A path less travelled ...

Ultimately, the martial arts are a lifestyle choice that can provide huge gains in fitness, confidence and self esteem. But that’s not why I got into it. For me, back when I was a bullied teenager, I just wanted to kick some butt!

I think my imagination was first fired up when I read a Modesty Blaise comic strip at the age of eight; Modesty and her partner Willy Garvin were teaching spies and covert operatives to fight, in some underground lair, wearing black pyjamas. Hey, what a cool job, I thought!

Later, when I began my martial arts journey as a teenager, I didnt dream that one day I would be making my living from it. It was just my passion, my first true love, my obsession. But turning a passion into a business that can provide both wealth and lifestyle, can be a tricky task indeed; a task that I didn’t seriously undertake until I was in my 30’s.

Between the mid 70s and the mid 80s, I spent most of my time in the backblocks of Indonesia, Thailand, India and Japan, getting a grounding in the fundamentals of my craft. What set me apart form the crowd back then, was an adventurous spirit fuelled by discontent and cynicism. I was never happy with the status quo, there always had to be something better just over the horizon. And quite often, as it turned out, there was! One of the advantages of my far flung travels and somewhat exotic approach to training was that people seemed to be really interested in hearing the stories I had collected every time I returned home for a bit. I woke up one day and decided to research the viability of publishing some of these stories in a martial arts magazine that was being produced at the time. They published one or two, but not all; and so I decided that the way to ensure that all my stories were published was to start up my own magazine.

So from my lounge room, with an Atari 64 sitting on my rickety table – I put together the first edition of Blitz magazine – now the leading martial arts publication in this part of the world.

I was a one-man-band at that time – editor, writer, researcher, advertising sales manager and receptionist. I am thankful for those early days, as I was forced to become computer savvy and develop word processing, composition and layout expertise – not to mention, accounts management, sales skills and the myriad of other things that I previously had no knowledge or understanding of. I still have a box of dog-eared manuals laying around here somewhere. The physical aspect of the martial arts training kept me sane through all of it. Those were great learning days.

Eventually I sold the magazine and had another good stint of overseas training; this time on the other side of the world – the USA and Brazil. My approach to martial arts was now evolving into a professional blend of Kickboxing and BJJ .

But in those days, the general population didn’t appreciate the difference between sport and reality-based fighting and so business was hard going. Although I was eking a living by teaching each night at my Geelong-based school, I was approaching the whole enterprise from a martial artists/fighters perspective with almost no consideration for the business side of things. I guess my passion and enthusiasm got me through – it was certainly not due to my business acumen.

As the running of my somewhat unprofessional school wasn’t enough to get me a new car or a deposit for my own home, I had to diversify my efforts to make financial headway. I began teaching private lessons as well as the usual evening group classes. I also began travelling interstate to conduct training seminars for various martial arts schools owners that were looking to broaden their approach and take on new ideas. These were some of the best schools in the country and so the profile of BJJ began to grow.

I founded our Association, BJJ Australia, which has now grown to a membership of more than fifty schools throughout Australia and New Zealand. With interest in BJJ growing, and not having put my publishing skills to the test for a few years, I decided to write a series of books. Now as far as publishing goes, if you have a small market, and you want to make more than 10 cents a book, you need to publish and distribute yourself. That means having faith in yourself, doing your own print run and selling to whomever you can to get your money back so you can print more and hopefully make some profit. It also means setting up a website and gearing up for e-commerce. This has now become an integral part of my business. I love internet sales – the work is done once; and from then on you reap the rewards – true leverage!

Nowadays, I do more than 70 seminars both interstate and abroad each calendar year. The gigs vary greatly; from teaching at Chuck Norris’s annual Martial Arts convention in Las Vegas to the Tasmaniacs group down in Launceston. I love that variety!

I still run my local school, teaching cutting-edge martial arts but now do so using solid business principles. I sell books DVD’s and professional curriculums on the internet and have expanded my clientele to include law enforcement personnel and the military.

Instructing professional and elite Police and Military units is very rewarding for me; I have to be highly creative, I have to come up with training packages and methodologies based on their specific operational requirements, and so I am kept on my toes, both physically and mentally. Teaching covert and highly specialized military units over in Quantico Virginia is a far cry from teaching martial arts to a group of angry teenagers in a basement (20 years ago) – but comes strangely close to what I was reading in that Modesty Blaise comic back when I was eight. What an interesting world.

May your lives be as full of adventure and learning,
best wishes,
JBW

Story-boarding techniques ...

This is a good teaching/coaching strategy that I use quite frequently ...
When coaching a specific technique, I often give a quick run-down on the evolution of the move. ie: the basic approach to it - the new-improved approach (if there is one), the way people try to counter it - and then finally the 'work-around' for that counter - giving the student, the final 'polished' product.
This 'story-board' approach not only allows the students to see the logical progression of the technique and how it has evolved, but always results in them 'remembering' it in much more detail later on.
Also, by providing them with the 'whole story' - the students become far more qualified to enter the creative process themslves and take the move to another level again.
pretty basic stuff I know - but I still see a lot of people teaching techniques in their 'final form' only - but by taking that approach, quite a lot of good learning opportunities are passed by ..
Hope it helps,

best wishes,
JBW

Teaching Game-plan - 1st 12 months ...

Instructors often ask for advice on how to approach teaching beginners .. ie: What to teach and what order to teach it in ...

There are as many ways to approach to teaching of BJJ as there are ways of teaching people how to play chess. There is no definitive method - but i will outline the method that I most commonly use - and I have acheived very good results from it:

FIRST RULE: Do NOT have them wrestle! They don't have skills yet - so by exposing them to wrestling right away - it can only lead to a negative experience - then they will quit training. So hold off on that score for a bit!

