Promotions, skill sets, and gender equality.

First, if you haven't read Steve's really, really well-written post on getting your mind out of the belt and back on the mat, you should go read that right now. As he says, go on, I'll wait.

Now, back to my friend's question in this previous post. Here's her question to me, interspersed with my comments back (with the ***s in front):

"I wanted to ask your opinion about promotions as a female. From what I’ve read, I know quite a few females who have received their blue belts relatively quickly, 8 months or less.

*** Yeah, like me, 4 months. Ridiculous.

And then I know of several girls that have been white belts unusually long bc of being the only female at the academy or their instructor holding them at a higher standard. One possible reason is that they want girls to do well at competition

*** I don't agree with this as a requirement. I can understand it, but more important should be how you do against women your size at home on the mats. If there aren't any women at your academy, then the comments of your teammates should be given more weight.

and another might be to hold girls to a higher standard so that it is not questioned as much by the guys.

*** Anyone "questioning" someone else's rank is a much more serious problem for the instructor in general and will not be solved by overcooking girls at whitebelt.

Part of me understands the thinking, but part of me thinks its crap to be held to different standards for being a girl.

*** AGREED.

I think it sucks that when a girl gets their blue belt under this line of thinking, the other guys getting their blue belts will be getting theirs faster than the girl because they are guys, and when they get theirs the girl will have already been at their level for some time. I don’t know if that makes sense, sorry for all the rambling. Anyways I just wanted to get your take on it.

*** I'm with you. I am in kind of the opposite position personally-- I think I have been promoted faster than the guys, and promoted before I have been ready or merited the promotion. Mainly this is because I can pull off wins in tournaments so on paper I look good-- but if you watch me against guys my size and level, it's apparent I'm not as skilled as they are. So I get stripes for winning tournaments, then brand new blues at home school me.

***I think promotions should be on the basis of skill on the mats, tempered with some small handicapping to account for size disparities, physical challenges etc."

Now back to just Georgette's rambling.. this is an issue of interest to me lately, not just because of my crying jag. I've been told by people at other schools about promotions that seem overdue, promotions that seem unmerited if merit is equated to skills on the mat, and then my friend's question about promotions varying by gender.

Go ahead, disagree with me (I think these debates are excellent food for thought) but I don't think people should be promoted simply because they've put in enough time attending class. I don't think promotions should happen because someone does well in a tournament. I think the only thing that makes the wonderfully supportive comments from the last couple of days true is the underlying assumption that your instructor knows how you're rolling and your rank is given because you deserve it for your skill set. [Possible exception being the carrot and stick concept, of motivating a student by withholding or granting a promotion... but I think that's gotta be for the penumbra student who is on the edge of the next belt.]

In other words:

1. Your instructor must have adequate personal experience of your skills to promote you. If your instructor doesn't roll with you on a semi-regular basis, or at the very least, doesn't consult with upper belts who do roll with you, and doesn't watch you rolling, then they have no business promoting you because you have punched your ticket a requisite number of times (McDojo anyone?) or because you won a tournament. Because what if you're not absorbing and executing? What if the people you beat in the tournament just weren't very good?

2. Promotions should be directly related to only THAT INDIVIDUAL'S skills, and not the reactions of others. In other words, don't hold the chicas back from promotions their skills merit, just because you want them to be better than boys of the same rank. Don't hold gals back because you worry that the guys will question your decision. Don't make promotion decisions in general on the basis of what people will say. That's just nonsense. If you believe they roll like a purple belt, then they're a purple. If your students are so immature and out of control that you have to protect women and smaller men by underranking them, that's a serious problem.

Okay. I'm ready for the flamewar. I know, I'm not a school owner, I'm not a black belt, I don't make promotion decisions, and maybe if I did then I'd feel differently.

Tell me what you think.

BP Slick Covers Dolphins and Whales

Simply amazing video shot two weeks ago in the Gulf. Sperm whales, dolphins, sharks...



For more, see his blog here.

And here's the material safety data sheet from Citgo regarding benzene, just one of the highly toxic chemicals floating around out there.

More photos from the oil slick here.



That, above, is the oil in the water on an Alabama beach, reprinted from this site. Links and pictures shared by Mallory.

Here's a link to the live feed from the Skandi ROV2 on the ocean floor. Watch at your own risk.

