Monday, June 23, 2014

A thing or two about Challenge: Anthony Robles


I remember watching Anthony Robles wrestling one of our wrestlers at a UC Davis dual meet a few years ago and just smiling. He had found a way to adapt wrestling to the body he had. He didn't complain about getting around (he would use crutches to go from place to place), and he would wrestler his heart out. 


The lesson is not just that wrestling is for everyone, but also that the challenge of wrestling pushed him to find a way to make this work. His wrestling was simple and by the end of the year every coach had figured out a way to challenge his style to their wrestlers to beat him. Needless to say he won Nationals that year. Keep up the great work Anthony! 

Wrestling Dojo
El Dorado Hills, CA
916.595.4064 

Wrestler talks of challenge ... and portrays it

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If all goes according to plan, Hollywood will be putting Anthony Robles' story on the big screen.
The script, Robles says, should be complete in about a month, with filming scheduled to start in December.
Whenever the movie is finished, its narrative will be something that even Hollywood's creative minds and purveyors of fantasy never would have imagined.
A film about a child born without a leg, missing up to his right hip, who goes on to become a college wrestling champion? Who would believe that?
Unless it were true.
"The movie," Robles said Tuesday during a break from a clinic at Kellam High for middle and high school wrestlers, "is going to be basically my whole life story."
A story with an unmistakable message.
"We all wrestle with our own challenges," he said, "and I believe you can't let the challenge become an excuse."
Moments before saying that, the 2011 NCAA champion in the 125-pound division was on the mat, demonstrating some of the moves that helped him finish 36-0 as a senior at Arizona State, explaining each one in a clear, relaxed voice.
"It's great seeing the light coming on," he said of the young wrestlers. "I remember being in the same spot, learning something for the first time."
As the wrestlers broke up into pairs to practice what they had just seen, Robles checked in with each of them, going around the room on crutches. He gave up his prosthesis for crutches when he was 5, a decision that "ended up paying off for me, wrestling-wise," he said. "It made my upper body strong."
A resident of Chandler, Ariz., Robles was here by invitation of Curtis Wiley, Kellam's assistant wrestling coach, an Army Lt. Colonel at Dam Neck who took leave to host Robles and help run the clinic.
"He's sort of a god in the wrestling community," said Wiley, who wrestled in college. "A wrestler understands how tough it would be to do what he did. He figured out the sport and trained to win his way, with his upper body strength."
It took time, of course. As a ninth-grader in Mesa, Ariz., Robles was tossed around by stronger, two-legged wrestlers.
"I was pretty bad at 14," he said - "last place in my city. But I loved the sport and just wanted to be the best at it."
His championship and the unique story of his life provides a platform that allows him to make about 65 speaking engagements a year, in addition to appearing at a dozen or so wrestling clinics each summer. He's also been a commentator for ESPN during the NCAA tournament.
"I love doing motivational speaking," said Robles, whose message is grounded in "the whole idea of being unstoppable."
"It was basically how I was raised," he said. "Aim high and never stop until you get the job done. I was blessed with a great mom. She always believed I could do whatever I set my mind to."
Robles put in a full day at Kellam, working with the middle school kids in the morning and high schoolers in the afternoon. In between, he gave a motivational talk in the gym.
"It's a pleasure to give back to the sport," he said. "It's given me a lot."
A good-looking guy who is at ease before an audience, Robles mentioned that the movie production team was searching for somebody - "an up-and-coming actor" - to play his part and talked about how green-screen technology could be used to simulate his missing leg.
When somebody proposed to him that he could play himself, Robles politely shrugged off the suggestion.
"I'll probably be in and out, doing the wrestling scenes," he said. "I'll be my own stunt double. But no acting for me. I'm not into it."
It's the closest he came to saying that there was something he couldn't do.
He has, after all, constructed his life - on and off the mat - upon the foundation of being unstoppable.
Unstoppable.
That might make a good title for the film.

