Inverted Gear Blog
Tag: Valerie Worthington
Find a Reality-Check Friend: How to Avoid the Trap of Believing Our Own Hype
There is a scene in the underrated film Pop Star: Never Stop Never Stopping in which beleaguered former boy bander and current solo star Conner4Real starts to question the motives of the people around him. He worries he is surrounded by yes-men, and to find out whom he can truly trust, he constructs a delicious little test. (Note there are some NSFW language and situations in this clip.) He learns his childhood friend Owen is the only person around him whom he can trust to tell him the truth. Everyone else is just guessing what he wants to hear so they can stay in his good graces and keep their spot on the gravy train. The Conner4Real dynamic happens everywhere,...
On the Problem of Sexual Harassment and Coercion in BJJ: Five Ways to Be Part of the Solution
This is a difficult topic, but for our sport to grow, we need to keep working to make our communities healthier and safer. Val has more.
Give It a Try, They Said. It’ll Be Fun, They Said: How Learning Jiu-Jitsu Is Like Learning a Language
In her latest article, Val explores insights from language-learning that might help your BJJ.
The Transtheoretical Model of Change
Don’t be intimidated by Val’s latest blog. In addition to her real PhD, she has an unofficial PhD in making deep insights accessible to jiu-jiteiros.
How to Refuse a Dance Partner
Val Worthington’s Ask a Panda series is back! In this installment: How do you decline someone’s request to roll?
What I Didn’t Know I Didn’t Know about Jiu-Jitsu
Val has put a lot of miles on her jiu-jitsu wheels, and here are some unexpected lessons she has learned along the way.
Eight Reasons Being a Woman in BJJ Is Awesome
Thanks to people like Val, more women are finding and enjoying jiu-jitsu, and Val has 8 reasons for why that’s awesome for women on mats around the world.
Let 'Em Feel
“Cheer up.”“It’s okay.”“It could be worse.”“Don’t feel bad.”Have you ever heard any of the above after you lost a match, had trouble nailing a technique sequence, or got injured? I have no doubt that the person who said it to you was trying to be supportive, and I have certainly said similar things to others, but more recently I have tried to become more precise with my language and to recognize the message I am actually sending when I say certain things. Possibly as a result of my life coach training and the courses I am taking toward a masters’ degree in mental health counseling, I have become increasingly deliberate about not telling anyone what to do; in both coaching...
Geeking out on Teaching Jiu-Jitsu: How Instructional Design Tools Can Enhance Your Classes
One of the many hats I wear says “instructional designer” on it. Instructional design is the process of creating and coordinating all the moving parts (content, interactions, expectations, assignments, assessment) of a given learning experience (e.g., a college course, an ethics course required by all employees of a law firm) to increase the likelihood that learners will be engaged and successful. It is a long-standing field, but it has become more popular since more and more different types of institutions have moved toward putting their content online to reduce overhead and attract more geographically diverse learners. There is an art and a science to instructional design. Some of it can be tedious, but some of it is pretty cool, and...
What Is Your Security Blanket?
For the longest time, I thought I had a good bottom half guard game. When I put people there, they had a very difficult time passing, even people who had significantly more experience in jiu-jitsu than I did. I considered bottom half to be my go-to game, and “bottom half” was my answer whenever anyone asked me what my strongest position was. What I didn’t realize was that bottom half was not my strongest position: It was my security blanket. I thought it was where I was strongest because people had difficulty advancing from there, but so did I. I did not have a suite of options to draw upon, no A game, no B game, not even a ZZ...