Vida Jiu-Jitsu

I was in the middle of warming up last night when I yelled out to Christy, “I put the sticker on the back of my car. I’m not sure what it means, but it sure looks good.” She replied, “Jiu-Jitsu life!” That’s what I thought.

The sticker says, “Vida Jiu-Jitsu” and she gave it to me the night I joined the school, which was just last week. I told her I wasn’t going to put it on my car, but I’d take it anyway. That I would find a place to put it. I’ve been doing this with stickers forever. Taking them and then sticking them random places. Stickers are like that – they beg to be stuck.

I had it resting on a cheap card table I bought from Amazon. It’s sitting in the living room, pretty much in the way of everything. We haven’t unpacked yet and are getting itchy to put things away. The problem is, we’re working a lot and have gotten used to the bins and plastic garbage cans coexisting among us. There’s even a defined path to walk through. I predict things will be taken care of this week, because as Laura already alluded to, “There’s a shelf life for junk laying around everywhere.” I know, I know.

A few days ago, I told her I was going to put the sticker on my car. “Why?” I said in jest. “Because I would never put a sticker on my car. That’s why.” Perhaps it would be fun. Perhaps it would be playful. Perhaps it would be so “not me.” So I did it. Within ten minutes I had a sticker that read, “Vida Jiu-Jitsu” on my back window. I can stop hyperventilating now. It’s not that big of deal. Really.

We had kind of an open mat last night. Kevin and Julian had to be somewhere else, so a few white belts, a blue belt and I took advantage of the situation and rolled for the two hours. I had a good time. While I like the complete and total aggravating challenge of rolling with purple belts and up, I really like to spend time with lower belts. I do have a small problem though.

There’s a guy they call “Medium” at this school. His real name is Kevin, but since there’s a big Kevin and a small Kevin, this fella’s name has been dubbed medium Kevin. Kind of like back in the days when we had about four Chris’s up in Connecticut. It was Chris 1 and Chris 2 and so on.

Anyway, Medium and I rolled for a while and as I mentioned in one of my prior posts, he’s a challenge and a half. He’s young and strong and knows how to get you in trouble. If you’re not careful, he’ll end up on your back or something and eventually get a tap. The best part about rolling with him is this fact – he’s dangerous and I’m very interesting in seeing him in a few years. Great to practice defense with.

My problem arises with the white belts. Now, I don’t know yet if it’s cool to stop mid-roll to give someone advice, but I tend to do that regularly. Is it frowned upon at this school? Do they like it? Not sure yet, but last night I must have done it about 20 times with various guys. I can’t help myself and while a few of them seemed genuinely thankful, I wonder if the other few were like, “Who is this guy anyway?”

If I see a hole, I tell them to plug it. If they’re rolling away from me instead of toward me, I tell them to stop what they’re doing and to reverse. I know these guys are there to learn and if I can be part of that process, I’m more than happy to oblige. I just want to make sure I’m not getting funny looks in the meantime.

But seriously, I have a real problem when it comes to teaching. I love to do it and I love to share the theory behind things. Maybe in the future we’ll get something going in that respect. Triangle and guard are the forte of the day.

For now though, I roll and roll and roll.