Jiu Jitsu – Serenity Through Sweat

135lb hangover

Thanks for joining me for another edition of the SerenityThroughSweat blog. I spent a large portion of the past weekend traveling. While that is pretty normal for my job as a pilot, this was a different kind of travel. A real, planes, trains, and automobiles adventure.

El Duderino, Speedy, my wife, and I all headed out late Thursday evening on a flight to Atlanta. Arriving well after the boys bedtime, we went to a hotel located a short walk from the airport sky train.

After a restless night of sleep for all four of us we were up and at em, picking up the rental car and out of the hotel before 9 AM. We stopped to pick up a U-Haul truck, and then made very carefully timed subsequent stops at both IKEA and Sam’s Club, enroute to our new home in North Carolina.

We had to stop at the realtor’s office to sign closing paperwork after the two and half hour drive. All of this had to be done before 2PM so we could take possession of the house before the county offices closed for the weekend.

Only an optimist can put together a plan like that. There were so many moving pieces. So many variables outside of our control. Somehow, like a rare celestial alignment, everything worked out wonderfully and we spent the weekend in our new home.

On the two and a half hour drive, winding through the mountain roads in a crosswind catching U-Haul box, I heard Bert Kreischer tell Joe Rogan a story that struck a nerve in me.

Bert was telling Joe how he watched one of his wife’s friends, a middle aged woman whose stunning beauty had started to fade, struggle to get a bartenders attention.

The moment Bert described was probably fleeting. He doesn’t say how long she was at the bar, or how long it took her to get the bartender’s attention. But he gives an eloquent and detailed description of her confusion. The puzzled look on her face. Her inability to process why the bartender is not immediately paying attention to her.

He realizes, this is a new experience for her. As a younger head turner, this was never a problem she had to deal with. And, she has yet to come to the realization that she is no longer that person.

Joe Rogan spouts out a quote from Socrates that he is apt to use in similar situations, “beauty is a short lived tyranny”.

The whole thing made me think about my wrestling. I was very successful and adept as a high school wrestler at 135 lbs. And my wrestling base, and instincts, and movements, have served me very well in life and especially in Jiu Jitsu.

But, there is always a big glaring but. My wrestling in Jiu Jitsu, especially with a gi on, bears a striking resemblance to this former beauty at the bar. Misunderstanding my current place in the pecking order. Over reliant on a skill set that has faded. Unable to recognize the need to evolve and adapt.

Running off the bike, getting ready for IM 70.3

I’m not sure why it took me this long to see it. Maybe it was egotistical denial. Maybe there are enough alternatives in Jiu Jitsu where I could hide the deficiency. Maybe I was able to get away with old habits with less skilled opponents.

Either way, the bandaid has been ripped off. I refuse to be the bombshell at the bar, past my prime and confused about how things are changing around me. It’s time to learn again as a beginner. To embrace the potential for growth and get past my 135lb wrestling hangover.

Thanks for joining me, stay safe and stay sweaty my friends.

Loss

Thanks for joining me for another edition of the SerenityThroughSweat blog. This past weekend I competed in the Pan American Jiu Jitsu championships, and I wanted to share my results and my experience.

One of my favorite TV shows in college was scrubs. This was in a TV era where dvr technology had just emerged but I couldn’t afford it at the time.

New episodes of your favorite show aired at a certain time, on a certain day. If you weren’t able to watch it you had to wait till the episode reran. Or, maybe you were lucky enough to have a friend with a dvr and could watch it at their house.

This also gave rise to the spoiler, and the spoiler alert. Someone who watched the newest episode would inevitably want to discuss it with you, knowing that you were also a fan, but unaware that you hadn’t seen it yet.

My roommates and I watched a lot of scrubs. The show was humorous and heartwarming. I was never really concerned about spoilers. (Lost was another story)

Most of the show was narrated in the voice of JD, John Dorian. The main character played by Zach Braff who works his way as a doctor through the Sacred Heart Hospital and grows up along the way.