But I was back on the mats in the afternoon.

You know the upside to having the memory of a goldfish?



By the time you need to leave for night class, you have forgotten crying after morning class.

OK, ok, so I didn't forget so much.. but blessed by ya'll and your comforting comments, I forged on.

Busted I was, though, by the new Machado guy, who apparently reads this. Erkkk. Good thing I didn't say what I really think of him! ;)

Anyway, class was all right, back attacks and whatnot; positional sparring was broken up by weight (as always) and tonight's lightweight group was all whitebelts, plus me and Lee, a purple. Thus I felt like I knew a little something, as most of the time I was able to make things happen in the right order with a minimum of fuss and thankfully no tears.

Afterwards, discretion being the better part of valor, I accepted the offer of a roll with a really solid female whitebelt. She hasn't been training long, but she's fit, strong, analytical, persistent, and totally not ego-driven. I must admit, I didn't really give away much, so maybe it was less helpful to her than it was to me... but I didn't go balls-out either. Caught her with a looping choke and a high lock guard triangle to armbar combination from guard, and a baseball bat choke from knee on belly that Donald refreshed my memory of just last night. I felt a little better... but not good enough to be cutting more athletic tape just yet. My issue isn't so much with being a blue belt, so the fact that I can womanhandle a female whitebelt who weighs maybe 20 lbs less than me doesn't earn me much self-respect.

I'll just be blunt. It's that I don't think my three stripes mean the same thing that male students' three stripes mean. My logical worldview is downright offended by the inconsistency of having the same belt as the Galvaoist Dancer of this morning's class. It just ain't fittin'.*

A friend who trains jiu jitsu in another school, somewhere else, asked me something along these lines. Here's her initial outreach on the issue:

"I wanted to ask your opinion about promotions as a female. From what I’ve read, I know quite a few females who have received their blue belts relatively quickly, 8 months or less. And then I know of several girls that have been white belts unusually long bc of being the only female at the academy or their instructor holding them at a higher standard. . . [snip]I think it sucks that when I get my blue belt, the other guys getting their blue belts will be getting theirs faster than me because they are guys, and when they get theirs I will have already been at their level for months and months."

That's a lot to process. I've already responded and she and I had quite an illuminating conversation but I thought I'd get your take on the issues of promotions.. standards.. gender and other factors.. consistency...

That's right, kittens-- talk amongst yourselves. But aloud, and here, in the comments. We'll continue this tomorrow.



* Two points if you can name the book/movie!

I cried this morning.

It's been a long, long time since training made me want to cry. So long, in fact, that I thought I was getting better enough at the zhu zhits' that perhaps I wouldn't have to cry again. Ha ha ha, funny girl.

At least I knew from prior experience that this is best done in the bathroom.

Of course now I'm spoiling it by blogging about it, but I doubt the people present at the time read my blog, so I think I'm okay. I'm just confessing to you, my brethren and sistren of the net.

Our school has an "official" class three mornings a week at 6am, but one of my fave training partners has a key and permission to come in for dedicated drilling sessions on other mornings. I inveigled my way into this bonus training, and reward his patience by picking him up on the way to the academy and giving him a ride home on my way to work. That kind of spread into picking up two others and giving them rides home too-- silly university students without cars!-- but I don't mind, they're all within 30-40 lbs of me or less, they're all very skilled and technical, and they're all funny as shit, so it's win-win for me.

This morning there were a couple other guys as it is an official class morning, including a purple who just came back to training after tapping out testicular cancer. Woot! I had some good rolls, trying to implement bits and pieces of advice people have tossed my way. (Last night, another purple schooled me a bit on my half guard passing, and it worked decently well.) I really enjoy playing with a new guy who just moved here from a Machado school out of state, because he has that rare, delicious ability to ratchet his resistance and speed to be just two notches above my own, and he gives hints, suggestions, and encouragement here and there. He doesn't critique the whole time; he doesn't wait till you almost have him to tell you how to do it better, he just fights you, convincingly, until you walk right by the $20 on the sidewalk, and then he points at it. And then afterwards, he always has some kind words.

