The Business/Judo of Life

One size definitely does NOT fit all

2013-05-21T22:34:00.002-07:00

On Sunday, there was a judo tournament, so many of the usual suspects were not at practice until later. The first hour and a half or so was just Scott (an adult novice, north of 200 pounds), Christian, a purple belt weighing around 70 pounds and Elias, his little brother, who is a about 40 pounds on a heavy day.

(Apologies if I didn't get the weights exactly right. This is not the LA County Fair and I am not the weight guesser guy.)

In such a situation, what you should NOT do is try to teach everyone the same thing. For three hours, we went through different moves for different people (we were eventually joined by Liam, later by Blinky and I don't know who came after that because I had to leave).

We all did ko uchi makikomi, although I do think it was a better move for the smaller people. We did it both right and left. We all also did that drill showed on the Armbar Nation site with Julia where they run back and forth doing uchi komi. That is really just a conditioning drill and everyone can get in a little better shape.

Then, we did a sacrifice throw into an arm bar. While each person tried each variation - and here Christian is doing the variation I asked Scott to emphasize.

The way I usually do this move, is I do the throw, do a backward roll as I do it and land ON TOP of my opponent.

Now Scott, as I said, is a good 200+ and well over six feet tall. As I unnecessarily pointed out to him, Olympic gymnast material he is not. So, when he did the throw, I had him do the arm bar as demonstrated above, where he threw his opponent with a sumi gaeshi . There is a nice video of how to do sumi here. We did not actually do it that way on Sunday because that is a bit more advanced. We did it for people who we bent over stiff-arming you.

So ... Scott did the sumi gaeshi to the arm bar.
Christian did a drop seoi nage to this same arm bar.
Elias just did the throw to the pin.

Too often I will see coaches who are 5 foot 1 (a perfect height, by the way) who teach everyone to do a drop shoulder throw because that is what they do.

Don't be like them. Be like me, Captain Modesty.

Oh, yes, check out my book of matwork tips and techniques which did not include the one above. Maybe that will be my next book if enough people buy this one.

If not, I guess I'll write my next book on statistics, which would be okay, too.

Mom advice on judo and life

2013-05-19T11:59:00.000-07:00

Don't expect appreciation. Whether it is helping out at a tournament or teaching someone how to do an arm bar, do things either because you want to do them or because you think it is the right thing to do.

Most people have an egocentric view of the world. Of course you will help them because they are so awesome/ talented/ fun to be around. They may just consider the fact that THEY enjoy running a tournament proof that it's enjoyable and expect you to enjoy it, too.

If you go around expecting appreciation for the things you do, you'll end up bitter. Do what you think is right and forget about it.

I teach judo because when I was young people taught judo to me - for free. It made a huge difference in my life and so I try to pass that on when I can.

Don't lie about your achievements. I know people who claim to have competed in the Olympic Trials or won national championships earned a PhD when I know they did not. The irony is that these are all really accomplished people and if they just stood on their own honest achievements they'd be admirable enough. Lies are like interest on money, they accumulate. Once you have told someone you were in the Olympics/ earned a PhD, then you end up having to repeat that lie because it gets brought up again. Inevitably, someone will ask me about the time I was in graduate school with Dr. Joe Blow and I happen to remember Joe Blow dropped out and never finished.

Try to be empathetic. No, I do NOT say that in front of Joe to the person who brings it up. I'm not an investigative reporter from the New York Times. Personally, I think having your lie exposed regularly in front of people you (I hope) respect is punishment enough. Now, if Joe is claiming to be a surgeon and might do harm to someone, I will certainly speak up, but if he is a retired teacher who claims to have earned a PhD and competed in the Los Angeles Olympics, I'm going to keep my mouth shut. I really have no idea why people would claim such things, but I do believe everyone has a back story and there must be some reason he says those things. It would embarrass him, his family to out him and I don't see what good it would do. If it takes a lie to make people feel good about themselves, that's sad.

Don't exaggerate your accomplishments. I just looked at the last national championships results. In some divisions there were only 4 or 5 competitors. In some there were as many as twenty. That's smaller than the number of teams in a regional elementary school girls soccer tournament. If you won, good for you. Seriously, good for you. Judo is not an easy activity and you were best of the people who showed up. However, if you equate it with winning an NCAA championships in track, you are seriously deluded. There aren't more than a couple of dozen clubs in the country that care about winning national championships. A couple dozen is probably being generous. You accomplished a difficult task as a result of your own talent, discipline and effort. That is an admirable achievement. All over the country, every day, people accomplish difficult tasks through the same combination. All of them have achieved an admirable thing. My point is not to confuse being brilliant with being "brilliant above all others". This is very good advice for life as well as judo.

Speaking of which, I have to run because I'm teaching at 2 this afternoon in Bellflower, whether you all appreciate me or not!

Choosing Freedom looks at sports behind the iron curtain

2013-05-16T20:43:00.002-07:00

For those of you younger than me, that phrase "the iron curtain" may not mean much. Back when I was competing there was a Cold War going on with the U.S. and its allies on one side and Russia and its allies on the other. It was a stand-off , of sorts, since neither country risked launching nuclear bombs at the other and get nuked in return, but we all wondered if that might happen some day when some people crazy enough got into power.

As a proxy, there were all kinds of other crazy things - wars in Vietnam, Cambodia - and, of course, the Olympics. In 1980, the US boycotted the Olympics in Russia to protest the invasion of Afghanistan (isn't it ironic?). In 1984, the Soviet bloc boycotted the Olympics in the US. In all of the other Olympics, there was continuous moaning when the U.S. lost to Eastern European athletes.

We were told that they trained harder, had better sports science, more dedicated athletes.

One of those athletes, Leo Frincu, recently published a GREAT book called Choosing Freedom.

To be honest, I originally bought the book simply because he is Ronda's strength and conditioning coach and I wanted to support him. The book is only 3.99 for the Kindle. I figured it would probably be some lame new age feel good-y thing about follow your dreams, blah blah blah.

I was wrong. It started out with Leo's early years in a kindergarten where all Roumanian children were sent during the week while both parents worked. He talked about being beaten and constantly hungry. Well - I don't want to give away how he went from there to world wrestling champion to American citizen and entrepreneur.

When we watch the Olympics in the US we almost never hear the stories of athletes from any of the other countries. Read Leo's book. For those like me who grew up being told that the medals won by people like Leo were vindication of the Soviet way of life and that we should all train and live like the Eastern Europeans, the book will prove especially fascinating.

No pain, no gain, not exactly

2013-05-11T22:02:00.000-07:00

Let's talk sports injuries, one of the more depressing topics I could cover on this blog. Most seriously competitive athletes have been told to shake it off, fight through the pain, pain is temporary, glory is forever and 100 other clichés . I've probably repeated every one of those myself and there is a certain amount of truth to them. If you're going to compete on the world stage, you need to train under conditions where other people would give up. If you have a headache, a tooth ache, you train any way. If you had knee surgery, you do bench presses or run through mat work drills or perfect your sacrifice techniques - that's how Ronda learned sumi gaeshi and how I developed a really good ko uchi makikomi and tani o toshi.

