Archive for month: June, 2023

Dust Mop Jiu Jitsu: The Combat Base: Part Seven

SBG Portland-Portland, Oregon

 

-On changing your self concept, realizing nobody cares and leaving your gym

This is the Fifteenth article about my journey in Jiu Jitsu. If you want to know more about what this project is, you can read more about it in the first article here.

It’s also the last of 7 articles about my time as a member of Combat Fitness MMA. While I was there, I would learn to push myself beyond harder than I ever had.

 

Put yourself in my shoes. I’ve spent all day in Tyngsboro, MA at a tournament. It’s the fourth tournament I’ve been to and it’s not going well. I had a long slog of a gi bracket earlier that day that left me ragged and medal-less. I’ve got one more no-gi bracket that will be best 2 out of three with the same person. There’s just two of us, and I have a feeling it’s not gonna be me. We already did the first round and he beat me with an arm bar where I definitely tapped too late. As I ice my elbow, my coach, Amber Farr stands at the ready with a brace. She smirks and says, “…I mean, it’s gonna hurt tomorrow either way.” 

Amber taught the monday class. It was my first real introduction to wrestling. Instead of just learning techniques, we would do suicide sprints, wall sits, sit out and back takes, shoots and sprawls to the point where you would want to puke. I felt better having her in my corner but I wasn’t exactly feeling up to the task.

I had been psyching myself up for this tournament for a whole month. I had finally gotten my first victory earlier that day in my gi bracket but it wasn’t enough to place. I lost four matches aside from that. This was my fourth tournament and despite all the weight loss and strength training it was looking like it was going to end like all the other ones. 

The guy I was up against had never lost a match according to smoothcomp. I looked him up before my buddy Max, from Team Jucao in New York, could advise me not to. He was doing a great job of pumping me up. But still, the damage was done and I had let that get to me in the first round. 

I drag myself back to the mat and slap hands. I use an overhand headlock throw and get him to the ground. He reverses me and tries to pass my guard. I throw my legs up as high as I can and we’re both stuck in my lock down. I slowly, painfully, get my arms on either side of his neck. I think it took me a full minute, but I felt him tap. I couldn’t believe it. I had a shot of winning if I could make it through the next set. 

I got up, Amber takes my arm brace and gives me an ice pack. She starts talking to me about ankle picking. But I say I had an idea. I realized I had taken him down twice the same way. I had visualized this all week and it was happening. The ref called us back, I traded Amber once more for the brace. We slapped hands, I drove him down and we landed in Gesa Ketame. I used my legs immediately to get him in a kimura position, he escaped and fell right into my arm bar. In six seconds, I had won my first gold medal. Self concept=changed forever.

The coolest thing was the ref saying, “dude, you might’ve set the record for fastest win today.” I’ve never been able to confirm that. The match started before the refs were able to start the clock. 

I also got my first serious tournament injuries. My elbow was definitely over extended and sensitive to the touch and, the next day, I had a little bulge in my ear. It looked like something was growing in there. Alongside a gold medal, I had won me some cauliflower ear.

Or at least I thought I did. It turned out to be way worse. They sliced, drained and stitched it like everything else. But Cauliflower ear is swelling with blood. With stitches in, a cyst in my ear kept swelling up. On my ear, there was an unstoppable force meeting with an immovable object. I don’t enjoy weed, it doesn’t make me feel great mentally. But I used it that week to deal with the pain. I had to sleep on my side to prevent anything from touching it.

Eventually, they scraped it out and now my ear is fine if a little chewed looking. But I wasn’t able to roll for 6 weeks while everything healed up. While I had finally accomplished something, I had to take a pause. Ah well, in February of 2020, I had a feeling I would be back to competing in no time…

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While I was waiting to heal, I went about my normal routine. Substitute teaching, graduate school and BJJ. I would sit on the side of the mats and wistfully watch people roll. Like everyone, I tried coming back from my injuries too early but my ear would be in so much pain that I had to stop. 

Despite all my hard work, achieving a gold medal didn’t change much. I got back to work on Monday and remembered that most kids weren’t in the habit of asking teachers about their weekends. Instead, everyone was making jokes about this new virus in China that seemed to be spreading to Europe. 

Rachel and I were getting bored of our routine so we planned an epic trip. In March we would go to Oregon to visit some friends. Rachel would fly to Colorado to begin working as a backpacking guide. I would keep working in Burlington until the semester was over then drive to Colorado on an epic journey visiting friends and training at random jiu jitsu gyms until I began work at the same place as her. So off we went to Portland.

