Back in the New SSR

Okay, SSR doesn't really stand for anything. But I'm in New Jersey right now, my home state, and I wanted to acknowledge that cleverly.

Maybe I'll try again later.

Anyway, it's college friends time! Leigh is getting married in the Hamptons on Saturday. I'm at Rachel's place in Princeton. We're driving up tomorrow, where we will catch up with Jennifer* & Pat and Anne & Sean. On Sunday I'll get to see Jennifer (different one), Woody, Tim, and maybe Lee (not to be confused with Leigh). And then next week will be more east coast shenanigans, involving training and some of my favorite grapplepeople. More on that later.

I'm flashing back on the BJJ odyssey that gave rise to this blog in the first place. Nowadays I don't travel nearly as much as I used to, but I do still get that wanderlust, and this trip is reminding me of what a singular and life-changing thing that walkabout was. When you travel, especially for an extended period of time, you get to be anyone you want. Not that I lied about who I was, but I was trying to figure out how to make changes in my life, so being itinerant enabled me to foreground the parts of me I was satisfied with and spend less time discussing the parts of me I was trying to modify. I got to practice being me, with a variety of audiences.

In keeping with that idea, travel also always inspires in me the feeling that anything could happen. And with this crowd--and in this tri-state area--that is more true than normal. So even though it's only 9pm according to my body clock, I'm going to try to go to sleep NOW so I can wake up and start my latest east coast adventure. As the Beastie Boys would say, tomorrow it's on to the Hampty-Hamps!

Ragnar Revisited

Ragnar was a success! 200 miles covered by 12 runners and 2 vans in about 28 hours, ending up on a beautiful beach in Dana Point at about 4pm yesterday. The runners experienced some stomachaches, fatigue, muscle soreness, and dehydration, but were generally in fine fettle by the end, after refueling and a bit of rest. And I suffered a mild case of beanie-head, but that cleared up by the end of my shower. Highlights: midnight trip to Roscoe's Chicken and Waffles; the van we saw that was decorated with Richard Simmons' head atop a giant chocolate chip cookie (if the goal was to make me feel slightly uneasy about cookies, mission accomplished); jokes that seemed funny at 4am but that probably weren't.

Team Pound Sand kicked ass, and I was happy to be able to contribute in a small way to their success.

In other news, come to this tournament: http://www.grappleseries.com! My friends are running it, and they will do a fantastic job. Unfortunately, I won't be there for it, because I'll be in New York for the weekend. The Hamptons, to be exact. My college friend Leigh is getting married! So it will be old home week for me. (This is a lot of the same group that went to London in 2007 for my friends Jennifer and Pat's wedding--when people gave me a hard time for writing about the wedding instead of the grappling. I may do the exact same thing this time around!)

And then next week I'll be sticking around on the east coast for a couple days to train and see some friends. It'll be like old times, when I lived out of the trunk of my car and roamed the country looking for likely training partners. Can't wait!

More on that later. Meantime, congrats again to Team CrossFit Academy, which fielded 3 teams in addition to the one I drove for, including the Ninja-Pirate Alliance, and particularly to Team Pound Sand!

Ragnar Relay

As my friend Chris would say (very tongue-in-cheekly, as we are both almost 40, not Criss Cross--and yes, I chose Criss Cross to diggity date myself): Check it. I'm leaving in a couple hours to drive a van for a team from my CrossFit academy (http://www.teamcrossfitacademy.com)

as they participate in this: http://www.ragnarrelay.com.

Twelve runners per team will cover 200 miles in 24 hours, starting this afternoon from Ventura and going through to Dana Point. One runner goes at a time. Two vans carry the gear for 6 team members each, as well as the team members who aren't running. I'll be driving one of the vans. I anticipate that delirium and hallucinations will set in at about 3 or 4 tomorrow morning. I'll be mainlining caffeine and experiencing shenanigans from other slap-happy people in the van.

I'm an excellent driver. And not just in the driveway.

(That's my story, and I'm sticking with it.)

I'll let you know how it goes, after 24 sleep-deprived hours and the promise of a beer or two at the end.

And no, I never considered being a runner for even a SECOND. The team I'm driving for is pretty badass (how could they not be, with a name like Team Pound Sand?), and as I've mentioned before, I am convinced I'm made of all slow-twitch muscle and spare parts, running only when chased. Or when doing CrossFit workouts like Helen, Kelly, or Eva.