So I was feeling challenged and successful, but humble from watching my betters tear each other up on the mats. It was good stuff. Then, one of the best blues in our group asked me to roll. [cue ominous music]

I'm usually pretty good at identifying a goal to suit my opponent. If I roll with a noob, then success might be submitting them with a particular submission on my bad side without going to a particular position to get there. With an upper belt, success might be just not getting submitted or avoiding submission for a certain number of minutes. With this particular person, I was hoping for success in the form of passing his guard. (And to my delight, it did happen, once. I did something Dan suggested to me yesterday, and it worked, I landed in side control, and grinned like a fool.) The flipside was, if I got swept, I knew my guard would be pretty easily passed, so I would shift to a "don't get submitted" defensive paradigm.

This is all standard stuff and I imagine it sounds familiar. So why did I cry? Because at a certain point, I felt like it was getting to be a beating. Humiliation. Not necessarily the intent of my training partner, who's a swell guy.. but it reminded me of this video of Galvao, I think, against some JJJ black belt who thought he could hang with BJJ black belts. Galvao gets him all turtled up and then just dances across his back, stands on him, does acrobatics, even a little break dancing, the whole nine yards. I tried to find it again on youtube and couldn't, dammit. Edit: Yes, thanks Steve, that's it. Here it is:


Andre Galvao Jiu-Jitsu Pwnage - Watch more Funny Videos

Specifically, I didn't have an answer for some positions. One being me in sit-up guard, wrapped around his leg, but unable to get up because he had good hand pressure on the top of my head. Looking back I should have just gotten a cuff grip, pulled his hand off my head, and held that grip behind his knee. But I felt like the prototypical little brother, swinging madly and ineffectively at his big brother who holds him at arm's length with a hand on the forehead.

Another trouble spot being turtle. I can turtle up pretty tightly, but when they just kneel on my back and wait, it sucks. I feel so weighed down that I don't even try to roll forwards. The process of rolling to guard is sloooooowwwed down and I feel totally vulnerable at all stages along the way. If I just sit there in a hedgehogy ball, he does all those Galvaoist antics on my back. This happened once, and I eventually got my back taken. (Fine, it happens, I actually escaped, but I'm pretty sure he gave it to me.) Second time, I tried to roll to guard, but that sucked; it took me a year or so, and he passed like knife through proverbial buttah. Third time, I was pretty close to tears, so I just tapped, thanked him for the roll, and went to the bathroom.

I was thinking, I don't deserve to be a blue belt. I am utterly failing to represent my instructors. I am so far behind the other blues I train with. Training seven days a week does me no good at all because I have the memory of a goldfish. (Every eight seconds it's all new.) Seems like rolls all go so fast-- positions change in a heartbeat and I don't have photographic/videographic recall. I can't remember where grips are, where my base is, what my posture was, so I can't later reflect on where things went wrong so that I can even ask others for help. I'm flailing. It's fun to roll, sure, and it's zen to let it all go and not dwell. But if I can't remember, if I can't masticate later, if I can't fucking DWELL on my mistakes, I can't fix them. And if I do something right, I can't be sure of repeating it.

When you're all hot, and sweaty, and your breath is coming a little fast, crying isn't even easy. And it doesn't feel much better while you're crying, or after. There isn't that release, that catharsis. Your hands are on the sink, your head is hanging, and all you can smell is the warm humidity of your own sweat and the faint scent of your laundry detergent rising like mist off a swamp. You're trying to be quiet, and you hate that you're crying at all because it seems like the ultimate in submission. It's not a momentary "you got me"-- instead, it was for me a confession of elemental inadequacy. A complete collapse of confidence.

I peeled a stripe off my belt and threw it away.

Every grappler's worst nightmare... with a silver lining.

The big news right now is my good friend and fellow blue belt training partner and teammate, Leila. Yesterday in class, she suffered a serious neck injury and had to be rushed to the ER around noon.

Apparently, she was rolling, got stacked, and tried to roll over her shoulder to escape. Something popped and she was in serious pain. She laid still on the mat in the same position and didn't move till the EMTs loaded her on a backboard. The class instructor, her rolling partner, and an academy owner all went with, and met her dad there.

The injury was serious enough that immediate surgery was performed. Leila's C5 and C6 were fused. She was out of surgery and awake in the ICU by 5pm. She's not paralyzed, thank God, and last night a couple of us got to visit her for an hour. Seems like she's not in serious pain, but her hands are tingly and I think she'll be in the hospital for another two days or so. Not sure what the long term prognosis is. Her attitude is really amazing-- strong, calm, and considerate. She's a trooper.