Since I was there, I knew I had to visit the legendary Straight Blast Gym. SBG is known worldwide as the franchise that holds Connor McGregor. I followed other people whose path took them to SBG Portland. The founder of BJJ Globetrotters had been there as well some youtubers, like Rokas Leo, whose guidance I relied on when I was living in Korea.

The only class I had time for was a beginner’s class. I liked going to those. I usually felt like they explained a certain detail that I had missed. And my ego was still brimming over from my gold medal. 

Everyone from SBG was really nice when I got there. But since I was at a beginner’s class, nobody had seen me before and I was renting the Gi, they probably assumed I had never done jiu jitsu before. The instructor talked to me like I had never done jiu jitsu a day in my life. He was even trying to sell me on the sport as a whole and to give it a try. He told some epic story about how his son had judo-thrown a bully at his school.

Don’t get me wrong, it’s a cool story. And if you go there, I hope you get to hear it. But my only issue with being a white belt for so long is when people talk to you like it’s your first day. The deeper issue is that I, like a dick, wanted people to see that I won a gold medal and that this obviously wasn’t my first time. Going to SBG, I learned that most wins are anonymous. I had my 15 minutes of fame. Then I learned that nobody cares and life goes on.

Now I know, the win wasn’t the important part of my victory. It was learning that I could push myself harder than I previously believed capable. I went from someone who felt like he didn’t belong in Jiu Jitsu to someone who won a gold medal in 6 seconds. From the moment I entered Combat Fitness to the time I left Vermont, I became a different person. I was stronger, faster, capable of dealing with loss and looking myself in a mirror to see past my own bullshit. 

But I had only scratched the surface of that. And I had to hold on to that just at the exact moment that the world decided that we should all be standing six feet apart from one another. I got home from Portland and a week later, the Covid-19 Pandemic lockdown started. 

Our work in Colorado and our epic trip was canceled. We quickly realized we couldn’t afford to live in Burlington without income. We made plans to move to Massachusetts to live with my family. Combat Fitness MMA would no longer be my base.

More painfully, I never got to say goodbye in person. Not to Amber for teaching me wrestling and sitting in my corner. Nor Rob for teaching me the throws that led me to victory. Aaron for driving me to tournaments and being my first friend in Burlington. Anthony for making me stronger. Vince for always being willing to answer my questions and all my teammates for encouraging me and making me better. But the era of Combat was closing and a new epoch was about to begin.

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If you ever want me to visit yours and write about what it’s like to learn from you, feel free to reach out at [email protected]. You can also follow me @DustMop_JiuJitsu If you want to read my articles as soon as they’re published be sure to subscribe on my blog site!

Age: 31

Belt: Purple

Profession: Yoga & meditation teacher, proofreader for French and Spanish

How many years in BJJ: 6

Other martial arts: I did some traditional Jiu Jitsu for a couple of years, several years ago

Where do you live: I live in a van; I’m mostly in Bocholt (Germany) where I train, or am travelling

Where are you from: Voerde, North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany

Other fun or curious information you would like to share:
When you are in Spain, “coger” means “to take”, but in Latin America it means “to fuck”. Think twice before you speak ;-).

Verena Illmer – BJJ Globetrotters

Tell us what inspired you to travel and train?
Since I was a child, I always loved travelling, just like my dad. When I started training Jiu Jitsu I quickly realised that I love visiting other teams and training with a lot of different training partners. Not only because it’s a lot of fun and you get to know a bunch of cool people, but also because it helped me a lot in Jiu Jitsu in general, getting new insights from different sparring partners and coaches and experiencing new styles of Jiu Jitsu. So it was very natural to me to combine both by training a lot in other gyms during my travels (also because Jiu Jitsu people are the most welcoming when it comes to inviting you to the gym), and I improved this “ability” by moving into a van, which gave me the chance to travel and train even more.

Tell us about your most recent travel and your upcoming travel – where have you been and where are you going?
My last big trip was to Spain in January and February. I competed in Paris and went to a seminar there afterwards (Mica Galvao & Diogo Reis, highly recommendable!), from where I drove all the way down to the Atlantic coast of Andalusia, passing through mountains and the mostly unsettled central regions. I stayed some 6 or 7 weeks there for surfing, training, and enjoying the sun, meeting a lot of cool and extremely friendly (Jiu Jitsu) people.

