Angry Old Goat Jiu-Jitsu

Oxygen, the older grapplers advantage.

Along my journey training Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, I have had many instances of what you might call “AH-HA” moments. None has been so profoundly beneficial to my BJJ education, as the practical use and preservation of oxygen, during rolling.

Regardless of your age, you need sufficient oxygen to power your brain and muscle mass. Many will tell you that instinct will eventually kick in when all else fails, but experience dictates that low oxygen levels in the body in general, can cause a slew of problems, beyond just getting tired.

As we age, we lose our maximum sustainable heart rate. The curve on this can vary, but at my age (57), I am lucky to see my heart rate ever hit a sustained 160 bpm. This can be a real handicap for the older grapplers, if not accounted for and dealt with properly.

The general rule of thumb seems to be, we all start at 220 bpm as a child and lose one sustainable beat per minute for each year of age. With most experts recommending that we not attempt to exceed 90% of this figure, during training.

To put this into perspective, the less beats of the heart, the lower the blood flow potential and thus the less usable oxygen reaching the needed organs and muscles. Breathing faster does little to improve things, if the heart rate just isn’t keeping up with the oxygen supply. Compounding this issue, is the added handicap of tired and restricted blood vessels and arteries.

If you break down the science behind this, you eventually discover “flight or fight”, which exposes some additional less known, but extremely important issues.

When our body or brain perceives we are in severe danger, electrical signals from the body and brain fire off a chain reaction. This reaction triggers the release of hormones and sends systems into panic/preservation mode. One of these hormones is Cortisol. While it has many benefits, the body’s reaction to its presence, can also be detrimental to one’s ability to perform in a grappling match. Cortisol has many functions, one of which is prepping the body for a life-threatening event. The presence of cortisol in the body, triggers a stress mode, which in turn lights up chemical and physiological responses in the body. From the perspective of the older grappler, oxygen is already less available and even more critical to manage. Flight or fight mode has its advantages, but it really is not programmed for grappling. Once your body activates fight or flight mode, switches throughout the body activate and certain safety measures kick in. For grappling in general, we are concerned about one particularly significant switch, that trips and triggers the blood vessels and arteries to constrict, in preparation for a potentially severe laceration or loss of a limb.

Let us consider this for a moment. If a predator attacks and severs a limb, reducing blood flow could be the difference between life and death. It does makes sense, but if the blood flow was not as restricted, perhaps the predator would not have caught us in the first place. Increased blood flow may also be the difference between rational thought and problem solving, versus the instinct to run, potentially exposing us to even greater vulnerability. Increased blood flow allows muscle groups to perform at a much higher level, potentially enabling a more likely escape. So a proper balance is needed.

The next problem with the fight or flight response and the added levels of cortisol, is the collection of blood volume. You read that right, the body pulls as much volume of blood to your core as possible, to protect you from bleeding out completely from that lost limb or laceration. Limbs hold a large amount of blood to do their jobs and a loss of a limb could take with it, a large amount of critically needed blood supply.

So let us go over this again. If you get stressed enough, your body goes into fight or flight mode, chokes down your blood flow potential and by this action, reduces your oxygen carrying capacity. As the blood vessels and arteries constrict, it also hordes as much of the blood volume as possible into your core, so if you do lose a limb, you won’t die right away. It also starves out your muscles of much needed oxygen and in effect, causes the very issue it was programmed to protect you from, your capture and likely dismemberment. Perhaps 10,000 years ago, predators only ate one limb and let you live. One thing is for certain, these basic mechanics handicap everyone, but older grapplers are even more disadvantaged by the mechanical self-preservation safety net of fight or flight.

Flight or flight can be conditioned to only trigger from extreme circumstances, with proper knowledge and training. If you regularly experience being smashed on the mat by bigger, stronger, faster grapplers, you either adapt or tap. The time it takes to train the body to adapt and stop overreacting to this type of stress varies from person to person. One advantage we have as older grappler’s, is patience. While it is true that younger people can also be trained for this, older people tend to have less impulse and are not as quickly steered into matching force with force and speed with speed. Controlling your reaction to an opponent takes some practice, but in my experience, it is far easier to master controlling this aspect of my game, than it is to build up my body up to meet the forces and speeds of the younger opponent.

Here comes the science and the home work.

