22.April.2019
I am sitting on a woman’s chest. We call this Mount position. I am trying my best to choke her with both hands. My right hand grasps the back of her collar so that the boney side of my wrist naturally impinges on her carotid artery as well as the trachea when my other hand closes on the other side of her neck creating a scissor action referred to as the Cross Collar choke.
“You’re not doing it. You’re not fucking doing it. You have to fucking drag your other hand, like this, hard,” my partner says in a sarcastic tone as she guides one of my hands across her throat to show me how. I am a little taller than she is, her shoulders are wider than mine but I probably have 25 pounds on her. Her belt as well as her uniform are blue. My belt, oh wait, I don’t have one of those yet. “You have to get violent,” another student offers from behind, seeing my struggle.
Today is my first day of Jiujitsu. Today is the 28th anniversary of running from my dad and when he committed suicide. He died at 40, as old as I am now. Growing up there was a point when dad switched from beatings to choking and drowning me because it left fewer bruises, which might invite questions. I have always had some trouble with being choked. I trance out a bit. Fussing on top of this blue belt I discover that I also happen to be terrible at choking other people. Turns out dad was pretty bad at it too.
When most people envision choking they think of a trachea choke, which being the major air passage creates a great deal of discomfort and naturally causes a struggle as the body reaches its highest alert condition due to lack of oxygen. A carotid choke on the other hand, impinging the blood vessels on either side of the neck, is favored because your friend quickly and painlessly goes to sleep. In practice any choke is likely a mix of both methods, unless you are me on my first day.
Originally what would later come to be known as Jujutsu rose out of 15th century Japan as a combined combat art utilizing weapons, striking and grappling. During the Edo period in the early 17th century Jujutsu schools began to challenge each other to duels without the intent to kill, which became popular. Judo, Aikido, Sambo as well as other forms evolved from Jujutsu. Today every military service in the world teaches an unarmed combat system based on the principles of Jujutsu.
Brazilian Jiujitsu began to evolve from Judo in 1914 when Mitsuyo Maeda taught Carlos Gracie. Maeda was a prize fighter with over 2,000 wins and was one of the first recorded Mixed Martial Artists. Carlos and his younger brother Helio formed what we call Brazilian Jiujitsu by focusing on grappling and ground fighting.
19.November.2019
My opponent closes quickly. I try to take him down but get pushed over instead. When my chest is compressed, when their mass will not let me breath my first reaction is to reach up and try to choke that individual. Always. My Jiujitsu friends, big or small, advanced or not, nearly always replies with an Armbar.
An Armbar is a common submission where the elbow joint is hyperextended. There seem to be a few ways to set up an Armbar, but in my brief experience my dear friend grabs and traps one of my arms, then sets their legs on either side and using their hips as a fulcrum employs their whole body to bend my arm the opposite way my elbow joint would prefer.
Without meaning to I grow to avoid this scenario rather than dealing with fighting from being on the bottom. I come to depend on aggressively attacking and maneuvering just as soon as a match starts. Thus my second tournament fight becomes six minutes of my opponent and I standing and pushing each other around the mat. This is called the White Belt dance, and it seems to happen when fighters are not confident in their takedowns or ground work.
Much of what I learn in Jiujitsu is discovering my blocks and unlearning them. It takes me awhile to unlearn reaching my hands up when I get compressed. The secret is to keep one of my shoulders off the ground, that way my weight is not entirely stuck under theirs. I do learn to block Armbars efficiently, because I get practice every day.
September, 2019
I roll with a blue belted student who, when our hands grasp each other’s uniforms, tends to use her head against my face or chest to push me over. This works for awhile until I develop my balance and she stalls. This time I push her over instead, and as I am reaching for her lapel she reaches for mine. I do not really see what she’s doing because I’m so focused on what I think I want. The next thing I see is my hand resting on the mat and I realize my head is resting on the mat too. “You can get up, Chris.” My partner’s lapel choke knocked me out so fast I didn’t know what happened. So fast that they didn’t know I had blacked out, and so they didn’t understand why I was just laying there. This becomes a joke whenever we roll. It’s our choke joke.
27.July.2019 IBJJF Boston Summer Open
The International Brazilian Jiujitsu Federation or IBJJF puts on the largest Jiujitsu tournaments in the world. IBJJF membership allows you to compete and rank with fighters in any of several ongoing competitions with regional, continental and global focus.
The Boston Open is held at UMass Boston basketball stadium. The floor covered with blue and yellow foams arranged to make 10 fighting areas. Hundreds of people walking, talking, eating and sometimes shouting join with announcements over the PA system contained and compressed under a roof to make a sea of noise. The first thing I notice is that nearly everyone here is a fighter. There are a few family members that have tagged along to see their son or mom fight, but the majority of people here have duffle bags with their uniforms and support stuff. I felt equal parts alarmed and honored.
