New American!

Just some quick congratulations to my BJJ coach, Megaton Dias. Last friday, he was sworn in as a U.S. citizen. I think it was more important to him than even the day Royler Gracie gave him his black belt.

He came to this country about 13 years ago with only a small ability in English, nobody that he knew here, and $450 in his pocket. With only his dedication, hard work, and integrity, he has become a succesful small businessman, husband, father, valuable member of the community, and an important mentor to many people. He has worked hard to become a citizen. He has definitely earned it and is a great example of the american dream.

This is cool, as well. All of us students at his academy have chipped in together and as a welcome to citizenship gift, we are sending he and his wife to Washington D.C. for a weekend vacation to see all the important sights. That was a cool idea, courtesy of senoir student and black belt Michael Sillyman.

other blogs to check out

Here are some good blogs to check out when you have time. All have really good info in them.

http://knifedefense.blogspot.com/
This is a blog written by my buddy Jerry Wetzel, who runs a gym in Bellflower, CA called the Centerline Gym. He is also the creator of the BEST unarmed counter-knife program EVER.

http://cmdefense.blogspot.com/
This is the blog written by my coach Rodney King. I have written in previous posts about his terrific CM striking system.

http://isrmatrix.blogspot.com/
This is written by Paul Sharp, a cop who is also a great MMA coach ( and wrestler) .

being non-judgemental

My biggest pet peeve is hypocrisy. I hate it. Say what you mean, and live it every day while understanding that we are all fallable human beings. Don't set yourself up as one thing while acting in opposite ways. One of the worst examples of hypocrisy I have noticed lately is the tendency of some people (I will not name names) who I hear on T.V. or read in newspapers or the internet have set themselves up as pundits who deride others for being judgemental. They take those of us to task who have an ethical guideline, saying we should not judge others until we walk a mile in someome else's shoes. That criticism is fine, they have that right. BUT, they generally spend an inordinate amount of time judging others on their judgement, while preaching the higher morality of non-judgement. Sorry, THAT is hypocritical and shows their own lack of personal evolution. Preach to someone else, thank you.

the worst day on the mat

Not much free time today, but I just wanted to leave this post for people to think about.

This past week was not a good one training wise. I hurt my knee a couple of weeks ago and it is still bothering me. My asthma has been really bad for a week or so as well, so I felt that I did not do very well at any of my training sessions, whether it was BJJ, MMA, or running/conditioning. I started to pout and think that maybe I should have skipped working out. Then I remembered a bumper sticker I saw years ago (about hunting or fishing or something like that) and transposed some words to reflect my experience. The bumper sticker went something like this: "The worst day on the mat beats the best day working". And it is true. No matter how bad your training goes, it is always a great and worthwhile experience.

Keep training, no matter what!

it's all hips baby

I was working with one of my training partners (Mike Grandinetti) on Saturday morning and something came up that I thought might help someone else out there. I will call this guard work for the fat guy with no hip or lower back flexibility.

I was trying to expalain to him how I went from having no guardwork ability at all (my butt was practically superglued to the mat as far as moblity goes) to having a decent game now. Since I had no game at this position, I was getting my guard passed all the time, so I found myself in half guard constantly. For survival sake, I tried to learn everything I could about 1/2 guard. There are three basics; near side underhook, far arm defend the crossface, and, most importantly, be on your side. Now, you never want to be on your back in full guard, but I couldn't stay there. However, with 1/2 guard, I found I could stay on my side almost all the time. When that happens, you will suddenly find yourself with a great deal of mobility. Formerly glued to the mat, I was now moving non-stop. I spent months and months working 1/2 guard, being fairly successful. The amzing thing though, was that went I was playing guard, I was much more mobile than before. My hips were all over the place and I was rarely lying with my back flat. That feel for movement I developed had a direct transfer to my full guard, as well as all of my bottom game. The reason is in BJJ, it is all hips. Period. If you don't have that, you will not have good jits. If you do have it, it transcends one area to aplly to all areas.

So, if there are any of you who had similar problems to me, give some dedicated 1/2 guard work a try. You might be pleasently surprised.

recommended reading 1

Alright. I need to lighten things up after yesterday's post. So I will do the first installment of my recommended books to check out.

What little free time I have that I don't spend with my wife and kids or training, I spend reading. And I read everything. I usually read 4 - 5 books concurrently. There is usually a history and/or a biography, a martial art or physical/mental training book, and one mindless fiction novel. I prefer non-fiction that can teach me something or inspire me, but sometimes an escapist adventure or humor book is just the right medicine. In that vein, my first recommendations are just that - escapist.

