My top five favorite brown belt matches from the Worlds revolve around 6 people: Keenan Cornelius, Sebastian Brosche, Jackson Souza, Kit Dale, and the Miyao brothers.

5. A Moment’s Hesitation: Sebastian Brosche vs Jackson Souza

This match might not at first glance be very interesting outside the fact that these are two of the best brown belt top players (“top” meaning they look for takedowns and guard passing). In fact, were I to rank guard passers, I would put Brosche at #1 among all the brown belts in the world. This absolute division match up was the quarterfinal that came after the Brosche vs Miyao match (below). Sebastian is a medium-heavy bronze medalist and Jackson is a heavyweight gold medalist.

One of the reason I like this match is because it has two people who are usually unwilling to pull guard, and going aggressively for the takedown. The biggest reason, however, is that this match captures something very dramatic about the Worlds tournament that I’ve experienced myself. You train your ass off for a year (or really for many years) for this one day. And in a single moment the tide can turn from winning to losing, because of your own screw up or some other element of confusion. The frustration in Sebastian’s face and body language is very relatable. I’ve been there. I’ve felt that. He went toe to toe with one of the toughest dudes out there and took him down to take the lead but let that slip away.

4. One for the Little Guy: Keenan Cornelius vs Paulo Miyao

I wouldn’t feel right not including this match in the top 5. I didn’t like watching the match, but the end of the match was probably the purest moment of happiness I’ve seen on the face of any competitor. I don’t think anyone works hardest than Miyao brothers. In some sense they represent the original beautiful ideal of jiu jitsu, that a little guy could defeat a much larger opponent. Most people don’t like this double guard pull style match, but I can appreciate the technical complexity and strategy of the exchange. I just hope that matches like this are few and far in between, and I think they were for the most part in the absolute division.

3. Keenan’s Closest Match: Kit Dale vs Keenan Cornelius

Keenan Cornelius submitted everyone on his way to medium-heavy brown belt gold EXCEPT for his first match where he faced Kit Dale and barely squeaked out a victory by advantage with the score tied at 2-2. The only thing more epic about the jiu jitsu in this match is Kit’s mustache:

2. War of Worlds: Jackson Souza vs Keenan Cornelius

In the minds of many observers (based on my conversations with people, the forums, and live chat during the event) this was the most anticipated and the most exciting match up of the tournament. Keenan Cornelius has become more than just a top notch jiu jitsu competitor, he is also a jiu jitsu personality/celebrity (partially thanks to Lloyd Irvin and the Kumite). He seemed unbeatable, and it was thought that if anyone could beat him it would be Jackson Souza, an aggressive guard-passing Checkmat heavyweight from Brazil.

1. Sebastian Brosche Solving the Unsolvable Miyao Puzzle

Sebastian Brosche is a guard passing genius. He has a unique style, and has passed some of the most difficult guards out there. The relentless pressure, base, grips, and balance are all on display in this match. I’ve never seen anyone else systematically take apart the guard of Joao Miyao, even going for a submission with an old school cross choke.

Fight Sports has a lot of top-notch competitors, so the training was right up my alley. Cyborg himself wasn’t there this week. He had just competed at IBJJF Worlds the previous weekend and stayed in California training for his Metamoris 2 match this Sunday.

I attended an afternoon gi class that was run by Denis “Deninho” Mitchel Pinto (pictured left) who is a long-time black belt and MMA fighter. The class was basically everything I could ask for from a competition-centric class. The warm-up was intense, the drilling was focused, and the training was hard but technical. I could tell if I was a regular student at this school Denis (and the others) are the type of coaches and training partners that can really turn it up when preparing for tournaments.

I got to roll with everyone including Denis himself. I also ran into Ricardo Rezende (a top-notch black belt competitor) after the training and was looking forward to training no-gi with him the following day, but I unfortunately couldn’t get away from work then. Next time I’m in Miami, I’ll definitely be hitting up this school again.

I should mention that Cyborg has an excellent online instructional site full of detailed videos at BJJWorldChampion.com. Check it out. I’m a member of it for almost a year now and it’s definitely worth it.

Good luck to Cyborg competing in Metamoris 2 this weekend against Brendan Schaub. Here’s the countdown video for their matchup:

I only had time on Sunday, so I decided to come in for the noon session. It was a memorial day weekend Sunday, so I was expecting no one to show up, but there was a good number of people. Pete wasn’t in, but a very good purple belt (whose name I forget because I’m horrible with names) was there to teach a few techniques and run the training. I really liked rolling with him. At about 140 lbs, he was in a tough position of having to face another purple belt visitor 40 lbs heavier than him whose game/personality/history he didn’t know at all. Given all that he moved very smoothly from technique to technique, letting me do stuff without any ego. The sheer number of techniques he did very cleanly was fun to watch: everything from calf-slicers to spider guard sweeps to side control escapes to rolling back takes to a number of creative kneebar entries.

