Breathe with me!

 

I've talked in recent posts about Rickson's demonstrations and explanations of his breathing techniques.  Ever since I've been training with Dean, I've noted the train-like, rhythmic breathing he practices when training hard.  It's something that a lot of people that have trained with Rickson imitate and I've personally found, even with a poor understanding of the physiology of breathing, breathing in an audibly rhythmic way, at the very least, creates a focus on the breath.  A focus that's easy to forget when you're training hard and if you lose that focus, it can become very hard to remember to actually breathe - something a lot of beginners will identify with!

So, on the recent occasions that I've trained with Rickson, he spent some time explaining his belief in correct breathing method and the benefits he draws from his own education in this area.  Neither explanations were particularly about how  to do it, but more why we should do it.  In the sessions at our club, Rickson went further in talking about how he combines his breathing with movement to create a unique workout, which is documented in "Choke".

Just after the seminar, Richard sent me some links and details of books related to the things that Rickson had talked about, which have been great (cheers Rick), so in this post I aim to give an overview of some of the things that I've gleaned from listening to Rickson and my subsequent reading.  I'll start with the breathing and then move on to Bio-Ginastica, something which Rickson gave great credit to for his own conditioning.

What have we become?

 

It seems that a lifetime of poor practice, posture and lifestyle has reduced our natural ability to breathe to a series of shallow and inefficient breaths.  Just stop for a second and think about how you breathe normally.  Chances are, like me, that you breathe into the top part of your chest.  As you do, you chest expands and your collar bones and shoulders raise slightly.  Occasionally you'll take a "deep" breath where your chest expands more fully and your abdomen raises too.  Have you ever considered why your body makes you take these additional deep breaths?

Rickson focussed on the shape of the lungs.  Take a look at this picture.

 

 

Fig1. Diaphragmatic Breathing

As he pointed out, a lot of the volume of the lungs is in the lower parts of the organs.  So, by breathing at the top of our lungs we are not utilising the full capacity of our lungs.  This is particularly clear when we are "fighting" for breath due to fatigue.  With our minds fixed on the sensation of fatigue and the need to get more air, we normally breathe harder and faster, but still only at the top of our lungs .  The fight for air is one we'll surely lose, as, breathing in this way, we'll never take in as much air as we really need.  Watch someone who's been exercising hard - chances are their shoulders will be up and down like a yo yo.

Now, we all know that to live, we need to breathe. But in his book, "Hatha Yoga - The Yogi Philosophy of Physical Wellbeing", Yogi Ramacharaka gives a detailed explanation of the physiology of breathing and the health impacts of not breathing properly.  I'm not going to spend a great deal of time going over this but suffice to say that we know that putting oxygen into the blood is vital for proper function.  It follows that the more oxygen we have, the better that function will be.

He talks about the misunderstanding of deep breathing and abdominal breathing, whereas he, and Rickson, advocate diaphragmatic breathing, which, to the uninitiated looks like abdominal breathing.  Ramacharaka also talks about "Complete" breathing, which I'll take a look at now.

In "low" or abdominal breathing, we are drawing air into the lower and more voluminous parts of our lungs.  Now, this is preferable to shallow and inefficient high breathing, but the lack of movement of the diaphragm means that we are still not expanding the lungs to full capacity and we are still not utilising the mid-space, or the top of the lungs - we are far from breathing at full capacity.  Take a look again at figure 1.

The thoracic diaphragm is a sheet of muscle that separates the thoracic cavity from the abdominal cavity.  When we breath in, it contracts and creates more space in the thoracic cavity for the lungs to expand.  It stands to good reason then, that if we can manipulate or control the diaphragm, then we can create additional breathing capacity (interestingly, both Rickson and Ramachakara also talk about how controlled movement of the diaphragm also facilitates a beneficial gentle massage of the internal digestive organs).

Ramachakara talks about being able to manipulate the diaphragm to facilitate deep breathing and then, in one continuous breath, also facilitating breathing into the mid part of the lungs (thoracic breathing) and finally drawing up the shoulders to facilitate high or "Siphon" breathing.  In this way, we are able to utilise the entirety of the lungs, or "complete" breathing.  I've now tried this quite regularly. It is relatively easy, but requires a little bit of mindfulness (a clue that we're not normally mindful of the most fundamental action our body performs).  When achieved, you do feel good - refreshed and alert and the proof is in the exhalation.

 

Fig 2: Three types of breathing

Try this:  breath high, then exhale slowly and count.  Breathe low (abdominally), exhale and count - it's probably longer than the high breath.  Now do a complete breath, exhale and again, count.  I bet it's longer still - testament to the extra capacity that you've created and life source that you've inhaled.

Ramachakara advocates practicing this and over time developing this as a new breathing habit. - seems sound advice to me.