The John Rain series by Barry Eisler. There are four novels; Hard Rain, Rainfall, Rainstorm, and Killing Rain. All are terrific stories about Rain, who is a hitman with (sort of) an ethical code. They feature some great action, very interesting and different characters and plots, international intrigue, and even some humor. Eisler is a judo and BJJ practitioner who writes some of the best fight scenes in any book ever. And the character of Rain himself is a fairly unique creation. One of the enjoyable things about reading the series is that in each novel, Rain grows and changes. My favorite book is the second, Rainfall. I think that has the best overall story. But I am also partial to the last two because it features the character of Dox, who is a perfect foil for Rain. Their interaction provides some of the most engaging dialogue in the series.

Give them a try when you want to cut loose and not think too much for a couple of hours. You won't regret it.

Haley Knutsen

Haley Knutsen is a nine year old girl who passed away last night (September 14th). She had been fighting leukemia for seven years and after three bone marrow transplants her little body couldn't handle her great fight anymore. For some reason, she touched a lot of people's lives. There are many people today mourning her.

I didn't know her. I only learned of her fight about six months ago on a local sports talk radio station. I kept track of her through her website (www.hopeforhaley.com) and donated money and kept her in my thoughts and prayers. I particularly felt for her, I think, because she is almost the exact age as my son. Everytime I thought of her struggle, I thought "there but for the grace of god". Her last wish was that the money that had been donated for her fight that had not been used would go to help another child with their fight. She is living proof that angels walk among us, whatever your religious or non-religious beliefs.

Why do I bring this up? Because, for me, at least, it is a great reminder to focus on the things that are truly important. Lately, I have found myself getting angry with others for things that they have done, not done, wrote about, posted on the internet about etc.... and this brings it home how superficial that is. The next time I read an internet post or blog that posits a different political belief than mine, I will smile and move on. The next time some a*s cuts me off in traffic, I will smile, remember Haley, and move on. The next time I come home from work angry and tired, I will grab my kids, hug them, and move on.

Here ends another installment of my ongoing work to make myself a better person. Maybe someday, I can be as good a person as a nine year old girl.

training with the GI

What is a GI? It is the normal training wear for Brazilian Jiu-jitsu. It consists of two heavy pieces of cloth, the pants and the jacket. It is similar to a Judo uniform, the major difference being that the BJJ GI is usually a little more snug. Some of my friends dislike training with a GI on. One even calls it “un-American”. I, however, like the GI. I don’t train in it 100% of the time, but probably 60% - 70% of the time I do. Why do I like it? Here are five basic reasons.

1) Defense / escape is harder: the attacker has so many handles to control you that getting out of a bad position is infinitely harder. Just when you think you are about to get to a better position, the attacker pulls you back and you start all over again. The GI also creates a lot of friction, which slows down your escapes as well, making it easier for your opponent to react to counter you. And with all the handholds available, it opens up a world of submissions your opponent can use against you, so you have even more to worry about.

2) More offense: you have more options to attack, so you have more to play with, creating so many more opportunities of movement. Without the GI, attack is like checkers; with the GI, it is like chess.

3) Bringing him down to your level: I have found that the GI is a great equalizer against someone with superior attributes. Against an opponent who is younger, faster, stronger, better conditioned, bigger, etc. is very tough without the GI. It is more likely, in my opinion, that without the GI, the less technical but more physically gifted athlete will win. With the GI however, I can make him play more of my game and have better success using skill to beat him.

4) Hygiene: this is probably my favorite reason for the GI. I don’t know about you, but I really don’t enjoy having some guy’s sweat drip onto my face. Nor do I enjoy knowing that my own sweat is dripping onto my poor opponent. Having nice heavy cotton around most of your exposed flesh to catch sweat is a good thing. Also, the less bare skin I have exposed to other people and mats is a good idea. That is also why I wear a rashguard under my GI as well. I have seen, heard, and experienced enough horror stories about catching ringworm, impetigo, pinkeye, scabies, lice, and other diseases to scare the crap out of me. Scrupulously clean mats and clean GIs take care of a lot of that. I like that piece of mind.

5) Tournaments: On the West Coast, it is much easier to find a good GI oriented tournament to compete in than a non-GI tournament. The reverse seems true on the East Coast, but on this side of the country, GI competitions are more common. So, it makes sense to train sport specific.