My next trips will be to several of the Globetrotters camps in the summer, some by airplane, some by van. The next trip might be in fall, maybe somewhere in France/Spain/Portugal for surfing, maybe a larger trip outside of Europe. I tend to not plan a lot in advance, as usually when I make plans I end up doing something completely different anyway. :)

Verena Illmer – BJJ Globetrotters

What are the things you enjoy about travelling?
What I love the most is being able to go wherever I like to, knowing that no matter the place, I will find beautiful new places, experience things I’ve never done before, and meet lovely people in other gyms. I’ve actually never been disappointed with that one, which is for me something unique and beautiful in our sport: you can go to almost any gym in a random foreign country and know you will be welcomed as if you were an old friend, even if you’ve never been there before. This makes it so easy for me to travel, because I never feel like I miss anything; I can feel home in any place I go (perhaps also because I can take my home with me on the road…).

Can you give us some examples of experiences you had that makes it worth traveling and training?
A lot! Apart from being sure that you are never actually alone no matter where you go, because you can find the coolest and kindest (and craziest, in a positive way) people in the gym close to your destination area, you get a lot of useful and precious helps or tips regarding your journey and activities. The best surfing spot, a good local restaurant with reasonable prices, a secret beach… Just ask your travel training partners! The help and support is incredible and I appreciate it so much, even more travelling in a van. For example in Spain, I never had to worry about water, because everyone was more than happy to fill my water tank at their house. And even better, almost every single coach whose gym I visited invited me to dinner with his wife or family at least once, providing me with the best local food, as if letting me train with his team and learning from him wouldn’t already be a huge pleasure for me.

What has so far been the most surprising experience for you when traveling?
The hospitality in other countries. At least in the beginning – now I’m more used to it. When I went to Chile some years ago for some volunteering in a nature park, I went to the southern region “Región de los Lagos”. Being there in the Chilean winter, it was freezing cold, much more than what I had expected and was prepared for (or was willing to endure…), and I would have to spend 3 months in a cabin in the woods with the two other rangers, remotely placed from civilization and without electricity, running water, or anything close to heating. In summer, it would have been great for me, but being winter I got a really bad flu, a middle ear inflammation, and could barely sleep. So what did the ranger do? He first organised a place to stay for me in another nature park in the central region of Chile with milder weather, which belongs to the huge family of his friend. They welcomed me like a member of the family. I lived in their house, shared my everyday life, my sorrows and laughs with them. I felt so at home there that I didn’t even want to leave. After that, I visited the family of the first guy for a while in the northern part of Chile near the ocean and also lived with them in their apartment, sharing a room with their daughter and again being welcomed like their child. I spent a beautiful time there with them and never felt strange or out of place.

Both families did not even know me, they had never seen me before, but invited me to live in their house with them for how much time I wanted to stay, asking nothing in return, providing me their help, their food, their company, whatever I needed. It was something that really surprised me at first, but in time and during several travels I noticed that this is much more usual in countries other than Germany and I learned to appreciate it a lot.

Verena Illmer – BJJ Globetrotters

Are you a budget traveller – and if so how do you plan for a cheap trip?
Yes, I would consider myself more of a budget traveller, as I travel in my van, spending money only on diesel and nothing else. It is a beautiful, relaxing, cosy and less expensive way to travel – even more so when you live in your van and always have everything there that you need (and possess) without ever having to pack your bags. :)

Before I bought my first van, I mostly spent the nights in hostels in shared rooms, which was funny and economical as well, but I wouldn’t do it that much any more or not for such a long time – I’m getting old…

I tend to not plan a lot for my travels. Sometimes I even change my destination (the city, but sometimes even the country) the evening before I want to depart. I stay where I feel good and happy, and leave when I want to see something new. Being able to do that is something I appreciate a lot travelling in a van.

If you were to pass on travel advice to your fellow Globetrotters, what would it be?
Be friendly, polite, curious and open-minded. Don’t be shy to ask if you don’t know or don’t understand something (same as in Jiu Jitsu classes :)) and offer your help whenever you can. Don’t expect others to be or act like you, try to understand and respect the local habits, try to communicate (even being able to say “Hello” and “Thanks” in their language is a good start to get in touch with the locals). Don’t act like you don’t want others to act in your home country!

Thank you Verena Illmer – BJJ Globetrotters for making this interview!

Dustin Stoltzfus – BJJ Globetrotters

Belt: Black Belt luta livre, BJJ brown belt
Age: 31
Profession: MMA fighter
Started training (year): 2010
City/country: Lancaster, PA USA

 

Main achievements in Brazilian Jiu Jitsu:

 I’ve done well in a lot of tournaments, won a NAGA or two, hit a twister in a MMA fight.

