My New Mastering Sweeps DVD

A bit of blatant self-promotion today with the announcement that my new MAstering Sweeps DVD is available from this website. CLICK HERE TO CHECK IT OUT
As always, I have tried to deliver extraordinary value with not only the level of instruction but with the sheer amount of material covered (over two hours of detailed technical analysis). The only hiccup is, that for the present moment - it has been produced in PAL format only, as it was done here in Australia and not the states - and the production house just assumed I wanted them all produced in PAL format. I will get a bunch done in NTSC format soon, all being well. As with the other two DVD's in the MASTERING Series, this DVD takes an in-depth look at 24 sweeps and walks you through in very fine detail. I have placed considerable emphasis on relaying the HOW and WHY each of the sweeps/reversals work, making it of even greater value to instructors. Anyways, I hope you like it; I very much enjoyed putting it all together.
Train Hard - Train Smart
JBW

Not a word said ...

Sometimes, in fact, more often than we might think, some of the biggest lessons we learn are learn’t without the need for a single spoken word. This is true on the mat and it is true in life.
We learn lots of ways, through each of our five senses. We learn by looking, by feeling, by tasting, by hearing, even by smelling. Usually, we learn by a combination of these learning mediums.
The challenge with learning only by listening is that we close ourselves off to many important lessons by virtue of the fact that most people cannot perfectly articulate what they are trying to teach. Quite often, it is up to us to extract the lesson from the hints or examples that the teacher presents. We should never rely purely on the skill of our teachers – the real leverage comes from developing our own learning styles. Be the perfect student – open ourselves to ‘getting the lesson’ irregardless of how it is presented to us.
JBW

Australia Day

My Australia day began with the teaching of two private classes first thing. After that I headed down to the secluded warehouse where I do my strength and conditioning work. The session was a tough one: we did intensive 20 second sets of work followed by a ten second rest for a total of 15 exercises. After a one minute break, this whole thing was repeated three more times - making for a total of 60 twenty second work periods. Then it was back home for some protein and an hours recovery nap.
A few chores completed this afternoon, e-mails, a bit of reading and some more food – now it’s time to head into class and hook up with the keenest of students who make the big effort to come to class on Australia’s biggest public holiday. If they are that keen – then I need to be there. I am looking forward to seeing who turns up.
Best wishes all – and to fellow Aussies. HAPPY AUSTRALIA DAY!
JBW

More or less ...

One saying that I don’t favor too much is the old “Practice makes perfect’ – in my view it would better read ‘Practice makes permanent’ – in other words, you get really good at what you do a lot; do something badly, a lot, and you get really good at doing it badly.
Once we get something working correctly,only then is it time to push out the reps. But get it right first; whether it’s an exercise, a technique or even a strategy.
At different times of our lives, we invest more or less time into different things. My own OCD-style of learning, usually necessitates deep immersion. When I first stumble across something that piques my interest, I usually jump right in, analyse it to death, try to get it right, then spend loads of time on it until life, or something else that piques my interest, drags me off it.
There are though, some negatives of over-indulging in repetition. There was a time in the 80’s, when I used to get up in the morning and do 1000 pushups, 1000 kicks and 1000 punches – all before lunchtime. Yikes! Now the benefit of this approach, (big numbers) is that you really work out the most efficient way to do that thing – numbers cut away excessive movement – they ‘trim the fat’ from the activity and leave you with ‘efficiency’. That’s the good part. The bad part is that there is little avoiding the negative aspects of ‘wear and tear’.
Still – I doubt very much that I will change – not at least, any time soon. For what it’s worth …
JBW

Black Mice and Happy Accidents ...