Anyway, these are the main reasons I like to train GI. But you know what? If you don’t, that’s great. Do what you want to do. Train how you want to train But, please, allow me the same courtesy. Thanks.

jab and cross

Work your jab and cross! Such two fundamental moves deserve an inordinate amount of training time. They are the backbone of your striking attack. You cannot spend too much time perfecting them. Work them until you think you have worked them enough, and then do it for twice as long! Even top fighters show weaknesses at these two moves, especially when fatigue and pain from being hit sets it. Keep the strikes straight and direct, keeping your shoulder up to your jaw, focus through the target, return the puch directly, and do it while moving. Over and over and over and over and ....................................

more gas

Well, maybe somebody reads this blog, or a lot of people are on the same wavelength as me because all of a sudden, after my last post about gas prices, I saw a couple of articles in the both the local paper and the USA Today that addressed my questions.

To sum up, the (supposed) reason why gas prices go out BEFORE the shortage hits the market is, get this, because gas companies/stations are preparing to pay for the coming wholesale prices so they are charging more now to pad themselves later! This is incredible. If any other business tried that, they would be out of business incredibly fast. Why don't they send us bills for gas we bought two years ago at much cheaper prices and tell us we owe them because now the costs are higher? Absurb, yes, but just following their own logic to it's rational conclusion.

Go on, pull the other one.

criticism

Two approaches to critisizing someone learning a new BJJ move:

1) "I see that you are having trouble passing the guard. Perhaps you should try changing your speed and being more methodical. Try concentrating on your base at all times as well as keeping your elbows in. If you feel in danger, take a half step back to safety before going further. What do you think?"

Contrast that with;

2) "You suck! I can't believe you can't pass that guy's guard yet. Are you mentally incompetent or are you just purposefully wasting my time? Get away from me and work it out on your own! "

Which do you think will work better? Which one would you prefer to be used on you? I am sure we all can agree that the first approach is the way to go, yet oftentimes I see people use the second. And I am not talking about martial arts now, but everything in life. How you choose to deal with a problem with kids, your spouse, your employer, even your country (sorry to inject a little politics) will determine your success at resolution. Maybe instead of blindly attacking, we engage in constructive dialogue. Just as the first approach helps our athlete learn to pass the guard, so other problems in life might be able to be worked out.

Or am I Pollyanna?

oil companies = crooks

Now, anybody who knows me knows that I am a firm believer in capitalism. I think if you work hard you deserve a reward. However, can someone explain to me how what the oil companies are doing is anything but criminal? What I mean is this. Gas prices at the pump are dependent are supply. If something happens to the supply, prices go up. That is cool. But how can prices increase essentially before something happens to the supply? The perfect example is this morning when I went to fill up. The gas prices are up considerably. The newscaster says the hurricane will cause supply to diminish since much of the Gulf of Mexico production will be interrupted. But how does that affect the supplies that are already in? The gas you buy at the pump was purchased wholesale at a lower price BEFORE the hurricane, so the only reason the price at the pump will jump today is price gouging and oil companie/gas stations taking adavantage of the soon to come projected shortage. That is wrong. I wish some grandstanding politician would look into that, rather than steroids in baseball.

my stand up skills

Where do my stand up skills come from? Well, as I wrote earlier, I have boxed, and did Jeet Kune Do with Paul Vunak, as well as extensively trained Savate (a criminally underrated art). Currently, besides my training partners like Howard Lawson and Mike Grandinetti and a decent amount of ability to self coach and a willingness to train hard and regularly, I owe an enormous amount to two people.

One is Adam Singer. He runs the Hard Core Gym in Athens, GA. One of his fighters, Forrest Griffin, has a three year contract to fight in the UFC. Another fighter, Rory Singer, will be there soon. He has other guys who have fought in local events, along with doing very well in submission grappling tournaments. He is a terrifc coach who knows how to tie all the the aspects of MMA (striking, clinch, grappling, conditioning, mental) together. His own performance skills are amazing, and more people would know it if he wasn't focused on being a great coach and his real career of bio-chemical engineering (or something ridiculously complex like that). I take great pride also in that he has become a very close friend. I would trust him with my life. He has two FANTASTIC instructional DVD's on the clinch. Get them both, they are must haves. Check them out at his website at http://www.thehardcoregym.net

The other person responsible for what stand up skills I have is Rodney King. He has a great background in boxing and thai boxing and has created a system that allows anyone to function at a decent level of striking in a very short amount of time. It is referred to as the crazy monkey or CM for short. The brilliance of CM is it lets people with a lesser level of athletic skill hang with people who have a decided advantage of physical superiority. It keeps you from being hit as much or as hard while having less time to train it. He also has an uncanny way of teaching someone to hit harder, more accurately, and more often than they could ever believe. He is also someone I can call a friend. He is a good person with a high sense of ethics, but his taste in music is a little suspect (sorry Coach LOL). I have the honor of being an authorized coach with his group Street Tough World Alliance (of which Adam is also an important part). He has three great DVD's that, along with Adam's two, I consider the cornerstone of my library. Check out his website at http://www.streetbrawl.co.za/

You cannot go wrong training with either one of these guys.