There are a few episodes which are narrated by his tough love mentor figure, Dr Cox. These episodes occur after Dr Cox’s botched vasectomy where he is having overly philosophical conversations with his infant son Jack, swinging in a baby rock n play. (Way more back story than you needed, but that was more for my trip down memory lane than anything else)

That image of a grown man, established and respected in his profession, bearing his soul to an unresponsive drooling baby swinging back and forth, is one I think about often with this blog.

It is a very one sided conversation, a monologue with a captive audience that is unable to respond.

It is also a beautiful moment of vulnerability and sensitivity for an otherwise rough and gruff character. Dr Cox bearing his soul to a child who likely won’t remember any of what is said.

A lot of this blog is directly or indirectly for my boys. That they might look back in time at the man their father was before they were able to understand such adult intricacies. I found myself in one of those conversations yesterday with El Duderino.

My wife had taken the boys to a birthday party while I went to the Jiu Jitsu tournament. I was able to join them after a rather unceremonious first round loss. By the time I got there El Duderino was in a full meltdown.

My wife scooped him up and took him home. I stayed with Speedy for another hour or so, letting him play while I caught up with friends.

We had a very nice rest of the evening as a family, bit when it came time for bed El Duderino was still struggling. There were lots of things I could have said to him. Things I know have worked in the past to calm him down. But I found myself giving one of those Dr Cox like monologues to a somewhat captive audience instead. (El Duderino had crawled into his trundle bed mattress while it was still tucked under his twin bed, I layed at the lengthwise exit so he was very much a captive audience)

I told him he seemed sad and upset. I told him I felt sad, and upset, and disappointed. I told him I had competed that afternoon and lost. I told him I fell short of my goals and expectations. I told him that good things can be born from disappointment.

I tried to boil my feelings down to a five year old, hiding under the bed, level. To put my disappointment, frustration, and anger into a positive light for El Duderino to see. To show him the soil that can be tilled for growth out of loss.

I don’t know if the lesson sank in. I may never know. I don’t think I was as gracious in loss as I ought to have been in the moment. Losing 0-0 by advantage is a tough pill to swallow. But there was a unique catharsis in sharing the emotions of my loss with my young son. I had never experienced that before.

I don’t like to lose. I am very fortunate to still be somewhat unaccustomed to it, after essentially thirty years of grappling. Still, I recognize the lessons to be learned. Even more so now that I am a father. I hadn’t competed in a Jiu Jitsu tournament in three years, and I hadn’t lost a competition match since having kids. It only felt right to share that with them, and I hope they can learn as much from it as I did.

Thanks for joining me, stay safe and stay sweaty my friends.

The Importance of Play

Thanks for joining me for another edition of the SerenityThroughSweat blog. Today I want to talk about the importance of play. For toddlers, for kids, for parents, for everyone, play is more important now than ever.

El Duderino isn’t really old enough to understand what’s going on in the world, but he is very smart and incredibly perceptive. Most kids pick up on social cues and read the room far better than adults and well beyond what they are given credit for. So when I’m feeling stressed by everything COVID-19 related, he might not understand the nuts and bolts of it, but he reacts to my emotional state.

At the end of the day all he really wants to do is play. Play takes on many different forms depending on the day or mood. The current play du jour is digging in the dirt with his work trucks. Each truck has a name and a job and then when they get dirty they go through the car wash (hose, sink, bath, etc).

The only limit is his imagination, and maybe the weather or daddy’s bladder bringing us inside. That imagination and creativity is the beauty of play. It’s a release from reality and whatever stresses are there, even if they are just picked up from his mother and me. It is mentally stimulating. It helps him grow and come up with new ideas.