It sucks that I just missed the head instructor Pete (who’s there most days) but I can tell he is a great teacher and coach by the way his students approach the game. There was a relaxed learning atmosphere and the drilling was very precise and grounded in good fundamentals. The purple belt had a great line about his approach to jiu jitsu that he just does it because he loves it and gets on the mat as often as possible. He related it to “Getting XP points in Skyrim” which I believe is the first time I heard anyone compare jiu jitsu to an RPG game, but it’s a very good analogy.

Anyway, it was a great experience, and I’m glad I dragged my gi all the way from Philly to get a couple hours at this school. I’ll be sure to visit it again any time I’m in Chicago. If you live in the area, you should definitely get over there and try it out.

Fight and you may die. Run and you will live at least awhile. And dying in your bed many years from now, would you be willing to trade all the days from this day to that for one chance, just one chance, to come back here as young men and tell our enemies that they may take our lives but they will never take our freedom!

Coaches have often told me that at the end of the day competition is about winning. That never sounded right to me. I have never been happy with winning just because I won. For me, what I did on the way to winning has always been important. If there is ever a moment in the match where I stall on a lead because I’m tired or nervous or scared of taking a risk, winning sucks almost as much as losing.

Just to be clear, all losing, no matter what, SUCKS. It’s just that not all winning is great. I walk off the mat proud and happy only when I win and I didn’t quit at any moment in the match.

Anyway next time you see me win a match 2-0 or by an advantage, please walk up to me and smack me in the face saying something like: “You disappoint me”.

A common dangerous situation is when I’m looking to take my opponent down and they are looking to jump closed guard. In most cases, neither person has extensive experience with this exact situation. Most grapplers do not drill (nearly enough) jumping closed guard, and I certainly don’t drill shooting a double while a person is jumping closed guard. Those drilling sessions are too painful to imagine. What has happened to me in the past a few times is I made the mistake of not keeping my knees bent (even just slightly). There are a million reasons not to keep you legs locked out, but when you get tired you do stupid things. So when my opponent jumps closed guard, it’s tempting to step the straight leading leg forward. If they jump too low, this will result in their bodyweight slamming up against my knee. Here’s an example:

When your opponent jumps closed guard, they often pull you forward. This naturally forces you to step forward with as the person does in this video. Injury result when this step is taken on a straight leg not a bent one. The way to avoid injury is to keep a strong base and a bent leading leg. That way the leading leg can support the weight of the jumping person’s body. In general it’s good to have at least a slightly bent leg at all time, kind of like Olympic-style wrestlers do. With a slightly bent leg you can change levels quicker, sprawl back quicker, move around quicker, etc.

Here’s Jimmy Pedro breaking down this exact technique. He describes a useful grip variation for a BJJ competitor, but the guy in the above clip didn’t need the variation. He did it the old school judo way.

It’s a demarcation of progress. The most exciting one, to me, in BJJ is the white belt to blue belt promotion. There is so much possibility and hope for the future at that point. A new blue belt has not yet been beaten down by the reality that mastery takes a long, long, long time. When I got my blue belt, I still believed that just around the corner, I will begin my meteoric rise to amazing skill levels. In reality, the path to mastery is much more like hiking the Appalachian trail. It takes a lot longer than you think. It’s not glorious. There’s no sparklers or beautiful women (or dudes if that’s your thing) in bikinis cheering you on. It’s just a long daily grind full of simple pleasures derived from subtle improvement of skill and overcoming of challenges.

But again, I think what I like most about promotions is the same reason I like driving a brand new car: the new car smell. When my training partners are wearing a new belt, it feels like I just beat the game at the “normal” setting, and am now upgraded to the “expert” setting.

It’s amazing how a belt can be a canvas to project my thoughts on. A belt color is a set of goals, a set of techniques, a set of injuries, a set of tournaments.

In the rest of my life, there are no belt colors. When I publish a conference or journal paper, I don’t get stripes on my belt. The video-game-playing kid in me wishes that I would be “awarded” a green jacket or something like that for a week after publishing in a prestigious journal. I would wear it proudly, and write a blog post about how much I like the idea of green jackets that my colleagues would read and shake their head at in shame.

“The difference between being #1 in the world and #100 isn’t so much the hours on the mat. It’s what you are doing in those hours.”

I think this applies to people who train professionally as well as to people who train as a hobby for different reasons. In the former case, your body and mind can only take so much in a day. Anyone who’s ever tried to drill (really drill) a move for an hour will know the wear it can have on you, not physically, but mentally. The focus required to perform a technique to the best of your ability is as draining as trying to solve a difficult math problem (or puzzle for the non-math-inclined).

For the hobbyist, the reality is that you really do have a very limited amount of time per day that you can train. Ironically, with the higher constraint on time, I find that people do less of the good stuff (drilling very specific techniques, transitions) and more of the fun stuff (rolling in jiu jitsu, randori in judo).

I was always of the opinion that you have to earn the fun stuff. To me “fun” is rolling without any constraints on my game, without a focus on a particular position/technique, etc. That’s very good to do a lot of, especially if you have 4-6 hours a day to train. But if I only have an hour (or less as usual), I have to become my own drill sergeant. I’ll get in 30-60 minutes of hard fast paced drilling on a dummy or a partner no matter what, and enjoy a few sets of training. It’s a balance between short term “happiness” and long term “happiness”. Ultimately, I really enjoy getting a better understanding of the art of jiu jitsu, and that requires the not-so-fun process of drilling and rolling with a purpose.