Random irrelevant question - why do you see people in mixed martial arts do ko uchi gari and not ko uchi makikomi? Well, actually, the only person I've seen do ko uchi gari is Ronda, but the question still stands.

ANYWAY .... to get to the point ... that attitude is necessary to winning, but it can be overdone in two ways. The first is when you are ignoring something that will get worse if you ignore it. It took me several years to learn that when I get bronchitis, pneumonia or the flu and keep working and working out, I end up getting sicker until I absolutely cannot do anything.

The second way is more insidious. Almost every elite athlete ends his or her competitive years with some injuries and those get worse as you get older, particularly if you "fought through it" when you were young.

I had several knee surgeries and finally had my knee replaced when I just could not accept the number of things I couldn't do. I hadn't been able to run for over a year by then, couldn't really do any judo except matwork and even walking around all day, like at Disneyland, would leave me aching at the end of the day. Even bending my knee to get something out of a bottom drawer was out of the question. When Julia was young, we never went hiking or climbed out on rocks in the ocean as far as I did with the other kids when they were little because I never went further with a child than I was sure I could carry her back if necessary. Now, every day when I just do the simple things - hike in the mountains or even bend down to pick something up, I wonder why the hell I waited so long.

I've been running around with my lovely grandchildren this week and it's very obvious that my arm is messed up.

It's been that way for a while. Last month, my elbow was bothering me to the point that I tried to really cut back on typing, thinking it was repetitive motion injury. When that didn't help, I took the drastic step - for me - of actually taking two days away, staying in a cottage and going wine tasting - although I admit I took my iPad, a notebook and several books of technical documentation.

That helped a little with the pain - but 14 years competing gave me a pretty good foundation for ignoring pain. It's the obvious inability to do simple things - I can't do more than ten push-ups - I mean the real Marine-style push-ups, not the half-ass fake push-ups kids do at practice - I can still do 50 of those. When I'm carrying my granddaughter who probably weighs 20 pounds, if I have to push off with one arm, say to climb up on a jungle gym, I make sure I put her in my right arm because I can only do a one-handed push-up with my left arm.

I was chasing my other granddaughter across the monkey bars and I couldn't get all the way across because, again, I couldn't pull up all of my weight with just my right arm.

My excuse for not going to the doctor about it was I could ignore the pain, I'd just get better if I went on with life, I don't have time to bother - hell, I'll have to get an appointment between trips to San Francisco, San Diego, Boston, North Dakota and Florida.

The problem with old sports injuries is that even though, like with illness, ignoring them causes more problems in the long run, unlike illness they worsen gradually. A second problem is ageism. There is the old joke:

A 93-year-old man complained to his doctor that he couldn't bend his right knee. When the doctor told him that at his age he needed to learn to accept that he would have some disability, the man retorted that his left knee was the same age and it worked fine.

It will be interesting to see if my doctor tells me that it is perfectly normal for a woman my age to not be able to do a one-handed push-up holding a 20-lb weight, or not whip off 50 push-ups and what the hell is a grandmother doing standing on top of the monkey bars with a five-year-old. (Fortunately, Maria did not post those pictures because, as Eva reminded her, "I don't think Grandpa would approve of this.")

The point is, that it is normal for ME. If we don't get those sports injuries taken care of we'll have a much more restricted old age, and after having a pretty damn full youth, that would be a shame, wouldn't it?

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Know When to Fold 'Em and When to Hold 'Em

2013-05-05T14:48:00.001-07:00

The day Justin Flores barely missed the Olympic team, it broke my heart. Dr. Jake Flores, Justin's father, and I have been friends since before he was born. When my husband passed away, Jake arranged an interview with UCSD to help me move back to California. Instead, I ended up in Santa Monica, driving to Vista on the weekends, where my little Ronda, at 11 or 12 years old, would be working out with Justin, who was still in high school.

So ... by a twist of fate and an injured neck, Justin didn't make the Olympic team. Unlike many of his cohort that day, he did not decide to try for one Olympic team after another. He had been on a couple of world teams, won medals in the U.S. Open, Panamerican championships and more. He'd had a scholarship to wrestle at a major wrestling powerhouse. He decided to end his judo career and go back to finish school.

Next thing you know, he had graduated with an art degree, done an internship, illustrated some children's books , formed a company that has produced some outstanding artwork for our companies (7 Generation Games and The Julia Group) - certainly he would not have accomplished all of this by now if he had kept training and tried to make the 2012 Olympic Team.

In his book, The Dip, Seth Godin talks about knowing when to quit and when not to. He says that we are told quitters never win and never to quit, but that is not correct, that really successful people know when to quit and when to keep going. As the gamblers say, know when to fold 'em and when to hold 'em.

It's really difficult to have the courage to face up to a dream you had and say, "This is not meant to be", and then go on to something else. I feel sorry for the judo players and other athletes I meet who are far past their prime and still telling themselves and other people, "I'm training for the Olympics." Even if they make the Olympic team, even if they win the Olympics, what are they going to be? A thirty-six-year old with no education, no work experience and no family? Is that REALLY your dream?

About the same time as he missed out on the Olympic team he broke up with his girlfriend. It was a hard time.

Let me just say that Justin was - ahem - fit the stereotype of a male athlete when it comes to women. I was somewhat taken aback then when about six years ago, I had flown to middle of nowhere Texas to coach Ronda in a tournament and Justin said to me,

"I want you to meet this girl, Shirley. I'm not kidding you, I think she could be THE ONE."

So, here we are years later, with a college degree, a successful business and the love of his life. I was thinking back to the Olympic trials when Steve MacBaisey said one of the most insightful things I have ever heard in person.

This is a day when some people's dreams come true and other's dreams are crushed.

The real winners find another dream and make it come true.

Congratulations Justin (and Shirley). I am so happy for you.

How I Pick Winners

2013-05-02T17:46:00.001-07:00

I have been wrong about people but only in one direction. That is, sometimes I have underestimated people and they have turned out, years later, to be far more than I would have predicted. Olympic and world silver medalist Lynn Roethke springs to mind. When I first met Lynn she was one of those people that was so damned nice that you wished she'd win but I just saw no chance of it. Her first problem was that she was too small for her division. She faced up to facts, dropped two weight divisions and started winning. She needed to move out of her comfort zone in Wisconsin and she did that, too, training in Colorado Springs at camps (where we first met) and then moving to New York and later California. I will say that in the cases where I was wrong, they were always people like Lynn who made massive changes in their training and choices.

I have not been wrong in the opposite direction. People I expected to win international medals always did. Often, these were not the same people everyone else expected. For example, when my lovely daughter, Ronda, was young, she never was selected for those programs for "high potential juniors", but I expected her to win.

Darlene Anaya, who won a bronze medal in the world championships, surprised a lot of people by her performance but not me.