I think it’s safe to say most adults struggle with play, especially in the current lack of social climate. How many adult activities leave room for creativity, improvisation, experimentation, and just room to play? Maintaining a balanced approach to overall wellbeing is one of the core tenets of this blog (and one of my top priorities), and play is a huge part of that.

That is one of the many reasons I miss Jiu Jitsu. Running, lifting, cycling, archery, mobility work, have all played a huge roll in my sanity from home over the past weeks. But each of them lack the dynamic playful environment that Jiu Jitsu offers.

Wrestling and Jiu Jitsu offer an incredible mix of physical stressors, mental stimulation, and a plethora of opportunities to be creative and innovative. In other words perfect, a perfect adult play environment. For my brother’s and sisters on the mats you don’t need any further explanation, but for those of you who haven’t ever tried it, I will try to explain as best as I can.

Grappling tends to present itself like human chess. You are always thinking multiple moves ahead (mental stimulation). Each of those moves or techniques requires complex and coordinated physical movement, often under pressure or resistance from your partner (physical stressors). And, there are an endless number of techniques that pair together in different orders, or varitions of those techniques that allow each practitioner to develop his or her own style or “game” (creativity and innovation).

In addition to physical stressors, mental stimulation, and opportunities for creativity and innovation, grappling requires extremely close physical contact. Often times claustrophobia inducing contact. And while this may be an acquired taste, after several weeks of lockdown I think we could all use some claustrophobia inducing contact, whether we are grapplers or not.

Thanks for joining me, stay safe and stay sweaty my friends.

As excited as I am for my local gym (OBJJ) to be opening tomorrow, I will not be in attendance just yet. Speedy hasn’t reached the two month mark yet, and his developing immune system trumps my need for play.

This week in SerenityThroughSweat, El Duderino plays in the mud, does his best salt bae impression baking bread, some interval running, and a sweaty sandbag session.

Mastery of the Aircraft

Whenever training on a new aircraft, pilots are put through a rigorous training program consisting of aircraft systems knowledge, training procedures and flows, and ultimately both normal and emergency operations in a simulator. There is a whole slew of things that evaluators look for including ; knowledge, skill, good judgement, proficiency, and mastery of the aircraft. That last item, mastery of the aircraft, is obviously a subjective term, but I think we all know it when we see it, someone who is calm and in control regardless of the scenario, and who can think a few steps ahead.

I was listening to JRE episode #1392 the other day with ultra runner Zach Bitter and it got me thinking about this concept as it applies to athletes. How much training and experience does it take for a pilot to be the master of an aircraft, and how much time do we devote as athletes to being masters of our own bodies?

On the podcast zach talked about his recent 12 hour and 100 mile record breaking performance, as well as his diet and training plan leading up to it. The thing that surprised me the most about Zach was his training based on perceived effort which is an arguably more subjective criteria as opposed to something more objective (like heart rate zone training)

The difference of course is that Zach has put in the time, energy, and effort, and has the discipline to be a master of his body and can honestly and accurately assess his training based on perceived effort. How many of us age group traithloners, or casual BJJ practitioners, can say we have the discipline and understanding to do that?

Yoga practices often remind us to be aware of our breathing and tune in to what our body needs. I’m relatively new to yoga and after about twenty minutes in the hot room the only thing I feel tuned in to, is how much longer I can hold chair pose before my yoga mat has transformed into a slip’n’slide. (Incase the blog title didn’t give it away I’m a pretty sweaty dude) I can’t tell you how many interval runs or rides I’ve done where I’m unable to maintain my interval pace through the final interval. Even with a wrestling background and a lot of competition experience, I still remember going out way too hard in my first BJJ tournament match and almost running out of steam.

Part of the journey towards Serenity through Sweat is being aware of our lack of knowledge of our own body and working to better understand this vehicle we have through life. Working to develop the discipline and putting in the effort to become masters of our “craft”. For me anyway, that journey makes me a better husband, father and friend, and it’s a journey I’m happy to share with all of you. Stay sweaty my friends.