Day 6 - Auditing the Black Belt Training

Yesterday, I had 3 hours of jiu jitsu. It started at noon with a leadership class. Now, I know what you're saying -- The Great White Ninja is well-versed in the leadership lessons, so why is he wasting his valuable time hearing lessons about such a skill? Well, ladies and gentlemen of Ninjaland, the reason was because I am trying to get as full and complete idea of what goes on in Black Belt Training as I possibly can. And part of Black Belt Training includes a lesson on Ninja Leadership (not unlike regular leadership, but sneakier) one hour a week on Saturday. This week's lesson was about rapport and listening to others. And why people suck at listening... I think... I really wasn't paying attention. And to be honest, my attention was fading in and out for exactly the reasons that Ninja Master said they would -- I was tired, I didn't have proper perspective, I was distracted. The Big Revelation I got from the Ninja Leadership lesson was that Ninja Master does in fact know what he's talking about. He would make a much more effective teacher than my Leadership and Ethics Professor (who, according to others is a bona fide expert in leadership theories and stuff). Also, these leadership lessons would make a great alternative to jail time and/or being suspended from school for those screw-up kids that get themselves into trouble because they are bored or think they're badasses. So maybe some day if I'm Ninja Juvenile Prosecutor, I'll look Ninja Master up and maybe we can work a deal out...

After the lesson on rapport, we starting working on the lessons for the next week. SPOILERS ALERT: We will be doing more self defense. And learning about the Gracie Kick as well as formally learning the Sucker Punch Counter that we learned in our preview lesson. Ninja Master deliberately paired us with higher ranking Ninjas so that we could work on "talking out" the moves. That method made all the difference in the world, as I found I was retaining the information better than just watching and trying to Ninja-Monkey See: Ninja-Monkey Do like I have been doing for the past 2 weeks.

The next segment was a Master's class where Ninja Master taught us some advanced take-down techniques. Now, I say advanced, but I'm not sure why. It was a pretty basic move where you dive, grab your opponent's ankle and do a somersault until their ass hits the ground. You can then manipulate your opponent as necessary to get him or her into position to continue kicking ass (if you are in a real life fight, or doing MMA), or begin a submission (if you are in a jiu jitsu tournament). My partner was a Big Ol' Boy... definitely had 4 inches and 75 pounds on me. And probably 10 years. We'll call him the Nicotine Ninja because he smelled like stale cigarette smoke. But we worked well trying to figure out what the hell we were doing. Little did I know that I'd be seeing more of the Nicotine Ninja when we started sparring during the 3rd hour of Saturday's Black Belt Training... the Sparring.

Ok, so at 2 o'clock, we started the Sparring Leg of Ninja Training. People had been trickling in all day, so the Ninja Academy was quite full by the time the third leg of training rolled around. At first, Ninja Master demanded that like-colored belts stuck together, so the Nicotine Ninja and I had a round together. As was the case last week, Sparring is the worst, yet most awesome thing ever. 5 minutes at a time of balls-to-the-wall fighting to try and not get pinned or choked out... or in the case of me and the Nicotine Ninja-- trying not to get smothered. Which I was not successful at like 4 times in that 5 minute span. I decided to take it slow during the hour-long sparring session, so I would sit out every other round and just watch. As the hour progressed, I found myself paired up against higher and higher ranks. At first, I was a little disturbed because I figured the higher ranking Ninjas would kick my ass all over the place, but as it turns out, the opposite happened. These guys are smart enough to know that I didn't know what the hell I was doing and were great at teaching me stuff that Ninja Instructor and Ninja Master hadn't covered in class. Practical stuff like how to escape when you are pinned down or how to keep your neck and chest covered to keep from getting arm-barred or x-choked or whatever. I won't like though -- once 3 PM rolled around, I was absolutely exhausted. So as soon as I got home, I treated myself to a Ninja Shower and a Ninja Nap.

I'm still not 100% sure whether I'm going to commit to these lessons or not -- I have freed the funds so that I can afford them if I want to, but Ninja Charlie has made some good points on the comments (feel free to agree/disagree yourself, Ninja Readers). Here's what I'm thinking is going to end up happening: I will probably sign up for these lessons because I am enjoying learning the advanced techniques and to be honest, the sparring is really why I'm doing this jiu jitsu stuff in the first place. And, learning while competing against other Ninja Students, even those that are higher ranking is a great experience. Now that being said, I really want to expand my Ninja Horizons and am always looking for more training buddies, so Ninja Charlie (and anybody else who is interested), let's definitely figure out some time that we can meet up and train.

I'll have a definitive answer tomorrow. But until then, I'm going to Ninja Bed.