If I was going to select a team I would look at this:

When in a match and down by a score, pinned or in other disadvantageous situation, does the person fight out? I don't mean put up a good fight, I mean escape and turn the tables. Being able to shake it off when the fight isn't going your way both shows mental strength and the ability to adjust.
In training, when no one is watching, is this person going their hardest? Being a small person is a big advantage to me, because I can slip into a corner of the gym, climb up on the bleachers and watch without people noticing me. A lot of those who other people rated highly dialed it down when they didn't have an audience.
How do they react to a loss? Particularly if a young player lost to someone who was supposed to have beaten them, say the current Olympic team member, I'd watch what that person did afterward. Was the kid barely holding it together because he was so devastated or was he happy to get a silver medal in the U.S. Open at 17. (I got a silver medal in the U.S. Open at 17, lost to one of the best women in the world - and I'm STILL upset about it!) No one has the right to beat you, ever.
Does this person have the best coaches, best training partners - if not, I mentally add on points. If you are in the running with no advantages then when, like Lynn, you make a change and get better coaches, better training partners and a better situation for training, then you have the possibility to make a big leap in comparison to your competitor who is already in the best possible scenario.

Why did I expect Darlene to win a world medal one day? When I was 19, I won the U.S. Open, collegiate nationals and senior nationals. (There was no women's world championships or Olympics back then.) This little fifteen-year-old brat came out in the semi-finals of the nationals and tried to beat me. No, of course she didn't beat me. She was 15! But she expected to, she came out swinging (not literally, this was judo, after all) and when she lost she was heart-broken. She wasn't happy to be fighting for a medal in the national championships when she was barely out of middle school. She was from somewhere in (I think) New Mexico and she trained with her dad, her little brother and her little sister.

For those of you would would point out that Darlene didn't get out of the pin that day and thus refutes my first point - no. My other point is that you don't judge people on a single match or tournament. Everyone has good days and bad days, or when they are young and small, can get hopelessly outmatched.

EXCEPT - my other other point - anyone I see give up in a match, I mean just decide it's too hard and quit fighting, I know will never win in that sport. It doesn't mean they may not go on and be wildly successful in some other area of life but if you don't care enough to fight NO MATTER WHAT then this particular discipline is not your passion. Go find something else that is.

I could ramble on more, but I have to get back to work.

How do YOU spot winners?

(Also, sorry I didn't approve the comments on the last post for days. I was in San Francisco and just got back.)

So you think you're tough?

2013-04-24T23:24:00.001-07:00

I was driving to San Diego today and remembering all of the times I drove from San Diego to Los Angeles for practice. I thought, we really ought to appreciate the sacrifices these competitors in judo and other martial arts make. They have to drive all over the place to get to practice. I remembered how hard those practices were, and thought again, yes, an average person wouldn't do it. Probably I don't appreciate how tough these young people are and the effort they put out to get better.

Then I got to the luncheon I was driving down to attend. It was a reunion of a lot of the judo people who trained and competed together over the past thirty or forty years. Since I worked out at the Naval Training Center for years (before September 11, it was a lot easier for civilians to work out on the base) there were a lot of Navy guys there. There were also several guys who had been in the Marines and at least one Army and one Air Force officer.

They had served in World War II, Korea and Vietnam. Joe Ciokon and another of the Navy guys talked about a young man - I think they said he was 19 - who had locked himself in the boiler room of a ship that was under fire and damaged so that he could repair it enough that it would stay afloat while the rest of the sailors had a chance to evacuate. He died there and they later recovered his body.

At the other end of the table, they were discussing the assault on a cliff during World War II, guys climbing up ropes to attack the enemy from the rear - an enemy that thought they were not going to be attacked from the back because it was a sheer cliff.

Other people were talking about their service in Korea and Vietnam.

It occurred to me that, maybe, just maybe, this is one reason that people aren't so impressed with people in jiu-jitsu, judo and other martial arts. Don't get me wrong, it's really good you are doing what you're doing instead of laying on the couch eating potato chips and playing Donkey Kong. It just may be, though, that old guy who you think ought to appreciate your sacrifice more, when he was several years younger than you was in a jungle, in the boiler room of a ship or patrolling the streets in a country on the other side of the world where for all he knew, around the next corner someone might shoot him. And there was no referee to stop him from getting hurt too badly.

Just something to think about.

Why Do Some Judo Programs Have Students and Others Don't?

2013-04-19T23:02:00.001-07:00

Look closely in the picture above. See the kids in the background? See the one against the wall? All of those kids, the one walking towards me, too, and more you can't see outside of the picture are waiting outside for the gym to open when I get to Gompers Middle School. They're waiting for judo class.

Why do some programs have trouble getting five kids on the mat and others have students literally lined up outside the door?

There are probably lots of reasons but I can tell you three things that I do that I think make a difference.

1. I have a plan for the day. I don't wing it. Every day, when I come in I know what we are going to do first, second, middle and last. I might change my mind during the class, for example, if it seems as if students are having a hard time learning a technique we will work longer on it, instead of introducing a second new technique.

2. I have an overall plan. In general, we start with conditioning. Jim Pedro, Sr. gave me this idea about circuits at the beginning of the year and we have been doing these, on the average, three out of four practices. We've gone from two minutes of circuits to seven. The reason I like this is it is measurable and noticeable. Every kid has gotten better. It's like Jim said, if they do it, they WILL get stronger. Kids who couldn't do five push-ups in October can now do 60. Not only do I want them to get in better physical shape, my number one concern, but I also want them to learn standing technique, mat technique, get over any fears they might have about falling or attacking, learn conditioning, be aggressive without being mean, develop coordination and learn transition. I also want them to have fun. Everything we do is aimed at one of those objectives. My plan also calls for people getting better technically, so we begin the year learning basic throws and gradually move to combinations, for example.

3. I try to have a combination of predictability and variety. Predictability can be good. People like to feel like they know what is going on. Plus, if you have been coming to class regularly and I say we are going to do circuits, or we are going to do that exercise with the medicine ball where everyone is running, the students who get set to do it can see that they have learned something because the new students are just looking around. We do some of the same throws or mat techniques most practices and then I will teach a new one. I think most judo instructors, most of whom never had any other teaching experience, either try to teach too much in one day or are too repetitive and teach the same thing over and over. While I really like matwork and try to teach about 50% matwork each practice, it seemed to me that the students were somewhat better in matwork than standing, so we did all standing instruction today, although they each did about six rounds of mat work, as well as four rounds of free practice.
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Why You Lose (and other things you don't want to hear)

2013-04-14T21:20:00.001-07:00

Sometimes you look at a scene and it brings a lot of things into focus. I had one of those moments of clarity this weekend, and it was thanks to a photo one of the parents snapped during practice this weekend (thank you, Dan McNair a.k.a. Eileen & Liam's dad).

To win, you don't need to be bitten by a radioactive spider, born on a far-away planet, to fund a multi-million dollar secret lair. I blame comic books. Even Batman, the one super-hero who did it through training, had millions of dollars to spend on special super-hero stuff.

I was at practice with these guys, plus someone I just met Zurab Bekochvili (world sambo champion - watch one of his matches here, the dude has some sick arm bars).

To be a world champion you need to balance on the line between arrogance and humility.

You need to be arrogant enough that you believe you can beat anyone who stands in front of you.
You also need to be humble enough to continually learn.
You also need to work your ass off in training
AND you need to train in quantity as well as quality. That is, busting your ass two hours a day, four days a week doesn't cut it.

Given those four things, you can win.