I have personally studied this concept during rolling many times, using a Polar H10 Chest band on both myself and opponents. The results are always pretty consistent, with age and experience being major factors in the results. One recent test, of 10 x 5 minute rolls, against a black belt age 36, weighing 200+ lbs with good physical conditioning and myself, a brown belt age 57 weighing 207 lbs, with good physical conditioning, proved the science once again.

While all rolls were at full resistance and neither of us successfully pulled off a single submission, regardless of our attempts, the younger black belt used considerably more aggression and energy, measuring 1225 calories burned and an average heart rate of 180 bpm and a maximum heart rate of 193 bpm (well beyond recommended levels). I measured only 487 calories burned and a maximum heart rate of 142 bpm and an average heart rate of 124 bpm. After all ten rounds were completed, the black belt was completely exhausted and could no longer continue, while I was able to roll a further five rounds, before running out of opponents. In a discussion afterwards, the black belt believed I had better cardio than him, but the data doesn't lie. In his elevated state of aggression, his body flooded him with cortisol. The resulting cascade of effects impaired his performance and dramatically overworked his body. Skill levels aside, if you can't fully fuel the engine, it matters very little, how big, strong or even advanced the engine is.

I have done this test many times and the results are always similar. My wife also wears the Polar H10 during training and her results bare out the same. As an older grappler we are capped in or maximum performance, but experience and wisdom can make a huge difference between being destroyed on the mat and dominating it.

So how do we control our bodies to prevent the cortisol dump from occurring?

Here are a few pointers that work for me:

#1 Low levels of oxygen cause irrational thinking, so always protect your breathing. If you are being smashed, work on to your side. If it seems impossible to get off your back, at least put both feet as close to your butt as possible and elevate your back off the mat, by lifting with your hips and core. You will be pleasantly surprised how easily you can lift even a giant and safely begin breathing again.

#2 Keep your limbs in tight to the body. Unless you are attacking, escaping, or performing a “Wet Willey” maneuver, try to always keep both arms in tight and close to each other. Separating your arms is a primary goal of any aggressor, so make that job as hard on them as possible.

#3 When on the bottom, stay on your side whenever possible. The mat offers your opponents on top, added stability. Being flat on your back, makes it easier for them to reach the mat and use both the mat and you as base point’s. Getting on your side, forces them to maintain their own base and compromises their stability. Maintaining their balance and control, while you are on your side, is much harder for them. Switching from one side to other as they attempt to progress, is low energy consumption for you and screws up most of their attacks.

#4 Stay calm. Do not let them set the pace or increase the pace. Good oxygen flow is only maintained while you are calm. When the brain is fully oxygenated, you have better potential for rational thought. Use your brain more and body less, by evaluating the situation and reacting accordingly, instead of impulsively. The moment you let impulse take over, you switch to fight or flight mode and your oxygen potential drops quickly.

#5 Shelter in a safe place when oxygen is low. If you have exhausted yourself by escaping, attacking or some other exercise in futility, find a safe position to regain your oxygen. Oxygen recovery is priority one.

There are tools for measuring heart rate and oxygen saturation, such as a Polar H10 band, or others, which you can use to track your performance, but overall, the best indicator of success in this practice, is how hard you are breathing when a match ends. If you are completely exhausted, you probably are not using your resources effectively and you’ll likely recall having lost your calm during the roll and your energy as a result.

This takes time to understand and put to practice, but as an older grappler, this will give you the edge you need to stay ahead. Denying your opponent’s, the luxury of oxygen is a great strategy in BJJ and highly effective at all skill levels. You can find creative ways to cause your opponents to enter “fight or flight mode” and chuckle as their lights burn out, without their much needed oxygen supply. While you may not be able to see their oxygen levels or calculate how much cortisol is flowing in their body, you can feel it in their energy levels and hear it in their breathing.

Interestingly enough, I find that I most successfully teach this theory to older grapplers, who have sufficient experience to understand the difference between a real threat and a perceived threat, during a roll. If you aren’t that experienced, but have this knowledge and put into practice, you may just cut your learning curve considerably and start enjoying destroying young impulsive monsters, as much as I do.

Learn to master your calm and upset your opponents calm during rolls and you will dominate.

It’s not who’s the best, it’s who’s left. To be the one left in the end, you need to arm yourself with the best knowledge.

See you on the mat – Angry Old Goat.

Belts & Stripes and what they mean to the older grappler.

