Bumps and Bruises

When you train jiu jitsu or any other combat sport bumps and bruises are a constant. Occasionally I'll even sport a busted lip or injured finger that needs taped up. Sometimes I have straight up hand print bruises on my bicep or forearm from no gi grappling and self defense class. Abrasions on the neck are not out of the question when its collar choke week. Anyone who has ever attended a Shivworks class knows all about the sweet quarter sized wound on the forehead. Guys, amiright????

Generally I am proud of my bumps and bruises. They are badges of honor from a hard training session and make me feel like a badass. When I first started bjj I would compare bruises with my training partners and show them off to my coworkers and non bjj friends. Even if they didn't care I was going to show them. I mean what good is being a boss if you can't hold your employees hostage and tell them about how you got banged up being punched while stabbing a person in the face?

This is totally fine and acceptable behavior in the gym or around other people in the know but it's another story when you have to deal with the public daily. As a retail manager I have to take care to try to hide my injuries. Most of the time it's easy with appropriate clothing but other times, not so much. Like when the air conditioning was on the fritz I wasn't about to wear long sleeves. There's next to nothing you can do to hide a busted lip. 

As a result I've gotten quite a few sympathetic glances when a customer spies a hand print shaped bruise on my bicep or the busted lip I am currently sporting. I know what they are thinking. I have to bite my tongue to avoid giving an explanation to every single customer. 

I have yet to figure out a solid strategy to deal with this. Right now I just focus on not to reverting back to my introvert ways when I'm self conscious. Instead I make an effort to hold my head high with my shoulders back, make eye contact and engage the customer in conversation. Sometimes I throw in a comment to a coworker about working on chokes in class tonight or something along those lines ;) That helps. This reminds me that I need to grab more fliers for Stout Training Pittsburgh to keep on the counter as well.

Felicia Oh wrote an article called Battered and Bruised on this topic as well where she had a few clever t shirt ideas. This past week I thought that a pin saying "you should see the other guy" or something along those lines could have came in handy. I'd love to hear other women's perspective and experience with this. Do you use makeup or adjust your wardrobe or do you even care? 

Christa's AMIS Course Review

Last weekend my lovely rock star sister in law Christa attended Shivworks Armed Movement in Structures (AMIS) designed and taught by Craig Douglass. The class was brought to Pittsburgh by Antifragile Training. Christa was nice enough to write the course review shared below. 

Just finished taking the Shivworks Armed Movement In Structures (AMIS) course designed and taught by Craig Douglas and co-taught and hosted by Shawn Lupka. This was a 20+ hour block of instruction covering a solo approach to navigating a structure with a firearm. In other words - how to check your house with a gun and a flashlight when something goes bump in the night. Students included military, law enforcement, professional security, one former pro MMA fighter, and myself. Full disclosure: I’m Shawn’s sister.

The site that Shawn secured was an abandoned country club just outside of the city of Pittsburgh that still contained most of its original furnishings. We met there at 8am and were able to set up a “class room” area in “the mixed grill” - a former restaurant with enough comfortable seating and tables for all 20 participants and their piles of gear. We had 4 unique courses to navigate including a locker room with bathroom stalls, an office area with a long hallway and opposing doorways, a ballroom, and an industrial kitchen.

The course started off with a short but succinct power point presentation beginning with the simple fact that there’s no safe way for a single individual to engage an armed intruder in a structure. This course was designed to teach us how to suck less at this task if we ABSOLUTELY HAD to do it. I really appreciated taking the time to explicitly recognize the difficulty and danger of the situation. All too often people are led to believe there is a magic cure for potentially deadly situations, which can only endanger them further.

Next we went over the geometry of structures and the way vision works within those geometries. We were given physical demonstrations using the angles, recesses, and entryways into the Mixed Grill. The most important takeaways were to always seek depth from a visual impediment and to view an environment in terms of what you can NOT see. The body should conform to the plane of visual impediment (line yourself up with doorways.) Determine which threats are closest and make odds based decisions on what to sweep first with your gun/eyes. Hips should always face direction of travel even when eyes need to be averted to scan for threats. We were to use these tools in order to narrow the field of threat (how much of the 360° circle around us could hide a bad guy) to less than 90°

Now that the short powerpoint was over we were given a basic group exercise. Craig drew a map on a whiteboard and had several students approach to describe the path they would take to clear the mapped structure and how they would do it in terms of choosing a path, “pieing” doorways, and modulating pace. If I’m explaining this coherently please do not get the mistaken impression that I understood what we were talking about at the time! I was, at this point, terribly confused and nervous that I might be called up to the white board. Luckily I was relieved to see that some of the people who did complete part of the exercise seemed just as confused and hesitant as myself and that Craig patiently guided them through the decision making process.

That was the total classroom instruction - it was brief, succinctly covered most of the material we would implement over the weekend, and left me with the sinking feeling that I was in over my head with a complex problem that probably required a variety of prerequisites nearly everyone else seemed to have.

Following that we separated into 4 groups each sent to one of four possible courses Craig & Shawn had mapped out. Each group cycled through each course gradually adding layers of difficulty to the task. This began with walking the route one at a time practicing our ability to navigate the space, taking the most depth from visual impediments, noting the number of exposures, narrowing the field of threat, and using appropriate pacing. Craig or Shawn were often following behind to give manageable bits of instruction to incrementally improve performance (take smaller steps here, increase pace there, tuck your elbow in) It progressed through having teammates hide throughout the courses, to having those hidden teammates shoot back with SIRT guns (they shoot a laser pointer), to having them shoot back with airsoft guns, to mixing in “non-shoot” innocent bystanders.

“Lights draw vision, lights draw fire” - Southnarc

As darkness fell the lights were extinguished and it was time to practice flashlight skills. We were warned against pairing the flashlight with the pistol, which would effectively draw a center mass target on ourselves. Instead Craig showed us how to hold the flashlight away from our body and alternate placement & direction of the light in a series of short bursts by which we could take “snapshots” of vision. He demonstrated how this technique makes it difficult to determine the source of the light and how you can buy yourself time, blind those hiding in the dark, and obfuscate the direction you’re coming from.

All of this coalesced into a final scenario where there was one stationary shooter, one free-moving attacker, and two moving “no-shoots.” My task was to eliminate both of the baddies without harming the innocent bystanders, in the dark. Surprisingly this task seemed easier than many of the earlier missions. The dark is more forgiving of a misstep around highly accurate shooters and the flashlight stuff is INCREDIBLY effective. The day ended at 11pm… a 15 hour day full of getting shot. It was clear to me at this point that Craig’s first slide was on point.

Day two toned down the video game violence as we began to focus us on no-shoot scenarios. We started to contextualize the training - someone in your house could be there to murder you… But; they could also be a drunk who thought he was in his own house, a 16 yr old boy who got the address wrong of the girl he was sneaking in to see, or a drug-addled thief who deserves no sympathy but doesn’t really need to be shot… yet. We started with a loud commanding “STOP” and an instruction to put your hands up.

The very first thing to do with a compliant hands-up criminal is make them face away from you. If they do decide to get frisky it will take an extra step to orient themselves towards you. Next we checked their waistline for weapons. We did this by instructing them to pull their shirt up over their heads until we could see their waistband. This also served the purpose of keeping their hands occupied, away from their waist, and covering their eyes.

Craig instructed us that the safest thing for an individual to do with a home invader or a criminal at gunpoint is to “pin them” and wait for the police. This involved simple verbal commands to assume a posture that would be difficult to suddenly attack from (on knees, ankles crossed, sitting on feet, shirt pulled over their face, leaning forward.) This also involved instructions to be aware when officers approach and make sure your firearm is away before they enter the scene. The best case is to have the bad guy between yourself and the cops when they arrive so that they see him first.  

There was also instruction of the best way to disarm the intruder if there is something tucked into his waist, and both attached and unattached ways to move them (though all of those were advised against unless absolutely necessary.) We also covered when and how to bypass a known threat (someone screaming for help in another room/horizontal elbow shield and gun at the 2 position and charge), the safest way to run while holding a firearm (arm straight down and pulled tight to the body and of course a high register position) and pulling the firearm back to presentation as we enter the threat zone from a run. Each description was given context and examples from Craig’s professional experience which illustrated that his technique is reality-based and effective and also served to entertain. For each new module we broke up into our groups and drilled repetitions of the task.

After lunch we were given our final evolution - and I went first so that I could roleplay a character for the remaining students’ evolutions.  

My final evo:

I’ve been informed that the final Evolution for AMIS is always the same - so I’m not going to lay out specific details. I was taken to a set of rooms and given a scenario by Craig. The scenario as it was laid out made it entirely possible that absolutely nothing was wrong and that at any moment of clearing this part of the structure I would be faced with someone I would not want to shoot.

It started off well except that my heart was pounding in my chest. I began to work the environment the way we had done on the first day and just tried to keep in mind my brother’s advice about this evo

“Keep calm and make intelligent decisions.” - Shawn Lupka

Things I failed to do: clear a good chunk of one of the rooms, get a ‘Don’t Shoot… Yet.” to pull his t-shirt far enough over his face to actually see his waist, drop my gun to the safe running position, pull the firearm back to presentation before clearing a doorway from a run, cross the threshold of a doorway in order to narrow the field of threat, remember the sequence of events that had just happened after the evo was completed. (I seem to remember now. Adrenaline messes with memory)

Things I am surprised that I did: fired accurately without hesitation, remember and use the correct sequence of verbal commands for a ‘Don’t Shoot… Yet”, not panic.

Things I learned and used reasonably well: Moving quietly, pieing doorways, the 2 position and horizontal elbow shield, increasing pace when moving through a field of threat greater than 90°

When I finished at first I thought I had done a horrible job - though Craig assured me I had done pretty well, especially for my first try with no related experience. After getting to roleplay for the rest of the scenarios I realize I actually DID do pretty well. All things considered, with no prior related training I neutralized multiple threats, did not harm or keep my muzzle on a no-shoot, and  took 4-6 probably non-lethal hits to the shoulder, arm, and leg (not counting rounds I took from a roleplayer who didn’t realize he was supposed to “die” after several rounds to the sternum.)

Most of the other students made many of the same mistakes I had made, and many of them made mistakes that I had not made. Although most of them more or less succeeded - the difference was often how long it took and how messy it was. When AMIS tools were utilized effectively the scenario was ended quickly and tidily. In the end I can’t believe how much practical skill I actually gained in the course of one weekend and I think AMIS should be required material for any individual who owns a handgun for home protection.

Beginning Lifting, a Female Perspective

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Disclaimer: I am not an expert nor do I claim to be. The following post is my personal experience as a female starting weight lifting. Your experience may differ.

I've bought into a lot of fitness myths in the past. Stay away from carbohydrates and fat, do tons of cardio to lose weight, high reps with low weight gets you toned...the list goes on and on.

Most of these mantras have turned out to be bullshit that wasted my time and energy. The latest one I have discovered to be bullshit is that lifting heavy makes women bulky.

A couple months ago my husband, who owns Antifragile Training brought Larry Lindenman to Pittsburgh to teach a workshop on starting a strength and nutrition program focused for sports. I'm a weakling and strength is one area of my jiu jitsu game that is definitely lacking.

Larry talked extensively on different myths and assured that women who lift heavy are physiologically incapable of getting bulky without performance enhancing drugs. Hell, it's hard enough for men to get bulky when they are deliberately trying to. 

It took me a few weeks after the seminar to mustered up the courage to give it a try. I downloaded the StrongLifts 5x5 app and asked my husband to assist me the first time to ensure that I was doing everything right. That was 12 weeks ago.

So what has my experience been like so far? Have I turned into She Hulk yet? Of course not! Not that that would be a bad thing...she is pretty darn sexy...

That first day was hard. Even in the privacy of my own home with my totally non judgmental husband I was embarrassed by just how weak I was. I awkwardly struggled with that empty 45 pound bar. I was certain that I would not be able to put any weight on it. I couldn't even use the bar for the overhead press. I had to start out with a 20 pound dumbbell. 

My progress has been extremely slow, taking two steps forward then one back. I am constantly correcting and tweaking my program.

I started out lifting three times a week without cutting back on other activity. Quickly, I realized that I could not keep that up. I cut back to twice a week and ensured that I was taking at least one rest day with no other activity. 

After only a few workouts I thought that I had proper form down and the weight started to feel "easy" until suddenly, it was not. After videoing my squats I saw that I was not going low enough. Apparently, it is common to start compromising form as the weight gets heavier. I had to back down the weight and now I use a box so that I am always going low enough. The same thing happened with the rows and I have had to start doing them bench supported. This brings up another good point. Five pound increases are typically too much for women.

It was frustrating when I would successfully complete a 5x5 and then not be able to get 1 rep of the next weight. Upon thoroughly reading the Strong Lifts 5x5 guide I learned that because women have much less muscle mass, especially in the upper body, we should only go up by 2 pounds on bench, row, and overhead press. Now that the weight is pretty heavy on the other lifts I'm only increasing them by 2 pounds as well.

The guide has been very helpful, I recommend reading it thoroughly before beginning and referring back to it frequently. It could save you some of the aggravation I've had with doing things wrong, like breathing. Who knew I could screw up the most basic human function?!

For example, at the top of my squats I was taking a big breath, holding it on the way down then exhaling on my way back up. This is all wrong. You are supposed to take a big breath at top and hold it all of the way down and back up, exhaling at the top. I kept wondering why I was losing momentum on the way back up and my lower back was hurting...

Visually, my body has changed minimally. I have gained about 5 pounds but my measurements have not changed at all. I do notice that I am significantly more toned and tight. When I run there is way less jiggle. If I look really really hard I can see the vague outlines of muscles that were never there before.

Physically, the results I've seen in this short span of time have been nothing short of amazing. I feel much more confident doing anything in bjj that requires a squat like position (standing in guard, crowding my hips in,) have gotten numerous compliments on my strong elbows in bottom side control (a position I find myself in a lot,) and my grip strength has improved dramatically. 

OK. Now I'm going to talk about some stuff that only applies to us girls. I have had a few hormonal changes that I'm honestly not sure are related to lifting but feel need to be stated. 

When I first started lifting I was hungry ALL OF THE TIME! I have regularly dreamed about blueberry pie and Cinnabon. While I didn't over indulge I did eat more but did my best to keep it healthy (which is probably why I gained 5 pounds...) Luckily, my appetite has recently returned to normal.

I sometimes get much more intense emotions right after lifting. I have actually broken down in tears or gotten really angry about stupid shit. I have also noticed feeling more aggressive at jiu jitsu and in life in general. I don't now if aggressive is the right word, maybe assertive? Whatever, I don't care, all I know is it feels good :) 

My periods are much shorter. They used to last 5 to 7 days but are now just 2 or 3. I've read that this is common for females who are very active but you need to see a doctor if it stops completely.

Increased sex drive. Nuff said.

Jiu Jitsu and Mental Fortitide

If someone would have asked me what I liked about Brazilian Jiu Jitsu when I first started I really would not have known how to answer. From an outside perspective it probably did not look like I was having a good time.

I vividly remember my training partners pinning me in positions and me panicking in almost a black out state, totally spazzing. I would promptly forget the technique we had just drilled and revert to frantically flopping around like a fish out of water, sweaty and panting. I got my ass kicked every day and left physically spent and covered in bruises. I would wake up the next morning with my muscles so stiff and sore that I could barely move.

Despite all of that, I would wake up every morning with a new feeling of excitement, counting down the hours until that night's class. Work would crawl by and all I could think about was bjj. I couldn't wait to get on the mats every night.

To my surprise, even though I got beat up every day and never pulled off any technique, I never felt defeated. Actually, I felt empowered. Generally, I dislike the use of the word empowered because it has become so cliche. In this case though it is the most fitting word for how bjj makes me feel. Empowered means to "make (someone) stronger and more confident, especially with controlling their life and claiming their rights." 

What bjj did was prove that I could take a beating, both physically and mentally and not give up or give in. I discovered that I have mental fortitude much greater than I had realized. When put in a fight or flight situation I am going to fight. Every time. Not many people find this out about themselves and reaffirm it every day.

This mental fortitude goes beyond the mats and self defense, life or death situations.  At the most basic level jiu jitsu is a metaphor for life. 

When I get swept I try to land in the best position possible and work to better my position. If I've repeatedly tried a technique and it doesn't work maybe it's time to try something different. There is no "one size fits all" technique that is going to work for every situation every time; I have to adapt my game depending on the size, strength, and skill level of my training partner. 

