Value this time on the mats kids

The following is a monologue by Billy Crystal from the movie City Slickers and was sent to me from my friend and 60+ year old grappler Andy Dicky. In the movie Mitch (played by Billy Crystal), Phil, and Ed are all experiencing their own mid-life crises and take a two-week vacation at a dude ranch to figure things out. The scene that this monologue is from features Mitch speaking to his son’s middle school class on career day prior to leaving for the dude ranch.

Value this time in your life kids… Because this is the time in your life when you still have choices, and it goes by so quickly. When you’re a teenager you think you can do anything, and you do. Your twenties are a blur. Your thirties, you raise your family, you make a little money and you think to yourself, “what happened to my twenties?”. Your forties, you grow a little pot belly, you grow another chin… the music starts to get too loud and one of your old girlfriends from high school becomes a grandmother. Your fifties you have a minor surgery…you’ll call it a procedure, but it’s a surgery. Your sixties you have a major surgery, the music is still too loud, but it doesn’t matter because you can’t hear it anyway. Seventies, you and the wife retire to Fort Lauderdale, you start eating dinner at two, lunch around ten, and breakfast the night before. You spend most of your time wandering around malls looking for the ultimate in soft yogurt and muttering “how come the kids don’t call?”. By your eighties, you’ve had a major stroke, and you end up babbling to some Jamaican nurse who your wife can’t stand, but you call mamma. Any questions?

What’s the point of sharing this with you? Is it to make sure we understand that this is as good as it’s going to get? To warn you that from here on your life will get progressively worse with the passage of time? Not at all. But things will definitely be different, and not all those differences will be “good”. Our knees, our backs, our shoulders, our central nervous systems and reflexes, etc. are examples of things that deteriorate with age. This means our experiences on the mats at 45 will not be the same as they were in our 30’s…in our 50’s our experiences on the mats won’t be the same as they were at 45. Our experiences won’t be the same over the years, but they can still be great.

Don’t waste time looking back with regret because you did not start sooner or did not pursue jiu jitsu with the passion that you now wish you would have. Don’t waste time looking down the road and worrying about your physical attributes fading and your body breaking down and the things that you may no longer be able to do. Instead, live in the moment. Enjoy your time on the mats today. Make the most out of each class, each round that you roll, each tournament you enter, each seminar you attend, etc. This moment is the only one that is guaranteed. Value this time on the mats.

Train hard. Train smart. Get better.

Joe

Here is the clip!

Epi 261 BJJ White Belts :)

This week we are giving advice to white belts. It is a great conversation to help anyone enjoy the white belt journey.

We talk about:

  • Getting a white belt can be difficult
  • Gaining confidence with BJJ
  • Focusing on fundamentals
  • Going to open mat at a different school
  • The desire to get your blue belt
  • Staying healthy
  • Training as an older white belt
  • Embracing the challenge of BJJ
  • The best thing about jiu-jitsu
  • Mistakes in learning BJJ
  • Having the right attitude

Quote of the week: “Life is like riding a bicycle. In order to maintain balance, you must keep moving.” Albert Einstein

Article of the week: Never Miss an Opportunity to Learn

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Catch us next week for another episode of The BjjBrick Podcast

The BjjBrick Podcast is in iTunesStitcher radio, and Google Play Music for Andriod

Epi 260 The Rooster Weight Kimura Machine Marcelo Cohen

This week we have an interview with Marcelo Cohen,

We talk about:

  • The history of The Armory and the changes it has made
  • Running a BJJ gym
  • Teaching BJJ and MMA in the same gym
  • Learning from a loss with Ciao Terra
  • Building confidence with a kids program
  • How jiu-jitsu can become toxic
  • Training gi and no-gi
  • Tips for dealing with bigger people on the mat

Links:

Quote of the week: “Ah, summer, what power you have to make us suffer and like it.” Russell Baker “Ah, BJJ, what power you have to make us suffer and like it.” BjjBrick

Article of the week: NO, YOU DIDN’T START JIU JITSU TOO LATE

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Catch us next week for another episode of The BjjBrick Podcast

The BjjBrick Podcast is in iTunesStitcher radio, and Google Play Music for Andriod

Never Miss an Opportunity to Learn

You can learn something from everyone. That’s a common sentiment on the mats. In theory, it’s great. In practice….sometimes not so much. Even the mellowest colored belt can sometimes struggle when the 4-stripe white belt starts handing out advice or the more advanced student takes them to school on the mats. Let’s look at two distinctly different ways we can learn from our training partners — tactile feedback and verbal feedback or advice.