This is why I roll my eyes when I CONSTANTLY hear young people say one of these things:

I have to move to Japan/ Brazil / France/ (insert name of state you don't now currently live here) to train
There is no one here to teach me
There is no one to challenge me
I only train with my coach and his group because no one else is as good as us

May-be that is true if you live in Tinytown, USA but if you live in fucking Los Angeles, New York, San Francisco - check yourself.

I won the world championships living in San Diego. I drove to Los Angeles every weekend. Marti Malloy won a bronze medal in the Olympics living in San Jose. Kayla Harrison won a gold medal in the Olympics living in Boston. Ronda won a world title in mixed martial arts living in Los Angeles.

There is no secret sauce, no magic bullet. If moving from Point A to Point B convinces you that you can win, then good for you. However, as I stood in a gym with people who had won world titles in two different sports, who had been on the national judo team for two different countries, it was very hard for me to buy the bullshit I hear from people about "there is no one here good enough to teach me".

If your coach - whoever he or she might be - is discouraging you from training in other places with other people, deep down that coach does NOT have your best interests at heart. Maybe one person might be a jerk or pedophile and you shouldn't train there - but everyone? Your coach is the sole holder of all judo/ mixed martial arts/ jiu-jitsu knowledge. I don't fucking think so.

I hear people say,

"Oh, sure, you, Blinky, Zurab (insert name X) won but judo is completely different now."

How do you know? You weren't even born then. Yes, there are differences and maybe you are correct (maybe not) but my point is that most people who say that have no fucking idea how judo was 20 or 30 years ago and are just repeating something they heard or throwing out an argument to justify not going to practice.

I'll tell you what I did NOT do

Always practice with the same people
Skip practice more than a few times a YEAR
Practice with people who didn't challenge me because I knew what techniques they did or I had beat them so many times they knew better than to try
Think I was too good or smart to learn from anyone who might have a good idea

If you aren't training every day where you are, if you aren't going after the hardest person in the room, if you aren't training at different clubs where people are new and you feel off-kilter, if you aren't seeking out everyone who can help you learn more - then you probably aren't going to do that in Japan, Brazil, Russia or (insert state where you don't live here). Because, you see, wherever you go, there you are.

If you are not out of your comfort zone a lot of the time, you're doing it wrong. If you keep avoiding those practices you don't want to do, you're doing it wrong.

The main reason that you're not winning is that you are lying to yourself.

There were days when I was in graduate school at the University of Minnesota when I would roller-blade around Lake Calhoun. That's seven miles if you do it twice around. You know what I said on those days? Not, I roller bladed seven miles or I worked out or I lost three pounds. No, I said,

I skipped judo practice.

... because roller-blading seven miles is in no way the equivalent of working out for two hours with a bunch of guys who want to smash me in the mat. Because I was honest about it, I made damn sure that the next day, I didn't skip practice. Then, I moved from Minnesota to southern California, and when I got here, there I was.

Visiting Hayastan Mixed Martial Arts Academy (or any dojo)

2013-04-13T18:25:00.001-07:00

Remember when you were a kid how much you looked forward to field trips? Well, I think martial arts clubs should have field trips, too.

Usually, the reasons for not doing so are a combination of elitism - we have everything we need here, why would we go anywhere else? and laziness.

There is also that bit of anxiety - what if we say we are going to go to another club and nobody shows up?

We took the West Coast Judo Training Center kids to visit Hayastan Mixed Martial Arts Academy today and it was great on a number of levels.

1. I got to watch Sensei Sako teach. He is, in my opinion, one of the most under-appreciated instructors I know. He has been teaching young children judo for twenty years.

I am constantly impressed with him. He knows good technique for judo and sambo. He also understands children very well. Unlike many judo instructors whose teaching for kids is very pedantic and far better suited to adults, Sako is literally hands on, stopping students and demonstrating how to improve their posture, gripping and throws.

2. All of the students got to meet and work out with different people. No matter how nice the people are you train with normally, or how good they are, it is beneficial on a lot of dimensions to meet new people. Above the judo benefit, which was good, there is the meeting people you don't normally associate with. Most of the students at Hayastan are Armenian. None of the students who came with us were Armenian. We can have all the diversity workshops we want but nothing builds tolerance better than getting to know people from other ethnic groups who are nice, smart and hard-working - as every kid on the mat was.

3. It's a really nice facility, so as well as variety in partners and instructors, the students got to train in a state-of-the art location.

4. I met Zurab Bekochvili who taught an arm bar I had not learned before. It was so cool. Sensei Zurab who was a Russian national judo champion, world sambo champion, Georgian (as in the country) Greco-Roman champion and a genuinely nice guy.

The practice just flew by. Almost everyone wanted to stay longer - so we did. There is a sight for you - kids begging their parents to let them stay just a half-hour longer and practice more.

Field trips. Try it.
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What I learned from judo about life

2013-04-09T02:52:00.001-07:00

Jim is probably right when he says all of the time,

Sports emulate life.

I'm a cynical person overall because I have seen so many people who don't keep their commitments, who say they will be somewhere, do something but then it gets to be too much effort to do what they said they would (we call that keeping your word) and so they go back to bed.

On the other hand, I'm often pleasantly surprised by people who DO exactly what they say and more. For example, the nice people from Fight Chix said they would send us shirts and they did. Gift-wrapped, no less, with notes.

I particularly appreciated it because I cannot tell you the number of people over the years who have said,

"That's so great that you and Ronda have taught at that middle school in south central Los Angeles for years. I'd love to help you out."

The number of them who have actually followed through, though, can be counted on the fingers of one hand by a person who had lost some fingers in a tragic mining accident.

I do things because I think they are the right thing to do, not because I expect to be appreciated - and I often am not. I don't expect generosity. For example, we did a Kickstarter campaign in February to raise money for a game my company did. I was very touched by the people who backed it. I was not even surprised that some of the people who I had helped A LOT in judo did not. I'm cynical. I expected that.

On the other hand, all of the students posed for the picture above and were very thankful to receive the shirts.

We had received two judo gis from Moya gis (thank you Jesse !!) and one of the students who had a black shirt said,

"I got one of the gis last week. Here, take this shirt and give it to someone who didn't get a gi and give me a pink one."

One of the teachers came to me during a break at practice and whispered,

This is not Santa Monica. You know there's no way those boys can wear a hot pink shirt to school.

At which point, one of the students who overheard him said,

"That's okay, Sensei, I'll give it to my Mom."

Next thing you know, all of the pink shirts in size large were gone, to be taken home and given to people's mothers, one of whom came up after practice to give me a hug and thank me.

At the very end of class, one young man came to talk to me. This kid is so quiet that the first couple of weeks I had wondered if there was something wrong with him that he couldn't talk. He said, in a voice barely above a whisper,

"Sensei, do you think I could have that one small, pink shirt you have left? There's this girl I like ... "

How could I say no?

So, here is what I learned from judo today:

Sometimes you CAN count on people.
Sometimes people DO appreciate what you do for them.
Sometimes people ARE generous.
And never underestimate the quiet ones.

On top of all of that, if you check out the number of arm bar attempts in matwork randori in this video from practice. I'd like to think some of that is MY influence.