Mixed Martial Arts (MMA)

In a previous post, I mentioned MMA. Someone asked me what that was, so I realized that there might be more people who aren't familar with that term, so I decided to explain it.

MMA in the general sense refers to Ultimate Fighting Championship type events in which participants can punch, kick, throw, clinch, knee, takedown, and grapple on the ground with submission holds. They sometimes take place in a cage type environment, or in a boxing ring. Rules can range from fairly strict (like no closed fist punches) to almost street fight like, though this is, and has always been pretty rare.

In a specific usage of the term, MMA also can refer to those who train all of these elements together as a comprehensive system. The original UFC type events pitted "style vs. style" i.e. a wrestler against a kickboxer, a jiu-jitsu player against a karate expert, a boxer against a streetfighter. After a few years, smart fighters began to train a spectrum of techniques and tactics in order to not be vulnerable to certain situations the way most of the early UFC fighters did. What happened was people began to see that you needed to have a decent knowledge of striking, clinching, and ground grappling, so they sought out the right systems to fill in the appropriate gaps. Basically today our striking comes from boxing, Thai Boxing, and Savate. Our clinch usually stems from Greco-Roman wrestling and Judo while the ground part is from Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu with some elements of Russian Sambo and western wrestling. These arts generally provides the framework for most MMA practioners because they have been proven to work in high pressure situations. There is no theory or faith in a omnipotent grandmaster as the only proof. These things do work. In another post, I will go over how MMA works in the ring AND the street with little modification needed.

Megaton = gold

I just found out that my BJJ intsructor, Megaton, just took the gold medal in his weight class at the Rio State BJJ championships in Brazil! He will spend another week down there and compete in next weeks International Masters Championship before flying home. Good luck next week and major props for yesterday's win!!

about me

My name is Cecil Burch, I am 41 years old, and I live in Glendale, Arizona. I am an independent health insurance broker (though soon there will be some changes / additions to that resume) and I have been involved in the martial arts since I was 16. I have the world's greatest wife and the two greatest children in the world. I have a lot of different interests such as music, movies, food, and reading, but my most intense passion, outside of my wife and kids are the martial arts. So, this blog will mostly be my vehicle to comment on that aspect of my life. However, I reserve the right to occasionally post on other topics.

So, basically, when I was 16 I started doing an American Karate style. I enjoyed it until I realized that the techniques I was using in the sparring class had almost no relation to the stuff I was learning, so I left that school. I then learned mostly by book and magazines, since this was pre-video era (early 80's). When I went to Arizona State U. I temporarily shifted my focus to Rugby. Then I got the chance to go to a seminar by Paul Vunak, who at the time was an unknown newly teaching Jeet Kune Do. I was hooked. I became a regular student of his by travelling once a month to his place in Long Beach. Eventually I was promoted to Full Instructor. During this time I was also training at a local boxing gym called Top Level run by a great guy named Paavo Ketonnen. I also started extensive training in Savate under Salem Assli, where I made it to yellow glove, which is the rough equivalent to brown belt. About 1998, I severed my relationship to Vunak for my own reasons.

But, fortunately, I had the chance to begin training in Brazilian Jiu-jitsu under a fantastic coach, Wellington "Megaton" Dias. I am currently a purple belt under him, but even better, I can call him and his wife Luka (also a black belt) my good friends. Another good friend and mentor is Rodney King of South Africa, who has developed a great boxing based striking system. I am honored to be a coach under him as well. I also run the local affiliated training group (ATG) of the Straight Blast Gym, run by another friend and coach Matt Thornton. My other mentor/ coach is an even closer buddy, Adam Singer of the Hard Core Gym in Athens, GA. In addition to being an all around great guy, he is also one of the finest all around coaches on the planet. If you want to learn MMA (mixed martial arts), he is the man.

I am currently coaching a small group here in town, so if you want to work out, just drop me a line!

Joining the 21st century

Well, I finally did it. I took the plunge and joined the 21st century. I am not happy about it.

First it was the cellphone. I fought that for a few years. When I did get one, I swore I would only have it on during the day for business purposes. Now, I feel naked without it.

Next it was the internet. I wanted to only have it to use once in awhile. Now, I find myself not only using it for work, but personal stuff all the time (if I don't check my e-mail and a handful of favorite sites at least 2 or 3 times a week I get antsy).

And now this. A blog. Well, since I have come this far, I will do what I can to make this at least vaguely interesting. My next post will be an in depth look at yours truly, and then after that, anything goes!