My many faces

There's a line I get a lot that I actually hate. "You're an inspiration." People say it all the time without realizing that it's for that exact reason among others that it means absolutely nothing. It may seem like a compliment but you're really saying when you say that is one of two things. 1) You've given me an idea or 2) I felt sorry for you, but now I don't because you made feel guilty about complaining and being lazy. Now for the purposes of this post we're going to use and focus on the second use of the word that I listed above. Now to all the able-bodied community I ask you, if after having a conversation with someone they said to you, "Before talking to you I felt sorry for you, but now I don't because made me feel guilty about complaining and being lazy." Does that sound like a compliment? Now is this your fault? Not so much, it's the fault of the media moreso than anything else. After all, it's the media who toss

I've said before coaching makes you a better competitor because having to break things forces you to understand how and why they work, but it goes much deeper that. Competition requires you get into a zone. A zone of hyper-focus where everything is in slow-motion and thinking is not required there is no nervousness, there isn't even logic there's only action. This is why if you ask any athlete what happened during "X" or "X" play they'll either reply "I don't know" or "I have to watch the tape." This is also why when people ask if I ever get nervous my reply is, "No. When I compete, I'm going to work." Training is fun, competition is business and that will never change and in business the zone is a prerequisite. If you can't reach the zone, go home. Coaching requires not only the ability to make things easier to understand, but the ability to motivate and lead; the ability to make people believe in you, so th

Box-Get inside the box and you win. Sandwich-Our forearms are blades with them we slice bread Flying vs Praying-Simple elbows in vs elbows out Simple concepts I use when teaching. I find teaching moves is a waste of time if the student doesn't understand why work.

What you see above is my medal wall. Looking at it reminds me of questions I was asked when I helped to plan the first GrapplersHeart tournament. The question was "Should we give out participation medals? The obvious answer to that is no and I've went into detail on that in other posts, so I won't do that here. However, that does bring me to the subject of this post and that is, "What do medals really mean?" Well, that depends heavily on who you talk to. Keenan Corneilus says he just tossed them all under his bed after a while. I agree wholeheartedly with that sentiment as medals medals only represent how good you were on that day. I firmly believe as a competitor you're only as good as your last fight. The only thing on that wall that will forever hold meaning is the certificate itself. Why? Because that doesn't represent just one day or one weekend, over a decade of work went into that. Switching schools, injuries, helping keep a school afloat, being

A video from a few years ago now.

Let's talk about loyalty. Switching teams... To clarify I'm speaking of moving to a different lineage not just changing schools. It happens in every other sport. Is it bad to do it in Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu; if so why? Who's done it? What does it mean? Why did they do it? Does it make you question their loyalty if they come from somewhere else? I've done it and have my own opinions on the subject. I did it because of location among other things, but how do you guys feel about it? Discuss.

Lots of us couldn't imagine life without training and would train every day if we could. We'd compete every weekend there was a tournament and travel to all IBJJF regional opens, so we could be ready to compete in the Big 4 when they arrive. Are there guys that do that? Yes. However, most of us can't. And even those that do that, go about the process in a very calculated manner. This to make sure they reach their optimum performance level also known as peak at the perfect time for the event with as minimal burnout as possible, of course no burnout is the preferred result. This involves the athlete doing nothing related to their sport 24 hours prior. This is because we don't actually get stronger while training we get stronger by resting after an intense workout, muscle fibers thicken as they repair themselves. Therefore, they get bigger and us by default stronger. It is rest and recovery that makes us stronger not the act exercise itself. This is also true for the learn