Advice to Young People

2013-04-05T18:33:00.001-07:00

Since all young people obviously need advice from me, here is four minutes of it.

Or, in one word: Chill.

Winning on the Ground Infomercial - judo speed drills

2013-04-03T23:34:00.001-07:00

Another video blog .... why winning on the ground is awesome, how judo drills help, how judo and jiu-jitsu matwork differ

Currently on sale at Amazon here for $11.59

If Amazon is sold out you can buy it straight from Black Belt at 18.95

You can buy the ebook for $9.99 at either Amazon or Black Belt. Barnes and Noble sells it for the Nook as well.

No time put into a student is ever wasted

2013-04-02T21:36:00.001-07:00

Some coaches or trainers believe that if a student quits martial arts after several years that the time put into that student was wasted. I disagree.

Statistics and Armbars

2013-03-27T00:03:00.001-07:00

I can't remember whether it was my daughter, Ronda, or my niece, Samantha, who first told me about the sherdog site. What they have in common is that they are both in their twenties and find stuff cool and interesting that too me is as exciting as watching your cat eat a bug. That is, a little gross but interesting the first time, which for me, was about 45 years ago.

So .... I was very pleasantly surprised when in searching I came across what is now my most favoritest forum thread on the internet, I refer, my friends to the Sherdog UFC Factoid (Useless Info Thread).

They documented what I had suspected for a while

which is that not too many people lose by arm bar in mixed martial arts. It is clear from these data that the percentage of wins by submission are going down - it's the purple line (the top one for those of you who are color-blind or visually impaired [Hi, Tina!] ) - the one that hits a peak over 70% in the 1990s and is around 20% now.

There is also some data, albeit less, on the Sherdog site that suggests arm bars are declining as a percentage of submissions.

Why would that be so? Well, I think in both a rear naked choke (referred to in judo as hadaka time - Japanese for "naked choke") and arm bars, a person who is unfamiliar with the technique can lose even when the execution is pretty sloppy. If they have no idea what the hell you are planning to do with that arm or behind their back, they won't start defending until it is too late.

So ... early on, you see lots of people losing by submissions. Then, two things happened. One, a fairly large number of people realized that if a person is jumping on your back, they are probably going for a choke and you should get them off of there and if they are grabbing your arm, they are probably going to arm bar you so you should get it back. Two, more people actually started doing submissions, which made them even harder to catch because once you do a technique yourself you are better at sensing when someone is setting you up.

Most people became harder to submit and a few people became a lot harder to submit.

Wouldn't more people doing submissions mean more people would be submitted? Not necessarily. What I suspect (and the data bear me out) is that the general population of fighters has gotten better at defending half-ass arm bars, so more people doing half-ass arm bars is not going to increase the number of submissions.

Every time I go to a mixed martial arts event I see a lot of fighters whose matwork just sucks. I know high school English teachers always say that there is never a time when there isn't a more appropriate way to write a description of something. They are wrong. The matwork of most fighters in the UFC just sucks.

Does this mean that judo players are all of a sudden going to go into the UFC and wipe up the mat with all the mixed martial artists? You can read my post on that here. Short answer: I don't fucking think so.

As Rick Hawn said, more nicely than me, there is a difference between doing judo and getting punched in the face.

What is the solution? Practice. Practice. Practice. Learn some arm bars that don't suck.

Totally shameless plug, you can start with our book.

Transgender Competitors in Mixed Martial Arts

2013-03-19T23:29:00.002-07:00

Ever since one transgender (male to female) competitor has become publicly known a few weeks ago, there has been a lot of talk about how people who oppose transgender competitors are "hate-filled" or ignorant of science.

Many comments have stated that those opposed to transgender mixed martial arts competitors are just too bigoted to pay attention to the "huge body of scientific literature showing there is no difference between biological females and transgender females".

Stop right there.

Everyone is entitled to their own opinion but you are not entitled to your own facts. Post-operative, post-pubertal transgender male to female adults is hardly a large population. Multiply that small percentage by the number who elect to participate in elite level sports - of any type - and you get a tinier fraction. Now, select from that tiny fraction the percentage who are in mixed martial arts and the total number of studies you come up with is - zero.

I went to PubMed - the publication database of the National Library of Medicine - and I did find a 2005 review of the literature Gender Identity and Sport: Is the playing field level?

As of 2005, it was stated,

In fact, there are no published, peer reviewed studies on the performance related sequelae of the commonly prescribed feminising hormone treatment regimens.

ONE document on a website mentioned ONE athlete who was tested and fell "well within the normal range for females". Before you get very far on this one person, let me point out the difference between peer-reviewed journals and web sites. I can say anything I want on here.

I tested my guinea pigs and found that there was no significant difference between their intellect and Joe Rogan. Also, I have met Joe Rogan and my guinea pigs have significantly more hair. See photo of guinea pig attached as proof.

The thing is, half of that is bullshit. The part about meeting Joe Rogan and the guinea pigs having more hair is true. In fact, guinea pigs are only slightly more intelligent than a box of hair, which they somewhat resemble.

Peer-reviewed articles, on the other hand, are read by people who are experts in the field who analyze your methods, results and conclusions and turn down your paper for publication if it does not meet the criteria for adequate scientific research.

The article goes on to say

for athletes who undergo reassignment after puberty, there remains the possibility that residual testosterone induced attributes could influence performance capacity, and thus it could be logically argued that the decision to permit participation or not should be made on a sport by sport basis.

This article also mentions, as many commenting on the mixed martial arts issue have, that the International Olympic Committee policy allows for transgender athletes to compete as female if they have had gender re-assignment surgery and two years hormonal treatment. However, it also notes that NO transgender athletes have been acknowledged as competing in the Olympics.

In fact, to complicate matters further, there was one transgender athlete from the U.S. who did try out for the 2012 Olympics. This athlete was a female to male transgender person but competed in the WOMEN'S division. She planned to complete gender re-assignment surgery after the Olympics. She did not make the team for the same reasons anyone else didn't make the team - her throwing distance did not place her in the top three.

A Canadian athlete who was a male to female transgender person competed in cycling but not at the Olympics, as she did not meet the qualifying times required. She commented on an article that this was not due to ability but rather to coping with family issues (her father was dying of cancer).

So, here is what I was able to discover in searching the scientific literature:

No evidence of any transgender athlete competing in the Olympics.
No data on transgender athletes competing in any combat sports other than the one person who has been recently featured in the news.
One literature review from the British Journal of Sports Medicine stating that the issue should be considered on a sport to sport basis.

What I did NOT find was the supposed vast body of literature "proving" that male to female transgender athletes are identical to athletes who were born female.

I'll have more to say on statistics and data relevant to this point on my statistics blog later, but for now, speaking of statistics, I have to get some work done for a client.

UPDATE: The tiny bit of data I COULD find related to transgender male to female and mixed martial arts specifically is here. No one to date has sent me links to any other relevant studies, although a lot of people have called me names, which , I should point out, is not the same thing.

How a little Catholic school ended up with Ronda's head phones

2013-03-14T21:39:00.001-07:00

When she was a teenager on the Olympic team, someone asked Ronda if she had a super-power, what would it be, and she replied:

Losing things! I could lose things you think it would not be possible to lose. I'd be like - Death ray? Death ray? I swear, Dr. Evil, I had it right here! And that is how I would save the world.

