“I thought I knew how to Punch”

Earlier this month, I had the pleasure of visiting my brother and his family. During some downtime, I checked out my brother’s garage/boxing gym. For fun, I hit my brother’s heavy bag a few times.

While I was hitting the bag, I heard a laugh from behind me. It was my four-year-old nephew Curtis. He had moved a lighter bag into his range and went to town on it. “You have to punch like this Uncle Henry.” Curtis told me - and then proceeded to show me.

If a four-year-old tells me I need to work on my striking technique, I’d figured I needed to learn how to strike. Fortunately, ECU has regular striking classes right here in Westchester that are taught by professional MMA fighters. So I said to myself, “What the hell?” And started training striking at ECU.

I thought my years of watching Joey Kocur videos had taught me enough, but I was wrong. Jo-Jo has completely transformed my striking – and that’s after only three classes.

It turns out that I really don’t know how to throw a punch.

JoJo patiently guided me through my first class. Since then, I’ve had to learn both how to strike properly, and be an excellent training partner.

But I’m learning quickly. What I couldn’t do yesterday seems easy today.

Imagine what I do will do in a year?

So, I’d strongly suggest that anyone who has ever thought of trying an ECU striking class get there ASAP.

Another Great Seminar at ECU!

On Saturday July 9, 2011, JoJo hosted yet another outstanding seminar at ECUBJJ. One of the JoJo’s great strengths as a school owner is his ability to recognize the many different ways he can help his students improve. “When we have seminars, I like to bring in people who have different games than mine so everybody can see different things.”

As a student, I definitely appreciate that. In the less than two years that ECU has been open, I’ve had the privilege of attending seminars given by Black Belts such as “Rob G.”, Jared Weiner, and Justin Garcia, as well as Leg-Lock expert Tito Hartz. Every single seminar has shown me a slightly different perspective that I’d like to think has helped me grow my game.

Saturday’s seminar brought a new player to the game – NJ United MMA & Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu owner, and head instructor Jay Hayes. Barely eight years into the BJJ game, Jay currently holds the rank of Black Belt, is a multiple-time Pan Am medalist, and a school owner. When JoJo told me about Jay, I knew this was a seminar I didn’t want to miss.

I’m glad I didn’t.

Even though I arrived a little later than I’d hoped (I had to go home to get my no-gi gear), I loved the way Jay linked the techniques he taught and didn’t overload us with too much information.

While I missed Mr. Hayes’ takedown-defense philosophies, the great Josh Kaplan filled me in. Even secondhand, I could see the advantages.

I did make it back in time for Jay’s exploration of the Guillotine Choke. Jay showed tons of details that made the guillotine much more effective for me (and I hope everybody else at the seminar).

Jay’s details gave me the confidence and skills to finish a choke that I haven’t hit for a long time but, finished six times in three rounds of sparring on the day of the seminar.

I’d like to thank JoJo for bringing Jay to ECU, and I definitely want to thank Jay for putting the guillotine back in my arsenal.

As always thanks for reading the ECU BJJ & MMA Blog. I hope you enjoy reading this as much as I enjoyed the seminar.

Submission!

Recently, JoJo has placed a renewed emphasis on submissions. According to JoJo, “We need to work on submitting our opponents.”

To help us accomplish that goal, JoJo has been introducing new drills that emphasize submitting our opponent.

While I’m admittedly only an occasional competitor (and far from elite when I do), I can see the wisdom of this approach.

Tournament matches typically last anywhere from five to ten minutes. Even the most finely conditioned athletes will eventually tire after four or five matches that go the distance. A quick submission will give the competitor time to rest physically, and mentally prepare for their next opponent.

The second huge advantage is even more evident. In grappling competitions, submissions immediately end the match. Whether you are leading on points, or down significantly, if you earn a submission YOU WIN!

Finally, earning a submission victory lets a competitor win without leaving the match in the hands of referees/judges. As JoJo says, “You can’t fight the ref.”

Words

While I’ve touched on relations of this topic before, my experiences during Monday’s day class reminded me that I’ve been slacking in my studies, and that an instructor can help his or her students in some simple ways.

Kim is one of ECU’s newest warrior women. After JoJo showed a slick take-down to submission, Kim asked JoJo what the techniques were called. JoJo named the techniques and Kim said that it would help her remember them better.

For the Student:

Write down what you’ve learned after every class. Taking notes/pictures might even help during class. Just don’t post anything on YouTube without your instructor’s permission. :)

For the Teacher:

Try to give every technique/drill a name. It makes it easier for us students to remember. ECU Brown-Belt, and No-Gi instructor Jordan Lutsky dubbed an inverted-guard drill, “The Under the Legs Twirly Drill” – guess the name that’s burned into my mind? I’ve become quite good at that drill.

Before I hit class tomorrow, I’m going to buy myself a brand-new notebook, and make sure that I’m taking notes from now on.

“A Deep Breath”

First, and foremost I’d like to apologize for the delay between posts. However, I feel that the delay fits perfectly with this topic.

For the past few months, I’ve often talked about how intense the training has been at ECU. That training paid off!

Numerous ECU students medaled in competitions large and small. Those who didn’t compete learned what it meant to train like a champion.

Now that we’re in a lull between competitions, JoJo has wisely decided to throttle down the intensity so that all ECU students can heal and get stronger.

As JoJo likes to say after our typically intense warm-ups, “Take a deep breath and get some water.”

I’d like to think that this month JoJo is giving ECU a collective chance to take that breath and work on what we need to improve.

JoJo: “Intense training all the time can burn everyone out so we have to tone it down and repair our beaten up bodies. That way, we’ll all be ready for the next season of hard training.”

Go With the Flow!

The other day I attended an ECU day class. ECU Fundamentals instructor Eric Guido ran a great class.

Later Eric and I did a first-round of sparring. As two similar-weight Purple Belts it’s natural that we’d both resort to our standard games. When I talked about it later with JoJo, he said, “So you and Eric ended up hugging each other for six minutes”.

I sheepishly admitted that JoJo’s evaluation was pretty much the case. However, a round later, I suggested to Eric that we follow JoJo’s advice and have a “non-competitive” round.

So we did.

Eric and I hit submissions, but didn’t finish them. Sweeps we could have fought, we let happen. At the end, Eric and I opened up our games so much that most people watching us didn’t think Eric and I were capable of so much movement.

I want to thank JoJo for putting the idea in my head, and Eric for making the round so much fun.

Sometimes, the way to advance isn’t trying to dominate every opponent. Sometimes, we all need to put our egos aside and just have some fun.

Every Hurt is a Lesson

I don’t know how many readers of this blog watch the excellent new HBO show “Game of Thrones”, but I recommend it to everyone.

The reason I mention “Game of Thrones” is that it perfectly fits something that JoJo said the other night.

JoJo: “Who cares if you get tapped out in class? Class is when you try new things. You find out what works for you, and what you need to work on."

A couple of days later, I watched an episode of “Game of Thrones”, when Eddard Stark saw his daughter standing precariously on the top of the stairs, he expressed his concern:

Arya Stark (fictional character): “Master Syrio says every hurt is a lesson, and every lesson makes us better.”

I’ll talk more about this in the future, but I thought it was really cool that fact and fiction fit together so nicely.