By this point in my BJJ journey, I have spent a considerable amount of time training BJJ. There are a few things I wish I had a better understanding of from the start of my BJJ journey and one of them was belts and stripes. BJJ is arguably one of the most difficult martial arts to understand and progress in and a clearer understanding of ranking would have been nice.

Belts were not always a factor of rank in BJJ and many would likely argue that today, they mean very little in the scope of measuring one’s proficiency. As an older grappler, this can be frustrating, especially when you have received your first colored belt or stripes for that matter and you find yourself a target of lower belts, looking to boost their ego by submitting you.

First let my start by saying that belts and stripes are a weak indicator of the skill of any opponent. They are really just a measurement of someone’s time in the study of BJJ. It’s not uncommon to come across a purple, brown or even a black belt, that can be easily submitted by a purple, blue or even the occasional white belt. This holds especially true when encountering older grapplers with colored belts. This is likely part of the thinking behind setting up Master’s brackets in BJJ tournaments. More often than not, stripes are mostly used for ranking in a lineup of similar belts or serve to help give instructors a visual reminder to consider what knowledge a particular student should have acquired by this point.

In most cases, stripes are awarded for time spent training and most associations have rules or standards, for how many stripes may be achieved, when a belt promotion may occur and a minimum time frame. Most schools tend to require a specific amount of class time to achieve each stripe and at the point when the student is maxed on stripes and eligible for a belt promotion, they are tested and awarded their new belt with no stripes. It seems to be a general consensus, that asking for a promotion is a big “No No” and your instructor ultimately decides when a promotion or stripe is appropriate.

Many schools use specialized software to track attendance. Some host gauntlets so to speak, for stripe promotions and full-blown tests for belt promotions. Belts are generally awarded only a few times per year, where stripes may be awarded at random intervals, based on the need.

Some schools award stripes on the basis of tournament wins and belts are rare, based almost entirely on competition success. Finding the right school for you can be the difference between staying on the mat and quitting, so I would highly recommend that you get a clear picture of the instructor’s choice of promotion methods, prior to committing to a long contract and countless hours of training, only to find that you are in the wrong school for your needs. Less than 1% of BJJ students will compete and a much smaller subset will do so with any frequency. With that said, some older grapplers may not be at all interested in competing and as such, may not fit in well in a competition-based promotion system. Most people do not compete, so don’t feel like you need to compete to find the value of BJJ. BJJ is so much more than just a competition art.

I have learned a few things about belts, stripes and the opponents wearing them, so here are some of my incites.

Obviously, white belts are the most dangerous in terms of predictability and hold the highest probability of injuring themselves and those they roll with. Stripes on a white belt are a means of motivation and mean very little in the scope of ability.

Blue belts are marginally less risky, but most are still white belts, just wearing a colored belt. Schools that require a student to complete or physical test to achieve a belt, tend to have a higher caliber of competency, where schools that promote based solely on time, often do not. A blue belt promoted early may have been a wrestler or have experience in another art and are equipped with a much higher degree of competency. This often fades away by midway through blue belt, where most of the skills granting said advantages, are no longer much of a boost to success on the mat.

Purple belts are experienced, knowledgeable enough that many teach and often know as much as a black belt, but lack the finesse and refinement.

Brown belts are exceptionally skilled and can play with the best of them, often instructors and from a competition stand point, sit at the very pinnacle of skill, before having to move to the realm of black belt, where skill levels can very massively from one opponent to the next.

Black belts are obviously the top of the art and most often the instructors. The skill level of the black belt is all over the map in terms of knowledge and ability and many black belts say they feel like a white belt all over again, upon receiving their black belt.

So what does all this mean to you as an older grappler?

Stripes indicate how much mat time a person has at their belt. The more stripes, the more time at that belt. The difference between a no stripe and a four stripe is normally massive in terms of both knowledge and ability, but not always. Belts indicate time in the art and in many cases, they person wearing the belt has undergone extensive testing to ensure they possess the necessary knowledge for their belt. You’ll notice I did not say that belts and stripes indicate skill. While you can play it safer by assuming more stripes or a higher belt equates to more skill proficiency, in many cases you’ll find it matters very little.

How do you benefit from stripes and belts?

Stripes remind you and others of where you are in your belt, in terms of time. They are a good way to encourage motivation and often grant you position in the lineup. Belts indicate that you have demonstrated the knowledge required to achieve that belt and often move you further up the lineup, as a reward for your commitment.