Those of us who know her realize that is true. At her first Olympic Trials she forgot to bring a blue judo gi. She was the top seed so she would ONLY need a blue judo gi unless she lost a match. Who flies across the country to the Olympic trials, then turns to their mother in the car on the way from the airport and asks

Did you bring my blue judo gi?

Justin Flores mentioned the other day how he had picked up stuff Ronda had forgotten in hotels all around the world (they were on several U.S. judo teams together). We'd drop by their house to visit and he would go into his room and come back with

Dude, here's the thing you forgot in Egypt. And here's this stuff you left in the training camp at Montreal and ....

So... back to the head phones. Ronda had these white monster head phones she wore into the octagon for her last fight. When we all went to meet her in her dressing room afterwards, as always, Ronda forgot and left something on the floor.

Just out of habit, her oldest sister grabbed the head phones left behind and stuffed them into her bag, meaning to give them back. Well, Ronda didn't make it to Disneyland with us and Maria missed coming by the day after when Ronda was over, so ....

Two days later she is back in Massachusetts, still jet-lagged and at her daughter's school auction planning meeting. Of course, spending the week in LA covering the fights for ESPN and then visiting with the family, she didn't have time to call around to get donations for the auction, so - she pulls the head phones out of her bag and says,

I have these headphones donated by Ronda Rousey. They were from the first women's UFC fight ever and they are the ones she wore into the octagon.

The auction committee was extremely impressed and exclaimed,

How did you ever get those?

Maria answered,

Well, Ronda is Eva's godmother and she is very supportive of a lot of charity efforts.

All of which, as she pointed out to me later, is completely true, so she was not lying to nice ladies at a Catholic school and also sounds better than,

I've been picking up crap she left lying around for 26 years. I can't believe it is finally actually worth something!

A Photo-Journalism Look at Don't Throw Up, Throw Down

2013-03-13T22:46:00.003-07:00

Just like "crowd-sourcing" sounds so much better than "I asked some random people on the internet", photo-journalism has a much nicer ring to it than "these are some pictures people sent me from the clinic".

Here is a group shot of everyone who attended. I think it was a perfect size. With only 30 people, over two hours, everyone got to ask any questions they had. It wasn't too crowded. If Ronda does this again next year, I would highly suggest the same format. (Thanks to Jennifer Swift for the group photo.)

It was totally awesome of the folks from Blue Cotton to make customized t-shirts and ship these out next-day air as a donation to make the clinic even more special. And I don't even know them. How nice!

OF COURSE, the clinic had to include arm bars.

I just wonder if when the kids went back to school with these shirts their friends believed them. Here you have photographic evidence.

Will put up another post with photos later. Don't want to add too many photos for those of you with slow download speeds.

Freestyle Judo - Questions and answers from Steve Scott

2013-03-10T21:10:00.002-07:00

I almost never do guest posts but this email I received from Steve Scott of Welcome Mat judo was too good not to share. Thanks very much to Steve (shown below teaching a class) for his permission to post it here.

Learn more about freestyle judo at http://www.freestylejudo.org

The AAU National Freestyle Judo Championships are March 30 in Kansas City, Missouri.

Q-Why do you have numerical scores instead of Waza-ari and Yuko?
A-Two major reasons. First, the general public has a much better understanding of who is winning a judo match if they look at the scoreboard and see that Red has 7 points and that White has 3 points. Freestyle judo retains the Ippon for the purposes of scoring and ends the match much like a knockout is scored in boxing or a fall is scored in wrestling, but the numerical scores provide a clear and simple way to follow who is winning or who is losing in a match. The second reason is that the numerical scores provide a more objective approach to scoring a judo match. One of the major weaknesses in the rules of judo through the years has been that the referee and judges have too much subjective and arbitrary control over the match. In freestyle judo, we provide clear-cut criteria for the scoring of all aspects of judo action that take place in the match. This not only includes scores for throws and for the time in hold-downs but also for what is best described as "effective aggression" in groundfighting where a point is awarded for breaking an opponent down onto his or her back from a stable to an unstable position (breakdowns) and a point for getting past the opponent's leg or legs (guard passes) and a point for turning or rolling the opponent over from the bottom (guard sweeps). By providing a clear and objective point structure for these skills, there is less chance of a match going to a flag decision where the referee and judges may or may not take into account what took place in the match.

Q-Why do I have to throw an opponent so hard to get an Ippon in freestyle judo?
A-When formulating the rules for freestyle judo, one of the major things we wanted to maintain was (and continues to be) the value of an Ippon. An Ippon is scored when the thrower throws his opponent with control and force, landing the opponent on the back or back/side. This is exactly what the criteria for an Ippon has been in Kodokan Judo since its inception and was the case up until about 2000 to 2004. Gradually, the Ippon was reduced to the soft or rolling Ippon that become so prevalent. For those younger judo coaches and athletes, this soft or rolling Ippon is about all that they know since they do not have as much experience as some of the rest of us. However, from what I have seen and from has been told to me by some IJF people, the IJF is again making an effort to get away from their soft and rolling Ippons in the new rules that are out. However, this is one of the few improvements in the new IJF rules and simply is an effort to get back to what we have been doing in AAU Judo and especially freeestyle judo for a long time.

Q-Why can't I wear my rank belt in any of the AAU Judo Nationals?
A-For the purposes of scoring, one athlete wears a white belt corresponding to the white side of the scoreboard and the other athlete wears a red belt to correspond to the red side of the scoreboard. Actually, any two colors may be used as long as they correspond to the colors on the scoreboard. In AAU Judo, we don't care what rank you are or what organization you belong to. There are numerous judo, jujitsu and martial arts organizations issuing belts and rank and AAU Judo does not endorse any group or organization for the purposes of belts or ranks.

Q-If this is freestyle judo, why can't we use wrestling or our BJJ skills?
A-Do not confuse the name "freestyle" to mean that anything goes or everything is legal. Freestyle judo is very much judo. You can use your wrestling, BJJ or any skill that is allowed within the rules of AAU Judo and freestyle judo. We developed the rules of freestyle judo to provide a fair, objective and safe set or criteria for the conduct of a judo match.

Q-Is freestyle judo a "style" of judo? Is it different from Kodokan Judo?
A-The answer is an emphatic no. Freestyle judo is, as said before, very much judo and as my good friend John Saylor said' "Judo the way it ought to be done." In other words, the rules of freestyle judo were written and have developed so that as many technical, tactical and functional skills of judo can be used in a judo match. However, we are finding that the people who are attracted to and engage in freestyle judo are the people who prefer functional, effective, hard-nosed and performance-based judo.

