Girls’ Grappling Mini-Camp, RVA 2010, Part 2

Part 1, here.

Saturday afternoon

Discussion
The afternoon session started with a round-table discussion. During the whole weekend, there was a paper circulating, on which we could write any questions or discussion topics. There were several round-table discussions throughout the weekend, plus random discussions over meals, during sessions, and all in-between, and threads that trailed off, intertwined, and picked back up again, so I’ll try to remember everything that was talked about all at one time.

Crying in jiu-jitsu. Yes, we opened with everyone’s favorite topic. Main point I heard were that it happens to nearly everyone, either on the mats (we all agreed being locked in the bathroom is the best place) or on the way home. Val also mentioned that it sometimes might actually be good for the guys to see that what they’re doing is reducing you to tears, especially if you already have the reputation as a “tough chick,” because if what they’re doing is too much for you, then it’s too much. Maybe nothing else will get through to them.

How to ask guys to take the intensity down. Related, what to do about guys who are cranking and muscling everything. One girl, Susan, is tall — close to 6 feet tall. But only about 140 lbs. She asked about how to deal with guys who see her height and assume they need to go a lot harder with her; she wants to ask them to tone it down without being a wimp. The conversation swirled around, ending up with the cranking and muscling crowd, which is where most of us have more experience. The general answer for that group was, first, to avoid rolling with them and even tell them that you won’t roll with them, and, second, if you can’t avoid them, to either tap early — even way, way early — or to make fun of them for ripping a little girl’s arms off or even to tap and walk away. Also, if a boy needs to be beat on for misbehaving, he needs to be verbally told why this is happening to him, else he’s likely to think that *this* is how jiu-jitsu is supposed to be, and will try to go this hard next time and will propagate this style of training.

Warmups and cooldowns. Emily talked some about warmups, about doing reflex and reaction movements that get you loose and alert without making you tired. We briefly discussed the lack of upper body strength in women and the focus in most BJJ warmups on upper body movements. (Gah!) Rosie and Maggie talked a bit about dynamic stretches to warm up, and Maggie led us through some stretching to cool down.

Women’s classes. I know we talked about this, and I even wrote down several questions about them, but I don’t remember what we said. Doh. Of course, the topic I was interested in is what I can’t remember…

Chiropractors, acupuncture, massage, physical therapy. A guy (I don’t know who) offered to come in and be available to give massages during parts of the camp. So of course we talked about the benefits of massages. 😛 We also talked about finding good and trustworthy chiropractors, etc., who could help us get better, stay healthy, and continue training. (And girls mentioned their chiropractors who tsked at them for the contortions they put their spine through. I’m glad mine trains, too.)

Owning your training. This popped up everywhere. Val’s big on the phrase. How much you train, who you train with, how intensely you train, how much you rest. Everything. This is you we’re talking about; be in charge of you.

Cutting weight. Especially differences between men and women when it comes to cutting, and about cutting weight at the last minute vs. dieting down. Jen Flannery told about a girl she’d seen at some competitions who looked like Death before her matches and usually did horribly; Ashley piped up that she’d actually nicknamed that girl “Death.” Val told us that she never cuts weight, not even 2 lbs.

Promotions. We talked about girls getting promoted too early and about whether set promotion times or random promotions were better (no consensus, really — everyone who didn’t get promoted beats on you anyway. Meh.). We did talk about how it’s probably better to hold a girl back a little since she will have to contend with all the boys coming after her.

Longevity in BJJ. This discussion got me thinking about how much I train. Alaina and Val talked about times their bodies broke down on them from too much training, and about what they’ve done to fix that. Emily chimed in that taking time off isn’t bad: “jiu-jitsu isn’t going anywhere.”

I’m sure there was more, but I can’t remember it all right now. I know I did feel better after listening to the discussions because I felt like I was normal — everyone else seemed to have some of the same experiences; it’s not just me being crazy (well, not entirely).

Tossing this out — one thing I was surprised about was the average age of the girls at camp. I guess I’ve always had this idea that I was in the “old” category and that most girls would be younger than me, but actually quite a few (possibly the majority or even almost all of the campers) were 30+. Huh.

Nogi
Saturday afternoon’s session was nogi. We ran over into a little bit because the round-table discussion was going so well. (I would have liked more of it, too. I like to sit and absorb it all.)

Emily led us in a warmup. More game-type drills.

• Slapping the mat when she clapped her hands.
• Weaving — first person in line stops on the mat; second person runs a little ahead and stops; third person weaves between them, then stops ahead of the second; etc.; until the last person is darting between a long snakey line of people standing — and then the first person darts, through, too, and everyone follows, to continue the game.
• Fast feet — first person sits on the mat, legs spread in a “V”; second person steps to the outside of the near leg, then between the legs, then to the outside of the far leg [did that make any sense at all? It’s like the drills the football players do for agility with tires or ropes on the ground…], and then sits next to the first person, legs spread in a “V”; third person does the same dance over both their legs and sits; continue until the first person jumps up and joins to keep it going.
• Leapfrog, with everyone crouching perpendicular to the jumpers, which meant you needed to keep your head tucked (which I am bad about, lol), else you’d get clocked when they jumped.
• Double-leg jumps with everyone turtled up. (I couldn’t do this well because of my toe; I just ran around to hold my place the first time, and the second time, did a hurdle jump.)

The point of these, she explained later, was for reflexes and reaction time, while keeping you continually moving. At the end of the warmup, you were warm and alert, but not tired. All too often, I’m exhausted by our warmup, which is usually mostly conditioning.

Nogi started with escaping the head and arm choke. (I think. Not sure.) I know we did move on to a side control escape and sweep.

Side-control escape and sweep
Under side control, don’t just plant your feet and bridge up. First, bring your knees up and then explosively drive down and bridge. Instead of just turning onto your side and using both arms to frame out, as you bridge, drive your bottom elbow underneath your body so that arm can now be a wedge to keep you from being flattened. Now take your top leg and insert a butterfly hook inside their nearest leg. As they drive forward to flatten you out, trap their outside arm and lift with that hook to sweep them. Come up to side control.

I think there was something else, but I can’t remember. I need to find a balance between taking zero notes, as I did here, and taking way too many, as I’ve done at other seminars. Balance…

We drilled for a while, and then went into Queen of the Hill. I almost sat out because of my toe (and this is exactly what caused the injury in the first place), but then Val had the brilliant idea to ask my partners to let me start from bottom each time. Everyone was cool with that, so I did get to participate. I think there was some rolling after that before we headed off to dinner. Dinner was supposed to have a discussion component, too, but everyone was already brain- and body-dead by then.