Mental training for Jiu-Jitsu begins with slowing things down

When we talk about mental training in Jiu-Jitsu, we could be referring to many different things. When some people hear of mental training they think about mental toughness. Mental training to others could mean visualization. In this post, we are going to think of the mental training that goes on while training and moving the body. More specifically, we are talking about mental training that takes place while drilling in a controlled environment with a partner that is not giving active resistance. The drilling partner is moving in a predictable pattern according to the desires of the person practicing the move. This type of mental training leads to a deeper understanding of technique being implemented and body control. The side effects of this mental training leads to a better understanding and internalizing the concepts of Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu. 

The term mental training is used because this type of training can be more mentally demanding then physically demanding. Doing this type of mental training takes great mental control, discipline, and focus. More importantly, this is a mental exercise to help those learn a new movement or improve a movement that is giving them some type of trouble. 

The training in theory is very basic and simple. Your movement in according with or without a partner is slow and precise. Slow meaning every movement is clear and defined. Not only does going slow exposes any flaws in the movement, but also shows to the person doing the move their complete understanding and mastery of the movement. This is essential for implementation in competition. Precision meaning without any extra movement. When there are extra steps involved to execute a technique. The movement becomes weaker. Extra steps means more time for the other person to react and counter attack. Therefore, precision is essential in the slower stages. 

As a matter of fact speed is the biggest control we need to exercise in this type of mental training. The tendency is going to always want to do things fast. Most of us have been taught that is sports or physical education, we need to be bigger, faster, stronger. Unfortunately, this works agains all basic concepts of technical mastery in Jiu-Jitsu. The most technical will always take the time to slow the process down to minimal speeds. The idea is that if the movement can't be performed at slow speeds accurately, then there is no chance for the movement to take place accurately at faster speeds. 

This process of mental training through slower effective movement is two fold. By slowing the movement down dramatically, the practitioner is better able to advance to the next position. The slower speed leads to accuracy. On the other hand, without ever slowing down the movement and performing the move with only speed while lacking precision the movement pattern is usually compromised. Therefore, a move performed intentionally slower with precision may find more success at times then a move done half-hazardly with speed, but lacking in precision. 

As an example, we should consider the slow motion speed on a camera. The best of the best in mental training would be able to execute the technique with the same precision and exactness as a match, but slowed down by 16, 32 or even 64 times the speed of implementation. Being able to do this shows, complete understanding of the technique through body control, awareness, precision, and accuracy.  

The origin of kata or forms training lies in this type of mental training. Although it seems like many people, martial artists and others, seem to knock the practice. When understood, there can be great benefit to the practice. The significance lies in knowing how your partner would and could react..... Or said in another way, getting your partner to react in a certain way. This type of mental training has some cross-over with visualization. In many ways it's a complimentary practice to visualization since all the steps we take in visualization should be slow and precise. 

In summary, mental training can take on many different forms of practice. Here, we talk about how to perform mental training through drilling. Slow, precise, and intentional movements with a partner who will give you the reaction you are looking for with little to no resistance. The most difficult struggle to implementing this type of training is resisting the desire to control your speed. For whatever reason, we tend to go much faster then necessary when drilling. The best masters of mental training should appear to be executing the technique as though they are in a match, but with the process slowed down 32 to 64 times. This leads to difficulty performing the technique when faced with true resistance. Interestingly, this type of mental training is much like the form or kata training seen in traditional martial arts. 

Eliot Kelly
916.595.4064

Monday, February 3, 2014

Consistency beats everyone and everything at El Dorado Hills Jiu Jitsu

     Sorry everyone. I've been swamped with grad school, teaching Jiu-Jitsu, family life, teaching as a grad assistant, and the excuses go on and on and on! As a result, I've had to put off my online journal, my writing, or blogging as others call it. It's not that I don't enjoy doing it. I just have so many things going on each and everyday, by the time I realize I haven't done certain things its 10:00 o'clock at night. AND I'M NOT EVEN HOME YET! So, this year has started off with much thinking about how can I (and as a result, how can I help the people around me) be consistent. When I talk about consistent, some might think it only applies to training martial arts, jiujitsu, or self defense, but I hope these apply to many areas off the mat as well.