Competing in a finals match

I have some other observations about the tournament, particularly the experience of participating in a PanAms finals match. For regulation matches, there are three people on the mat: the two competitors and one referee, who scores the match, watching and controlling the action--sometimes calling time outs or restarting competitors in the same position in the middle of the mat, or restarting them from the feet. This ref is on his (so far, all of the PanAms and Mundials refs I have seen have been men, but fingers crossed that that will change in the future!) feet, and sometimes gets down on his hands and knees to get close to the action.

For finals matches--at least the men's black, the women's brown/black, and I think some of the other belt colors, though I don't know how consistently--there are five: the two competitors, the referee who scores the match, and two referees who sit in folding chairs in opposite corners. The scoring referee runs the match as usual, but the corner referees serve as backup, and sometimes dissention, about calls. Here's my understanding of how the scoring works, though I may very well be getting some of the details wrong: If a scoring referee makes a call that a corner referee disagrees with, the corner referee stands up and waves his hand back and forth. If both corner referees stand up and wave their hands, the scoring referee is overruled and the call is overturned. If only one corner referee stands up, the call stands--majority rules.


Sometimes, a scoring ref will make a call; for instance, the ref will award three points for a guard pass. But then a corner ref will stand up and wave his hand and the other corner ref will stand up and make the sign for an advantage. What this means is that the scoring ref's opinion is that the top competitor passed the guard and convincingly established side control. The first corner ref disagrees and wants the points overturned. The second corner ref agrees with the scoring ref that the top person at least threatened the guard pass and deserves an advantage (which is kind of an "almost" point--if you almost execute a move or a finish such that your opponent must vigorously defend him/herself). In this case, I BELIEVE the score will be the advantage, where they split the difference.


None of this happened in my finals match, I don't think (I was busy during it, so I didn't think to watch.). But that's how it is scored.


So here's how a finals match goes: You get called matside as normal, and you go with the mat coordinator, usually with your opponent in tow, down to the appropriately numbered mat. Before this, you have been weighed in, had your gi checked for legality (can't be too short, too tight, more than one color, etc), and then spent some awkward moments trying to decide whether to chat with your opponent or just act tough and ignore her. I usually strike a balance between the two--I adhere to my goal of being smiley, but I also don't want to be pals until later.

You stand or sit around while the previous match happens, and since it's a finals match, you kind of want to watch, but you're also freaking out and wondering if you have enough time to pee before your name is called. (You probably don't.)

And then, when it's your turn, Tony Torres, the voice of the PanAms and the Mundial tournaments, calls your name and says your affiliation over the loudspeaker. You bow to the mat and step on, look back at your coach and whoever else is there to cheer you on, and smile with confidence that you may or may not actually feel. You have to remember when you step on the mat to run over to each of the corner refs and bow and shake their hands (each of them is a black belt as well)--they stand up to greet you--and then you bow and shake the hand of the standing ref. And I usually bow and shake the hand of my opponent after that, though if I don't, or if my opponent doesn't initiate it, the ref has us do so before we square off.

And then the ref makes sure the table workers are ready (the scorekeeper and the timekeeper), makes sure the competitors are ready, and then starts us off. And then off we go.

This year, Budovideos was streaming some of the finals matches live. They only streamed the men's finals, which is a drag because some of the women's matches were pretty amazing. Technical, exciting, all that good stuff. I hope they change their procedures in the future. But in my case, I fought my finals match at the same time as Cobrinha (aka Rubens Charles Maciel), who, for those of you who don't know, is kind of like the LeBron James of Brazilian jiu jitsu. There are far geekier grapplenerds than I who can recite a litany of his accomplishments, but let's just say that he is one of the winningest competitors around, and he puts it out there all the time.

Plus, if the little interaction I have had with him is any indication (I accosted him in an acai line at a tournament a couple years ago to ask for a picture, and he was incredibly gracious and accomnodating), he is a good person as well. The point is, Budovideos made the absolute right call streaming Cobrinha's finals match instead of mine. (And he won.)

Still more to come on my tournament observations. Just getting it done in fits and starts. And it has nothing to do with the fact that today is 4/20.

Settling dust

The PanAms are over. I am finally caught up on all those pesky making-a-living things I had put on the back burner while I was busy crapping bricks for 4 days in anticipation of competing. Let's see if I remember anything of note.

Of course I do. I reread my description of the PanAms, and it's pretty fitting. On the days I didn't compete--Thurs and Fri--I ran around supporting our guys who competed, chatting with friends who were in from out of town, and eating acai. I saw some really good matches, missed some others, and did some pretty sweet people watching. I just love tournaments. Love, love, love them.

And hate, hate, hate them.

