Time to set new goals

Realized partway through the week that I have, since obtaining my purple belt, gotten lax on setting new goals. Or perhaps am just feeling lazy about it all. I'm not sure which.

I've settled into being happy to study the earlier curriculum, assist folks working towards their blue belts, or even just their first stripe on their white belt. And I don't think either is at a huge detriment - it's reviewing portions of the curriculum that I never had to test for, having shown up with my blue belt and some stripes before the curriculum ever came into the picture for me.

I'm seeing a lot of the curriculum with new eyes. Seeing things way differently than the first however many times I watched the moves done. Connecting the dots. Hearing what isn't being said. And that's pretty cool.

Meanwhile, other folks are already obsessing over putting stripes on their new purple belts. Man, I still don't see what all the rush is about. And that could easily be a function of my having accepted slow rank progression as just a matter of course for me. I'm still not able to attend regular classes, so I guess I don't fixate so much on advancement. I know it's going to take me longer. Which is also fine by me, since I prefer being thorough. I prefer knowing the bejeezus out of the moves long before I test on them.

I've heard it said that by the time you reach purple, you're done learning new moves. That you simply refine what you have already acquired. I hope that isn't true - I'm coming back around to things I never thought would be a part of my game, learning new positions that have drawn the current favor, and I'm still not satisfied with it. I still want more. I want to take my sweet time enmeshing myself with every dvd I ever bought, learning it inside and out, seeing if any of it works for me, and if not, fine, how do I defend against it.

Maybe I'd do better to focus on that instead. I felt, once promoted, a huge relief more than anything else. Sure, it was validating, and I feel very proud of what I achieved, but since then, my underlying thought has been "Good. Now I can go back to just studying it at my own pace."

But something about that is making me feel... lazy. 

I can math, dammit.

Alright.

Now that I'm officially in my new house, I figured "cool, self. Let's go ahead and resume magazine delivery, and renew some expired subscriptions..."

Top of my list: Gracie Mag. I love that magazine (even though I have to spend more energy ignoring the various pervasive bias(es) than I used to), and have kept every issue. So off to their website I go, credit card in tow. Okay, looks like it's 24 months, 12, or 6 months. And there are free gifts with each. Okay, I like the t-shirt with the 6-month... add to cart. check out.

What the deuce.

$25.00 shipping?!

Hold the damned phone. Err, keyboard.

Calculator.

$8.95 x 6 = $53.70. Less my 10% discount at Books A Million, That's $48.33

Graciemag webstore price, with shipping: $64.40

Pure bullshit. Hell to the nizzo.

I mean, really.

Comparatively, 1 yr subscription to Jiu Jitsu Magazine: $37.99.

Yeah, I think My answer is pretty damned clear: option C - order both from budovideos, and come up with excuses to buy additional stuff ;)

I should really have some lengthy, lofty post for this, but

Here's the long and short of it: I got my purple belt. like 2 1/2 weeks ago. While I'd been told to get my shit together and test "soon" I had no idea how soon it would be. I was figuring a few months down the line.

I was told about 3 hours prior that I'd be testing. I've been packing and moving and unpacking, but had zero idea where the hell any of my materials were - so there was no studying/cramming or anything of the sort. So I just made peace with either knowing enough or not. Either earning the belt or not.

But I'd also placed trust in my instructor to not push me into a test I wasn't ready for. If we all waited for me to say "I'm ready" then the process would've easily taken another 6 months or more. Because I'm never "ready" to my liking. If it isn't perfect, I don't proceed.

But perfect never really happens. I'd do well to stop chasing it, and holding myself back for it.

I'm relieved that it's over, and I'm happy that I was successful, mostly by virtue of now being able to stop being distracted by it all and resuming the study of the art. Which is what I love most about it - the endless study, the elusiveness of any sort of mastery.

I was told that I should be done acquiring moves now. That the core of my game has been set and now it's about refinement. I'm not sure that it's as closed a door as that. There are too many things in flux that could change things. But maybe it won't. I'll always favor open guard, I imagine. Don't see that going away. But as I age, as I lose weight, as I gain strength, flexibility, etc. moves that were before out of my range are coming into reach.

But I am content to wait and see how it all develops. Work still knocks me out of a decent schedule that will allow training. But I'll work around it, same as always. While my other purple belted cohorts now chase off against each other towards brown, I'm going in reverse to rededicate myself towards learning the earlier curriculum. It allows me two things I like doing: immersing myself in study, and helping others to understand said study.

I really never should have let anything deter me from that anyway. Damned herd behavior.

sometimes it clicks, sometimes it leaves you hanging with your mouth agape.

so I've been hitting the curriculum hard. Trying to gear up for 4th stripe, as I was charged with getting my act in gear and getting it done already. I tend to let a LOT of time go by before I'll test on curriculum. I am not a fan of this whole get your next [rank belt stripe] in 5 minutes culture that seems to be going on in bjj lately.

you have to let that shit marinate. cook it on low heat. love it. tend to it. let it do its thing gracefully. immerse in it.

it's been my nature with anything I love. typical creative brain. I want to be totally enmeshed with it before moving on from it. I want to know it inside out, all 360 degrees.

when someone asks me about XYZ move on a part of the curriculum that I've supposedly mastered, I don't want to go blank. that is disrespect. To my teacher, and his teacher, and his teacher.

[edit] later that day... Received my 4th stripe Sunday. It may've been an unnecessary undertaking, but I wanted to specifically test for and demonstrate the curriculum moves. It changes nothing with regards to being expected to belt test in the next few months. And that makes me nervous.

