The Unbearable Lightness of Brazilian Jiu Jitsu
By Ryan Gossen
The Beginning
I am lost, I am drowning. I roll on my side, try to get to my knees, Ted pulls my arm across my chest and pushes my knee with his foot and I am on my back. I roll over and struggle up, everything is the wrong move, he’s on my back, legs hooked around my waist and across my inner thighs, one arm over my shoulders and one under my armpits. I can’t reach him and I feel that he could choke me here and there would be nothing I could do about it.
Ted is calm, his breath is slow and even against my frantic panting. I feel safe with Ted but I’m not used to being this intimate with a man. I can’t think of the last time I was this intimate with someone other than my wife. How am I supposed to feel about this? Mostly, I’m fascinated. I feel like I’m inside a magic trick, invited to look as close as I can to the illusion as it happens. There are tricks within tricks. Ted seems to dare me to try to force my way out of positions, there is always something worse waiting for me. It’s like a series of practical jokes. It’s hilarious.
That first roll hooked me.
Ted was a brown belt. Rolling with him was exhausting but there was nothing at stake, so it was only as difficult as he wanted to make it. Other novices were a different story. We went to war. For a whole month, I felt like I’d been in a bar fight after class. Bruises and soreness were common but hardest to process were the feelings. I had never struggled 100% against another person in that way, being pinned, sweating and breathing in each other’s faces, triggering every fight and panic response there was to trigger. Even a bar fight doesn't last that long. My recovery process from training included a lot of thinking.
Irony
I grew up knowing David beat Goliath, that the first shall be last, and that the meek will inherit the earth. This was confirmed in Star Wars, The Wizard of Oz, The Lord of The Rings, Time Bandits, and every martial arts movie ever. It seemed to me that the guiding force of the universe must be Irony. In martial arts classes, I believed I was learning a universal principle that would translate well in actual combat, and that size would not matter.
After a lot of training, at the age of 40, I saw my first BJJ class as an opportunity to test what I had learned. I hadn't really planned on taking it up as my thing, it was just a checkpoint along the path of other, more esoteric, more interesting martial arts. The results were definitive: in fighting, stronger is better, heavier is better, bigger is better, and younger is better.
It’s not that there is no technique that can overcome these advantages, it’s just that there is no magic. It’s all very banal, often ugly looking, and difficult to learn. If someone succeeds against these odds, it's a great story. But it's not my story.
“Takiyasha the Witch and the Skeleton Spectre,” an ukiyo-e woodblock triptych by Japanese artist Utagawa Kuniyoshi painted circa 1844, near the end of the Edo Period. Credit: Public Domain
Comparison
I don’t like comparing myself to others. I feel there are too many caveats, too many different things about me for it to make sense. I think I’m special. But BJJ is combative, competitive, and comparative. There is no avoiding it. When I successfully submit other students in class, it makes me happy, agreeable to be around, and I tend to fall asleep feeling at peace with the world that evening. When it goes the other way, I feel tension and anxiety. To get off this roller coaster, I try to take a bigger view; who am I really competing with? Training partners are imperfect comparisons, they are moving targets themselves, and they come and go. I've lost count of people who have come in as beginners, surpassed me, and then quit.
I find it’s better to compare myself to my past self and compete with that guy. Old me is full of hubris and has no idea what’s coming when we slap hands and bump fists. He thinks he’s going to glide by on grace and speed, but it only takes a moment for him to reach the end of his understanding of how to move on the ground. He’s disoriented by the intimacy, quickly exhausted, and it’s over as quickly as I want it to be. If I’m generous, I'll end it quickly because there is a good chance he is going to wrench his back and irritate the damaged disk at L5-S1.
My Daughter
“Daddy, I want to train jiuzitzoo.”
Eliza was nine when she said these words in her car seat coming home from an aerial silk class she had grown bored of. I had been waiting for these words and dreading them.
I quit training as a blue belt, three years prior to this, because of back pain. It simply got worse until there was no posture or position, no time of day or night, in which I didn't hurt. The stoicism of the dojo, meant for overcoming fear and discomfort, had nothing to say about chronic pain. The pain had a lot to say. It seemed to say, “This can get worse,” and it stretched out into the horizon forever.
A few years later, I was out of pain. I had put some effort into strengthening my back and I could toss my daughter onto my shoulders in a practiced equestrian vaulting maneuver. It felt like judo, a little like a flying armbar. Had I done enough?
Strength training seemed like a meathead thing to do, not a solution to pain, but the squat rack was surprisingly exciting. One must summon a lot of energy and intention to move the bar, and a lot of focus to bend and move correctly. It's not safe. If I do it wrong, I will injure exactly the thing I'm trying to make stronger. The more I push myself, the more risk. But if I don't push myself, I will still be in pain, there will be no change, and no jiu jitsu.
Teaching
Eliza will probably get her blue belt next year. She is 16 and this will be her first adult belt promotion. I have seen many grown men cry when they get their blue belt. I am a brown belt and she attends the class I teach. This is enormously satisfying for me.
Still, when I teach a class of lower-ranking students who are bigger and stronger and younger than me, I sometimes curse under my breath. In the eternal battle between strength and technique, I am here to represent technique, and it's a heavy burden. Every other factor is against me when I roll with these students except that I have been training longer and know more. If the myth is true, that the smaller, weaker person can defeat the bigger, stronger one, then I should be able to effectively teach this class. If it’s all bullshit, and it really just comes down to size and strength and ferocity, then this won’t work.
I am back in the Irony trap.
I have been running this test for over ten years, so I know how it will go and what my limitations are. It’s important for the spazzy white belt to feel helpless and learn to be calm, but I don’t need to wipe out my back to grind them down, that’s what other white belts are for. The collegiate wrestler can beat me easily. I’m not going to take that personally, I’m just flattered he came to my class to learn joint locks.
Dance
Last night, while I was out dancing, I asked myself, “Why do I dance?” To people who know me a little, it's surprising. I come across as a purpose-driven person, not gregarious or flighty. One would guess that I do things for reasons. Dancers do not need reasons for dancing, but if I were forced to explain, I might say I dance to find myself in the present moment, in my body. Movement anchors me in time. A partner is important because, while we tell a collaborative story, I am not lost in stories in my head. Everything physical and mental is drawn into a single sequence for me to live in for the length of a song.
BJJ is dancing with someone who tries to stop me. Instead of a call-and-response, “yes-and” pattern of improvisation, they are looking for holes and weaknesses, calling me on my bullshit. The constant opposition is extremely focusing. In dance, when I am distracted, I’m not as much fun to dance with, but it’s not my partner’s job to pull me back. When I spar with someone of comparative ability, distraction is impossible. This person will keep me in the present moment, even against my own will.
Hard sparing is the easiest form of meditation ever devised. In a decade of practice, I have gone to class with depression and anxiety, with persistent, unwanted thoughts. Nothing survives.
I used to think I was training so that no one could make me feel the way I did with Ted that first time: lost and drowning, forced into the present moment. But this feeling is the edge of understanding. There is no growth or learning without visiting this place. It's where I try to take my students and it’s a place I want my daughter to know well. Maybe someday I won’t need to find people who can rip me out of my delusions against my will. When I reach that plateau, I might switch back to an “internal” martial art, or maybe I'll just dance. Until then, I'll keep training.
Ryan Gossen is a writer living in Austin, Texas, where he also pursues dance, Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, and climbing, and is an active member of Texas Search and Rescue. He has had many vocations, including user experience (UX) designer, experimental psychologist, construction worker, arborist, and ski bum. He writes mostly about man’s interaction with nature. More of his writing can be found on his website.