Well, more accurately, I love and hate competing. It's amazing how polarized I am about this whole competition endeavor as it relates to my own participation. Because competition in the abstract is an amazing thing, and I get how important it is to individuals and to the human race, for building character, helping us learn about ourselves and each other, and, equally importantly, for providing incredible entertainment. I don't mean to sound holier-than-thou or elitist, but I really do feel sympathy for people who don't know what they are seeing when they watch a high-level grappling match between world-class athletes. Because what they are watching is beauty, resolve, devotion, heart, and most of all, strategy and intelligence.

Okay, if I'm going to be completely honest, sometimes what they are watching is stalling or playing the points or poor sportsmanship. I know that. But throw me a bone. Those of you who DO know what you're watching have had the experience I'm talking about, of seeing matches that just leave you breathless, stunned at the risks some will take, amazed that people can be that good at jiu jitsu--and mildly depressed that you aren't that good. (Well, I should speak for myself on that last part.)

But then there's me and my personal competition experience. When I first started competing (after I'd been living at New Breed for a couple months and become part of that community, a community that puts its shit out there), I'd become Mr. Hyde weeks before the tournament. I'd hate life, I'd hate myself, I'd hate everyone who was dumb enough to come within restraining-order distance of me. And I'd wonder why on earth I competed. Pray to get hit by a car so I'd have a graceful and face-saving way to get myself out of it. Count down the days with growing apprehension and contemplate making a getaway to Saskatoon or Ashtabula. During those times, if I had been a comic strip character, my dialogue bubble would have been just a huge black scribble. I'm sure I was a total asshole to most people.

And then after competition, I became a different person. The flavor came back to my food. The color came back to my world. Win or lose, I became smiley again and felt like I'd gotten a pardon. It is in the after phase that I remember why I compete: Because it feels so good to stop.

Okay, not really. Because it really is fun, challenging, and in some ways what it's all about. I have to get more articulate about why I compete and what I get out of it, but I do know that it's good for me.

And now that I've had more experience doing it, the Mr. Hyde phase lasts for a shorter and shorter time. I still go to the dark place, but only for a day or two rather than weeks. And I'm always glad I did it, win or lose.

And this past weekend I had both the losing and the winning experience. I competed against Hillary Williams in the open division on Saturday. I pulled guard and she settled into top half. Then it was 10 minutes of her doing a really great crossface (resulting in a pretty shiner and a big chin scrape for me) and trying to pass my half guard and me defending the pass and trying to sweep. Neither happened, so she won by advantage. The next day, after my shiner had started to come out and the huge scrape on my face came up, we ran into each other and she said, "What happened to YOU?" And I laughed and said, "YOU happened to me." She felt really bad, which was unnecessary--as Carlson Jr. is fond of saying, "Jiu jitsu ain't ballet!"--and we hugged it out.

So, I learned some good stuff from the loss, not the least of which is that I'm still a delicate flower--all you have to do is look at me funny and I bruise. (But that was obvious, that I'm a delicate flower. You can tell by my jackedness, my beanie, and my t-shirts with slogans like, "New Breed Grappler" and "Team CrossFit Academy: Red Militia Solder.")

The next day, Sunday, was my "weight class." I use the term loosely, because my body is doing weird things weight-wise. Many of you know that I refuse to cut weight, even a few pounds, because I'm a woman and I live in the US, which means I have an unhealthy preoccupation with dieting and being "fat". Normally I walk at about 150, so with a gi I weigh about 155. This means I compete in the middle heavy division, with a cutoff of 163. Some people think that's crazy, because the cutoff for the next weight class down, middle weight, is 152. But as I said, I don't cut weight. So I usually give up some pounds, but it's not generally an issue.

But lately, I've been walking closer to 145. I'm eating the same and training and CrossFitting the same. The only difference is in HOW I'm CrossFitting--I'm doing a lot more Olympic and power lifting--clean and jerks, snatches, heavy squats, deadlifts, presses. Maybe that's got something to do with it. I love it, by the way. Lifting is incredibly fun, challenging, and stimulating--and if my strength and conditioning during the tournament are any indication, it's friggin' effective. I owe my CrossFit coaches Eric, Vanessa, and Kellie a huge thank you for their support and instruction.

Anyway, even though I have been walking lighter, I went ahead and signed up for the middle heavy class, for a couple reasons. First, I didn't know whether my weight was going to decide to jump back up to what had until recently been normal. And second, there is a very tough female black belt on my extended BJJ team who had signed up for middle weight, so it made sense to spread the wealth.

But when I weighed in, I laughed because I was at 149. With the gi on. Three pounds under the cutoff for the next lower weight class. So it might be time to consider a change. I've already chatted with my teammate, who might be going down a class. We'll figure it out.