There's still so much to be done. So much to review and master. I want to take the time to study the entire curriculum like I have the past stripe's worth. It seems like it makes more sense now than it did back when I tested for 2nd, 3rd, etc. Not to mention the entirety of the curriculum that came before (i.e.- white belt as a whole and 1st stripe blue).

So often I tell newer folks that just because they don't like a move they've learned today, it doesn't mean that it won't make more sense later on down the road. It may become a move they like later. Once their bodies become adept at executing it, or once they find themselves in a situation where it's the easiest, most natural way to counter something. In the spirit of that statement, I feel compelled to go back and rework things.

But I've only a few months (hell I don't know, it may only be weeks) to do so before testing will ambush me. And during that time I really need to work on flowing better. Seeing opportunities better. Not sucking at rolling. All easier said than done perhaps (nevermind the obstacle of my work schedule).

Meh. Whatever will be, will be. I might be forced to test and fail. Whoop dee doo. My path will likely not change much based on that. That said, I feel way less worried about it. Back to pushing the rock.

Ha. So that lasted all of one week.

My victory was short lived. Before the end of the first week of my new, jiu-jitsu-friendly schedule, news came down from corporate that no, actually, we need to change your schedule. Again.

That I've just come to expect this sort of disappointment may have softened the blow, but ultimately makes me wonder just how jacked up my head is in that I've become so accepting of this inconsistency, of this constant "over the barrel"ing. I mean, really. Did I actually go to grad school for this sort of dickery?

Alas, at least I can still barely fit in crossfit. And at least I'm dropping weight. Both are good things. I make do with weekend open mats as I can, but with the summer months arriving, people are far more inclined to attend barbeques than open mat.

And I can dig it. I've been known to happily compensate open mat attendance fails with a kayak trip. I'm trying to work with what IS available to me instead of focusing so much on what ISN'T. Why continue to be morose and pensive thinking about what I'm not doing instead of just going after what I CAN do?

Releasing the frantic choke hold of doom on the biological clock of OMGMUSTTRAINBJJGETALLTHEBELTS has left the art way more enjoyable. I "lose" a lot of training time to white belts who want to study early curriculum moves, and I don't mind it as much. Sometimes I only get to rep out what I actually had in mind a few times. Meh. Whatevs.

Part of me feels lazy, another part still feels like a jilted girlfriend. But the fact of the matter is I can't train like the other folks can. I can't make classes. I largely have to direct my own study. In those obstacles, my progression will suffer. But we have to make the best of what's around sometimes...

an end to the scheduling blues... for now

So, effective this coming week, I'm back on a more normal work shift, allowing me to return to evening bjj classes. I am equal parts elated, pensive, and hesitant.

In the interim of time where I could not really train but maybe once a week or two, I've instead focused on crossfit. Really, really focused. In the span of around a month, I went from hoping I could make it twice a week, to regularly going four time and being annoyed at the one day during the week I'd miss to rest.

I've gone, in those few weeks, from crawling and scrambling to even approach the sort of things I could do before injuries took me out of the box for a good long while to chasing PRs - mine and others'. Hell, I even took ten minutes off my Murph time this year.

My concern is how I will break up my trainings. I hate to give up any crossfit, since I'm seeing a LOT of progress from it. And who says I have to. I'll just have to rededicate myself to making my nutrition and rest/recovery no laughing matter. Which I need to do anyways. Or continue to do I should say.

What I don't know is how the re-indoctrination will go. During my time studying and drilling in the mornings, I've concluded that that is my ideal training scenario. I seem to retain more. So I guess I'll have to retool the way I absorb, take better control of my evening class training to tailor it more to my needs.

Returning to active rolling/sparring will suck. For a long time. Period. And it will until my timing develops, and it will until my transition from power/strength game to flexible/speed/technique game furthers. Neither will be remotely overnight.

But nothing worthwhile is.

Trying to not overthink it (failing miserably) and just enjoy that I have the option to train for now.

more than a little bummed.

So upon waking and checking my various social media feeds, I come across word that a training partner received his blue belt last night. I remember when he first started, and spent a lot of his "early years" in morning classes with him.

Needless to say, I'm so very proud of him and for him, since he's been so consistent and progressed into a really mature bjj player. He's one of the people I always try and grab whenever I am around for open mats or whatnot because while he's a strong beast, he doesn't use it to lord over me. He's fun to work with - finds that elusive mix of appropriate challenge and resistance. I appreciate that to no end.

While I am always acutely aware that my present work schedule has caused various limitations and greatly impacted my overall involvement, it's things like this that really drive that point home and make me upset. I had to hear about this after the fact. Had I the option, I'd have preferred to have been present for it. I feel like one of those parents who are too busy for their kids.

I mean, I'm doing the best I can. And things are going well with my morning studies - maybe better than what I originally expected. It's just a little distraction from the path, but still. I'm kinda mournful about what I'm missing.

I don't know if it's complacence or just a healthy way of looking at it, but lately I'm more interested in the sort of studying I've been doing - taking my sweet time to rep out moves, ponder the why's and why not's of a move, let the recognition just come along on its own. I've spent the past three or so weeks studying chokes - a long-time void. And it's coming along nicely. Chokes aren't making me pissed off the way they used to. Taking away the pressure of "learn this move real fast right now in like two reps now roll live and land it" seems to agree with me.