In GI competitions, belts determine brackets, along with weight and age. There are sometimes sand-baggers, that jump from school to school, avoiding promotions, to gain advantage in competition.

In NO GI competitions, time in the art is the measure of brackets, often cheated by simply jumping from school to school and telling each school they are brand new to the art. Luckily, platforms like Smooth Comp are being used more and more, helping oust these people.

So stripes and belts can give you some warning of a person’s ability, but I find more often than not, that I vastly over estimate my opponent’s abilities, based solely on stripes or belts.

How do you apply stripes and belts to your own personal journey?

Stripes tell you how much time you have committed to training and warn you of nearing promotions. Belts tell you what is expected of you and where you are on the path to black belt.

What do stripes and belts mean to others?

Sadly, a belt or stripe can mean something different to others. Some collect taps like trophies and view a colored belt or someone with more stripes at the same belt as a potential bragging right. Most see them simply for what they are and measure your commitment and time invested in BJJ, by your stripes and belt.

What should I be doing at each belt?

I once saw a post from a black belt, that really summed it up for me.

White belt, elementary level school BJJ student. Learns names of moves, basic fundamentals and keeps coming back, despite the pain, suffering and taps. Feeds countless opportunities to be submitted to opponents, often easily submitted, but praised for their effort.

Blue belt, high school level BJJ student. Has basic fundamentals refined, learning to escape everything, regardless of opponent’s attributes or rank. Feeds fewer opportunities to be submitted to opponents and harder to submit. Often the target of white belt tap hunters.

Purple belt, 4 year college BJJ student. Basic fundamentals are a breeze, beginning to master submissions, developing chained techniques, competent enough to teach others, yet new enough to still understand and sympathize with lower rank ed students. Expert escape artist and very dangerous to black and brown belts, so much so, that higher belts may no longer take risks with them. Feeds few opportunities to be submitted to opponents and very difficult to submit, but not always aware of complex traps set by higher belts. Often skips warmups.

Brown belt, 6 year college BJJ student. Advanced technique savvy, chained techniques and escapes that turn into submissions are common. Often instructs, a regular target of purple belts. Prefers to murder purple belts and posses a keen sense of all aspects of BJJ. Feeds almost nothing in terms of opportunity to opponents and near impossible to submit. On the rare occasion they give an opponent something to work with, it most likely ends poorly for the opponent. Can make lesser skill opponents fall into traps easily, despite seeing it happening in real-time. Barely does warmups.

Black Belt, PHD BJJ student. Most likely instructors. Possess an extensive BJJ knowledge base with a highly tuned sense of risk -vs- reward. Can be boring to roll against for a lack of attack options, but highly respected among BJJ practitioners. Feeds nothing to opponents, that does not include a heavily stacked risk for the opponent. Near impossible to submit by anyone under brown belt and often leads opponents into traps, with little to no indication. Plays dead during rolls and can turn any situation around to their advantage. Eats brown and purple belts, nurtures white and blue belts and prefers not to do warmups, unless they are leading the class.

There are very few instructors I’ve met who had out praise and rightfully so, if you look at things from their perspective. To a black belt, a white belt probably looks like a would-be brawler, waiting to be victimized. Anyone with less knowledge is likely very boring to watch and it’s probably hard to hand out praise, when you see a grown adult doing a technique for the 300th time, like a five-year-old takes on algebra. Stripes and belts, serve as our praise and often come with a healthy dose of respect from other students.

Being an older grappler, stripes and belts remind me of the time and effort I’ve put in and my place along my BJJ journey. The level of respect that comes with a belt is nice, but in reality, I see stripes and belts as markers of the expectations they represent. Having a higher belt does not mean I have the secret to defeating all those with less rank and I do not measure my success by my belt. I will say that at every new belt, I felt inadequate of the new belt and just before each new belt, I felt like I was finally befitting of that belt.

So now you have a basic understanding of stripes and belts, so see them for what they are and try not to chase them. Enjoy your time at every belt and remind yourself of the hard work and commitment you and others like you have put in to achieve them.

As for competition and belts, if you are chasing gold medals, be the big dog in the fight, not the little dog. A new purple belt is just a slightly better blue belt. A new brown belt is a slightly better purple belt. If you want to be the big dog, compete at your rank, when you are not new to it, but rather when you’re seasoned at it.

See you on the mat -The Angry Old Goat

Dealing with training pain, being an older grappler.