     Consistency is difficult when we never establish what we define as consistent. We really need to make things a priority in our life to be consistent at something. It doesn't matter if that we are consistent once a week, twice a week, or even once a month. Therefore, establish what you mean by consistency. Be able to know at the beginning of the week that you are going to do XYZ and be happy (give yourself a pat on the back) when you meet those consistency marks. That should be your first marker for evaluating whether or not you are doing a "good job." It's also important to know what your limits are. If you decide to train jiujitsu 5 times a week, but are going to be out of town where there is no jiujitsu school, then you are only setting yourself up for failure. In this case making slight changes will help you accomplish your weekly consistency marker. Instead of training jiujitsu be your mark of success, change it to train 5 times a week. Where training could include a hike, bike, swim, jog, etc. be creative with how you set your consistency markers. That is very important.

     Something that helps us establish consistency is routine. If you are able to establish a regular routine, some call it a schedule, you will begin to understand that consistency is less of a challenge. What makes things difficult is that most of us don't have a regular work schedule or school schedule that stays consistent. It is especially important for those that fit in that category to go over a schedule on a weekly or monthly basis so they know when they are doing what. Getting a simple planner to keep with you is highly recommended.

    If you're having a difficult time with this even after you start, don't worry. The important ingredient in all of this is to keep trying, and keep woking on finding consistency. There are many CEO and elite business people who have secretaries for this very reason. It can seem very simple, and even unimportant, but necessary if you are finding yourself in need of more time at the end of the day, or missing out of key things you would like to be consistent with.

See you on the mat! 
Eliot Kelly
916.595.4064

Monday, October 28, 2013

US Open Results: El Dorado Hills Brazilian JiuJitsu near Cameron Park

     Great job to the team and competitors from the US OPEN! In the kids division we had two competitors Sky and Nico compete on Saturday. They both did an amazing job preparing for one of the toughest kids tournaments in Northern California both finishing with a medal in hand. Great job to all of the yellow belts making a dedicated contribution to seeing these guys train in anticipation of the US Open! 
     For the adults, Aryn, one of our ladies, participated in her first tournament as a white belt. She was all smiles from her warm up all the way to the end of the day! She fell short of a medal this time, but we are very excited to see her potential as a competitor and a great martial artist! 
     In the blue belts, Kevin and Jordan took the mats on Saturday. Kevin showed great improvement this year beating a tough competitor had suffered a loss to earlier in the year by more than 15 points. He didn't make it to the medal podium but we are very excited to see his improvement as 2013 comes to a close. Keep being relentless Kevin! Jordan won by submission in his first match and fell to the sneaky baseball bat in his second. He is another competitor with great improvement, and finished with a Bronze! 
     Eliot took gold in his division beating a veteran black belt Samir Chantre who requested to bump up in weight to get a match. This won the division for Eliot, and placed him in the absolute tournament. He fell short by an advantage in his first match. Great job to all the competitors and team helping them get out there and  compete!!!! 

Kids Results: 
Sky - Silver
Nico - Silver

Adults Results:
Jordan - Bronze
Eliot - Gold 

US OPEN 2013 Highlight Video:

EDH Martial Arts 
916.595.4064
www.edhbjj.com 

Friday, October 4, 2013

Self Defense Awareness Month at El Dorado Hills Jiu Jitsu


     This month EDH Jiu-Jitsu will be celebrating Self Defense Awareness. With each lesson we will be including a short 30-90 second (maybe longer) message about what we know, learned, and can share about self-defense. As an added bonus all family members are welcome to come a train (for free) during the month of October. Some training is better than no training. Some awareness is better than no awareness. Please help us spread a little more awareness by brining a family member on the mat with you!

     When most of us think about self-defense, the scenario we tend to think of in our head is: Innocent little defenseless person gets attacked by a crazy under the influence psycho...... And that's understandable. But what about opening up the idea of self defense to the many other "attackers" that are prevalent within our society. Diabetes (dietary self-defense), Heart Disease (cardiac self-defense), Pollution (environmental self-defense), Mental Health (psychological self-defense), etc. If Brazilian Jiu Jitsu is a lifestyle, and we are looking to live the "jiujitsu lifestyle" we talk about, then thinking about protecting ourselves from these attackers should be a high priority. If AWARENESS is the first step of self-defense, then this month we will be doing just that. See you on the mat!
Eliot Kelly
 www.edhbjj.com