Q-Why don't you award Ippon for Osaekomi?
A-When developing the rules of freestyle judo, we wanted to get to the core of what Osaekomi really is. The concept of "osaekomi" is unique to Japanese grappling and especially to Kodokan Judo. This word translates to mean "applying an immobilization or hold" or to "pin or press the opponent to the ground or mat." Historically, in the early days of Kodokan Judo, an Osaekomi was used to control an opponent on the mat (belly up and not face down) so that a submission technique could be applied to finish off the opponent and secure the win. Sometime in the early part of the 20th century, the rules were developed so that a judoka holding his opponent in Osaekomi for 1 minute scored as Ippon as holding an opponent this long proved superiority. Eventually, in the 1930s, the time was reduced to 30 seconds and remind that way until the 21st century when the time was reduced to 25 seconds for Ippon. Now, in the 2013 rules, the IJF has decreed that an Ippon can be scored with a 20-second Osaekomi. By scoring a maximum of 4 points for an Osaekomi and requiring the athlete holding the pin to attempt to secure an armlock or a choke after gaining the 4 points makes for aggressive and skillful newaza.

Q-Why does the referee have the authority to call Ippon for an armlock or choke if the athlete does not tap out or give up?
A-Simply put; for the safety of the athlete. In the same way a boxing or MMA referee can stop a contest, the referee in a freestyle judo match can call Ippon and stop the match if the armlock or choke is apparent and there is imminent danger to the athlete. As one of our AAU Judo referees, Sandi Harrellson, said to a young man about 5 or 6 years ago when he complained that she called Ippon when his elbow was bent backward in a Juji Gatame; "If you're not smart enough to tap out, I'm going to call Ippon." While no one is implying that by refusing to tap out or submit from an armlock or strangle a person is stupid, the fact remains that the referee's main job on the mat is to ensure the safety of the athletes. In the heat of a contest, an athlete may not tap out or signal surrender from an armlock or a choke. Not only that, none of us make big money by competing in judo and we all have to go to work Monday morning. I prefer to see to it that our judo athletes in AAU Judo (including freestyle judo) go to work Monday morning without an injured arm from an armlock or loss of brain cells from a strangle. From my personal point of view, I really don't care if someone breaks his arm or passes out. The onus is on him to submit and if he doesn't, tough for him. But, I can't let my personal point of view influence my responsibility as a judo mat official to provide for a safe and fair contest.

Q-Why is freestyle judo part of the AAU? Why don't you work within the major judo organizations?
A-No disrespect intended, but honestly, do you want the people who have gone along with the IJF and have pretty much screwed up the the rules of judo to be the people running freestyle judo? These are the groups that have screwed up judo (here in the United States as well as elsewhere) for a lot of years and it is not a good idea to let them screw up freestyle judo. The AAU is the largest amateur sports organization in the Untied States and has been around since 1885. When some of us appraoched the AAU in 1994 to include judo as one of its recognized national sports, judo was accepted and we have been offering a good develompental judo program through the AAU since that time. (For more history on the AAU and its relationship to judo over the years since 1953, we can do another Q and A session, but for now, let's stick to the recent history.) Now, with freestyle judo, we have the opportunity to make real progress in the further devleopment of judo and provide the judo community with an alternative to what is already out there with the existing judo organizations. The AAU has great insurance coverage for coaches and for athletes and provides a neutral structure for over 35 sports (including judo). Even if you don't want to get involved in the AAU and want to have freestyle judo in your dojo, you can get your own insurance and run your own tournaments.

Q-Why don't the referees and judges wear a suit and tie like they do in other judo organizations?
A-Judo is a competitive activity and the referees should look like referees and not insurance salesmen. Selling insurance is an honorable profession but a judo referee that moves all over the mat, bends over to get a better view of the action and is constantly moving should be dressed in a way that he or she can have freedom of movement and still look prefessional. AAU Judo referees, including the freestyle judo referees, are attired in the same way a wrestling, MMA, football or other sports official is often attired.

Q-Why is the emphasis on groundfighting in freestyle judo?
A-The answer is that there is no emphasis on either groundfighting or standing judo. What has happened in recent years is that the rules of judo as developed by the IJF has severely limited groundfighting. What we now see in IJF judo is a sport that places too great of emphasis on standing and extremely limited emphasis on groundfighting. It is not a balanced approach to judo. When developing the rules for freestyle judo, we purposely gave equal points and equal opportunity for athletes to score and win in both groundfighting and standing judo. As long as there is effective aggression in newaza, we allow it to continue (the same can be said for standing judo).

How NOT to be an asshole in martial arts

2013-03-09T22:32:00.001-08:00

People at clinic today definitely NOT being assholes.

Photo above is from Glendale News article

The clinic Ronda did today was great. All of the people who attended were great, she did a great job and it raised over $11,000 for the Didi Hirsch Clinic to assist people with eating disorders. The funds they raised today are going into their residential crisis program, which provides inpatient treatment.

Thinking about all of the terrific people today, I was reminded of other events I have attended that were not nearly as great. Maybe it was your fault. Let's hope not, but just in case, as a public service, here are a few guidelines on how NOT to be a martial arts asshole. Feel free to print out and post in your dojo or leave taped to the gi bag of, you know, "that guy".

Don't try to teach a class where you are not the instructor. This may seem obvious, but I see it happen all of the time, where someone will interrupt the instructor to offer to show "How I do it". At the clinic today, there were plenty of people who had martial arts experience. I saw one person who I know is a very well-respected personal trainer, three people who I know own gyms with judo or mixed martial arts programs - you get the idea. No one assumed that Ronda had all of the knowledge in the room, but it was her clinic and advertised as such. The people who came, some from thousands of miles away, some from hundreds, came to see her. Similarly, even if they only drove five miles, the people in whatever class or clinic you are attending came to learn from the advertised instructor, not you.
Don't try to "take on" the instructor. I've taught statistics for 28 years. If a student wants to be the teacher instead of me, we don't have a statistics face-off. Even if a student knew some fact about statistics I did not know, they still don't get to be the teacher. I'm not only the instructor because I know a lot of facts about statistics and how to apply them in different situations, but I also know how to teach. I know what problems students are likely to have, both with learning a concept for the first time and in the future. Watching people at the clinic do o soto gari today, I said about 50 times, "Lift up your leg when you throw", "Step in with your outside leg first" and "Sweep with the leg closest to your opponent" and several other remarks I had made many, many times before. Being an instructor doesn't mean being able to beat up everyone in the room. I always remember Steve Bell telling me, "You don't see Bela Karolyi up flipping around on the parallel bars with those little girls."
Don't try to "win" at practice. Practice is for getting better. This is particularly true when learning a new technique. First of all, if someone tells you that I am going to step in when you kick, then turn this way, then sweep here, it's not that hard to stop them. If you pull your kick and then block your partner, that doesn't prove you're more skilled than them. It just proves you're an asshole. In a real competition, no one is going to tell you exactly what they are going to do when.

Don't be an asshole! Instead, be like this guy!

If I had it to do over again, I'd compete less - but maybe I'm wrong

2013-03-08T02:00:00.002-08:00

Someone commented today that she didn't want to go to a tournament. I told her she should stay home. This is a debate I have had several times with some of my former teammates. There were a few times when I did not want to go to a tournament but yielded to pressure from other people - because "You're our best chance at a medal" or "You're on the U.S. team so you have to go".