 

 

Which Globetrotters camps have you attended:

Heidelberg and Austria.

 

Which camp has been your favorite so far?

Heidelberg is basically in my backyard, so the Austrian camp felt more like a camp.

 

Favorite stories/moments from the camps?

Just the insane pace of the Austrian camp, hitting the slopes early, boarding till closing and rolling into the night. 

 

Your favorite class/classes to teach at camp?

I always love to spread the good news of our lord and savior freestyle wrestling

 

***

Dustin Stoltzfus – BJJ Globetrotters instructor

 

Dust Mop Jiu Jitsu: The Combat Base: Part Four

Lincoln Brazilian Jiu Jitsu Center-Lincoln, Nebraska

 

-On quitting jiu jitsu, rejoining and finding motivation

This is the Twelfth article about my journey in Jiu Jitsu. If you want to know more about what this project is, you can read more about it in the first article here.

It’s also the fourth of 7 articles about my time as a member of Combat Fitness MMA. While I was there, I would learn to push myself beyond harder than I ever had. 

This is usually a blog about what it’s like to drop into gyms around the world. For this article, I want to do something a little bit different. 

I’m from New England. It’s a place I love. The architecture, the four distinct seasons, the intellectual history. But if there’s one thing I dislike, it’s elitism. A brilliant article once talked about how folks in my part of the country never watch sports if their teams aren’t playing. Even when we vacation we usually do it on the cape, new hampshire or martha’s vineyard. 

My wife however didn’t grow up in the Northeast like I did. She grew up in the direct middle of the country. In a place called Lincoln, Nebraska. A place that we don’t even think of in Massachusetts. Since we began dating, I’ve actually made it a point to pay attention to people’s reactions when she tells folks where she’s from. One person actually rolled her eyes and just said, “I’m sorry.” 

In fairness, people in Nebraska seem to apologize to me when I’m there. They feel like I must be bored out of my goddamn mind. But if there’s one place in the world I would move just for Jiu Jitsu, it’s there.

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By the fall of 2019, it had taken me a long time to actually rejoin Combat Fitness MMA. After a summer away, I was still licking my wounds from my devastating tournament losses. I seriously considered whether or not I would continue on with Brazilian Jiu Jitsu. So, for the first time ever, I didn’t. 

Rachel and I had spent most of the summer apart so we made plans to do the long trail after my work assignment. The long trail is a walking path that goes from the Northernmost part of Massachusetts to where Vermont meets Quebec. 

I was still reeling from my loss at Plattsburgh but I had an amazing summer. I’m good at teaching. It’s one of the few things I feel like that really comes naturally to me. The youth program I taught at made me feel really good about my ability to engage teens and teach them healthier communication skills. And then we went hiking and I remembered how natural it feels to be outside all the time. That’s not always there in Jiu Jitsu. 

More importantly, hiking doesn’t have that competitive feel. I didn’t feel like I was looking at the Appalachian trail hikers and comparing journeys. We were all on the same path but approaching it differently. Some had walked from Georgia, some from Maine and some were just there for the day. 

After about three weeks on trail, I made up my mind. I wasn’t going to rejoin Combat Fitness and I was going to get back into rock climbing. I remember telling my friend and coach, Aaron, about it. I didn’t say I was quitting, I said I was taking some time. But I think he had been around enough to read between the lines. To his credit, he never pushed me back into it. I brought it up when we went over to his house for dinner one time and he said, “anytime you want to come back to the gym I will happily drive you there.”

That could have been the end.

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By the end of September, I missed Jiu Jitsu. Rock climbing is fun. Before Jiu Jitsu it was my main form of exercise. But there are a few things missing. With climbing, you really do it alone. I mean, someone is belaying you, but they’re not really doing it with them. You take turns. 

There’s also no interaction with other people at the gym. Most people come with their climbing partner and leave with them. You might make small talk with someone but for the most part, there’s no forced interaction with the people in the gym. 

A lot of adults just don’t make new friends. They forget how to do it. They get into a room full of new people and they feel like they did at a middle school dance. But middle school DJs are smart. They invented the snowball. They call out the word and you have switch partners. That’s kind of like what sparring does. You are now getting close enough to a new person to learn what kind of deodorant they like to ignore. 

I also missed the competition, the constant feedback that inspires you to try and get better. Of course I could do that with climbing, but the set up of the sport just wasn’t calling to me. I made the call and went back to Combat Fitness MMA.

