I'm still getting used to the new school class schedule. For years I was pretty much in control of my work and class schedule. Now I'm one of the regular folks fighting to work around an unforgiving work schedule and life in general. No Jiu-Jitsu on Sundays. As much as you want to, don't go there. The place is locked up tighter than a drum.
The new sign was put up on Friday. "BRAZILIAN JIU-JITSU." Need we say more?
A question came from the peanut gallery. "Why don't you turn on the air conditioner? It's like walking into one of those hot boxes that people die in." I shall look into this. We do
not want people dying in our hot box. So I guess this should actually go in the category of stuff I don't know. I'll get to the bottom of this.
Open mat on Friday was awesome! Due to my rib injury, this was my first open mat in about a month. I worked with one of the new guys for most of the time, but I did get in three rolls with Josh and a couple with Jerad. Note to self: Don't let Jerad pass my guard! His aggressive, angry monkey style is very unforgiving. That last part is made up. Jerad never fights angry.
Read More...
Summary only...
Some of us were sitting around and talking after the advanced class on Thursday night. Among the many topics we discussed, such as a handful of political hot topics, world domination and the benefits of using a back roller after a workout, we did fit in some discussion about Jiu-Jitsu.
I was telling Greg how important his instruction has been to me over the past week. Rolling with him has really highlighted some parts of my game that are in need of improvement. Seemingly small adjustments, such as head position or hand position, add up to a world of difference.
When I roll with an experienced grappler, I have to work at the top of my game, 100% of the time. Going with Greg reminds me of this fact every second of every minute of that match. The problem is that every time I try to sneak something past him, he doesn't let that happen. It is another reminder that sometimes when I roll with others, I "cheat" the technique, or don't follow through completely. I often times can get away with doing things because the person I'm rolling with doesn't know what I'm doing or doesn't know a counter.
Hips just a tad bit too high...Bam! I'm reversed. And then I'm either laying on my back or scrambling for position and I'm thinking to myself, why did I do that? I know better than to do that. It's because I could usually get away with it, but not anymore.
Greg talked about the benefit of being a smaller practitioner. From the beginning, you have to be locked on. You have to learn and be able to execute solid technique, otherwise you won't get it. There's no cheating a technique or being able to get away with things against larger opponents...Hmmm.
The more I know, the more I realize how much I don't know.
Less Than a White Belt Conan "Back to Square One" Schafer
Read More...
Summary only...
As popular as are the UFC and Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, there are still a ton of people out there who have little to no real concept of what BJJ is all about. It can be confusing to the uninitiated. Maybe people who train in Jiu-Jitsu are just a bunch of thugs, ready to steal your lunch money. Maybe we're just a bunch of sweaty jocks, ready to pounce on the new guy when he walks through the door. For the record, this couldn't be further from the truth. The people with whom I've trained Jiu-Jitsu are some of the nicest, well mannered and respectful folks I have ever met, inside and outside the school. The only crassness, criticism and down right rudeness I ever encountered at my first school came from other people outside of my class, mostly from Karate practitioners. Don't take Karate. They will try to beat you up and steal your lunch money. And a couple people from Judo. Stay away from them too. The Kobudo practitioners...top shelf. Never heard a bad word from them, or the Yoga people. The point being, It's not about the discipline. It's about the individual people.
About twelve years ago, I had no idea about any of this Jiu-Jitsu stuff. A friend of mine was into the UFC and he was telling me about Royce Gracie and his brother, Rickson, and how amazing they were. My friend gave me two DVDs to watch. The first was, "The Smashing Machine: The Life and Times of Extreme Fighter Mark Kerr," a documentary about the MMA career and personal life of Mark Kerr. The second was, "Choke," a documentary about Rickson
Gracie and other fighters who were fighting in Tokyo's Vale Tudo
1995.
