The Wednesday Wellness threads are meant to encourage users to ask for and provide advice and motivation to improve their lives. It isn't intended as a 'containment thread' and any content which could go here could instead be posted in its own thread. You could post:
-
Requests for advice and / or encouragement. On basically any topic and for any scale of problem.
-
Updates to let us know how you are doing. This provides valuable feedback on past advice / encouragement and will hopefully make people feel a little more motivated to follow through. If you want to be reminded to post your update, see the post titled 'update reminders', below.
-
Advice. This can be in response to a request for advice or just something that you think could be generally useful for many people here.
-
Encouragement. Probably best directed at specific users, but if you feel like just encouraging people in general I don't think anyone is going to object. I don't think I really need to say this, but just to be clear; encouragement should have a generally positive tone and not shame people (if people feel that shame might be an effective tool for motivating people, please discuss this so we can form a group consensus on how to use it rather than just trying it).
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
Notes -
Two Notes on Women in BJJ
I went up to New England to visit my in laws over the weekend. While there I visited a local BJJ gym three times. It was great to get a new flow, some new partners, some different tricks thrown at me and some more success with stuff I normally can't hit. But two funny things happened:
Sunday night, after too many cocktails, we were sitting around with some of her older family members and we were chatting about the new gym I had found up there. And I was trying to explain the sport, and naturally this turned into "Show us something on Mrs. Fivehour!" So I have her get on top of me on the ground, and slap me like she's throwing punches. Then, gently and smoothly, just to demonstrate not with any force or intent to harm, I swung her into closed guard, tied up her hands, and then went for the triangle choke. I never even fully locked the triangle, I was just bringing it around to lock it in casually when she tapped as hard as she could and let out a yelp. I untangled myself and she was flabbergasted "Holy shit I couldn't breathe, oh my God, wow, that was terrifying! How did you do that? You can just do that?" I'm not particularly good, and I certainly wasn't abusing my strength, I was just playing around; but I have pretty thick hamstrings and I often catch training partners earlier in a triangle before it is "technically" closed. Everyone laughed, we talked more about it, totally normal.
That night, we go to bed, to set the scene when we're in New England at her parent's house we sleep in Lucy and Ricky style single beds next to each other. She comes over to my bed and says, hey, FiveHour, can we snuggle? I was really freaked out when you choked me earlier. She said she's looking at me differently because she suddenly realized how easily I could kill her, that just for a second the air had been completely cut off and she was terrified. She said it was like when she saw our dog murder a rabbit, and she suddenly realized the dog was capable of that, that she'd never realized I could do that to her.
Now, Mrs. FiveHour is a very strong athletic woman. I shit you not, I have seen men on the motte or similar internet forums talk about their lifts when they're doing Starting Strength who were months in and still squatting less than her. And we lift together so she knows I can knock out deadlifts that are better than twice hers. But still, she wasn't ready for just how easy it was for me.
Point for those who claim that the male-female gender gap isn't sufficiently understood by most people.
On the other hand, Monday morning I went to the gym, and I rolled with everyone at the new gym, and I tried not to be overly aggressive because I was new. And at any gym, I basically never turn down a roll unless I'm injured. I do typically avoid the girls at my home gym, but mostly just by positioning myself away from them when everyone is pairing up, if they ask me to drill or roll I will. More of a Pence Rule thing than anything.
Well we were doing positional 2 minute rounds starting with one partner in front headlock position, and a nice young woman about eight inches shorter and eighty pounds lighter than me asked me to roll with her. I let her get the front headlock, and I probably let her get it in a little deeper before we started than I would have let a man. And I tried to avoid using any muscle or weight, just flowing through the moves and trying to use good technique, letting her work. And the little bitch managed to tap me out. I gave her too much slack and she hanged me with it. It's the first time I've been tapped by a woman, and for several seconds I couldn't believe it. She got me in a perfect front headlock strangle, and there was no way I was getting out of it without trying something desperate and more likely to injure someone than escape smoothly. And anyway, she had earned it, she had the strangle on tight, and I tapped. She was the only one to tap me that practice.
So on the other hand, that was humbling, a point for women in the battle of the sexes: there is a point at which a woman can submit me, if I'm not at least a little careful.
I've actually started, when rolling with partners who are much smaller/weaker/estrogenic, listening to one of the coaches and once we are in contact on the ground in guard, I'll close my eyes and try to flow roll without looking, trying to feel their bodyweight shifting and reacting to mine. I'm not sure if it has "helped," but it is a really neat experience.
Isn't the whole point of martial arts (at least some technical ones, like BJJ) to make this possible? I mean, if it were all Grogg smash and whoever has the best muscle wins and there's no possibility of the weaker partner to prevail at least sometimes at some point, then what would be the point of learning all those intricate techniques instead of just hitting the gym and eating the proteins or whatever is the recommended way of getting more Grogg smash in.
Surely, strength matters, so if you'd lose to a much weaker opponent all the time, you're probably doing something wrong (or they are extremely good). But getting it once in a while, when you didn't play full strength, by a choke (which - I don't practice BJJ but I can assume - is not supposed to be a strength-against-strength thing) is IMHO not very surprising.
Same with sports, and yet regional U16 boys teams routinely beat world-class women's teams in hockey and soccer (at least).
Being better than every woman in the world at a physical activity isn't too outlandish for a man, and I'd bet that being better than every woman in a given city isn't uncommon among dedicated amateurs.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link