Sorry for the gap in posts!

"When Science and Art
Embrace — looking at the stars,
Knowing God is real "

Laura Ann Atkinson
11.03 am
6th of July 2009

Have a great weekend,
Micah :-)

Courage

There are times that test our courage; the first time you stepped on the mat, your first competition.

There are times that test our character: accepting wins and losses with equal measures of humility and grace.

There are times that take all our courage and character.

the word Samurai, literally means "to serve." For over 500 years, the Samurai served as warrior knights for the nobility.

Over hundreds of years of battle, a code of honor was developed, called Bushido. "Bushi" for warrior, "do" for way. This way of the warrior centered on: courage, benevolence, and wisdom.

The Samurai believed knowledge must be assimilated in the mind and shown in the character – to know and to act are one and the same.

We should try to apply these principles of courage and character to our lives.

It will give you a new certainty and calmness of purpose. Train jiu-jitsu for you – for your love of the sport.

Not for gold medals, not for instructors’s approval - for you.

I know that sometimes you have to dig down deep to find your courage.

Because for an athlete, the very worst thing is to know that you gave it your all, and your all was not enough.

Facing down that fear of injury and fear of failure takes courage. And that kind of courage can take you a long way in life.

But practicing courage in the small moments, in everyday acts and decisions prepares you for the time that you will have to face down your fear.

We don’t normally think of the Samurai being afraid. But there were times when young knights would ride into battle, hearts pounding and knees trembling. And yet, they rode ahead with the brave ones. And as they fought in battle after battle, eventually their minds would settle and they would become strong, praiseworthy knights, not so different from those who were naturally brave.

And so it can be with you. Because courage is in each of you, in the strength of your character.

We are locked into battle together. Sometimes it feels like we are battling each other.

We draw up alliances with loyalties thicker than blood and we nurse old grudges with photographic memories.

But we are locked in battle together fighting apathy, obesity and drug use.

We are locked in battle together fighting for discipline, respect and tradition.

We have all been knocked down. It takes time to heal. But as an instructor told me long ago, there is a difference between pain and injury.

You must never tap out. You must get back up and keep fighting.

It will take courage.

But it is possible. And it is in you.

Have a great weekend.

Micah

Stability Ball for BJJ 1

Part 1 of an excellent series on using the physio ball for BJJ by Roberto Torralbas. He explains applications for the various exercises with a partner and breaks it down really well. (a common trait with Master Lloyd trained students)
Give this a try for a couple of minutes before or after your training this week and Ill get part 2 up next week.
Have a great Friday,
Micah

The Good Fight

This is a bit of a long read for a blog but a worthwhile one. I came across this in a passage by the author Paulo Coelho, I got a lot out of this. It may seem a bit preachy initialy but Jiu-jitsu is a great reflection of our lives and there are elements in both that reflect each other and I find myself learning so much about myself every time I step onto the mat.

"Men can never stop dreaming. Dreams are the food of the soul, just as food is to the body. In our existence we often see our dreams come undone, yet it is necessary to go on dreaming, otherwise our soul dies and Agape does not penetrate it. Agape is universal love, the love which is greater and more important than “liking” someone. In his famous sermon on dreams, Martin Luther King reminds us of the fact that Jesus asked us to love our enemies, not to like them. This greater love is what drives us to go on fighting in spite of everything, to keep faith and joy, and to fight the Good Fight.

The Good Fight is the one we wage because our heart asks for it. In heroic times, when the apostles went out into the world to preach the Gospel, or in the days of the knights errant, things were easier: there was a lot of territory to travel, and a lot of things to do. Nowadays, however, the world has changed and the Good Fight has been moved from the battle fields to within us.

The Good Fight is the one we wage on behalf of our dreams. When they explode in us with all their might – in our youth – we have a great deal of courage, but we still have not learned to fight. After much effort we eventually learn to fight, and then we no longer have the same courage to fight. This makes us turn against ourselves and we start fighting and becoming our own worst enemy. We say that our dreams were childish, difficult to make come true, or the fruit of our ignorance of the realities of life. We kill our dreams because we are afraid of fighting the Good Fight.

The first symptom that we are killing our dreams is lack of time. The busiest people I have known in my life had time for everything. Those who did nothing were always tired and could hardly cope with the little work they had to do, always complaining that the day was too short. In fact, they were afraid of fighting the Good Fight.

