So I lost.
I lost my first IBJJF competition.
I lost in a fashion that devastated and still confuses me. My cheat meal of an extravagant cheeseburger, fries, and a milkshake proved unsatisfying. I couldn’t sleep. The night spent replaying the match over and over and over again until I’d memorized each second, each moment, each wrinkle of perplexing events. I always knew I’d lose sooner or later, but not like this. Instead, I imagined a flying triangle or a thorough beat down. Not a DQ via a “wristlock” that no one except the ref saw. Much less after being up a lot and in mount. So it goes.
That was the mind space after my first loss. Dwelling on something, in retrospect, so inconsequential. Losing sleep and thinking about burning my Gis. Stuck in a fatalistic and fixed mindset. Unable to see that hurdles are meant to be overcome and coveted. An easy path is a boring path. Let me dig out a few more cliches.
The best words of advice came from Sam Joseph, “If the worst thing that happens to you is that you lose a jiu-jitsu match, you had a pretty good life.”
Jiu-jitsu changed me. You know that whole cliche.
But it did. It really did.
Before, when something tragic of unfair or simply frustrating happened, I took the event as a sign or an omen. Life or fate or whatever whispered through the ether, letting me know that this path wasn’t for me. Close the door. Walk away. Go another path.
Jiu-jitsu changed that. Or, at the minimum, it slapped a triangle on me and asked me whether I had it in me to keep going. To get posture, find some grips, and start pulling myself out from the deep end. To trudge forward and keep training with the hopes that maybe one day I’d win an IBJJF gold medal and maybe a blue belt and some time way down the road a black belt.
So I got over it. Or as best I could.
My distaste for competing lasted a short time. One sleepless night. I knew it was one ref and one match…at white belt. It didn’t really matter in the grand scheme of things. I knew I’d use it as fuel to my fire and push me towards my goals.
Old Tom would’ve sat at home, feeling sorry for himself while hiding under a rock until he cared less and less about trying again and jiu-jitsu was a distant memory.
New Tom got up, downed an energy drink, and grabbed my Gi. That next morning, I had a private scheduled with David “The Rock” Jacobs.
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The Rock rose up the jiu-jitsu ranks with my instructor, Sam. Together, they earned their black belts in the DC-area under the Yamasaki lineage. Being approximately the same age and similar in weight and size, they started as rivals before growing into brothers. When one improved, getting an upper-hand on the other, it doubled the other’s efforts until catching up and surpassing. The cycle continued until they earned their black belts. Because of life, The Rock received his first. The black belt given to him was passed down from one of their favorite instructors, Neto. This belt was then handed down from The Rock to Sam. Symbolic in nature, it represented the bond they formed through their time as colored belts and competitors.
Later I learned the extent of The Rock’s influence on jiu-jitsu in America. A random black belt who coached me in a New York tournament idolized The Rock (and knew Sam). YouTube videos showed Jacobs’ battles on Grapplers Quest or against more contemporary names. He competed in the adult divisions for years, always looking to challenge himself. So here he was offering me a free private 1-on-1 because I let him crash at my apartment for a few hours that weekend.
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This was my third or fourth private. Privates are tricky. How do you tell someone, “In one hour, make me discernibly better?” Especially when you’re a white belt and have infinite gaps in your game and you barely even know what questions to ask. Further, what you ask of a particular person isn’t necessarily efficient for their skills or what they can teach in one hour. Do they know your game and how to improve you? Will they dispense watered down advice anybody could look up on the internet or ask their coach? You’re usually spending money, so it better be worth it. Hence, privates are tricky.
In my first private ever, I concentrated on basic half-guard. When I came away from it, I had at least a semblance of a half-guard offense. Do I use it now? Not proactively. What I came away with was the concept of space and winning tiny battles such as cross faces and far leg control. As a byproduct, I’m still quite proficient at passing half-guard. Although none of that was the intention of the actual private.
My second private, I asked a lot of questions about DLR guard. It wasn’t the right person to ask. I didn’t learn much about my specific question at all. It wasn’t a waste of money or time, as it was free and I did end up learning some worthwhile concepts. I learned about the power of the butterfly hook and how to engage it in half-guard or open guard, or really any time you can insert it without being flattened. Long-term, it helped me understand crab rides, leg entries, and opening up space for inserting a DLR hook, but mostly getting into and maintaining X-guard. Not all was lost.
With my third private, I wanted to get better at passing. That was it. We talked about some guard issues, like using the technical stand-up to avoid being swept or coming up on top more efficiently. This was probably the largest takeaway to my game that still influences a lot of what I do. Again, nothing that I intended and more of a conceptual issue. The passing part, the part I paid for, did end up helping me a lot. The transitions between lace (crazy dog), over-under, and basic cross-face half-guard passing is still a large part of my game. In fact, lace is a huge part of my passing success. So, out of the 3-4 privates I took – this one from start to finish – ended up incredibly impactful to me long-term.
Then there’s the fourth private. The one with David Jacobs. It falls closer to my third private. I learned a lot, although his game wasn’t necessarily close to my game. Guard questions didn’t translate all that well. Instead, we talked about competing and some tactical decisions. How to be active or seem active. How to continuously move without giving up positions. How to evaluate if you’re winning a position or not. The conversation turned to grips and grip or hand fighting, not something my academy emphasized for a variety of reasons. We ended up concentrating on grips and what they mean, how they impact the next move, and how important they are for both the person on top and bottom. In other words, the genesis of my current “articulate guard” started there and how my white belt open guard grew from “annoying” to something actually resembling a guard.
Although I don’t play butterfly or deep-half or much of standard half guard, I translated what The Rock discussed about winning the grip battle. I saw it when I lost an engagement. I saw it when I won an engagement. I saw it when I rolled above my rank or struggled below my rank. It all came back to who won the grip battle and why/how that occurred. In fact, looking back now, some bigger tournament defeats stemmed from a loss in the battle for grips (mine or theirs). At brown belt, I started thinking about the inverse, which is winning the grip battle when on top. All of it stemming from my time with David “The Rock” Jacobs. At black, I think about how to chain positions and techniques from a grip or grips. Stuff reiterated or articulated by multiple-time black belt world champions that I ended up encountering (ominous foreshadowing).
People still talk about my grips – both from top and bottom. They complement my ability to jam hands, finding a grip or two to chain techniques, and otherwise dictate a roll. All because of an hour or so spent with David Jacobs.