Alia is a 39 year old blue belt and an active competitor. She started doing kickboxing and eventually started doing BJJ. She is also a teammate of our very own Joe Thomas.
Alia getting Silver at master worlds (after the interview was recorded)
We talk about:
Her start to martial arts
Dealing with health issues that resulted in a stroke or TIA
Changing her training to protect against future medical issues
This is our second interview with Black Belt Nick Unander. You will find Nick training and teaching in Paralimni Cyprus. Nick had a recent health scare and he updates us on his story and shares much wisdom about his continued BJJ journey.
I’d like to take a minute to share with you an awesome training experience I recently had in the gym. The experience was very enlightening. I saw a fellow student, an accomplished brown belt, spend the entire time during the learning new technique portion of class assisting a brand-new student without ever once telling him he had done something wrong. Here’s the story….
I showed up a little late which is common when I’m at work and the students were already drilling the first set of instructions the coach had given. I stood with the coach observing and B.S.ing with him until it came time for him to show the next set of details in the technique. After that I needed to pick a pair of students to work in with – I had noticed my friend Josh working with this brand new guy (a guy about 15 whose parents were on the sidelines) so I joined them thinking Josh could do the technique on me and that would give him a chance to explain all the details as he executed the move. Here’s how that went….
It started with me on my back with
my feet on Josh’s hips. Of course, in a real fight there would be grips to
break and other things to deal with but for now we were just working the
mechanics of the pass. The new guy had already repped this on Josh….so Josh
stuffed one of my feet and then crouched over it effectively eliminating that
foot from the equation. Josh said “just like you stuffed my foot and took a low
stance, I’m going to do the same thing. I like to really crowd my opponent
because it takes away any power or leverage he can generate” ….”then just like
you put your right hand on my left hip…I’m going to do the same thing, I like
to connect my knee and elbow because it prevents Joe from getting a knee shield
and starting to develop a half guard”…..”then I grab his sleeve, the same way
you did and pull up so he can’t get on a shoulder or worse for me on his
elbow”…. “I sidestep a little and then with my right leg I pin his right leg to
the deck just like you did, I like to be closer to his knee because….” The
whole night was like this. At every step Josh was providing the new guy with
some direction and guidance while at the same time telling how many things he
was actually doing right.
I’m not saying this is the only (or
even the best) but in this instance I think there were two main positive
outcomes. The first is that people are more likely to listen to your
instruction when it is delivered with compliments in a positive manner. The
second, and I think this is huge, is that I believe the kid left class very
optimistic about his chances at succeeding in jiu jitsu. I can imagine him
getting in his car and telling his parents “I think I could be pretty good at
this”. Isn’t that the way we would like all new students to leave class?