The second symptom of the death of our dreams are our certainties. Because we do not want to see life as a great adventure to be lived, we begin to feel that we are wise, fair and correct in what little we ask of our existence. We look beyond the walls of our day-to-day life and hear the noise of spears clashing, feel the smell of sweat and gun-powder, see the great defeats and the faces of warriors thirsty for victory. But we never perceive the joy, the immense joy in the heart of those who are fighting, because for them it does not matter who wins or loses, what matters only is to fight the Good Fight.

Finally, the third symptom of the death of our dreams is peace. Life becomes a Sunday afternoon, not asking too much of us and not asking more than what we want to give. So we feel that we are “mature”, leave aside the “fantasies of childhood” and guarantee our personal and professional success. We are surprised when someone our age says they still want this or that out of life. But deep in our heart we know that what has happened is that we gave up fighting for our dreams, fighting the Good Fight.

When we give up our dreams and find peace, we enjoy a period of tranquility. But our dead dreams begin to rot inside us and infest the whole atmosphere we live in. We start acting cruel towards those around us, and eventually begin to direct this cruelty towards ourselves. Sickness and psychoses appear. What we wanted to avoid in fighting – disappointment and defeat – becomes the only legacy of our cowardice. And one fine day the dead and rotten dreams make the air difficult to breathe and then we want to die, we want death to free us from our certainties, from our worries, and from that terrible Sunday-afternoon peace."

2009 is almost half way done already! To avoid all the above have a serious think about what you still want to achieve or do, on and off the mat and go for it!

Micah

Feeling Jiu-jitsu

"If you think, you are late. If you are late, you use strength. If you use strength, you tire. And if you tire, you die."
Saulo Ribeiro

300

There are a lot of "300" inspired workouts floating around at the moment, this is the basic version of the one Ive been using for the last two months or so and Ive had some really good results with.
By using natural body weight conditioning exercises and a unique, non-stop superset concept, 300 workout's unleash your natural growth hormones and jump start your metabolism and as a result help increase fat burning.
Ive made good strenght/conditioning gains and even improved my flexibility by using full range of motion exercises.

This is the basic version of the workout that Ive been doing. I started with this one for my first 3 weeks or so. I wasnt getting to roll as often as Id like then so was doing the workout 3 times a week.
Remember there are no "one size fits all" workouts out there. We need to be constantly assessing ourselves in 3 aspects: technique, physical conditioning and mental prep.
As this article is based on conditioning thats what we will address. As I said we need to be constantly assessing ourselves, do you find yourself gassing in training, lacking flexibility or getting out muscled all the time and by guys your weight or lighter. There are some guide-lines for basic strength requirements for jiu-jitsu, which Ill put up in another post.
It's important to remeber that jiu-jitsu is technique based but when we are talking competition jiu-jitsu attributes become more important but you should never be trying to out muscle opponents as there is always someone stronger, however as a competitor one still needs a base level of strength and conditioning.
This workout is an excellent one in that it hits these requirements really quickly and requires very little time and needs no equipment other than somewhere to do pull ups.

The workout consists of 5 pairs of exercises done back to back in a super-set fashion until you have done 30 reps of each in good form! Each workout you try to improve your time (once you are doing all the reps correctly that is).

Basic 300:

1a) push ups
1b) chin ups

2a) full range of motion, flat footed squats
2b) slow full range janda sit ups

3a) hindu push ups
3b) body-weight rows (i loop my jiu-jitsu belt over my pull up bar for these=good grip work at same time)

4a) wide stance, toes out full squats
4b) slow full range twisting crunch (left and then right = 1 rep)

5a) sprinter lunge (left and right = 1 rep)
5b) basic burpee (full squat palms to floor between your legs, jump feet to push up position then jump back to bottom squat position and then stand up)

Time yourself, keep form very strict on all exercises, and try to improve your time. I managed to get my intermediate version done on Friday in 25 minutes, which i was stoked with as Ive improved my time a lot since I started.
Let me know if you have any questions. Enjoy and train hard and smart!
Micah

Friday Inspiration

The important thing is this:
To be ready at any moment
to sacrifice what you are
for what you could become.