I arrived at 9AM to support another fighter from my school. My fight was at 3:30. Plenty of time in the bleachers to people watch. At one point around lunch I noticed a family come in, husband, wife and toddler in a stroller. There was a quietude about them, even the toddler, that would be notable in any situation but here was exceptional. I wasn’t close enough to hear anything that people were saying down near mats, but I could feel this trio casually make their way up one side, converse with someone and then walk back before finding a seat. While there were plenty of other notable people on the mats and in the crowd, I couldn’t forget these three.
My heart stops when they call my name over the PA to come down for weigh in. I come down from the bleachers to a roped off area at one end of the arena. First I check in with an official at a table, they check a list to see that I am registered to fight as well as my age group, Master 2, weight class and rank, white belt. I step on the scale and register 185 lbs, well under the weight limit for the Heavyweight bracket 207 lbs.
Originally I registered as Medium-Heavy weight which tops out at 194.5 lbs, but there were no other fighters at that weight, with my rank and age group. You can always go harder, so up in weight or down in age group. I was counseled to go up in weight class because most people report injuries from changing age group rather than weight class. Even then there was only one other Heavyweight fighter in my age group. Heavyweight tops out at 207.5 lbs.
At the next station they pat me down. “Are you wearing any protection?” They have transparent rulers to measure the length of my sleeves and belt. I am so nervous I am glad to also be confused at all of these checks for regulations. I do not want to stop and think on what I’m doing.
Summer 1988
I woke upside down. The living room is dim and heavy with sweat and sex. A woman sits on the floor staring at me through silent tears. I hear movement in the dark, then sounds that were words wrapped in accusal, anger and something else.
Thrown back against the couch my nine year old hands struggle against his, crushing my throat. Wordless lungs burn but all my strength won’t stem the tide of blackness washing over only me, like grace.
3:48
I see my opponent. He is the male from the silent trio I saw earlier in the day. He doesn’t seem to see me or chooses not to meet my gaze. He is my height with a stronger built on a similar frame. Three stripes on his belt where I have none.
There is a fight still on going. We wait. I’m sure it was only three minutes, but in standing next to the mats my body becomes aware that a fight is imminent and the way I experience time, and everything else changes. My breathing gets deeper as my hands start to sweat. The sound of the crowd filling the air, the refs at the other mats shouting in Portuguese, the other coaches calling to their fighters, and the gasps and grunts of ten simultaneous tests of training and luck and will all become too much and also begins to dim.
Its our turn. We bow to the mat, bow to the ref and bow to each other. Then we shake hands, which in Jujitsu is slapping open hands together and then a fist bump.
I try to double loop that marker belt they give you, an orange and green stripy thing one fighter gets to visually differentiate two people who will be so intertwined as to not be able to tell one from the other in any other way. But you only tie it around once, unlike my uniform belt. The ref tells me so and painfully waits while I figure out how to tie the belt.
The fight begins. We lock eyes, close and begin grabbing each other. This is called Kumi Kata or grip fighting. The way he looked at me coming in clears all thought. I can’t explain what happens, in fight mode my mind was empty and everything seemed to happen so fast yet in slow motion. I know I go down first, I think I got swept.
The expression of his eyes changes for a moment to confusion when I don’t stay down. He tries to Armbar me, which I refuse. But I don’t have anything in my arsenal that really challenges him, and if I did I can’t seem to sweep or roll him to take a more dominant position.
Then I remember tapping out because I couldn’t breath, but I can’t recall why only that I was very uncomfortable. I may have been stacked, it may have been knee on belly with a face smash so that I couldn’t see. The fight lasted two and a half minutes.
After the fight I get congratulated by nearly every team member one by one, starting before I leave the mat. First I leave with the marker belt still on. I walk back and return it to the ref. Then up to the bleachers. I feel physical pain, emotional shock and euphoria.
While I would have preferred to win, the thing I was most afraid of was failing to conduct myself as a fighter. I mean I was afraid of embarrassing myself or my team. I was afraid that I would freeze up or not give it everything. This was only ever my baggage, no one on my team ever expressed any expectation of performance. It would have been ok if I had had trouble, my first time out or any other.
What they can’t make you understand in class is how during a fight you do not think. Every reaction was muscle memory and fear. Tournament fighting is a whole different game. The two are related, but are as far apart as I was from my opponent.
Later when we went up for pictures my opponent and I shake hands warmly. We are athletes now. Just moments before we were animals. Because there were only two fighters in our bracket I was awarded the silver medal. They handed it to me and I gleefully put it on my bruised on my neck.
+9 Hours
As the adrenaline fades, I listen in the dark for the storm of relic things kicked from their silt sleep by symmetry.
It never comes.
References
IBJJF Summer Open brackets
https://www.ibjjfdb.com/ChampionshipResults/1296/PublicRegistrations?lang=en-US
IBJJF
https://ibjjf.com/
Jiujitsu Belt System
https://bjj-world.com/brazilian-jiu-jitsu-belt-system-explained/
Brazilian Jiujitsu care of Wikipedia
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brazilian_jiu-jitsu
Mitsuyo Maeda care of Wikipedia
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mitsuyo_Maeda
