Dois Familias: Cheating on Jiu Jitsu… with my Wife

Once upon a time, mat time was me time.

And to be safe, I made sure that I did what I could to earn it. I rushed home promptly from work, whipped up dinner for the wife and kids, bathed them, tucked them in, grabbed my gi and headed out the door. Boom. For the next hour and a half, I got lost in chokes, scrambles and bro jokes. If I was really lucky, a team member or my coach would rally a few of us to grab a beer after class. Suddenly, Monday and Wednesday nights were something I looked forward to. Like Ed Norton in Fight Club, I’d go into work the next day with a few new bruises and a Mona Lisa smile because I knew my Wednesday night was way better than whatever my co-workers did.

Then the new gym opened. The schedule expanded from three sessions a week to five, not to mention the addition of a kids program and a fundamentals curriculum. Like others, I pitched in to help get the gym painted and set up, volunteering my time on weekends to help lay down mats and scrub the bathrooms. When we did open, I enrolled my kid into the juniors program, helping to grow the class size from an average of four of five that first month to nearly 40 on the roster. A teammate started a podcast around the same time and invited me to be part of that discussion. Suddenly, I was at the gym more nights than I was at home. And the Mrs. felt it and, rightfully, called me on it.

Of course, the night of, I was really confused. What was the harm? I was working out, getting really healthy and she always knew where I was. She knows all the people I roll with and we have had all of them over to the house on numerous occasions. I often brought the kids with me to the gym and it wasn’t like I was spending more money or anything (that was the prior two years when I picked up every gi under $100, every smartly designed BJJ shirt and every soap deal on BJJHQ). But after a week or two of curbing my addiction, (begrudgingly) dropping down to two or three times a week, I started to understand the reason for her being upset. Prior to jiu jitsu, I was a freaking poster boy for domestic bliss. I lived to pick up the kids, cook extravagant weeknight meals, bathe and tuck the kids into bed and then lounge with the Mrs. in front of the T.V. until we passed out. Wife and kids were the center of my world. But over time, my Instagram feed shifted from food and kid pics to selfies in a gi and kids doing judo throws. I shifted my home schedule to allow for more time on the mats. While I wasn’t running away from home to be with someone else, I was… well… well, I guess I really was running away from home to be with someone else. And while they’re great people, they are not my family.

And yet... they are. Not the same, but family nonetheless.

And there’s the rub.

When I cut down my time at the gym, the team noticed it. I’d get called out on the team’s Facebook page and when I came to class, some of my teammates would ask, “where’ve you been?” This was confusing, too. At the old gym, attending 2-3 times a week meant you were there all the time. But 2-3 times a week in a five day a week schedule meant I was only present half the time. Slacker!

At some point in your training, somewhere in your journey from newbie to blue belt, you’ll see people come and go. Some of the peeps you started with are no longer on the mats with you. You’ll see waves of new folks join. Some stick around, some leave. But when you become a constant, a fixture – your team takes notice. Your coach takes notice. You go from the end of the last line to the front line. Suddenly, you’re helping lead kids class and in your own classes, you help lead warm-ups and coach newbies to learn fundamental positions and submissions.  You’re no longer just a name on roll call. You’re part of the fabric and culture of the place. And just like your wife, your presence and lack of presence is felt.

After a few months of adjustment, I think I have figured out a balance and got my priorities straight. I communicate a lot more and make sure that I maximize my nights at home. I plan date nights and look at holidays for quick getaways. I cook family dinners, bathe the kids and put the phone down to engage in conversation with the Mrs. or enjoy something new together, stay connected, fully engaged in the moment.  If the wife works late, those are the nights I maximize my nights at the gym. I arrive early, check in with coach and assist with kids class. I chat offline with coach to give him a heads up of when I'll be in and check in with teammates, but balance it so I'm not taking time away from the wife and kids. In my own class, I drill intently and look to apply newly acquired techniques in my live rolls – staying connected, fully engaged in the moment. When class is through, I book it home to get the kids fed, bathed and tucked in.