START BY: introducing them to the Fundamentals (in my world - these are a very specific 4 drills and 24 techniques: Once they have these Fundamentals 'roughed out' - and can execute them without prompting - non-stop - then they are ready (and qualified) to start grappling/wrestling/rolling.

THE NEXT STEP:
Once they have started grappling - it then becomes time to take an 'organic coaching' approach. ie: deal with the problems that the students are having - as they arise out of the sparring. This will be diferent for every student - and thats's why the approach at this stage cannot be an overly structured approach. It's problem solving time. Contiinue with this until the student feels 'comfortable' and no longer 'lost in the chaos'.

AND THEN: we are ready to start developing a 'specific game' for the student. My advice here is to develop a game that suits the position they tend to find themselves in most often.
ie: if they are on the bottom - work a Guard gameplan; if they are in Side Control a lot of the time - then work a an attack gameplan from side control.
But bit by bit - develop 'mini' gameplans' in most common positions - from both defensive and offensive persepctives. this will take some time - and should see you well through the first two years of training.

That is a very good and 'tried and true' methodolgy that has worked very well for me for a long time now.

I hope it helps.
best wishes all,
JBW

E-mything techniques ...

If you run a business, of any sort, one book I do recommend is a book called 'The E-myth'. Essentially, the book is a guide on why and how you should systemize your business, so that operations become so streamlined and manageable, that anyone can run it for you. Systems-based businesses are the basis of franchising.

Anyways - last week, I began preparing for the annual Will-Machado National BJJ Championships. It won't be held till September, but I thought I would get an early start on it. With the running of a tournament, there are a hundred little things that need to be organized before the event even begins - so I thought that this year I would diarise all the steps and build an Operations Manual as I went along. I have just completed the tasks - and the Operations Manual - for what I need to do 'four months out' from competition date. This is a step by step checklist that outlines every action from getting a PDF of the poster up on the website - to a detailed description of how to print out labels for all the associate and member schools mail-outs. So the theory is, that next year, anyone should be able to pick up that Operations Manual, and make the whole thing happen.

So really it's a simple process - we just need to define a task, and then clearly outline each and every step needed to complete that task. Once that is done, in theory, the task can be replicated by anyone.

How is this relevent to training - well, when tecahing, the whole idea is to have everyone in the class (not just the talented athletes) be able to execute the given technique/move. It most often comes down to how clearly the instructor has outlined and defined the various steps and processes contained in the technique being taught.

So for those out there wanting to pass on their knowledge and take on a teaching role - just remember: if you are not clear on every process that takes place (in the correct order) within a given technique - then it cannot be expected that others can easily copy, learn and understand those same processes.
E-myth every technique you teach!

Best regards,

JBW

Thinking for ourselves ...

Just sitting at the airport in Melbourne, something I seem to do a lot of nowadays, waiting for the flight that will take me to see my friends down in Tassie. I am looking forward to catching up with them - they are a solid hard-core bunch, and the kind of people I really like.

Tassie is a little out of the loop - geographically that is - and sometimes when we live that little apart from the rest of the world, we can feel is if we are being 'left behind' , in some sense. My experience is that this is simply not true! In fact, being 'isolated' (please: tasmaniacs, do not take offense) can often force us to start 'thinking' and 'problem solving' for ourselves - while those other 'lucky bunch' who live 'amongst it all' - sometimes sit there waiting to be 'spoon fed'.

Australia - is after all - pretty isolated from the rest of the world - but has at the same time (as perhaps as a result of the isolation) has produced some the the most innovative m/artists in the world.

Anyways - they are calling my flight -= gota go.
See you soon,
JBW

Train the Brain ...

First morning back on the mat after ten days off. Even though I was in 'teaching mode' - I was still (as always) looking for ways to improve and further develop both my understanding and performance in BJJ. In times like these, after a hiatus or break from regular training, I like to get my mind 'into gear'. I prefer to 'play jiu-jitsu' rather than to go at it like my life is on the line. here's what i try to do:

I try to keep thinking whilst i am wrestling. Now that is an easy thing to say - but in my view, very few people are doing this whilst they are actually grappling. it may even appear that they are 'thinking' but what i see most of the time, is that people just tend to go with their set of 'cultivated instincts' when they wrestle, and are usually not thinking at all.

The more experienced they are, the better set of instincts (or automatic responses) they have; but they are still mostly working with automatic and instinctive responses. To actually open our minds and try to 'observe' what is happening whe we wrestle - is a skill, and like all other skills, it needs to be practised and cultivated.

When we grapple, most people tend to get into a 'combative' mindset. this is natural. but I have to say that always wrestling with that minset will really limit your ability to grow and improve. When in a combative minset, we tend to narrow our focus, stick with the 'tried and true', and go harder in an aerobic sense.
I recommend, that everyone, at some time or other, try getting into a 'playful' mindset. "pull the strings' on the puppet (your opponent) and take note of what happens. Experiment, as if you were just a kid playing a fun game. Try new things - and don't worry about the outcome too much. be prepared to try turning left whe your instincts have always made you turn right. And back the pace of (aerobically) a little - anough to wrestle longer and 'see more things happen'. keep your mind 'open' and try to notice as much as you can. This is almost impossible to do - if you are narrow-foccused and obsessed with the outcome.

This is a good ay to 'train your brain' - whiuch needs just as much care and attention as does your physical response and technique. it's a great way to 'ease back in' after some time off.
good luck with it.
best regards,

JBW