Pain is not something we can escape when we’re older grapplers, but there are some common themes and useful remedies out there.

Grappling has awarded me plenty of pain over the years and I can’t say that the pain part of the brochure was not cleary disclosed, or I may have done things differently from the start.

What I have learned about pain, has enabled me to train 6+ days a week for years on end.

If you break down the mechanics of the human body, there are some useful bits of knowledge that when looked at closely, actually explain why we have pain and what to do with it. Muscles consume oxygen to work and the byproduct of that process is lactic acid. Like any acid, left sitting around, it can build up and dissolve tissue. While this process is useful in most regards, grapplers often take days off between training sessions and leave the acid hanging around. The longer it sits, the more pain we feel. Muscles also develop from use and we often over develop one side of a movement and leave the opposing side under developed.

Here are some tips I’ve found useful in my old age.

Tip #1 Train regularly and you can work the lactic acid out of your system sooner. Yes, you will replace it with more, but it’s not the fresh acid that’s the problem, it’s the standing accumulation over time and letting it just sit around. You may have noticed this already, but often when you take a couple of days off, the pain is worse two to three days after, than it was the day after. Regular exercise and more grappling, is a great answer to reducing the suffering after training.

Tip #2 Pace yourself. You will find that if the pace it right, you can train everyday if the desire is there. To accomplish this and gain the most benefit, you need a pace that allows you to both learn and perform. This means that everyday is not a competition or a day to demonstrate your dominance. Remind yourself that you are going to be training again soon or even tomorrow and you need to have the body and mind for it. I get it, everyone wants to be a winner, but if grappling has taught me anything, it’s not who is better, it’s who still at it. If you’re leaving a match completely gassed, or your limbs are fried, you need to back way down. Really good grapplers will barely break a sweat against most of the class. Use technique over speed and strength. Your body will be happier and your results will be better. I try to get 10 five minutes rolls per day minimum. You can’t keep up that pace, if you are going for the gold on every match. For the best growth in your skills, be sure roll people of all different attributes. Size, speed, strength and flexibility, all offer their own set of challenges. Take advantage of variety and you will become a well-rounded grappler. Working with the same person all the time, only teaches you how to deal with that particular person.

Tip #3 Vitamins and minerals are quickly depleted from regular training. I would recommend you get blood work once per year, to see what your nutrition looks like under the microscope. I use my yearly cardiologist checkup, to get the extra blood work done. The better your nutrition is, the better you will perform. I still eat burgers, I still have a shake and I like to eat out a couple times a week, but I also eat healthy before training and three times a week are vitamin days, when I take all the regulars like amino acids, D3, fish oil, kelp (for iodine), beats (for Iron) and a few others. Sometimes I get lazy and forget to take my vitamins and I pay for it a few days down the road. Which vitamins you need and how often, will depend on you, but if you’re serious about training and reducing the pain factor, figure out your own plan and use yearly blood work as the indicator of what you need. I also take blood pressure and cholesterol meds, which took some serious trial and error to get right with training. The side effects of medications can manifest in crazy ways with training. Mine was constant muscle cramping and fatigue. My doctor and I worked it out over time and we are both happy with the current mix and the results.

Tip #4 Sugar. I love sugar myself, but after many years of isolating the things that cause me pain and inflammation, sugar was the big antagonist. While I am not proposing you drop sugar, though many would argue you should, high doses of sugar with any regularity are bad for us older folks anyway and catastrophic to our training. You need carbs, especially after training, but be reasonable. Many of us use our training for health and weight loss, so working your butt off training, only to grab and burger, fries and a shake afterwards is a slippery slope backwards. The fact is, carbs play an important role in recovery, but high doses of sugar are taxing to the body and will slow healing and cause inflammation. I like to cheat one day a week and go all out on my sugar craving. I usually pay for it in terms of suffering, but one day a week gives me some semblance of the wild side and I can still keep a clear conscience. Days when I do cheat and eat a bunch of carbs, like chips at a Mexican restaurant, are consistently my worst training days. It took me a few years to isolate this and some serious will power to except it, but lower carb days, reward me with better training sessions consistently. I found that apples were a good snack for me and gave me good energy during training. Bananas, aren’t bad either, but there are a lot of calories in bananas, so be warned.

