Yoga, or, with the props that I now have, whether I can simply practice at home. I do need to keep on with flexibility and core strength so it’s a tough one to call. Not sure what to do at the moment.

One thing that might make the decision easier is that I’m toying with the idea of trying British Military Fitness (BMF) once a week on Saturday mornings. It’s something I’ve wanted to do ever since I left the RAF. I’ve said before, I’ve never been fitter than when I was in my training in the RAF – the mix of functional exercises, aerobic workouts, camaraderie and genuine encouragement from PTIs (the image of PTIs shouting in your ears as you cry into the mud whilst doing your 1000th press up couldn’t be further from the truth – in the RAF at least!) is the most awesome recipe for rapid fitness gains. I decided to take a look at their list of locations and in the 8 years since I left the RAF, they have expanded enormously and now run sessions in a park not too far from me. The first session is free so I figure what have I got to lose?! However, if I try it and like it, then to be fair to my long-suffering wife, one of the weekend morning sessions is going to have to go (lie-ins at the weekend are very important when you have twins!). If I enjoy the BMF sessions, then I think the decision will be simple as I know from experience that the gains from that type of exercise will far outweigh the gains I’m making from one session a week of Yoga. I’ll just have to get some discipline and ensure I keep up some yoga practice at home! I’ll let you know how I get on if I give it a go.

Lastly on the body thing, yesterday I had my second session of Osteopathy. Since before Christmas I’ve had a tightness in my shoulder blade that has extended up my back, into my neck and had started to give me bad headaches in the base of my skull and started to disrupt my sleep. Some things just go on their own, but this one was just getting worse so I decided to get some help. After an initial consultation and some prodding, my Osteopath found the offending tissue and said it was probably due to some kind of knock during my late teens. Nothing significant sprang to mind, but my late teens/early twenties were my best Rugby years and I took knocks every week. Anyway – he certainly did, literally, hit the right spot – there’s not much, even in BJJ submissions that has hurt more than when he massaged the offending knot of tissue – if tapping would have made him stop I’d have been doing my Michael Flatley impression. The improvement after one treatment was noticeable and yesterday he went even further and deeper. I also got a full spine crack – neck, shoulders, lower back – wow, that always feels amazing and I arrived at training feeling lighter than air. Honestly, my back hasn’t felt so good in years. I’ve decided that £32 for a session is money well spent to keep everything doing what it should be so I’m going to have a session once a month as part of a “maintenance” regime. I’d recommend it – don’t suffer hoping things will just get better. You could be storing up problems for later – go get yourself seen to. Your body will thank you for it.

The melting pot…

One of the great things about Jiu Jitsu is that it creates a common bond amongst all who train it. People come from all walks of life, wear the same gear and train the same things. Life should be a lot more like Jiu Jitsu. Last night we had a discussion about religion and it just served to highlight how great Jiu Jitsu is. In our club, we have Anglicans, Catholics, Mormons, Muslims, Sikhs, Buddhists, agnostics, atheists and each person is genuinely valued and respected for who they are, whilst at the same time, their religion being a total non-issue. We all share a mutual respect for each other and a love of the art we practice. Perhaps the world just needs more Jiu Jitsu?!

Training

Training has ticked along well lately. We’ve been training mostly techniques of late – a good number of sweeps and submissions, mainly from butterfly guard. Dean has also been majoring on the good use of leverage. This has been the “yang” to the “yin” of the softer balance/sensitivity stuff we’ve been doing. Dean has his sights set on training with Rickson sometime in the middle of the year and this has focussed his mind on the fundamentals of Rickson’s teachings – the things that are most basic and effective in Jiu Jitsu and it’s been great to be a part of Dean’s preparations as his work effectively rubs off on us, his students. It’s great to see, practice, feel and discuss, how the hard and soft aspects of Jiu Jitsu work with each other – each having their time and place. For me, it’s great…I’m starting to get a good sense of how I need to move, feel, wait for the right times and also understand when to be hard and unyielding and remove options from my opponent. I need to work hard not to lose sight of the softer, free flowing stuff I’ve worked hard on – it would be easy to default to hard, static Jiu Jitsu, so I think some movement drills would be good sometime soon.

