Day 9 - Starting from the Knees

Normally, I would have updated yesterday, but there was a little too much Ninja Celebrating on Saturday night, so I was too Ninja Hungover to do much of anything. So today, I am writing about Saturday's Ninja Lessons right now. An entry about tonight's Ninja Lessons will be posted tomorrow (hopefully...)

So, as we know, Saturdays are now my long Ninja Lessons, but this particular Saturday was not as long as others will be. And we know that is because there was some sort of graduation ceremony, of which I know nothing about yet. So lessons started at 1 with the Masters Training. Ninja Master decided that we were going to learn how to initiate a fight from the kneeling position. Ninja Master gave us a series of steps to try if your opponent isn't cooperating. He taught us to think of it kinda like a gearshift in a car -- try first gear (throw the guy to the side), but if he won't let you, shift into second (take his momentum from resisting you and throw him to his back, right), and if that is unsuccessful, you punch him in the face and walk away. Of course I'm kidding -- Ninja Master taught us about 9 different angles we can try and get our opponent to the ground with.

For hour two of class, we practiced sparring. Instead of going right to the 5 minute rounds though, Ninja Master had us drill "passing the guard" by first trying to keep from getting your guard passed for 5 minutes, and then 5 minutes of trying to pass your partner's guard. No submissions were allowed either. As soon as you successfully did what you were supposed to, it was time to switch. Now, on its face, that sounds like a really good drill. After all, it focuses all of your attention on the most important element of jiu jistu. Here's the problem though -- at that precise moment, I had no idea that passing the guard is the most important thing you can do in jiu jitsu. In fact, I didn't have a clue as to what passing the guard meant. And neither did my opponent. So it was 10 minutes of rolling around and looking like what I can only assume was a complete idiot. In the second round of this drill, at least my new opponent knew what was going on, so he didn't look like a moron. For the record, I still did. The rest of the 40 minutes of sparring was not very eventful -- I only sat out one round of the 8 or so rounds. During the last round, I paired up with an old friend from High School who enlightened me with some of the very basics of jiu jitsu.

Ninja Buddy's advice was first to show me some techniques that would make it really hard for my opponent to tap me out. Sure, he said, I wouldn't win the round, but I definitely wouldn't lose it either. As a white belt, my job is to not win, but to not be embarrassed. And as I progress through the ranks, these basic defensive moves will help me wait out my opponents and open up counters and blocks that otherwise wouldn't be available to me. And remember how I mentioned that I didn't know that passing the guard was the most important aspect in jiu jitsu: the Ninja Meat and Potatoes if you will. Well, the reason I now know that it is important is because Ninja Buddy told me. He also told me what a guard officially was. And what passing it officially means. It was definitely one of those light bulb, "a-ha!" moments that I have been looking for during the past couple of weeks. I am going to put these basics to use and of course will report on the results.