And when there are opportunities to bring the two families together, I make it happen because both are essential. Both require care and attention. One family informs the other. There is no doubt which family matters more. My wife and kids are the reason I do everything. They are my rock, my inspiration. My sun rises and sets with them. And we are ride or die. There is no me without them. They are the reason why I started and why I will not quit jiu jitsu. Jiu jitsu gives me strength of mind and body, ridding me of the demons that are betting on me failing, urging me to give up and give in to vices that took down my dad and other would-be-great-people. Jiu jitsu restored my confidence, renewed my faith and has gifted me with a truly diverse community of people who have helped me become a better person. And for those reasons, it’s also ride or die… just carefully planned around family dinners. 

In the Moment: Jiu Jitsu from a Jazz Hands Perspective

Like so many of my peers, martial arts are not my profession. Off the mats, I help oversee a slew of education programs for a regional theatre, working with kids and adults, actors and non-actors, small community centers and government institutions and engaging them in the exploration of theatre arts. While I might joke that I only work to afford my jiu jitsu classes, I am actually very fortunate to have a job that spawned from a lifelong passion. And it’s earned me the nickname of “Jazz Hands” in our jiu jitsu club and the bro-y teasing that comes with it.

The interesting thing is that while my two passions could not be more different, they share similar concepts and principles with regards to personal improvement. In teaching both acting (to kids and adults) and jiu jitsu (to kids), I find myself using similar vocabulary and advancing similar philosophies.

What follows are some of my favorite overlaps:

Physical and Mental Instruments

I tell every acting student that my favorite thing about acting, what breathed new life into me when I was an awkward, funny looking teenager, was the fact that everything you need – the equipment – already resides inside of you. Your body, your voice and your imagination were the all the instruments you needed. Everything else was training. Everything else was about unlocking your potential and challenging yourself to maximize it.

In a good acting class, you learn full body awareness, paying attention to how you move, how others move in relation to you and what that communicates in terms of status, behavior, relationship, etc. You would learn voice – diction, tone, pitch, breath. And you would hopefully learn how to utilize your imagination – constantly digging for truth, asking yourself “what if” and devouring knowledge and information. Jiu jitsu is the same (though less voice and more breathing). You arrive to that first class with everything you need already there. I jumped into my first class in a pair of gym shorts and a t-shirt. But that was it. I did not know how to shrimp. I couldn’t control my breathing. And in those first couple of weeks, I’d tap whenever someone pinned a knee on my belly. What’s missing is the technique and acquiring that technique is a never-ending journey.

Now, obviously, I’m simplifying things. Just because you learn to speak, move and think doesn’t make you an amazing actor in the same way learning how to tie your belt and land an armbar against an unresisting opponent doesn’t mean you’re a champion. But when you distill it down, the raw ingredients are already there when you walk onto the stage/mats. Along the way, you need the drive and determination, courage and discipline to be successful. And that's really the big part of the mental game - the attitude and the discipline. If you tell yourself that you can't do something, it's very likely that you won't be able to. If you tell yourself that you just can't do Shakespeare, you will never attack it. If you tell yourself that you can't do anymore squats, then your body is not going to do them itself. If you say that you're too tired to go to class, you won't. Being good at jiu jitsu is hard. Being a good actor is hard. In many ways, both arts are designed to weed out the peeps that suck. But as a practitioner, you have to work against that. 

In the Moment

In acting, when a teacher or director coaches his/her actors to stay “in the moment,” he or she is encouraging the actor to stay actively engaged in what is going on – between him/herself and his/her scene partner, staying open and responsive to what is happening right now in this performance and not chasing after something brilliant that happened in a prior evening’s performance or in the rehearsal hall. This encouragement of the actor to stay in the moment is what ensures honest actions and responses and produces the air of spontaneity (when in actuality, everything is scripted and will be performed eight times a week).

In jiu jitsu, it is very similar. Staying in the moment is what allows us to survive and capitalize. It encourages the practitioner to stay attentive to allow for properly timed execution of carefully rehearsed techniques. But just like in acting, though one might rehearse these techniques over and over again, it does not mean that it will be performed the way you rehearsed it. Actor and jiu jiteiro alike, you must work with what is given to you at the moment it happens. On stage, an actor who fails to exist “in the moment” will reveal the artifice, destroying the illusion that everything is actually happening for the first time. On the mats, a grappler who is not staying “in the moment” will likely sacrifice a position or telegraph his/her move to the opponent.