She's not out of the woods yet, there is still the worry of swelling around her spinal cord, and no one is taking this lightly.

Scary. Scary because it's not like we can point a finger at a cause.. at least that would give me the sense of security that if I avoid doing such-and-so, I can avoid a similar injury. But she isn't a spaz, nor is the guy she was rolling with, and it wasn't like she was dangling and slipped off a triangle or something. It appears to just be a freak random accident, reminding us all that this beloved sport can do serious, lasting damage beyond the popped elbows and torn ACLs we're all becoming familiar with.

Response from the trenches...er, the mats....

G-Stamp's thoughtful reply (to the size disparity post) deserves its own post. My comments at the end.

"Wow. Thanks Georgette! What great responses from the wonderful BBJ/Blogger community!

Like everything in life/jiu jitsu, suppose it comes down to balance. Part of my journey is to figure out where that line id between "muscling" something and not "going easy" on someone. It's a struggle, honestly. I'm 6'0" and 220lbs. I'm not very strong (sat on my ass for the last 12 years as a policy analyst/consultant), but I'm "bigger" (er...fatter) than 80% of my classmates. Often, I'm much much bigger.

So...how do I ensure the rolls are safe and challenging, without offending someone for "going easy" and not throwing my weight around? Remember...I've only been doing this 2 months. I DON'T KNOW MUCH TECHNIQUE. Wish I did, but when I don't have technique, what are my options? Give up? Or muscle/weight to advance position?

It's something I'm struggling with now because I'm a fairly sensitive guy (pacifist at heart) taking up an aggressive sport. I want others to learn, have fun, and want to roll with me. But I don't want them to think I'm not trying either.

I guess what I take away from your post and the other comments is that there is no easy answer to this question. Finding the right balance is part of my journey. When I roll with most purple belts, all brown and black belts, I know they aren't "going easy" on me. They are testing me. There's a difference. They expose themselves on purpose to see how I'll react. They put me in difficult positions without executing the quick submission. They will set up a submission SLOWLY and allow me ample time to realize what they are doing and try to think of an escape. If I can't think of something, sure, they'll finish it off. But that's much much different than destroying me because they can.

Clearly there is a difference. A purple, brown, or black belt, no matter the size/weight differential, is not muscling or throwing weight around. But is there a difference between an upper belt dominating a novice for the fun of it and a bigger/heavier guy muscling moves? Sure...but perhaps not really.

To me...I need to think it more like an upper belt. I have a weight/size advantage. That's obvious. Just like an upper belt has an experience/technique advantage over a lower belt. I need to check my weight/size advantage to allow the smaller opponent to advance his/her game like an upper belt checks his/her game to allow me to advance my game. It doesn't mean I should give up or forgo submissions. It just means I need to learn to advance position more slowly and deliberately. My submissions need to be in complete control or I should give up and set up for the submission again to improve control. After two months, I just don't know how to get there...YET.

So you more experienced white belts or upper belts, please be patient with folks like me. If you are rolling with someone almost twice your size with little experience and they muscle something or throw their weight around, maybe they don't know any better. It may not be that they are trying to be an ass. Perhaps learning to deal with and encourage clueless big, awkward white belts like me is part of YOUR journey as much as learning the right balance when rolling with smaller individuals is part of OUR journey.

I can't say enough how much this sport is changing my life. Incredible actually... Thanks so much to the BJJ blogging community. You've really helped me progress."

And my reaction:
I LOOOOOOVE JIU JITSU! It brings together such amazing people :)

But yeah, dude, we know that. I hesitate to roll with a brand new guy (male) of any size because they don't usually have control yet, they just simply don't know what they're doing or when they're in a position where moving one inch could really hurt me. It's not because I think they're malicious, they're inadvertently not safe. So I step aside and let the bigger blues and the higher belts take on the task of educating the noobs. (Whereas I find I am often the one rolling with the brand new gals, who can be dangerous, but less so since I am fairly strong for a chick.) But I don't look down on noobs, I don't get mad at them, they're like kids. What can you do but cheer them on (at arm's length) because they're enthusiastic about this wonderful sport, just like everyone else.