Tip #5 Eat a good nutritious meal two to three hours before training and consume all the extra water you’ll be dropping from training. It takes days to hydrate and only minutes to dehydrate. Get in the habit of staying well hydrated, even on off days. A meal a few hours before, gives you time to store up energy reserves and clear out the old pipes before training. The size of that meal will dictate if you digest it fast enough to train comfortably. Eat what you’ll need and no more, to avoid discomfort during training. What you eat, will determine the value it brings and keeping track, will get you the best results. I’ve seen studies that indicate that grappling is one of the most intense, calorie burning things the human body can endure, but your training level won’t be the same every day, so plan your meals with the anticipated output you’ll be working for. I like to step on a scale before I head to class and weigh myself beforehand and again when I get home after training. I do this to see how much water weight I lost during training. The water loss is normally somewhere between 3-7lbs. Days when I go extra hard, it’s a much greater water loss. The amount of water I lost is a good indicator of how hard I trained and how much I need to replace in terms of nutrition and hydration.

Tip #6 Stretch, stretch, stretch! Older grapplers need to be as pliable as is still possible, but that isn’t going to happen with a normal 10-15 minute warm up set. You can arrive early to stretch more, or stretch before you leave home, but stretch. There are many places on the body that grappling will build enormous improvements in strength and flexibility. These often come with the risk of building or improving in only one direction. It’s important that you keep all your muscles and tendons working together evenly. Properly stretching is a great start. If you are getting pain in the elbows, wrists, knees, etc, you probably lack the proper eccentric movement capabilities, due to tight tissue in the opposing direction. YouTube has some great medical videos for therapy you can do yourself, to eliminate issues for climber’s and tennis elbow, wrist pain, ankle and knee pain and a myriad of others. Eccentric exercises bring back the balance you need, when you over use muscles and tendons in mostly only one direction. Stretch after class, but keep this short and sweet, so you can get some protein, carbs and the necessary hydration back in you, for a quicker recovery. It is very important to fuel up, within about 30 minutes of cooling down.

Tip #7 Heat works better than ice. I’ve tried all the various sport recovery systems and consistently, heat has done more for my recovery than anything else. A hot shower after training relaxes all the stressed tissue and allows more blood flow into the area. Once or twice a week, a hot bath with Epsom salt, is a great way to soak your tired sore body and recover some much-needed electrolytes. The magnesium seems to have a profound effect on strained tissue and softens things up. I’ve never really looked that deep into it, but I always feel better after a 20 minute bath in Epsom salt.

Tip #8 Avoid the mental trap of thinking you need to weight train outside of grappling to be good at grappling. Many people do both, mostly younger people. If you need to be bigger and stronger to be a winner in grappling, you aren’t really a good grappler. I have met many younger grapplers that have had major injuries from weight training. While they will argue that it helps prevent injury, an awful lot of them end up injured, either from weight training itself, or over taxing their systems during grappling. The fact is, the bigger your muscles get, the less mobility you have and more oxygen carrying capacity you need to use them. I roll guys younger than half my age every day and still end up untapped or doing the tapping consistently. I hear the same line all the time “Man you’re strong”. The phrase is not wasted on me, but I have the standard response every time “I am strong, or is it all just in your head?” The fact is, grappling isn’t about strength, it’s about leverage. As an older grappler, our tools are limited and risking them for the sake of an extra ½ inch of bicep or thigh, is less efficient than an extra hour rolling. Besides, more muscle means more oxygen is required to do the job. Oxygen requires blood flow and your heart rate is already limited when you’re older. If you want to be good a grappling, do grappling. If you want to look like you’re strong, lift weights. For those stuck in the middle, only time will tell if you can support both and stay with it. It’s normally the guys between 35-45 I see using weight training to attempt to improve their grappling. I can say that I have not seen any noticeable improvement from any of their effort, beyond them spending more time in front of the mirror, admiring themselves.

Tip #9 Nothing comes easy, by now you know this well, so constantly remind yourself of all that you have achieved despite your age. I hear older grapplers tell me all the time, that they can’t remember ever being in better shape. Stick with it and compare yourself against yesterdays you. If grappling was easy, everyone would be an expert. Everything of value takes time, effort and perseverance. You made it this far and are better for it, so hang on to that thought and keep at it. Clearly you are a warrior or you wouldn’t be here now. Wear that notion with pride and ignore the younger grapplers trying to get attention and prove their prowess. If you’re like me, they will keep coming at you until you come to class with a walker. Such is the job of the silver backs.

See you on the mat -The Angry Old Goat