Quitting Jiu Jitsu
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!