I have said before that there's a sweet spot in the life of a whitebelt. It's my sweet spot, really, because for that precious month or three, they're still new enough that they make mistakes I can easily capitalize on (er, help educate them on why not to benchpress me when I'm mounted on them) but they're not so new that they're totally dangerous. It's these precious whitebelts I can practice my iffy submissions on, my sweeps in general, and work on escaping from bad positions with. So I am always trying to keep track of people as they filter in. When whitebelts get so seasoned that they're not making big mistakes any more, I still roll with them, but they're the people I can go hardest with, since my technique is still better than theirs, but they have the strength advantage, making us usually pretty fairly matched. I don't mind when those peeps muscle me, it's part of the game, though I will tell them later so I don't reinforce bad habits. I never get offended or think they're being an ass.

It's the upper level blues and above that irritate me by muscling stuff. Because they should have the technique and the know-how. :)

Keep it comin', G-Stamp and all the rest of you wonderful whitebelts. And thanks for training with us. You make us all get better as you improve.

Spiked pineapple agua fresca, for your weekend relaxation...

3 pounds pineapple, peeled, cored, and cut into large chunks
2 cups white rum
6 tablespoons granulated sugar
3 tablespoons plus 2 teaspoons lime juice (from about 2 medium limes)

Combine all ingredients in a blender and process until smooth (you will have to do this in batches). Transfer agua fresca to a large pitcher or punch bowl. Chill until ready to drink. Serve over ice.

From Chow's daily recipe, newsletters@chow.online.com.

Muscling? Taking it easy? Fairness in size disparities.

Oh, boy, this will be a biggie, I think. (Pun unintended.)

I got this question from G-Stamp in response to a previous post:

"I rolled with a much smaller gal yesterday (blue belt). She had me in deep half guard and I couldn't extract my thigh to bring my knee outside of her thighs. I COULDN'T muscle it. So I applied a cross face and started to lay into her chin/neck a bit. I tried not to lean too hard or use too much weight. The goal was to apply just enough pressure to get her to let go of the deep half clinch so I could pass. She blurted..."TAP!" with a bit of an annoyed tone in her voice. I didn't attempt it as a submission and REALLY didn't realize I was muscling or using too much weight. In fact, I had backed off knowing that I could probably hurt her if not careful. I felt sooo bad. Unfortunately, a 220lb white belt doesn't have the slightest clue what it's like to have someone quite literally twice his weight bearing down.

Question for you: Is it offensive when a guy doesn't use size/weight advantage? Do you consider that "going easy"? Or is using weight distribution and strength to advance position or apply technique different than "muscling"? Is it all part of the game? It's not a sex thing. I try to be conscious of my height/weight advantage when I'm rolling with all classmates who are much smaller than me. Guy or gal."

Wow, such a good question. It's (for me) not entirely a gender issue, though I phrase things often in terms of "guys" only because I rarely get to roll with women who are significantly bigger or stronger than me. [Christy, our 3 stripe brown belt, IS significantly bigger, and probably stronger, but she's scrupulously attentive to not using strength, so I can't be sure about her comparative strength vs. me.] On the other hand, it's a truism that men have more muscle mass per unit of weight than women do, so even a man who is my weight will most likely have a significant strength advantage, so to some extent, it can be a gender issue. Wherever I say "guy," please know I really could be including bigger gals, too. And small guys have many of the same issues I do. So.. anyway...

To me, going easy is letting go of positions, or not getting into dominant positions, regardless of/independently of my efforts. I might be offended when a guy (or gal!) spontaneously gives me position or abandons his good position even though I haven't earned it. I earn things by executing the proper technique in proper timing. If I'm rolling with a guy/girl my level who weighs within 20 lbs of me, I fully expect that I will be able to escape their dominant position or submit them, fair and square, without any "handicapping" on their part.

If a guy is more than 20 lbs heavier than me, I do sometimes appreciate it when they refrain from doing knee-on-belly to the best of their ability, because the size differential plus the location of the pressure is something I sometimes can't defeat. So I am not offended when, in this situation, they put the shin across my hipbones, or put the ball of their foot on the ground a little bit. I am still often stuck there, but at least it's not excruciatingly painful. And I am never offended when a training partner of any size opts to avoid causing me gratuitous pain.