How do new techniques evolve? I see techniques evolving two different ways; firstly, they can be designed through the process of intellect; that is, we can deliberately build them, correcting and modifying as we go – or they can be stumbled upon and evolve through what I call the process of ‘happy accident’.
To understand the happy accident concept – we need to understand how the evolutionary process works in nature. To explain this process (and perhaps highlight how quickly it can happen) I’ll use the example of how a mouse population might change/evolve from white to black in only a few short generations.
This example goes like this: we have a population of light colored mice living happily on the grass covered plains – a local volcano erupts, and spills large areas of black lava rock over their habitat. Now, one out of every 1000 mice, by genetic ‘accident’, is born darker colored. This happens purely by accident, as a result of genetic mutation … but then what happens, why does the entire population of mice turn black over a few generations. The answer is provided by natural selection … in short, it goes like this: we have tens of thousands of light colored mice and a few dozen dark ones. Because the environment changed and the landscape was now darker in color due to the volcanic lava flows, the birds who eat the mice can more easily hunt the lighter colored mice; in short time, the light population is decimated, leaving the few darker mice to breed and eventually populate the landscape.
The point of this story is to illustrate how a random accident can have a real and lasting effect on how things evolve. I believe the same sort of process is occurring on the mat all the time. Sometimes, by pure accident, we turn left instead of right, we pull instead of pushing and something positive happens. Provided this happens with enough frequency that we take notice of it, we may decide to repeat it – and suddenly, we develop new habits and new techniques.
Sometimes, these happy accidents can have a very significant impact on how our game evolves … another reason to approach grappling practice (or anything else for that matter) with a playful mindset. The more we ‘play’, the more ‘happy accidents’ we are likely to have …
JBW

Now is the time ...

Back when in the early 90's, when I was a BJJ purple belt, I remember my coach Rigan Machado using a training idea that in fact, he still uses to this day. he would make us run laps around the mat, while he demonstrated a technique (just one time) in the centre of the mat. he would then select two people to step out and demonstrate the same technique - if they got it right - we would all pair off and do reps - if they didn't get it right, we all did push-ups; after which he would get us running laps again, and repeat the exercise by demonstrating a different technique ... in other words - the opportunity to practise the first technique .. was gone - possibly forever. Yes - forever!
There were many students who didnt seem to take the opportunities seriously enough (for my liking) - possibly because they thought (mistakenly) that they could always get it right the next time that RIgan taught it - perhaps on the next training night. This of course, was illogical thinking; for in my experience, he rarely taught the same class twice. When the next training night came - new techniques were being taught - the opportunity to learn the techniques that ere presented at the previous class - were gone!
I kind of like this old-fashioned approach; for it pretty much, mimics life! So many times in life, opportunities come and go quickly and very often, they do not come again. We need to train ourselves to seize the moment - grab those opportunities and make the most of them when they are presented to us. Each class missed is a golden opportunity gone. This is one of my themes for 2011 - make the most of every day.
Train hard - train smart - train NOW
JBW

Dialing it up - dialing it back

Back into my routine after my two week Christmas break - I am keen to get back to my day-to-day, and so once again I know I am on the right track. When we are not keen to get back to our day-to-day, it's probably time to change the way we live. Simple litmus test really.

Anyways, I was running through my first Strength and conditioning routine for 2011 this morning and I had to tune in and become very aware of the pace I was setting, as I had eight exercises to get through, a minute break and I needed to do six rounds of it - hence the need to keep an eye on my pace and intensity. In the 10 seconds break between exercises I thought about what my mind needed to do ... and it occurred to me that although, at one point, I needed to dial the intensity back 10%, I still needed to maintain 100% focus on what I was doing. it then occurred to me that this is also the case with light rolling. When we roll lightly, we need to dial back the intensity - but not at the expense of being technically correct. Although we can choose to dial down the intensity with which we roll/wrestle, we should keep fully focussed on what we are doing and try our best to maintain perfect form. This ability to dial back intensity whilst maintaining good form is very important because when we need to turn up the pace we don't have to do anything very different inside of our heads. it's like concentrating fully when we are driving our car, even though we are only driving at 50KPH - then when we decide to accelerate, the focus and attention is right there - we don't have to go looking for it. Think on it ... play with the dial but keep 100% focus on what you are doing. Best wishes
JBW

Tick Tock …

I’ve just arrived back from a ten day holiday with my family in the South Pacific. It’s a different world out there in the islands; well different certainly, from the hustle and bustle of city-life. People are laid back – VERY laid back. For some holidaying tourists, this cultural difference can translate into frustration in their expectation of the level and speed of service they expect in the city fails, time and time again, to manifest. I say, good luck to the islanders. Time moves more slowly for them – in effect, they LIVE longer; or should I say, they experience longer ‘moments’ than many of we city-folk. I love the way pacific islanders have a more casual relationship with ‘time’; they don’t sit at lunch with their mobile phones glued to their ears; they don’t spend 5% of their lives sitting in traffic; they don’t take their work home with them; they don’t need as much money to meet the needs of day-to-day existence. Island life holds many lessons – nurturing the ability to find beauty and joy in simple things, not being the least of those lessons. Nice.
JBW
PS: I’m pictured here with my son Felix – usually the fish I catch are returned to the water, this one though, became dinner for a local family.