Getting Through the Blue and Purple Belt Growing Pains
Photo credit to Mike Calimbas. At the end of “Advice for Newbie White Belts and Anxious Blue Belts” I promised a follow-up for higher belts. Here's my advice for you blues and purples who want to keep making progress. Looking back on it, the path through white to blue belt is fairly straightforward: come to class, learn new techniques, drill, spar, call it a night, and repeat. You’ll never get away from this general structure, but as you rise up through the ranks, especially into purple belt, the old routine can feel stale. The progress comes slower. You feel like you’re getting less out of the “here’s today’s technique, now drill it” approach. You may have felt you got more...
A Year of Firsts: My First Ambulance Ride
Last year, on Friday March 13, 2015, I had my very first major injury. I originally wanted to write a small Facebook post to acknowledge the milestone and the people who helped me get through it all, but thinking back to that day there were so many more firsts to remember: my first match at black belt, my first submission only tournament, my first tournament representing a new team, my first time being carried off the mat because I couldn’t walk, my first loss due to injury, my first trip to the ER in an ambulance… Wait—my first trip to the ER! So this time last year, I still did not know what exactly was wrong with my leg except...
5 Bridges Every Jiu-Jiteiro Should Do
Watch Hillary demonstrate the 5 bridges every grappler should practice: The bridge is one of the most valuable skills in a grappler's toolkit. A well-developed bridge can be used to escape or reverse positions, take down your opponent, or avoid being taken down yourself. However, not many BJJ players devote much time on developing a powerful bridge. They may do some bridges from side-to-side during their warm-up, maybe a few upa drills and then off to class. But by taking the time to develop a strong bridge you’ll not only make your hips and legs stronger, you’ll make every aspect of your game much better as well. For example, bridging mainly develops the muscles of the posterior chain -- the gluteals, hamstrings...
Plug into the Jiu-Jitsu Network
When I went to college, I was told the connections that I would make there would last me a lifetime. I never really made any connections in college, though. I was commuting the whole time and was always rushing off campus to make it to jiu-jitsu classes on time. Over the last 9 years I have made an incredible amount of connections through jiu-jitsu—from training partners to instructors, to people I have competed against, even people that refereed those matches. Jiu-jitsu has put me in touch with people I would have never met otherwise and has made my life much richer because of it. I have met a surprising amount of PhDs in math, Army generals, all kinds of law...
To Our Fans: Thank You
I started Inverted Gear four years ago. Yesterday, our 19th gi shipment landed in the United States. Four years ago, I could never imagine being where we are today. I wasn’t even sure I could sell our first 100 gis, let alone ever have a need for another shipping container full of merchandise. For that I thank you. Thank you for choosing Inverted Gear. Thank you for recommending us to your friends. Your kind words in the gym and on social media have been instrumental in our growth. We have done very little advertising yet have succeeded in selling out of every batch we order. And we can’t thank you enough. The gi landscape has changed a lot since we...
Nerd Alert
My childhood leisure time was a montage of Earthbound, Super Mario RPG, Final Fantasy 7, Ultima Online, Halo (16 dudes crammed in a basement playing capture the flag), Pokemon Blue, Pokemon cards, late night Dungeons & Dragons campaigns, and hours upon hours of television, movies and books. I was happiest grinding my way toward a Golden Chocobo or grabbing the rocket launcher on Blood Gulch. All of the other stuff about being a kid—homework, chores, running from bullies—didn’t much matter to me. My hobbies made more sense to me than the “real” world ever did. I could figure out how these fantasy worlds worked, and with a bit of effort, I could become a real force within them. I just...
4 Tips for Learning Portuguese
Sometimes, the Brazilian part of BJJ can become a barrier. The language barrier, more than once over the years, left me hearing Portuguese and wishing I spoke the language. I get confused for a Brazilian pretty often: dark skin, dark hair, speaks English with an accent and practices BJJ? Has to be Brazilian. It wasn’t until I was a purple belt that I actually started studying it. While I am not writing a book in Portuguese anytime soon, I can hold short conversations now, specially if they involve BJJ, asking for directions, or ordering food. I understand learning Portuguese may not seem that important for most BJJ players, but it comes in handy more than you think. I originally became...
Advice for Newbie White Belts and Anxious Blue Belts
Advice for White Belts You took the plunge and started jiu-jitsu! Everything is new and wonderful and strange and confusing. Looking back on it, my time as a white belt was probably the most fun. That’s when you’re experiencing so many things for the first time. You get to feel the excitement of seeing the basic techniques with fresh eyes. You won’t fully appreciate it at the time, but those fundamentals are going be the classics you return to again and again for as long as you train. Now is the time to really enjoy learning from trial and error. No one will look down on you for screwing up as a white belt. You may feel pressure to perform,...
Confessions of a Takedown Addict
My name is Nelson, and I love takedowns. Don’t get me wrong: I love guard passing and sweeps as much as the next jiu-jitsu guy, but I there is a special place on my heart for takedowns, especially big throws. I have competed in Wrestling (high school level) and judo, but this weekend I finally competed in sambo. Competing in sambo has been on my bucket list for a long time. I have been telling myself I would jump on a tournament for years now but never pulled the trigger. This weekend, I was at a camp run by my friend Reilly Bodycomb, and on the last day of camp he held a small in house tournament. I was out...
Jiu-Jitsu Friends Come and Go
Drew, Chris, Bryan, Jerod, Travis, Mike, another Mike, Matt, Ryan, Phil, Kyle—These are all people that I personally convinced to sign up for a jiu-jitsu membership at my home gym, and none of them train with me anymore (that I can recall). A few moved to different cities and continue to train, but most simply quit altogether. Anecdotally, the wisdom goes that 1 out of 10 people will make it from white belt to blue belt. 1 out of 10 blue belts will in-turn become purple belts. If you follow that math through black belt, 1 out of 10,000 people that start jiu-jitsu will stick around to earn a black belt. Unfortunately, we don’t have the hard data to make...