A second feature of Rickson's approach to breathing concerns exhalation.  It's natural to fixate on inhalation - we need air to live, but in order to breathe in effectively, we also need to be-able to breathe out.  The air being expelled from our lungs is also doing a vital job in exporting waste from our bodies and in order for new air to enter, space needs to be created.  We often consider that the "working" phase of breathing is the inhalation - we "fight" for breath when we are exhausted - a very active notion.  And yet, it is Rickson's belief that the opposite is true - the most active phase in exhalation.  We must manipulate our diaphragm to expel what Rickson calls the "black gas" from our lungs (a very good visual analogy).  Ramachakara talks in his book about "cleansing" breaths which involved strong and rapid emptying of the lungs.  Inhalation is actually then a very voluntary action as air rushes into the empty cells of the lungs.

So here, we have two parts of the whole and something to bear in mind the next time you are fatigued - by focussing on breathing we can find far more effective ways of both inhaling and exhaling and I think this philosophy really shows how it's a natural skill that, for all of our apparent civilisation and intelligence, we've somehow unlearned .

So with breathing explored, Rickson went on to talk about movement.  Now, I've spoken about fundamental human movement before in this blog and the link with Ramachakara continues in that Rickson's chosen source of movement also stems from Hatha Yoga.  In conversation, he credits much of his own journey into movement, breathing and Yoga to a guy called Orlando Cani - the creator of Bio-Ginastica.  Cani, a Brazilian, is, amongst many other physical education accomplishments, a Hatha Yoga adept.  Combining his physical education knowledge, with elements of Tai Chi, Meditation, and gymnastics, he has created a system which works around the principles of animal-inspired movements.  Again, some of this is display in the clip of Rickson from Choke and there's more information on Cani's website as well as some nice examples on YouTube.

Readers of this blog may recall that in a previous post, I talked about Ginastica Natural under Alvaro Romano.  Until I heard form Rickson about Cani, I'd never heard of him, but, it transpires that Romano originally worked for Cani and, it seems, took Cani's work and re-branded it.  Read more about that in this interesting article.  Cani seems more bemused and disappointed in this turn of events than angry, but it all seems to add perhaps an air of well-marketed emperor's new clothes to Romano's work.  Maybe I'm wrong, maybe Romano has moved in a different direction or evolved in some other way.  It's just interesting to note.

Packaged as a whole, hearing Rickson talk about his philosophy on breathing and physical conditioning and seeing in person his condition as a 54 year old, it's compelling stuff.  Stuff that I've enjoyed looking further into and stuff that I feel can only be of benefit to me in both general health terms but also in my Jiu Jitsu.

The best meal I ever tasted...

Rickson Gracie Private Classes, Kent, UK: 14th & 15th Nov 2012

Looking back on last year, it was an amazing one in terms of Jiu Jitsu.  Who'd have thought it could get any better?  Well, it did.

With Rickson in Europe (Seminars in Holland and his first UK Seminar in Glasgow with Royce Gracie Black Belt Scott McVeigh), Dean contacted Rickson to ask if he'd have time to visit our club. And so, the date was set.

Ever since Dean first started training with Rickson back in April 1998, it's been his avowed wish to have Rickson teach at his own club.  Last week that dream came true.  And it was a dream come true for fourteen others, including me.  The sessions were closed except to those that have trained with Dean over the years - a reward for loyalty to Dean, and Rickson's style of Jiu Jitsu.  And it was this that made it a unique experience.  It was basically classes with Rickson as our instructor.  Because of the size of the event, whilst it was Rickson and some of the content was the same, it was entirely different from the seminar, and through this post, I'll say why.

Unusually for our club (;P) everyone arrived early, mats out, photo of Helio on the wall, nervously waiting for Rickson to arrive.  Eventually, in he walked with his swiss ball under his arm.  Rickson was with us, in our club!  But somehow it felt like it was always that way.  He was so relaxed, it just seemed like another training session.  We all warmed up, watching out the corners of our eyes as Rickson did his own extensive warm up using the ball.  Then we started.  Dean gave a heartfelt speech about his allegiance to Rickson and Rickson returned the favour with a warm speech about being with Dean and his students, then after a quick bow to GM Helio and each other, we began.  Again, it's not my intention here to talk about the techniques, or to even attempt to explain execution, except to say that every movement, every position, leverage and connection were the order of the day.

Rickson was clear and exacting in his delivery and here was the first benefit of this small group experience.  Rickson was able to watch every single pair like a hawk and often stepped in with hands on, minor corrections.  With just a movement of a hand, or leg,  by two inches, suddenly, everything worked.  Effortlessly.  It was almost like being hypnotised - "when I touch you , you'll be able to execute perfect Jiu Jitsu".  Sure, you can do a technique and make up for doing it badly by being strong or aggressive.  But this proved that when done correctly, it almost feels like cheating (in fact I think Rickson used those words).