No Easy Route to Success

Over the last 15 years, I have met countless students determined to make it as a professional actor. Some approach me for advice on how to break into films and TV. They swear up and down that they will never give up, that they have the passion for it, that they are willing to sacrifice for it and cannot imagine doing anything else. And I always greet them with the same poker face that hides my shade. I talked that same game as a teenager and while I still work in theatre, I’m not a professional director, actor or writer. Why not? Because it is one thing to say it and another thing to do it. And the road is not paved in diamonds. Rather, it is years (sometimes, decades) of failure, set-back and rejections. It is years of self-doubt and constantly redefining what success looks like. To be fair, along the way, there are numerous opportunities for growth and if one stays the course, there are rewards if one is open and receptive to them. You have to take the small, non-paying, non-speaking parts in that terrible play because you’ll meet that actor or writer who will help land your next project. You have to go to ten more auditions this week after losing out on the last ten parts you auditioned for because if you’re not in line, someone else will get the part that was meant for you. You have to shell out hard earned cash to attend that seminar with that legendary actor because he/she might share that one technique that will unlock your voice or reveal why you’ve been sucking at that one particular monologue.

Same for jiu jitsu. There might be the lucky douchebag prodigy that comes in and destroys everyone like he was born with superhero acai in his veins. But that’s a rarity. Most senior practitioners didn’t start out great. They didn’t earn those gold medals, black belts and run their own academies cause they wished for it to happen. More likely, they sacrificed time that would have gone to their families, rolled longer and harder than their bodies wanted to and swallowed insane amounts of pride after countless defeats.

We have all met those new white belts who ask you, “how long will it take for me to get my blue belt?” And every upper belt gives the same shade-hiding poker face to him/her. Because like acting, jiu jitsu just doesn’t work like that. There’s no schedule of when you’ll achieve success. There’s no deadline for when you’ll win gold at a competition. The only certainty is that you have to work for it. There’s no faking it. Like our most successful (and best) actors, they followed through with what they said they wanted and never gave up.

No Comparison

At the end of every promotion, my coach always counsels the team, whether it’s juniors or adults, that promotions are a reflection of your individual progression. It is not a comparison between you and anyone else. It is an assessment of where you are in your journey, taking into account where you started, how much you have grown and what your potential is. And yet, we are human and cannot help but compare ourselves to our teammates.

“Why did I only get one stripe and such and such got two?”

“How did that person get a blue belt when I have tapped them out so many times?”

“I competed three times since the last promotion and I don’t even get a stripe?”

These feelings  are valid. Not necessarily correct, but they are valid. Same goes for acting. Actors are ridiculously competitive and because of the nature of their work, mildly to severely narcissistic (I guess the same can be said for jiu jitsu, even though we are always taught to check your ego at the door). When you learn that a peer of yours was cast in something you were up for, it can be infuriating. Sometimes, I will attend a performance and judge an actor intensely, thinking to myself, “how the f-ck did this guy land the part? I can act circles around him.” And yet, I’m not. He’s getting paid to be on stage while I paid a lot to sit off stage. It sucks, but it’s unproductive to waste time thinking about it. The better response is to focus less on the other person and more on you. In no way am I advocating that you beat yourself up for whatever perceived shortcoming. Instead, it’s great time for self-reflection. If you felt like you deserved another stripe, what might be your coach’s reasoning to withhold it? Did you attend as many classes as you did in the past? Have you retained and applied the techniques in recent months the way you did when you were an eager white belt? Have you achieved the goals you set out for yourself since the last promotion? It’s unlikely that you’ll have solid answers, let alone a response if you were brave enough to approach your coach about them. Same goes for an actor inquiring the same feedback from a casting director (advice – don’t do it). Instead, take this reflection and add it as fuel to the fire. Let it inform you of your next set of goals. What is under your control? How can you improve to the point where that next casting director shouts, “hallelujah, thank god you walked into this audition room – I finally found the Stanley Kowalski I’ve been looking for”? How can you improve to the point where coach has no reason to deny you that next stripe or belt at the next promotion? 