All of those times, I lost. I might have placed third or fifth but those places don't really count to me. Before you go off shrieking in the night - that is for me personally. If I say I felt like a failure if I came in third place in an international tournament, you can tell me all of the same things people told me back then, coming in third is a major accomplishment, look at how much work it takes to get that far, lots of people would have loved to be in that position. That's them. If you placed seventh in the world championships and you are thrilled - well, that's nice for you - and I mean that without the least bit of sarcasm - but I would have cried for a week.

At the root of it, competition is a personal thing. For the vast majority of us, we will expend far more in time and money than we will ever get back in any tangible way. The only reason to do it is that we meet our own personal goals, whatever those might be. Mine was to win in any way possible within the rules. I don't count cheating as winning. If it was, you could just bring a gun and shoot everyone. You'd win every judo match that way.

My friend, Mary, who was a bronze medalist in the world championships, argued with me about this. She suggested that if I hadn't gone to those tournaments where I lost, perhaps I wouldn't have won. She believes that in losing I probably learned some mistakes I was making that made it possible for me to go on and win later on.

Maybe. I don't remember it happening like that, though. What I remember is I was not at my best - for whatever reason - over-training, stress, sunspots - who knows. At the elite level, the difference between number one and number five is usually a sliver. I was just a half-step too late. Everyone has those days and I think I knew it. I should have listened to myself.

One of my other teammates, Christine, who coincidentally, also won a bronze medal in the the world championships, also disagreed with me. She told me that she thought having lost made me twice as determined to win in the future, drove me harder, remembering how much I hated that feeling of losing. She might be right.

Two other people, both of whom also won a lot of international medals, told me I might have been lucky to have lost at those tournaments. Both of them had very long winning streaks and felt that at the very peak, at the world level, they played overly cautious because they were overly afraid of losing. They both suggested that maybe having lost a few tournaments was actually good for me. After going a year or more unbeaten, I'd lost a match, saw I didn't die after all and gone on. They both said they thought they might have won a world or Olympic gold medal in the end if they HAD lost earlier on. I have no idea.

So, in sum, if I had to do it all over again, I would not have competed on those rare occasions when I did not want to do it - but maybe that would have been the wrong decision.

Ronda Rousey - Don't Throw Up, Throw Down Clinic is SOLD OUT

2013-03-07T14:50:00.001-08:00

**** SOLD OUT ***

If you have a ticket, I look forward to seeing you on Saturday. Your name will be on a list at the door.

No, if your name is not on the list they will NOT let you in. The only exception is for parents bringing their minor child. Obviously, if you have come with your 12-year-old daughter, we are letting both you and her in the door.

No, you CANNOT pay at the door because we sold 30 all spaces. That is the meaning of "sold out".

No, Ronda is not doing another clinic this year, as far as I know. She did one last year to raise money for the West Coast Judo Training Center and this year (the one below) to raise money for the Didi Hirsch Mental Health Clinic. The funds raised this year are going to provide support for women with eating disorders who are served in their residential crisis centers.

No, she cannot attend your event to raise money for your wonderful thing. She has a very full schedule and we scheduled this one months in advance. All of her days are already scheduled.

No, she will not be doing another clinic in New York, Atlanta, London, Australia or wherever it is that you live.

No, you cannot come "to help". There are only 30 attendees and she has me and Manny Gamburyan to help.

Yes, I am a mean old woman.

=====================================

As promised, here are the details:

Ronda Rousey, UFC world champion, two-time Olympian, Olympic and world medalist in judo, six-time national judo champion and my darling daughter #3 is doing a clinic on March 9th. She has done exactly ONE clinic since winning the Strikeforce world title and right now she doesn't have plans to do any more other than this one.

What is it:
A two-hour clinic on matwork, judo and mixed martial arts. Limited to 30 people.

When is it:
March 9th , from 12- 2 pm.

Where is it:
Glendale Fight Club
601 S. Brand Blvd
Glendale, CA 91204

Why is she doing it?
To raise money for the Don't Throw Up, Throw Down fund to fight eating disorders. 100% of all money goes to the Didi Hirsch Clinic

Ronda is matching the money raised by the clinic with $5,000 of her own.

How much is it?
$200 Make your check payable to Didi Hirsch.

How can I get a ticket ?
Pay attention here: You need to pay in ADVANCE as we are only selling 30 tickets and they are only available at three places.

You can register and pay during judo practice on Sunday, March 3rd 2-6 pm at Millennia MMA, 8423 Rochester Ave. Suite 102 Rancho Cucamonga, CA 91730. Or email Gary Butts at great4butts@aol.com Don't ask the staff at Millenia because they don't have tickets and cannot help you.

Glendale Fight Club, 601 S. Brand Blvd, Glendale, CA 91204 They are open Monday - Thursday 4-8 pm
Friday 4-6 pm and Saturday 12-2 pm

What is the third place?
I'll tell you later.

Why is it so hard to get tickets?
So we can be sure we don't sell more than 30.

Can I just come watch and not pay? Can I just pay a spectator fee?
No and no. The only exception is that if you brought your CHILD, say your fifteen-year-old daughter, you can certainly stay and watch.

Can I tape the clinic?
No. The gym asked that we not have videotaping and since they donated the facility we will respect their wishes.

Anything else?
Copies of our book, Winning on the Ground, will be available. We donated these for the clinic, so, again, 100% of the proceeds go to Didi Hirsch.

Practice Escapes from Armbars

2013-03-07T01:30:00.000-08:00

This seems like a no-brainer, right? Honestly, though, how often do you practice escapes from arm bars? Daily? Weekly?

How often do you practice escapes from pins? From chokes?

Watch this short video. There will be pop quiz at the end of it.

The most interesting thing I hope you notice here is that she is doing the arm bar on his left arm. At the beginning of the clip, I say,

"Now we're going to practice on the OTHER side!"

Just to show you that I practice what I preach, having written a post earlier about being sure you practice arm bars on both sides.

Also notice that while the player on top is practicing the arm bar, the player on the bottom is practicing arm bar escapes.

It just so happens that the day we did this drill we had a fairly mixed group - some big, strong guys, a couple of teenage girls and some kids under 12. How to make sure that everyone gets a productive work out? On that particular day, those big guys, like the one on the ground above, only practiced escapes. It was good for them because they got into a dangerous position and then got out.

The smaller, younger people practiced arm bars. They got most of the way into the position and then had to try to finish it.

Everyone had to work hard and everyone got better.

SHAMELESS PLUG

Learn more matwork from our book, Winning on the Ground, available as an ebook and in paper book.

Teaching transition from the very beginning

2013-03-05T22:25:00.001-08:00

How do you get to Carnegie Hall?
Practice.

This also answers the question of how you get good at transition from standing to mat work. I say this all of the time and I am saying it again. Practice. From the very beginning. In all types of settings.

I have shown white belts on this blog practicing throws on the crash pad doing o goshi or o soto makikomi landing in a pin. Here is the little mini-me Navida practicing transition from standing to mat work.

Three take-aways from this:

You're never too early to start practicing effective transition.
You can practice transition with any partner, even one much bigger than you.
You should practice transition from every throw.

Ronda Rousey Fights Eating Disorders - Matwork Clinic

2013-02-28T18:34:00.003-08:00

**** SOLD OUT ***

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As promised, here are the details: