#judoka

For the last couple of months, I’ve had the honor and pleasure of giving BJJ lessons to Zack Sabre Jr. He is an amazing professional wrestler who is considered the most technical wrestler in the world. We’ve been working to add transitions and submissions that are rooted in “real” fighting. Zack and I also share an affinity for not eating animals as his new Morrissey spin off shirt so clearly states. 

 Buy the shirt HERE 

Watch ZSJ wrestler HERE

Too Much Of a Good Thing.

In the past 2 months, counting private clients and the academy, I taught roughly 235 classes. I understand this is an unreasonable amount, but I had to. In my academy, the only people that teach are my instructor, who is also the owner, and myself. 

I was texting a friend about feeling tired, sore and burnt out on teaching from the influx of private lessons I was giving, then I got a text from my instructor, basically telling me he was in an accident and would not be able to teach for some time. The reality of the situation and how much work was now placed in front of me hit me like truck. 

I want to make this very clear, he did not tell me to teach this much, in reality he offered to close the gym as much as I’d want, but I couldn’t do that. This is both of our livelihoods, but he has a family, a wife and a daughter to support with the gym and I couldn’t live with myself if I closed the gym because I was tired. Everyone’s tired, shut up, get to work. So for the first 3 weeks, I taught 7 days a week, morning and nights, Monday through Fridays, and mornings, Saturday and Sunday. After week 3 I cowered and asked to close on Sunday’s, to which he obliged. 

In month one, because of show I had previously agreed to be on, I only closed 2 nights but I was starting to lose it. Not only was I at the gym every day, I couldn’t pursuit stand-up comedy like I was before the accident. It was hurting me, I knew I wasn’t getting better at comedy, and I knew all my friends were out at shows having fun. I felt like I was grounded. In month two I started to ask for help from the senior guys at the gym. I couldn’t do it alone anymore. They were happy to help and I was happy to sneak some stage time in once or twice a week. 

Towards week 7 I still had no real timeline to when he would be back, but I refused to ask. I knew how frustrated he was with not being able to teach, and the last thing I wanted to do was to add to that with questions. “He’ll be back the second he can physically be back on the mats” I kept telling myself. Somehow I was getting booked more and more which meant asking for more help, which I can bet you can tell is not one of my strengths.

Then, on a Tuesday afternoon, I got a text from my instructor telling me he was going to be back to his regular schedule. I almost cried, I re-read the text over and over to make sure I saw it correctly. It’s now been 1 week since I went back to my normal classes and it’s been strange. For how trying and difficult all that teaching was, for how tired and honestly, sick of being on the mats as I was at times, I feel like I was given a beautiful gift. I now look at my work week as a vacation, it’s so goddamn easy now. Every day that I leave the gym feels like I’m playing hooky. I know how hard, I know I can sacrifice and it will only make me stronger. I don’t know what good deeds I must have done in a past life to deserve the life I have now, but I feel so lucky and I won’t forget to appreciate it.

Thank you Prof Roger for trusting me and giving me the gift of MMA, thank you Nate, Brian, Alan and Danny for helping me out with classes, I’ll never forget it.

I jump rope barefoot. I do that because sooner or later, I’ll make a mistake and that fast moving rope will slap me on that thin skin covering my foot and it stings. Not terribly painful but enough to annoy me and that’s the point. I want to challenge myself physically as well as mentally while skipping rope and that sting can really fuck with your head. As the rounds of rope increase and the amount of red lines across your foot increase so the ability to keep your cool and not make a mistake gets harder and harder. 

I like that. I think about it in basketball terms, I can practice 3 pointers all day and all night in the playground courts and get pretty good but the second I HAD to make this next 3 pointer in front of a big crowd when the pressure to win is on me, I doubt I’d be able to sink it. Find ways to add mental pressure to your training, it will pay off in the long run.