Life Goals

My coach was awarded his black belt this past week. It was incredibly joyous and was a real high point in not only his journey, which has been marked by numerous peaks and valleys along the way, but also our journey as his students and teammates. For the last two years, I have been rooting for this man to get his well-deserved promotion. Not because we needed it for the gym (though having a black belt at the helm will undoubtedly attract the uninitiated), but because we have seen him work so hard towards this goal - opening a new gym with fumes in his financial gas tank, overcoming family strife to balance parenting duties with two jobs (one of which is being a full-time police officer), spending more time with the BJJ familia than his real familia, pushing through numerous IBJJF tournaments to medal despite torn knees and arms.  I cannot remember the last time I was so invested in the well-being and success of someone other than me or my family. 

So when Sensei Saulo Ribeiro tied that black belt around his waist, I felt strangely underwhelmed by the moment. I wanted pyrotechnics, confetti and t-shirt cannons. Instead, we all applauded, hugged our coach and gathered at a very generous teammate's house for drinks and food. Don't get me wrong -- all of that is fantastic and I'm sure he was emotionally moved. But somehow, the product didn't match the process. I know, I know - it's not supposed to. I work in theatre and that's certainly true -- sometimes, you can have a most amazing experience rehearsing a show, grow in all sorts of ways, meet your future spouse during the course of it and then opening night comes and your show is a hot mess (or vice versa). So I have always known that the journey will always outweigh the destination. But, but, but... oh, well, no t-shirt cannons.

Sensei Saulo prefaced the promotion with the quote, "a black belt is a white belt that never gave up." I have been chewing on that ever since. I started reflecting on my own goals in this whole jiu jitsu thing. Was it to become a black belt? Was it to become a fighter, capable of defending himself and those he loves? Was it to lose weight and get a chiseled bod? I walked away that evening with only one concrete goal:  to never quit. And once I clarified that, I felt electric and free. Because never quitting is not a destination, is it? It's on-going. And it's measurable. If I've been off the mats for more than a week and I'm no longer thinking about what I'm putting in my body, I'm failing at my goal. And on the flipside, if I don't compete ever again, but I'm on those mats three to four times a week consistently for the next five years, I'm on track to achieving my goal. 

"Does that mean that getting better is not a goal?"
Well, yeah. But that's a mini-goal. It's the daily, weekly, monthly, annual goal that will keep me motivated to stay on those mats. That's the mini-goal that will encourage me to cross-train, building up my cardio and strength, while rolling with the toughest teammates, keeping me focused, pushing me out of my comfort zone and revealing areas in need of improvement.

"Does that mean winning is not a goal?"
Define that. If it means having my hand raised at the end of a competition match, no. If it means not staying on bottom throughout a class, escaping and maintaining top position, scrambling to better positions to establish control and submit my opponents, YES. Trust me, if I enter into a competition again, I want to win. But that's the goal of that day, of that moment. But competition itself is just a small part of the overall journey for me.

"Does that mean promotion is not a goal?"
To be honest, not really. I hope that in the next fifteen years, I'll earn my black belt (have I already mentioned my love for t-shirt cannons), but I'm not focused on that. While I'm filled with immense pride when I get a stripe or a belt and enough reason for celebratory beers with the team (to be honest, it doesn't take much), it's not something I focus on. That said, I think promotion is a great motivator to stay at it. Knowing your coach has taken notice in your growth and improvement is very fulfilling. In fact, not getting a stripe or belt is a great motivator. It tells me that something in my game is not up to snuff. It means I've got areas (PLURAL) to improve upon and better get to it.

"So what does it really mean to never quit?"
Prior to training in jiu jitsu, I was overweight and suffered from gout, my ankles swelling up to the size of softballs every other month and forcing me to walk with a cane. The fact that I can run more than a mile without stopping, that I can practice ankle locks without wincing and maintain a regular training schedule is a big win for me. That I'm about to turn 40 and I'm in the best shape of my life... To that end, if I am still breathing, if I can still afford it, if I am within 20 miles of a gym, if my heart is still beating and my bones are still intact, even if I'm a ten stripe blue belt, I am going to be rolling. 

Oss.