If you want to be able to learn from anyone via tactile feedback i.e. through rolling, you need to roll with everyone and you will want to experience all aspects of their jiu jitsu including their A-game. If every time you roll with better students you do everything you can to avoid being drawn into their best positions you will miss the opportunity to study up close and personal what it is that makes that particular position part of their A-game. If every time you roll with less experienced training partners you simply crush them you will also miss what they have to offer. In an ideal world you will spend some time being the hammer and some time being the nail. When you are the hammer, you are letting your training partner feel and learn from your A game. When you are the nail, you are learning from theirs.

If you want to learn something from everyone via verbal feedback or advice you must be humble and approachable. If every time someone gives you feedback you allow your ego to interfere and become dismissive or confrontational people will not be likely to continue to try and help you. Sometimes it is helpful to encourage others to give you feedback. This can be asking directly or you can be a little more subtle like just comment on something you were trying to do during the roll i.e. “I was having a heck of a time passing your guard” or “that was a great triangle”. Feedback is often revealed in casual conversations if you’re looking for it.

There are many ways of learning jiu jitsu: In class instruction, seminars, video study, drilling with your favorite training partners, as well as tactile and verbal feedback from your classmates and training partners. Take advantage of them all.

Train hard, train smart, get better.

Joe Thomas

Epi 259 Life on and off the mat with John Will

This week on the podcast we have listener favorite John Will. John shares his many years of experience and talks about many topics from class structure to embracing the difficulty of BJJ.

We talk about:

  • Appreciating the little things on the mat
  • Designing the class structure
  • Different things for a class to focus on
  • The importance of defense in BJJ
  • Making a safety net for your BJJ
  • The culture of BJJ compared to MMA
  • Being a good teammate
  • What holds back schools from growing
  • Getting your family on the mat
  • Leveraging things you learn on the mat to help you off the mat
  • A learning technique called fast forwarding
  • Different teaching styles
  • Backpacking

Links:

Quote of the week: “It never gets easier, you just get better”

Article of the week: 12 Tips to Better Hygiene when Training BJJ

We also have a new Mat Tales #26 Neck Mole

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Catch us next week for another episode of The BjjBrick Podcast

The BjjBrick Podcast is in iTunesStitcher radio, and Google Play Music for Andriod

Epi 258 The Origins of Jiu-Jitsu in Brazil With Robert Drysdale

This week we have an interview with Robert Drysdale. Not only is Robert one of the best grapplers in the world, he is also working on a documentary about the history of Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu. This interview covers everything from the documentary to doing BJJ for the right reasons.

We talk about:

  • Training BJJ for 20 years
  • Running his own school
  • Training at Valor Martial Arts in Wichita
  • His documentary Closed Guard: The Origins of Jiu-Jitsu in Brazil
  • The role of fake fight in the history of BJJ
  • How the rules in Brazil changed the game
  • How the infrastructure on Brazil changed Jiu-Jitsu
  • The goals of the Closed Guard documentary
  • The meaning of the name of “Closed Guard”
  • The funding for the movie
  • Training advice for competition
  • Why ACB is so exciting to watch
  • Do BJJ for the right reasons

Links:

Quote of the week: “Yesterday’s home runs don’t win today’s games.” Babe Ruth

Article of the week: You Be The Hammer, I am the Nail

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Catch us next week for another episode of The BjjBrick Podcast

The BjjBrick Podcast is in iTunesStitcher radio, and Google Play Music for Andriod

Epi 257 Fernando Halfeld BjjBrick Extra

This episode of BJJ Brick Extra we have BTT Black belt Fernando Halfeld. Professor Halfeld is from Brazil and has been training jiu jitsu 17 years. While he has won multiple medals at IBJJF tournaments, his major victories have been 3rd place at Worlds, 1st place in the South American Championship, and 2nd and 3rd place at the Brazilian Nationals. Fernandos students are following in his footsteps. Most notably his student Ruben Gonzalez won the IBJJF worlds, master purple belt 2017. The accomplishment he is most proud of, however, is the establishment and growth of his school Brazilian Top Team, Lake Jackson.

We talk about:

  • Fernando starting BJJ as the only kid in a class of adults
  • Moving to the United States from Brazil
  • Learning to understand English
  • Teaching BJJ to kids
  • Bullying in schools
  • The goals of a kids class
  • Teaching self defense classes
  • Advice on starting BJJ if you are a little older than most on the mat
  • Getting ready for a tournament
  • Brazilian Top Team
  • Running a BJJ school

Links:

https://www.facebook.com/bttlakejackson/

https://www.schoolofjiujitsu.com/

Tip of the month: How to stay active while away from the mats for an extended period.

Question of the month: How many gis should I own?

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Catch us next week for another episode of The BjjBrick Podcast

The BjjBrick Podcast is in iTunesStitcher radio, and Google Play Music for Andriod