After watching those two videos, I was hooked! I started searching around town for a school that was teaching this Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, but none were. There wasn't even anything in Omaha at the time. In the meantime, I stumbled into a martial arts school where I began taking Aikido. This was definitely not what I was looking for. I then started taking classes in Daitoryu Aikijujitsu. Still, this was not BJJ, but I was learning some awesome wrist locks and other joint locks.
Then one day I was at the dojo and I saw this half sheet of paper taped to the wall near the locker room. It said, "Jiu-Jitsu class, Tuesday and Thursday at 4:00 PM." I thought to myself, could this be what I was looking for? Was it really here, right under my nose this whole time?
It was what I was looking for. Ido Pariente had established a solid training program that mirrored the BJJ community at large. By the time I began training in Jiu-Jitsu, Ido had returned to Israel. He is now a 2nd degree BJJ black belt under Patrick Bittan, and owns seven academies in Israel called MMA Israel. However, his students carried on the traditions that he had established. The format of the class, the techniques that were taught, the drills we performed, all could be seen in any BJJ school around the world.
I struggled for years to learn Jiu-Jitsu, attending bad class times, showing up to find a locked door, holding class as a white belt because an instructor didn't show up. But, I stuck with it.
For me, the opening of Lincoln Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu Center is a dream come true. To have something like this at your doorstep and not take advantage of it is just unthinkable. For the majority of us who have struggled for years to make the best of a less than desirable situation, we can fully appreciate what a BJJ school like this means to us, the community and to the region.
Read More...
Summary only...
It's going to be Thursday before I can get back to training. There's a long work week in store for me. It's probably not a bad thing anyway. I've been nursing a sore rib for a couple of weeks now, so the time off is good. I can totally relate to Josh's situation. I've been down that injury road before and have had surgery to reattach a tendon. My current injury is pretty minor at this point, but it's still frustrating. I've had this injury a couple of times before over the course of my Jiu-Jitsu career, and although it's a pain in my side, we're old friends.
It's so difficult to completely back off from training. I keep pushing it as far as I think I can, hoping I won't aggravate it any more than it already is. The problem is that in doing that, I'm pretty sure I'm simply prolonging the healing process.
So, I'm pretty certain the smart choice would be to stop messing around and just let it heal, but I can't really bring myself to do that right now. Such is life and the choices we make.
Read More...
Summary only...
Okay, this is the real deal. We're having a Jiu-Jitsu party!
This is to honor all the
students, past and present, who have ever trained Jiu-Jitsu at
Roseberry’s Martial Arts Center. We also want to invite our new family
members from Lincoln Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu Center. It's our way of
honoring our past and ushering in a new era.
We'll have food set out for everyone to munch on with a cash bar.
It will be hosted at Lazlo’s Haymarket, in the upstairs dining room.
Check out the event announcement on FaceBook and let us know if you're coming.
Jiu-Jitsu party FaceBook event announcement
Everybody's on FaceBook now, right? In case you're not, here you go.
When: Thursday, May 9, 8:00 PM - 11:00 PM
Where: Lazlo's Brewery & Grill - Haymarket, 710 P St, Lincoln, NE
Read More...
Summary only...
I have to admit that even though I'm feeling it physically, I'm having a ball just being a student. It's difficult to be a student when you're teaching all the time. I had always tried to take part as much as I could and roll during open mat. It wasn't too bad to work that in during the old days. However, as the classes got bigger and we got more new students who needed more supervision, it just wasn't feasible to take part in the class.
There are also different schools of thought on whether or not that's even appropriate. I would justify the participation in that I was able to keep my finger on the pulse of the progress of my students, but there towards the end, I found it more and more difficult to justify doing that. I found that I was really supervising more than anything. So this role change has really been a joy for me personally.
It's actually kind of nice to have someone monitoring my performance and giving guidance.
Read More...
Summary only...