[Keep in mind I am strictly a sport jiu jitsu player-- so comments about how "it wouldn't go that way in a street fight" will be ignored.]

If a guy is more than 30-40 lbs heavier, I appreciate when they don't do "bullshit reversals." A bullshit reversal is, for example, benchpressing me off them from side control. (I know a guy wouldn't be able to get some guy their size up off them like that. I don't mind a fair reversal, one with technique, but just shoving me up because I'm lighter *and* they have more upper body strength gets annoying if I am holding side control properly and using technique.)

I am not offended when stronger men refrain from forcing americanas, kimuras, etc. if I am defending properly. At the same time, I know that even proper defense can be defeated with strength and that's fair, too. So it's a tough call, and therefore I don't get mad when someone beats my defenses. I tap, we move on, no biggie. I shouldn't be in a position where only the strength of my arms protects me from a submission because then I'm strengthing out of something, and that is poor technique even if it succeeds.

I dunno. I guess to summarize, when someone is close to me in size (which, since I'm realistic, means within 30 lbs of me, though I know guys consider that to be a big disparity) I fully expect them to use their weight distribution and strength to fully execute their moves and defeat mine, and I would definitely take advantage without feeling any guilt if they were to give me stuff I didn't earn. When I roll with someone I'm a little bigger or stronger than, which is rare, I do use my weight and strength to execute my moves, but technically. I don't just crank stuff.

When someone is way bigger than me, or if they're one of those ripped dudes with biceps like basketballs, I'm not offended if they give me a little extra space, exert less than their maximum force, etc. It's more fun if they let me in the game, otherwise I just end up turning hedgehog.



Bottom line, training rolls are rarely about "winning." (When they ARE, then I know I've let my ego get in the way, and I'd like to minimize that.) If someone strengths out of a submission I'm throwing, so be it. If they muscle out of position I've earned fair and square, oh well. Honestly most of the times I think someone muscled out, I immediately suspect it's my crappy technique and me making excuses for it. I definitely don't walk around with a chip on my shoulder insisting people roll with me as hard as they can go. I have nothing to prove. :)

What do ya'll think??

Why I love jiu jitsu, oh let me count the ways....

I love jiu jitsu :)

I love it even though some boys are absolutely cluefree about when they're muscling stuff. (Hint: if what you just pulled off on me would probably not have worked against a guy that weighs 20 lbs or more than you do-- you muscled it.)

I love it even though it tears my hair out by the roots.

I love it even when it's really hot and humid and I sweat through a gi in the first twenty minutes.



I love it for the feeling of accomplishment when I train with someone who feels the move work, and they get that "Ooooh!" excited look in their eyes.

I love it for the satisfaction of physical fitness reached without drudgery.. so that a warmup which makes noobs pant and groan barely makes me breathe hard.

I love it for the intellectual challenge, and the humility that always comes with it.

I love it for showing me humor in the weirdest situations. Like tonight, when I was trying to get some empathy for my short arms from my training partner, who'd been hounding me for not reaching around his leg-- so I grabbed his hand and put it right on my derriere, saying "Look, this is as far as my hand could reach on you!" And the whole time he's staring up at me with his hand on my ass with this devilish smile, 'til I realized what I'd done and absolutely cracked up.

I love it for encouraging me to be open minded and to reexamine conclusions and opinions.

I love it for connecting with so many people all over the world who share this love. Ahem, this obsession. Whether they're 6 years old with a killer double leg, or 78 years young and enthusiastic.. from pretty much every continent except Antarctica.. students, professionals, professional students, moms and dads, full-timers and part-timers.. you're all amazing!

I just love jiu jitsu.

* * * * * * * * *

This is what I was thinking about when I left class tonight. Even though I tweaked my knee doing (I think) a deep half guard sweep, even though my hair is all jacked up and my ear hurts anew, I had fun. Foot sweeps and double legs and an arm-in guillotine... loving it.

Women's Jiu Jitsu tournaments

The Womens Jiu Jitsu Championship will be held in Dallas on October 9, 2010. More info will be available soon from Fenom Kimonos.

Also the second annual Grapple Girls Open Womens Jiu Jitsu Tournament will be held in Toronto, Canada on August 21, 2010. More information available here.