By the way, I’m also realizing that “drilling” is like “dieting”. It’s a concept that is used by a lot of people to describe a wide variety of activities. So I have to be more specific. I do a lot of kinds of drilling, but the one I refer to as “really drilling” is where I do 100-200+ reps in 30 minutes of one technique. This isn’t some new technique, it’s one that I’ve already done thousands of reps of and most importantly have tried in positional training, live training, and competition. Every other kind of drilling is more relaxed. This is hard work. Productive hard work.

Megabus awkwardness

I took Megabus up to NYC, and slept obnoxiously the whole way up, sitting next to a huge dude who kept saying sorry for touching me with his elbow. It made me realize that when two dudes have to be touching on a bus, it’s best not to acknowledge this. Also, “sorry” like “fuck” are words that are good to use in moderation. The more you use them, the more they lose their power to convey a genuine message that they originally carried.

Subway musicians

I love the New York subway. It’s a giant grab bag of characters. I took the 1 train uptown to City College of NY and it was stuffed to the gills. And remarkably, a couple of stops into my trip, a group of four musicians got on (with drums, guitar, etc) and started playing a bluesy soulful song. They got a ton of dirty looks for taking up valuable space, but I enjoyed the hell out of the show. Given how crowded it was, it felt like we were all on a sinking Titanic listening to the last band we’ll ever hear. It occurred to me that there are not many cities in the world where I could’ve experienced this. I would’ve given them money but I only had 20 dollar bills. And the show was not quite THAT good.

David Jacobs knows who I am

David Jacobs (see interview) is a well-known and respected long-time black belt competitor. I’ve encountered him only online as basically a voice of reason on the jiu jitsu forums. It so happened that he was the ref for all of my matches. The funny thing is I felt a bit of pressure because of that. I wanted to make sure I don’t stall and that I use clean technical jiu jitsu. If I ever get a stalling call, I’m always disappointed with myself, but especially if the call comes from a competitor I look up to. Anyway, after my matches, he briefly stopped me and said “I just realized that you’re Lex”. More than anything else, that seemed like an acknowledgement that I am slowly becoming one of the “regulars” on the competition scene.

Moving up a weight division

After a full breakfast, two snacks, and nonstop nervous drinking of water at the tournament, I weighed in at a remarkably low 182 lbs with my gi (just a half lbs over my usual weight class of middleweight). But I decided earlier in the week that I will move up a weight class to work on making sure that I will never let myself use “I’m not at my goal competition weight” as an excuse for not competing. My first opponent weighed in at 194. I was proud of myself for taking a step in the direction that I felt was right based on the circumstances. As many people do, I let conventional wisdom influence my thinking too much. Part of competing, is gaining the confidence to explore and figure out what works for you. Luckily I did well, but the biggest challenge is when I fail not to blame it on any one aspect or decision but to continue exploring.

Coaching and competition training

I am lucky enough to train with a lot of top-notch jiu jitsu folks. In the last few months Tim Carpenter, Josh Vogel, and Drew Vogel have been running competition training sessions that helped get everyone mentally prepared for competition. I think these sessions have also helped bring the team together. I’ve competed at many tournaments where none of my friends or teammates were there, but the NY Open was the opposite of that this time. A lot of people I train with were there to cheer each other on. It was great to see Tim watch over my matches. A few times he would gesture what I need to do technique-wise, but mostly he was a reassuring presence which is a huge advantage mentally. Dan Haney and Stefanos were screaming their heads off, all great very technical detailed instructions. Jeremy, Myles, Lollie, Charlie, Barry, Mike, Henry, Alex, and many other buddies of mine were there as well. My judo coach Ray Huxen (and Eric too) were there. Ray is the best human being ever, period.

Enjoying good conversation with good friends

This tournament, like many, allowed me to see some of my favorite people. I’m often too mentally preoccupied (aka nervous about competing) to enjoy myself, but that’s getting better. Ultimately, I want to be the guy who needs zero time to mentally prepare for a match. I want to be able to joke around one second and the next be ready to step on the mat for “battle”. Those are two different worlds, but I don’t see why switching from one to the other should require more than a couple of seconds.

Next up

I have an insane month of work with deadline on top of deadline so I’m not committing myself to anything but just enjoying regular hard training, drilling, etc. However, I am distinctly aware of the fact that I enjoy competing more when I compete more. So I hope to get in a couple of tournaments in May (both judo and bjj). I am keeping my eye on Worlds but am likely not going as it is sandwiched between two trips (Chicago and San Fran) for me. But as with a lot of big tournaments, I may just get the stupid urge to sign up one of these nights, and do it on a whim.

I’m trying to make sure that I video, edit, and put up the matches from most of the tournaments I go to, win or lose. Hopefully it encourages other to compete as well, when they see that it’s not much different than training back at the academy.

While my jiu jitsu slowly improves, it’s also exciting to see that my play-by-play commentary skills remain the same at a steady level of mediocrity that I so proudly strive for.