This month has also been the month of Steves. Tugboat Steve has been back – great to see him and always a challenge. His strength is awesome and can challenge the best technique – a great guy to have to train with. Also, we saw French Steve for the first time this year. Even having not trained for possibly six months, he still doesn’t give an inch…great to see him back and looking forward to another visit in April.

Training’s been good – what more can I say? I could bore you with my technique breakdowns but there are plenty of other blogs that do that much better than me and a myriad of books. On that subject, I’ve just had my copy of Saulo Ribeiro’s “Jiu Jitsu University” delivered. I’m a big fan of Saulo and Xande’s as I know how much they’ve trained with, and been inspired by, Rickson. On first scan, it looks like the best instructional book I own. I’m going to take a much closer look and I will review on this blog sometime.

Catch ya soon(ish) ;P

Al

Who ate all the pies?!

Well, we’re just approaching the end of January 2009. Unbelievable. A belated happy new year to you all and I hope you had a great Christmas.

I really enjoyed Christmas this year. Immediately before Christmas I was suffering with a pretty bad cold – mainly a cough, but this cleared up just in time for me to enjoy my Christmas dinner! Having been ill with colds for the best parts of Oct, Nov and Dec I decided to take advantage of the break and do absolutely no training and I think it was just what the doctor ordered…I returned after Christmas feeling much healthier…although also much heavier! More on that in a moment.

One of the great presents I got, which I had hoped for, was a set of Bodylastics. You may remember me talking about these in a previous post. These are a great set of graded rubber tubes with fittings for resistance training. Having seen Dean’s demonstration of how these can be used to practice Jiu Jitsu movements just about anywhere there’s a door, I knew these would be a really useful thing to have. Besides that, there are a whole range of resistance exercises you can perform. They all fit into a tidy little pouch which means that you can take them anywhere. I don’t do loads of travelling, but for anyone that travels for work and can’t always find a gym, I’d say that they have to be an essential item in your luggage.

So after a couple of weeks’ rest, too much food and some illness I returned to training. It was great to be back and the ideal antidote to being back at work. There’s a renewed passion in many of the guys in the club and I get the feeling that 2009 is going to be a great year for everyone in the club so long as we can maintain what we have now. There’s a Saturday session again too, which is a great way to spend a few hours at the weekend. Here’s a quick rundown of the stuff we’ve been doing (more for my purposes):

- A cool variation on the guillotine choke – as the opponent comes forward, guide his head with hand and grab under chin, trapping the pack of his head under your armpit/shoulder. Place the “mound” of your thumb to the back of the chin (above the Adam’s apple) and twist up and into the base of the tongue. This (forgive my anatomical knowledge if I’m wrong) appears to close the Epiglottis over the Glotis (the same action as happens when you swallow food). It simply cuts of air at the source and is far less gnarly than the usual guillotine and easier to get.
- From the knees: creating space – rising up to tempt opponent in to mid-rift, rock back on to toes, fall back projecting your butt to create distance and bringing opponent off balance to create several opportunities for advancement/submissions.
- From standing: opponent jumps to guard, control base and posture, defend space and grips, breaking guard and pass (opponent under hips)
- Revision on Mount escapes: Elbow escape, upa (main point bringing other elbow into play) and practicing these with good movement and adapting between the two depending on opponent’s position.
- From standing (self defence): Defend punch (hair comb), clinch, step in for hip throw, or take back for lift from rear (important to get hips under).

More recently we’ve been revisiting many of our basic movements – teeter-totter, shrimp etc and engagement of the core – this is great stuff to do again and again and get ingrained – it makes such a difference to the movement and flow of Jiu Jitsu.

I’ve managed to get back to the gym too, which is great. I have lost some fitness, but not below what I would consider my minimum acceptable level, so that’s good. Just before Christmas, I moved to a new office, which has showers, so I’ve also started to run at lunchtimes which I also hope will make a difference (by the way, I've found a great little tool for mapping runs/walks and it does so much more at http://www.mapmyrun.com/). Yoga continues too and I can feel myself getting stronger in the poses all the time. All this and 2/3 Jiu Jitsu sessions a week and hopefully (colds permitting!!) I’ll soon be back in shape. This year I really want to get down to 15 stone. For some that’s heavy, but for me it’s a good, healthy weight. Right now I’m the heaviest I’ve ever been and I’ve got to reverse the slide, for health, for my kids and not least, to make my Jiu Jitsu better!

This goal has received an excellent boost by Dean seeming to have taken me on as a project. He’s taken my goal on of getting me down to 15 stone by mid-year and this is just great motivation for me. Now, for all of you that can just eat well and train hard, great for you…me, I need some external motivation. Way back when, it was the RAF, last year it was the Blue belt, now I’ve got my instructor putting his faith and confidence in me to do this. After a Saturday session at about 6 p.m. I got a call from Dean checking that I wasn’t eating any carbs after 6, but mainly to let me know how I’m doing in training. This was unexpected, but this was the turning point for me from vaguely hoping I could lose weight to actually making a commitment that I am actually going to do it. Same again this week – Saturday night a phone call from Dean - “a weekly motivational call” and it was. I don’t need any motivation to train, but to keep on the straight and narrow food wise…another story. And it works! I’ve spent the last week or so eating tons more fruit and veg than normal, and actually enjoying it…enjoying being healthy and enjoying that it’s got to be a good thing for me. Weight loss? I don’t know….time will tell but I’m staying away from the scales until I can see a difference.

Thanks Dean – I will do this...and if anyone else sees me sneaking contraband, you gotta slap me.

On to a couple of other things that have caught my attention in cyberspace this month. Firstly, an interview on the Fightworks Podcast with Rickson. It was great to hear some recent thoughts from Rickson, especially with the focus being Jiu Jitsu. So many of his interviews are taken down the route of MMA, which is old news, so it was nice to hear him talk about where he wants to take his art and about his seminars that he has been doing. Worth a listen.

The other thing that I’ve been checking out is a blog called Jiu Jitsu Brotherhood. There are so many blogs out there that it’s hard to see them all. This one is written by Nicolas Gregoriades who is, I believe, a Black Belt under Roger Gracie. It’s a great blog and one that very much mirrors many of the aspects of Jiu Jitsu that Dean espouses and that I feel. Definitely worth a read.

Got to go – I hope this year works out well for anyone reading this. I hope you stay healthy and achieve your goals. I’m hoping to be able to find time to put up a few more related articles this year and some reviews to add a bit of variety to the blog, so I please keep checking back for the latest.

All the best.

Al.

Row, row, row your boat...

I think this is going to be the way of things – updates every two to three weeks. Time moves so quickly that it’s hard to keep a weekly update, plus I’d run the risk of repeating loads of stuff.

So, the last few weeks…?

I’ll start with a visit to Carlson’s at Tonbridge – they’ve added a Friday night to their schedule as an “open mat” night – a session to try out new stuff, work through problems or just roll with a variety of guys – a great idea. I have to confess I was a little disappointed – the session was billed as open and flexible, but was still very structured with activity being dictated which wasn’t what I’d gone along for. It was fine – a good workout, but I’d rather have just rolled. I’m led to believe that the Friday session is usually loose, but I just caught an odd night, so I will definitely give it another go sometime soon.

Things did get looser as the evening progressed and I acquitted myself reasonably well. I was trying to work with what we’d been doing recently, i.e. balance, weight etc and did pull it off a couple of times, but it’s hard to resist fighting when guys are coming at you in the way that only Carlson’s guys do! I was pleased to hold good posture against their blue belts and to be able to break them down when in my guard. Against the other white belts I was fine and got some good sweeps and a couple of decent taps with relative ease and importantly, I was patient, just rolled with it and played my game – my basics worked well for me. It had obviously been a hard session as I retired early with my legs teetering on the verge of all-out cramping every time I moved, so rather than cramp up and face a day or two of limping about, I thought it wise to stop.

Something else to come from Carlson’s that I’ve been trying out recently is a good workout on the rowing Machine – here it is, taken from the forum at www.bjj.eu.com. I think it’s from one of Carson’s Brown Belts, Simon Hayes:

If you have access to a concept 2 Rowing machine continue reading:

Set the resistance to '10'
Set the computer to 'Interval'
Set the distance to '250 metre'
Set the rest time/interval to '30 seconds'

You should do every set at an absolute 100% sprint. As if someone has a gun to your head. You will complete the distance in 45-55 seconds.You then rest for 30 seconds (the machine will count this down for you)You then do your next set and try to match the time of your first set. YOU MUST GO 100%

You continue doing sets until
a.You Puke
b.You cannot get within 10 seconds of your first set.

If you can do 3 sets that’s not bad.
If you can do 6 sets you are fucking fit.
If you can do 10 sets I do not want to fight you.

(Please do not bother with this if you are the sort of wastrel who cannot go 100%).

If you want to get fit for BJJ and only have 5-10 minutes this is the best exercise available.

I’ve given this a couple of goes. First time, I did my first set in 55 seconds and managed 11 reps. Second time I did my first set in 52 seconds and did 10 reps…not bad and was pretty tough. I’ve since learned that you really need to go sub 50 seconds in your first set to be “in the zone”, so I’ve got a bit of work to do. It’s a good workout, but not something for every session!

I’ve managed to get back into the gym with some regularity again and I’m dropping weight again which is good and I’m enjoying my sessions there and have been mixing up the programmes on the machines to do loads of interval work, mainly just for the variety, but also because intervals are good CV work. I generally try and do 60 mins of good quality CV work each session.

Sessions at the club of late have been typical of the last few weeks – lots of the sensitivity stuff. A session we had a couple of weeks back was really good – there was a good number of us and it was all free rolling and semi cooperative. Dean T was coaching as we all rolled and there was a good vibe in the room with people really taking on the ideas and making it work – really good fun...it felt like anything was possible. I felt really energised after that session. Last week was similar in nature, but for some reason I just wasn’t getting it – I think I was going too flat and a step behind the movement – that’s just the way it goes….I also had a lot on my mind.

Last night we had two new guys join us – Nuri and his brother Haider (sp?). Two really nice guys with no experience but a whole lot of energy and enthusiasm. It’s always good to have new guys train and both were willing learners and seemed (I hope) to get a lot from the session. Nuri says he’ll be back, but his brother is normally at Uni, so we hope to see him when he can make it. Thanks to big Dean, I had my usual round robin of opponents at the end of the session, in preparation for my tournament at Seni later this month – phew! On that subject, I’ve just joined the Grappling Arts Association – a body set up by the leading BJJ guys in the UK to support people in BJJ and other grappling arts. It cost £7.50 (membership is free until Seni 08) to get some reasonable insurance cover which is something I’ve been meaning to do for some time. It’s a good venture and I wish them every success – BJJ needs a body like this to move things forward.

On to the wider world (it’s all intertwined you know – I see my week as moving from weekend to BJJ sessions to weekend, interspersed with the annoyance of work). Things aren’t great. I’ve been feeling pretty low lately – tons to do at work, in a job that I have no passion for, knowing that none of it is recognised (in fact quite the extreme – work I’m doing is being claimed by others!) and knowing that peers are earning in the region of £10K more than me, my boss is on almost double what I’m on and I perceive that all the good results from my department are majoritively down to me (and there’s plenty of evidence to support this). This is against a context of me being the sole wage earner in my family with two young kids. I wouldn’t change that for anything, but it’s hard. It’s really getting me down. I’m going to have to address this, but have no faith that speaking up will do any good whatsoever. I already know that I’m being stitched up, so will probably get a publicly sympathetic ear only to be stabbed in the back behind closed doors.

What’s this got to do with BJJ? Sometimes it impacts on my ability to concentrate, to be motivated (but I always manage to get out to training – I’d feel a whole lot worse if I didn’t). On the flip side, BJJ really helps me to be free of the worries for a few hours each week and is valuable in suspending the stress for a moment or two. The other really great thing is that the guys I train with are genuine people, some not a million mile from where I am in life, and their genuine concern, advice and support is essential to helping me feel like there are some people out there that are on my side – thanks guys.

I said a hip hop the hippie...

...the hippie to the hip hip hop, a you dont stop the rock it to the bang bang boogie say up jumped the boogie to the rhythm of the boogie, the beat...

I didn’t train last Friday and I skipped the gym on Thursday – the cold I had brewing that I mentioned in my last post was in full flow and I wasn’t in any fit state to train…it wasn’t a bad cold per se, but it left me feeling absolutely knackered.

After a bit of a rest (although my kids’ third birthday on Sunday and party was more “active” rest!) and plenty of vitamin C and zinc, things had cleared enough to get back to training on Monday. I wasn’t 100%, but 99% is good enough – just meant a bit more sweating than usual. Not a bad turnout – the usual crowd, plus French Steve and Little Dean. We trained some escapes from knee on stomach (KOS). The first involved bridging up and then scooping an arm under the foot of the leg that is KOS. Frame in with the other arm then scoot out, creating a void for the knee to drop into. Since you have the foot scooped, this prevents posting and the opponent falls backwards enabling you to follow up and take cross-side. A nifty little move, but actually pretty difficult to execute well – one to just try out when the opportunity arises. The second variation arises when the KOS is not quite as “deep”. In this instance, you roll away from the KOS, enabling you to brace the back of your uppermost elbow against the knee, creating a frame. Using this frame, you execute a reasonably explosive shrimp out from under the knee and turning to face the opponent. Depending where you end up will determine next moves, but the ideal is to be able to take a leg and drive back into the opponent and coming to rest in side control. I found this one pretty tough as my shrimp movement is pretty limited by my back mobility.

I’m finding rolling a little tough lately. I don’t think having the cold has helped and added to this I’ve been getting up early to go to the gym and my kids are going through a phase of waking at 0400hrs so I’m not getting great sleep at the moment. Not making excuses, but things are tough when you’re tired. I think I’m also in a bit of development dip at the moment – when I roll, I’m not really conscious of what I’m doing, pushing too much and just seem to get nowhere fast. It’s demoralising, but as Si said, I’m rolling against guys that have got anywhere between 4 and 6 years training on me. It could well be time for another visit to Tonbridge. It’s good to roll with others at your own level as it gives you a better measure of where you’re at and how you’ve progressed. I know I must have progressed – there’s no way that you can train 2/3 times a week, every week, and not improve. The issue at our club is that the other guys are improving too, so I’m chasing an ever-moving goal line. I think I also go in phases when I’m learning loads of new stuff and it takes a while to assimilate the information and put it into action. Once it is assimilated I then seem to have a phase where things are good, then I go back into a learning phase – maybe this is a better way to see it rather than being in a “bad patch”.

I had an interesting day Tuesday. I mentioned this in passing a few posts back, but a few months ago, I went on a course called “The Athlete at Work”, run by a company called K2. In my work, I’m an “Organisational Development Manager”, which means that I look after the development of staff in all areas of the business. As part of this I source appropriate training and education and so get bombarded daily by companies offering their services. Once in a while, something interesting comes up, and K2 was one of these. The majority of the K2 team come from sporting or sports science backgrounds and work with top level sports performers to improve their performance through managing training, mindset, nutrition etc. They’ve taken this arena and put it into a business context, based on the data that sports science has given them – a really fresh approach to the whole subject of performance. Anyway, they offered me a free place on the Athlete at Work course, so I gladly accepted. The course dealt with topics such as nutrition, hydration, rest & recovery, bodyclock, self-talk, using imagery and planning training for peak performance. It was fascinating stuff, all well researched and compellingly evidenced. I guess I could credit the course with giving me the inspiration for setting myself my blue belt goal and starting this blog. The knowledge and inspiration it gave to me to set some hard targets and plan a campaign to achieve it was excellent (sure, there was a load of stuff transferable to the workplace, but I figure, whatever’s good for me personally, must be good for my work performance). Anyway, on Tuesday, I was fortunate enough to have a follow-up coaching session with one of the guys from K2. There was a dual agenda with this, one for me to personally gain form the experience, but also a professional motive for me to see the learning process first hand to assess its relevance for the company I work for. It was a really useful session (not least as I was reassured that taking time off from training while not 100% was absolutely the right thing to do). Through some well placed questions from the coach, I was able to understand certain habits that I’ve developed that make my nutrition an issue for me and to create small actions that will help this. I was also able to examine how much rest and recovery I’m getting and create some strategies to manage the transitions between training, rest and then training again very soon after. Most useful of all was some good advice about my training regime – BJJ and MMA are givens, so I need to be smart about my gym work. I was advised to switch my training from CV work and weights to just doing short, intense CV workouts. It was felt that my BJJ etc would maintain strength and functional muscle workout, but the CV work would (a) make my workouts more manageable in the time I have available, and (b) be better for me in my goals and losing weight is the major factor at the moment. I was also helped to understand a bit more psychology of managing goals. For example – running. My goal is to be able to run 3 miles in 21 minutes – the RAF Officer standard and one that I used to be able to do, so something that I think is achievable. So, what I’ve been doing is running 21 minutes every session and trying to see how far I get. It’s tough and when I show no improvement, or worse, actually fall back, it gets really demoralising. It was suggested that instead of this “testing” every session, that I test myself monthly. This way, I should usually see improvements month on month towards my ultimate goal. Even if I fall behind, using this methodology, I can still see net gains on my starting point so there is still an overall success. I’ve already started this and the running, whilst still hard, is so much more pleasurable and relaxed. I will apply the same “ethos” to many other areas as it’s a far healthier way to view progress than constant pressure. So, the whole K2 experience has been invaluable in setting me up to stand a chance of achieving my goals…oh, and it is also something that I will be implementing at work by the way ;P.

Wednesday’s session was only four of us and we trained taking the back from someone that’s in “turtle” position and not allowing you to get foot hooks in. First off, the ideal position to work from…sort of to the rear and on the hips while making your opponent carry weight. Transitions from this – first one was kind of gripping the same side lapel, low down (prevents opponent from grabbing arm and rolling you over), one foot up behind, one to the side and the drive with the legs over the opponent’s shoulder, maintaining hip and body contact. This takes you to controlling the opponent’s back from where you can get hooks in and execute a choke. There’s a risk here that before putting in the 2nd hook, the opponent could turn out. So long as you’ve maintained good position, it’s pretty easy to follow the turn and end up with cross side. 2nd variation prevents the turn out – by driving your knee in between the opponent’s elbow and knee, you can create a sort of “cradle” after you’ve turned the opponent which prevents any turn out. In executing this knee positioning, you of course open up the other side of the opponent’s body to move out to that side, so for that reason we looked at a simple switch to prevent this. Major point in all of these is the hip to hip contact throughout (hence this post’s title – hips… get it? Get it? Anyone? Bueller? Anyone?). Rather than roll this session, we did some cross-side positional training. I’m still facing the frustration of not really being able to do a whole lot but getting tapped in seemingly the simplest of ways. That’s just BJJ. I’m relatively certain that this cloud will lift soon – it usually does.

Only other bit of news right now is that I’m going to UFC 80: Rapid Fire in Newcastle in January – should be good – there’s a few of us going up – Me, Big Dean, Si, Mike and a couple of Dean’s mates. Can’t wait! More on that when the time comes.

I'm off to see the Foo Fighters tomorrow and then I'm off work most of next week an I just had a great session at the gym so feelin pretty good right now... good times, let's rock!!

Cue the Training Montage!

You may remember my fighting fit post, well, I’ve not been doing too much on that front to date, just normal training which keeps things ticking over. Well, I’ve decided to crack on and work on my fitness. What has prompted this? Well, my local leisure centre has just stumped up an offer of full membership for only £25 for three months, which is just the financial inducement I needed to get my arse in gear. I get access to the gym – which has recently been refurbished and is kitted out with all sorts of machines and, importantly, also has a decent selection of free weights (I far prefer these – far more functional than machines). I can also use the swimming pool and get in on classes (although when I’ll have the time I don’t know…).

So, I want to squeeze in three gym sessions a week. These are mainly going to have to be before work, which sucks, but then again the kids are waking up way before 0700 lately anyway so it’s not like I’m losing sleep. I think I’ll break each session up as follows (with each session including a decent CV burst at start): 1) legs 2) Chest and back (3) arms and shoulders. My goals are really to lose weight, tone up and add strength.