I'm also never going to master everything. There will be some things I'm good at and some things I'm not. I will never be perfect and there is no finish line. It is a sport that is ever evolving and there will always be something new to learn. These are all lessons that are applicable to my daily life outside of the gym.

When I started bjj I was enduring a difficult time in my life. My son was entering high school, needing me less and less and I had closed a business that I had poured my heart and soul into for a number of years. I ended up taking a job making less money than I was before I started college. 

These things were a major blow to my ego. I had prided myself on titles and tied my self worth, happiness and identity to those titles. Jiu jitsu came into my life right on time. 

To paraphrase Tyler Durden, Jiu jitsu has taught me that I am not my job, I'm not how much money I have in the bank. I am not the car I drive. I'm not a number on a scale or the dress I wear to work.

I am a fighter.

How I Found Brazilian Jiu Jitsu

When hanging out with training partners the conversation at some point will always come around to how you got into bjj. I've been asked this multiple times but it's not until recently that I found myself telling the truth about how I got into it.

In the beginning I thought that I tried that first class to get my husband and his sister off my back. They had started it to complement their self defense training. At that point I sometimes carried a gun when I was traveling through a bad area. I took a few basic pistol courses and didn't see the need to do much more. 

I was in that class of women who are in denial of the real possibility that shit might go down. "We learned to watch our drinks at bars and walk home in pairs of two, we glossed over the hard stuff. We addressed how to try to avoid assaults; we never talked about what to do if we found ourselves in a fight for our lives." 

I honestly thought that if someone tried to approach or grab me I would just pull out my gun and it would scare them off.

One problem though was that carrying a gun was not always realistic for me. I was interested in carrying a knife full time but knew that I needed some training on deploying it without hurting myself. My husband suggested that I take In-Extremis Knife (IEK) with Craig Douglass. 

I think that class opened my eyes to the fact that just carrying a gun or knife and being aware of my surroundings is not enough. Reviewing videos from that class I can see just how far I've come. That was my first experience with force on force training. Following are the stand outs:

• I had a horrible stance, too upright and narrow.
• I couldn't judge the distance between myself and my attacker.
• I didn't keep my hands up to protect myself from blows to the head.
• My movement in general was too bouncy (that's something I still struggle with sometimes.)
• I had difficulties "cutting the angles," only having forward and backward movement.
• I would not have known what to do if I got knocked down.

I went away from that class feeling both accomplished and a little lost. I was proud of myself for just completing it. It was one of the scariest things I had ever done. I shy away from confrontation and that class put me right in the thick of it.

That class also made it clear that what I had learned and bought into up until that point would not work in a real life situation. It shook my confidence and I wasn't sure what to do about it. My husband kept suggesting that I try jiu jitsu. The thought terrified me.

Up until that point I had never participated in anything very physical. I was too self conscious. As a child I developed mild scoliosis which causes my right foot to point outward. It's only noticeable when I run. Children are assholes and they quacked like a duck at me when I ran in gym class. As soon as I realized I could skip or fake sick that's what I did.

Shawn is relentless though and was sure if I tried bjj I would like it. On his birthday almost 2 years ago (3 months after IEK) I finally gave in and agreed to try a class. I was certain that I would hate it.

So what happened at that first class?

I didn't hate it. I couldn't say that I liked it though either. It was one of the most exhausting things I had ever done and I sucked at it but the utility of bjj for self defense was undeniable. It teaches a smaller, weaker person to successfully defend their self against a larger, stronger opponent. 

It also helped that I felt welcomed by the ladies who were already there. I felt a part of right away and when I did something wrong (as we all do when we are new) they didn't make me feel stupid. They were patient and helped me learn.

A week later I found myself signing up at Renzo Gracie Pittsburgh. I was addicted.

Two years later I am a different person physically and mentally. At 34 I am in the best shape of my life. I have started lifting to get better at jiu jitsu and eat relatively healthy to perform my best.

I used to avoid confrontation at all costs. While I don't currently go out looking for a fight I can handle confrontations when they inevitably come up (I work retail...) The funny thing is that confrontations don't seem to come up as much as they used to. That is because I hold myself with an air of confidence, as someone who is not willing to be pushed around. 

Those are just a few of the many side effects that bjj has had on my life. I will be writing plenty of follow up posts on this topic in the future. Stay tuned.