It started with simply getting back into the gym. I told myself that I was going to get back to training but I wouldn’t get too much into competition. I’d just be a student and forget about this stupid aspect of the sport that gets into your head. 

That didn’t last long. Aaron announced another competition that would be happening just before thanksgiving. It would be in Plattsburgh so plenty of Quebecois looking for blood. But this one would be a whole gym endeavor as opposed to the last one where it was only me and Aaron and Tyler.

Tyler showed up for one of the practices, asked me if I was going to compete and I told him no. “What?! Come on dude, that’s our thing, we go fucking hard and then get weird beers!” How could I say no to that? 

Honestly, peer pressure does a lot for me. People tell you when you’re a kid that anyone who asks you to do something you don’t want to do isn’t your real friend. But sometimes you just need that extra nudge. 

I decided to do it but not obsess over it. I also chose to try competing at a lower weight class than I normally did. At that time, I generally woke up around 150 lbs each morning. I felt small for my weight class and wanted to challenge myself to get down to 145.

Weight cutting was so miserable. On the day of the tournament, I was so happy to be eating real carbs that I didn’t even care about the results. I got beaten again but I felt so euphoric from my Trader Joe’s crackers that I was on cloud 9. It was a challenge that I had gotten through. But I knew I could have done better than I did. I was in.  I wanted to compete again. I told Aaron and we made a plan to do another in February.

But then, it was time for Thanksgiving in Lincoln. I’d be away from Combat just when I was feeling inspired. I’d have to put that plan on hold. Or so I thought.

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 I can’t tell you how many people feel like their in-laws prevent them from doing Jiu Jitsu when it’s time for the holidays.

Mine are the opposite. My mother-in-law is a Californian transplant to Nebraska so she wanted me to be excited about coming to Lincoln. She not only told me about the new gym that had opened up around the block, she also sent me the website with their daily schedule. Unlike my gym which offered classes four nights a week (only three of which I could attend) Lincoln BJJ had classes multiple times a day. My dream of being able to train daily was finally coming true. 

The instructors were really good. They really taught me to start looking for things in the transitions. Using another person’s mount escape to get into armbar position. After leaving Lincoln, I started getting armbars in a way that I had never gotten them previously. 

I started looking forward to my vacations to Lincoln because I knew I would get to learn something amazing. This was in 2018 and I’m actually there right now for the 2022 Christmas break. I’ve been going almost every day. It’s my fourth time coming in for a random week and folks are starting to notice me. “Haven’t I seen you before?” 

Josh Cather is one of the instructors. When I met him in 2018, he wore a purple belt and completely mangled me. Now he’s wearing a Black belt and still kicks my ass in the most gentle way. He lets me work.

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This year, I was especially excited to come to town this week because I’ve been volunteering with the We Defy Foundation for a year. The organization finds U.S. veterans with a high disability rating and gets them a scholarship to a BJJ studio near them. I essentially call a few veterans a month and see how their journey is going. I made a decision last year that I only wanted to take on Veterans who I had a chance of seeing in person. So when I saw that two guys were going to Lincoln BJJ, of course I snatched them up real quick. They are the first scholarship recipients that I’ve had the pleasure to both roll with in my mentorship role. 

This particular time has been a blast. I’ve met all kinds of awesome people who are absolute killers. Some of them are still surprised that I’m there because I’m not from Lincoln. But I tell all of them that it’s my favorite place to train. Many of them have traveled elsewhere for work and agree that it’s one of the best places to get good. 

Part of it is the atmosphere. Conan, the owner, is a really humble guy. He wants people to train smart. “Practice it slow” he’ll say if he sees some over-excited out of towner rushing through the drills. There’s a secret sauce to making a gym successful and he’s definitely got it.

Who knows what holiday will bring me back to town but the awesome thing is that I know I’ll be back and get to see what my training partners have gotten up to. 

Lincoln Brazilian Jiiu Jitsu is not my home gym. But it undeniably informed my game and made me a better roller. It’s like a waystone for me in the way that Boston BJJ used to be. At a time when I was getting my motivation back to train and push myself, Lincoln gave me the opportunity to learn every day. In the next few articles, I’ll talk about where that momentum brought me.

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If you ever want me to visit yours and write about what it’s like to learn from you, feel free to reach out at [email protected]. You can also follow me @DustMop_JiuJitsu If you want to read my articles as soon as they’re published be sure to subscribe on my blog site!