Musings from the BJJ Gi #3; Once, twice, three times a white belt

New chapter, new academy, new gi! (given to all new students for free upon attending their first lesson, along with a free Gracie University account with access to the curriculum you are currently training in. What’s more; once you’ve signed up at one academy affiliate, you have essentially signed up to all of them, and you are now welcome to train at any Gracie CTC in the world!). Complete with a brand new stripeless white belt haha. Let me be clear from the start though; by no means have I been forced to start my training from the very start again in terms of my belt rank, as multiple times at the new academy so far, the instructor and other students who have completed the instructor’s certification have double checked with me to make sure I want to do this, and that I don’t have to start from the beginning if I don’t want to, as they would validate the rank/s I have previously attained, and I certainly greatly appreciate the open offer.

I’ll outline my reasons for voluntarily choosing to start my BJJ journey over again from zero stripe white belt. First of all, like any skill set, BJJ is not unique in being perishable, being that your reflexes, your ability to use or rely on them, and ability to even remember them, diminish over time when not regularly practiced. I certainly earned and deserved my first blue belt when I received it, but that was back in 2004, almost 14 years ago now, but most notably; there was a 10 year gap in training from 2004 to 2014, which I’ve covered in previous posts. Myself and my Gracie Garage training partner of course started the Gracie Combatives curriculum via Gracie University from the start in 2014, and although it was all no-gi self-defence techniques, thus not requiring the wearing of any belts, if we were wearing belts, they would have been white. We eventually earned our Technical blue belts (now equivalent to Combatives belts), and accordingly wore them as we continued to train in the blue belt stripe 1 curriculum.

So the new Gracie Academy which I have now commenced training at (1 lesson so far), was happy to validate those previous ranks, but given that I hadn’t trained any of the Gracie Combatives curriculum techniques since the end of 2015 (just over two years ago now), I felt that I needed to re-learn them all, and that my current skill level doesn’t match the ranks I have previously had. I’m actually more than happy to revise the entire curriculum over from the start again, it’s kind of exciting! As the lessons of the Combatives program are the 36 most essential self-defence techniques to form your BJJ foundations with, and I did three cycles of this curriculum in the Gracie Garage over the course of 2015, and now I will be going through the same curriculum another two times at the academy, before graduating to the reflex development classes. So you do two cycles of 23 Combatives lessons (46 lessons in total), and then two cycles of the 12 reflex development classes (24 classes in total), at the conclusion of which, you will be eligible to take the test for your Combatives belt!

So I have had one lesson at the academy so far, and I loved it! I’ll be getting familiar with the class structure and etiquettes etc for a couple of weeks I think, and trying my best to remember new names and faces, but overall, it’s such an easy going, super friendly, welcoming place to train, and it has a family feel about it. This was really important to me, as the first academy I trained at was super down to earth, relaxed, friendly and informal too, and those features played a major role in why the young scrawny introvert that I was at the time was able to train there pretty consistently for 3-4 years.

My first lesson at the new academy covered; double ankle sweep (knee thrust variation, and kick variation), and guillotine choke (standing variation, and guard pull variation). I remembered all of these techniques for the most part, as in; generally how they went, but with some vague fuzziness in regard to fine-tuned details. But the thing is! (and yet another reason for me to start from the start again), BJJ techniques are an ever evolving beast! So the double ankle sweeps were for the most part the same as I remembered them, but there were many additional new details added to the guillotine chokes which I had never seen or done before. There were some fine tuning details which basically secured the choke more so than previously, making it much more difficult to escape from even if you know how to escape from them. And in the guard pull variation, there was an additional detail for adding extra pressure to the choke once you have full guard with it locked in. The usual routine was to kind of retract your shoulder blades while thrusting your hips to apply the choke pressure, and that alone is more than enough to make someone tap, and tap quickly! (...my throat is still a little bit sore 5 days later). But the additional detail was for after you had thrust your hips, to kind of do a sideways ab crunch, to the side where you have your opponent’s head trapped. So I guess it turns the choke from what was previously primarily upward pressure around their neck, to both upward pressure AND sideways pressure. But as I said, both myself and my training partner for the lesson tapped every time before we even got chance to feel the sideways pressure detail.

Anywho, I’m off to a good new start, and by the end of this year, I should be somewhat an expert at being a novice! haha.
Cheers,

• David.