So, the division. The brown/black women's divisions were 3-6 people this year, though I am happy to say the open had 18 people in it, at least at the sign-up. I don't know how many people actually participated. Get this, though: the women's purple belt open had something like 30 people in it. So what that says to me is that in a couple years, as these women advance and get promoted, we're going to get some bigger brown/black women's divisions, and maybe we'll be able to split them! I'm really happy about that! For many reasons, particularly that I'll probably be retired by then.

There were 3 of us in my division, and they did it round robin style. My two opponents fought each other first, and then I fought the loser of that match. So, A and B fought. A won, so I fought B. And I beat B as well. So that put A and C (me) in the final. Someone asked for a play-by-play of my matches. Here's what I remember (another interesting thing about competing is how trancelike it is and how my perceptions don't necessarily always match reality). First match: She pulled guard, I passed to half, then I spent some time passing to full mount. She tried to recompose the guard but gave up her back in the process, so I got her back on top. And then I was able to get a short-hand rear naked choke. I don't know how long it took.

Second match: I pulled guard, got a half guard sweep ("old school") and spent some time trying to pass. She had a very good spider guard that I had to fend off. I eventually got the pass, got the mount, and finished with a mounted head-and-arm choke. I was debating dismounting to put more pressure but decided to see if I could finish without having to give up position. I don't know how long that took either.

I have lots of observations about competing, especially in a finals match, which I will share later today or tomorrow. And there's other cool stuff going on too, so I'll write more. But I wanted to get this out there for now. Thanks so much to everyone for your congrats and good wishes. I'm the most fortunate delicate flower I know.

PanAms epilogue

The PanAms are over. There were some upsets and some surprises, and some world class jiu jitsu, as I predicted. I have more to say, but not a lot of time right now to say it, so for now, I'll just report that I was able to win my division. So that's exciting, and I'm grateful to all my grappling and CrossFit coaches and friends for getting me there. I PROMISE I'll write more soon, but you should definitely check out some of the other blogs out there to get the inside scoop.

Ask and ye shall receive

David Penn, you wondered why I wasn't posting about the PanAms, and I will rectify the situation toute de suite. I even shunted aside what could have been one of my best post titles ever--"Pan-Amania"--to let you know that your feedback and input are valued. (Although, now that I think about it, I may have used that title before. For a different PanAms. Well, anyway, it's a good one. I'll remember it for next year.)



Okay, here's what's going on vis-a-vis the PanAms: The PanAms are next weekend!









That is all.







Just kidding. For those of you who don't know, the PanAmerican Jiu Jitsu Championship is one of the big gi grappling tournaments; it, along with the Mundial (World) championships, constitute the twofecta (no, that's not a word, I don't think) of gi tournaments that every grappler aspires to win. They last for 4 days, and grapplers come in from all over the world to test their mettle against other grapplers. It's a combination of anxiety, excitement, joy, trepidation, laughter, overstimulation, acai and cooked meat, sweating, Portuguese curse words yelled at ear-piercing decibel levels, and world-class Brazilian jiu jitsu.


Many of my friends are coming to town, and tons of other people, too. It's at times like this that I remember one of the many reasons I live in SoCal: the world comes to us for the opportunity to participate in and witness elite grappling events. The PanAms used to be held in FL sometimes, and the Mundial used to be held in Brazil sometimes, but for the most part, they are both held here now, in my back yard.

One of the friends coming to town is the newest black belt I know of, Ryan Hall. Ryan is very bendy and extremely accomplished in the grapply--the most prolific and successful competitor I know, and a very smart, friendly, upstanding person to boot. Ryan was promoted by Felipe Costa this past week; Felipe apparently tied his own belt on Ryan at Ryan's academy, 50/50 BJJ, in Arlington, VA. So now he gets to come out and represent the new status. HUGE congrats to you, Ryan! I truly don't know anyone who deserves it more.

The trickle of people coming to town has started, and will become a deluge by about Wednesday. The first day of competition is Thursday. I compete in the women's open division on Saturday and in my weight class on Sunday. I decided to register in the 163lbs and under division even though I've been walking a little lighter than normal lately, because my weight is weird, and you have to weigh in with the gi, and we've discussed at length how I don't cut weight. (The next lower weight class is 152 and under.) I normally compete in the higher class anyway, so we'll see how it goes, whether I made the right choice. Regardless, I'm excited to compete!

I know it's Easter, but in keeping with the fact that I'm out of step with the rest of the world (there is something called the Final Four going on, I believe), I haven't eaten a single jelly bean or searched for a single egg. Is there a Scrooge character for Easter? I hope I'm not that bad; I'm just out of it. But anyway, Happy Easter and Happy Passover!