I went for my first session today and it was good to get back into a gym. I still need to get into a rythym and figure out exactly which exercises I want to do, but that will come. I'm going to record everything I do (not here - that would be sooo boring) as I like to try and beat times and weights, reps etc etc, so I'll just keep you updated on how I'm doing and any major breakthroughs I get. I will also get my BP done and update the fighting fit post as I didn't have that figure back then.

I'm also thinking - the more varied a training regime is, the better the results, so they say, so I was thinking I might give this a go for some CV work. Enjoy. (WARNING - contains Action Words so if you're easily offended or too young for such words, don't watch it.)

Fighting fit....?

I think that another interesting angle to this whole journey is going to be the need to get into good physical shape for the grading. From what I hear it’s pretty demanding.

Back in 2002, I left the Royal Air Force which was probably the time that I was at my fittest. I’ve never been a natural athlete – I’ve always had to work pretty hard to get any where like fit, but for me, I was in pretty good shape. I was around 90 kilos (I’m 6 ft and a big build), pretty lean, well toned and able to exercise pretty hard (the RAF standard during officer training was a three mile run in 21 mins).

After I left, I tried hard for a while to keep in shape, but commuting 4 hours into/out of London every day made life hard – long days. In the RAF I had the privileged position of being paid to keep fit – keeping up that level of activity in a “normal” job is nigh on impossible. To give you some idea, in the RAF, I was maintaining my weight on a 5,000 calorie a day diet!

It was just after leaving the forces that I took up martial arts in an attempt to stop the slide, but it’s just not enough. I’m actually quite a lazy person at heart and I love food. I’ve always been one of those people that puts on weight real easy. I can lose it pretty easy too if I exercise hard, but time is an issue. Add to this (and I’m not trying to make excuses), I tore my ACL (for a second time – the first being before the RAF), which required 6 months of physio and took almost a year to get back to where I was.

About a year later I did something to my back. Don’t know what it was (something to do with a deep lordosis?) but I would go into intense spasms of low back pain that would take several minutes to subside. My mobility was severely affected – most mornings I couldn’t even put my socks on or tie my own shoes. It took a year of regular osteopathy to get things back how they were. The back’s still not 100%, but I can at least bend and move without fear of spasms. It’s made a big difference to my BJJ too – I can at least move with confidence that my back is not going to spasm, so now I’m trying out new moves that just weren’t an option before. The knee will never be right – little or no ACL in one knee means that one leg “giving out” is always a potential problem. I suspect the years of rugby had a lot to do with both these problems. Hey ho.

All of this (but mostly me just eating really bad) had conspired to put me where I am today. I’m still pretty fit, but nowhere near where I was. I know I need to lose weight, shape up and all this will make me stronger, faster, fitter and better able to execute my BJJ moves.

So, this two year quest is also a quest to get back in shape. I ain’t getting any younger – time to stop the tide of approaching middle age spread. I want my kids to grow up with a dad that can give them a run for their money whatever their age.

I work so much better with something to aim for, so the timescale and target gives me something great to tie this all in to.

So, here are some current stats (all done using home equipment); we’ll re-visit these at various points to see how I’m doing. This is it – I’m putting myself out there so I guess I’m gonna look pretty stupid if I don’t get where I want to be.

Height: 6’0” (183cm)
Weight: 110 kg (using cheapest of the cheap scales)
Waist; 38”
Body Fat %: approx 40% (done using cheap hand held unit)
Cholesterol 4.7 (home testing kit)

I guess BP would be something good to look at – I’ll get this done if I need to go to the Doctor’s and let you know where I’m at.

My target weight is somewhere around 95 kilos. I gotta face facts. I’m never gonna be what I was 5 years ago so this is realistc I hope. The rest of the measures will just fit around that. Fitness wise, I’d like to be able to keep up a 9-10 min mile for min 3 miles and up to 6 miles….anything else will be a bonus.

In my favour, I don’t and have never smoked. I do not drink loads (although probably still too much by accepted “units” measures), I train between 2-3 times a week for two hours each session, then there are runs and cycling to and form work around that…so at least I’m not starting from scratch.

As time goes on, I’ll keep you updated on my plans and my progress, for now, that’ll do. Speak to you again soon.