We opened our doors today at Lincoln Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu Center. What a hoot! Words can not even describe how happy I was to see all the folks who showed up to train. Even some who couldn't stay for class stopped by just to say hi and check out the place. Thank you, Josh and Justin. I also thought it was pretty cool that some family members came in to hang out and share in the beginning of something very special. I did my best to get them out on the mat, but they weren't picking up what I was laying down. No joy. Although none of them actually said no, so I think I have some room to work with to get at least one of them interested.
Don't worry if you didn't make it in, we're not going anywhere. There will be many more classes and many more opportunities to share in creating our history.
Since we made our announcement, I've received numerous emails and messages from people near and far expressing their support. I am humbled. Thank you all. I just have to remind everyone that none of this would have happened without the inspiration and drive of Greg Lawson.
So, this will not be news to some of you, but with our new school and teacher, all of us have traded in our colored belts for a white belt, except for Professor Lawson of course. It was a rather surreal moment during King of the Mat, to see an entire class of well experienced Jiu-Jitsu practitioners in white belts, performing high level moves. To us, it was no big deal. We all know who we are and what we can do. As Greg put it, "...sickest group of white belts I've ever trained with." No doubt!
As a side note, this will be
very interesting if any of our folks choose to continue to compete. The BJJ community had generally been quick to remind us that what we did was not Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, and we were always up front about our Japanese lineage. Depending on the tournament, some would recognize our belts as comparable and others would not. Although I have not competed a lot myself, I did place 2nd as a brown belt and 1st as a black belt at NAGA tournaments. I also placed 2nd in the advanced No Gi at the last NAGA I did, and 1st place in advanced No Gi at a KC tournament. Many of my students have done outstanding in their tournament competitions as well, often winning the absolute. I guess the point I'm making is that this will be something we'll have to discuss and figure out the best way to approach. Now that we're truly under the wing of Mauricio "Tinguinha" Mariano black belt Greg Lawson, we can say we train in Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu. Somehow I don't think it would be fair for all of us to show up at the next tournament registered as BJJ white belts!
Greg did a great job today, as always. He taught one private lesson, one advanced class and one beginner class. I was honored to be able to help out and take part as a student in the advanced class. But I must say that after three and a half hours of training today, I was completely exhausted.
BJJ White Belt Conan "I ain't gettin' any younger" Schafer
Read More...
Summary only...
As the open date of the school draws ever closer, I've received a lot of questions. I understand there are a lot of unknowns for some people. This is natural. When everything gets changed around, the way we make sense of it all, and the way we put things back into perspective, is by getting back into a routine. The quicker we can get those questions answered, the more we understand and begin to feel comfortable with the newness, the sooner it starts to feel like normalcy again.
For the most part we'll have a large number of the same
folks. It will just be a different mat for them. For them it's not like starting in a new school where you're the new kid and you have to meet all new people. We will, however, have some brand new folks and some others who have trained with us in the past and can now return because of the new schedule. As we always have in the past, they'll be welcomed and brought into the fold.
I know there's a lot of
excitement and a tad bit of uncertainty, simply because it's something
new. I know that the Center will be a place that all of us can truly call home. Whether you're just changing mats, or you're brand spanking new, the new digs will only be new for about one second. As each of you
explores the space and becomes comfortable with the surroundings, it
won't be too long before everyone realizes it's as much their home as it is
ours. The sooner everyone realizes they're not just a visitor or guest
or just a paying student, the sooner they'll start to take ownership. We are a family and I can't
wait to see what's on the horizon for all of us.
Some of the traditional things we've been doing will change, but this is our opportunity to start building our own traditions. Each one of you who steps through the door in our early days will be a part of building that tradition and setting the tone for years to come. I learned early on that when you allow people to give of themselves, you will receive much more from that person in return. This is how we build our new home. This is how we grow our family.
I have full faith and confidence in Greg and Jerad. I am looking forward to continuing on this journey of learning Jiu-Jitsu with them and all of you.
Read More...
Summary only...
Posts