THIS is Jiu Jitsu.  After this experience, I'd have to say saying that a good many people (and I still include myself in this as my skill level is still quite low) do not train Jiu Jitsu in the way that Rickson understands it - many people train grappling whilst wearing a gi, using techniques that come from Jiu Jitsu.  BUT, the Jiu Jitsu is in  the details, in the connections, in the effortless and undeniable execution of techniques.  I'm sure (in fact I know) that there will be people out there who will read this blog and dismiss this as more dogma from a Rickson adherent.  And if you've trained with Rickson and still think that, then cool, you're welcome to your opinion.  But if you've never trained with Rickson and still want to believe that what you're doing is Jiu Jitsu and all this is just hype, then, well, I guess that's OK too, but I promise, you're deluding yourself.  As Rickson would say, "no my brother...you got nothin'."

The other difference in this small group setting was the ability to have Rickson show you first hand.  He actually did a pretty good job in Holland, given the numbers of getting round people, but here, everyone had the chance to feel what Rickson was looking for.  And this is why it's "invisible" Jiu Jitsu - you can see a technique and kind of understand what is happening, but unless you feel perfect execution, you can't appreciate the technique in its fullness.  It's like looking at a cook-book.  You can see a nice picture of the food and you can read about the ingredients.  You might even be able to imagine what the end product will taste like.  But,unless you actually eat the meal, then you'll never really know how good it tastes and smells.

Looking back over my notes, we got through quite a lot on that first night and it whizzed by in double quick time.  At the end of the session, I was able to give over something quite special to Rickson.

Knowing that the visit was on, I got in touch with Seymour Yang, (AKA Meerkatsu), BJJ artist extraordinaire to see if he would do a special piece of artwork for Rickson's visit.  We settled on a design of a bear, in Rickson's trademark fighting stance, wearing Rickson's red and black belt.

The reasoning behind the bear was due to an account I'd seen of Pedro Sauer talking about a T-Shirt Rickson had printed back in the early 90s which showed the Gracies and Prof. Sauer as animals, based on the animal nicknames given to them by Helio.  Rickson was represented by the Bear.

Take a look at the clip here:

Amazingly, my instructor Dean still has one of these T-shirts from one of
his earliest visits to LA - quite a museum piece!

Anyway, after a few emails, Meerkatsu's final designs arrived and went ontoT-shirts for the lucky attendees and a limited run of fine art prints (10 only).  More on the prints later.  I'm sure you'll agree that Meerkatsu's
anthropomorphism of Rickson is up there with his best designs - and great for him to have such legend wear one of his designs! 

Big thanks to Seymour for his time and efforts!

On the second session, everyone felt a bit more relaxed around Rickson after our experience the night before.  Whilst warming up, Rickson explained how he uses the swiss ball for his warm ups and conditioning, along with other props such as elastics for resistance.  He then spent 20 minutes talking about his breathing, which was every bit as captivating as it was in Holland.  In fact, he went further and talked about his training in Bio-Gymnastics with
Orlando Cani - the original stuff before Alvaro Romano left Cani and started Ginastica Natural.  Fascinating stuff and definitely worthy of further investigation.....more to come in another post sometime.

Then on to the main session.  More great stuff and a defence against being grabbed and driven forwards from the rear which was brilliant.  Not much else to say - as before the instruction was brilliant and Rickson gave all of himself to the session.  I never felt that he was giving anything less than 100%.  He did speak at some length on his philosophy of Jiu Jitsu and the direction of travel for the art and the sport. It was nothing particularly that you can't find on YouTube, but seen in person, you could feel his conviction that Jiu Jitsu competition is driving Jiu Jitsu away from its roots and served to reinforce my view that Jiu Jitsu based on strength, athleticism, aggression and scoring points is not Jiu Jitsu as I understand it from Rickson. When asked, he also talked with knowledge and enthusiasm about teaching kids Jiu Jitsu - something I would love to do at some point and gave an interesting insight into his family culture.

After the session, Rickson was generous with his time in taking photos and signing stuff - another benefit of the smaller session (I didn't even try in Holland as there were so many people trying to get their shot).  Two of the things that Rickson signed was a copy of the aforementioned print of Meerkatsu's work and a patch from Tap Cancer Out.  Please check out their website and go buy one of their great patches (it won't cost you much, looks great on your Gi and raises money for a great cause!) or a t-shirt, again designed by the ubiquitous and ridiculously talented Meerkatsu.

Anyway, both these items were sent to Tap Cancer Out and were auctioned off to raise important funds.  Check them out on facebook to keep up with their work.

Of course, I kept one of those bad boys for myself and it now has pride of place in my front room:

After both sessions, I found it really hard to sleep - just thinking about what he'd said, what I learned...just the buzz!  I am very fortunate to have been part of it all - fortunate to be Dean's student and fortunate to be around at this time.  Rickson is a legend of our art and he's alive right now....not some black and white photo on the wall - he's here and he's passing on, in person, a lifetime of accumulated experience and knowledge.  And I'm in the middle of it!  Don't get me wrong, I'm under no illusion...this will not suddenly make me a great Jiu Jitsuka, but it will deepen my knowledge and understanding and will definitely contribute to my journey to become the best Jiu Jitsuka that I can be.

Happy days.  I hope it's not too long until we see him again.