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Keep your jiu jitsu routine during summer

It is very important to keep your jiu jitsu routine in the summertime. This goes for both adults and kids. All too often, the weather gets nicer and people don’t come to class or parents consider taking their kids out of jiu-jitsu for the summer.

For the adults, maybe we hit the beach of the weekends or have a pool. Remember, once you get out of your routine, it is hard to get back in. Egos take a blow when we no longer can keep up with the guys or ladies that stayed disciplined all summer. You don’t want to be that guy.

Keep going!

Have you ever been on a diet or were on a workout routine that was really working for you?  Maybe you were trying to get in shape for a vacation, the summer, or another event. You had fantastic results when you stuck on that schedule. Everything was going great, clothes fit better, had more energy, you were at your target weight. You thought, “I’m going to stick with this after my vacation. I feel great!”. Then, you go on vacation, feeling great about yourself. Reality sets in when you get home.

Hard to start again

You have been unhealthy and you miss the first workout on Monday because you need to “get back into the swing of things.” Futhermore, you miss Tuesday and Wednesday. Hence, you swear you’ll start again next Monday. As a result, a few days then becomes several weeks. You lost your motivation and now become frustrated because you feel like you have to start all over again.  You’ve lost momentum. It is akin to pushing a stalled vehicle. It is very hard at the beginning but it gets easier as you get it going and the wheels are turning. Jiu Jitsu requires the same type of momentum. It becomes easier to see results the more consistently you do it. Once you stop, you feel like you have to move that vehicle all over again.

Keeping your child’s routine

Keeping a child’s routine during the summer is much more difficult because we need the help of parents. Every summer, many parents consider taking their children out of jiu-jitsu. It can be for so many different reasons. More play dates, maybe you just want to give them a break, maybe they are in day camp, you have vacations or day trips planned or maybe, quite honestly, you just want a break. After all, it’s the summer, it’s time for fun! One small problem with that, there is a reason you brought your child to jiu-jitsu. Maybe they were overweight, had self-esteem issues, needed discipline or focus at school. Whatever they were, you came here with goals and we were working with you to improve them.

Don’t lose Momentum

Taking a break from martial arts is not the same as taking a break from a sport they play. Lessons of the martial arts are used to build your child from within to reach their goals and face their fears. Taking the summer off isn’t just taking a break from the techniques and takedowns, you are taking a break from focus, from confidence. And like I said with the adults above, they will feel like they have lost momentum. In addition, they will feel like they are staring all over again. Furthermore, they will start to compare themselves to all of the other kids who did not take the summer off. Most of all, the kids who didn’t will be closer to promotions and seeing their teammates get promoted and them falling behind will give them a sense of failure, harming their confidence and progress. Promotions won’t come if they haven’t put in the work. Please keep them on a routine in the summer, it makes the winter much easier.

One of the most important lessons to learn in BJJ is to train when you are tired.

Normally, we do not want to do anything when we feel this way. However, studies have shown that training though fatigue results in better maintenance of strength and improved postural control. Specifically, endurance athletes and soccer players who performed strength or balance exercises at the end of their training sessions, rather than at the beginning. They were less negatively impacted by fatigue during their matches. All athletes can also see psychological benefits from pressing past their physical limits.

When you learn to withstand fatigue and push through something difficult, it gives you confidence. It’s empowering and shows you that you can do more than you likely thought you could.

Training tired forces you to use your technique because you do not have any power left. This will make you a better technician on the mat. This is why many smaller practitioners and women generally have better guards than powerful practitioners, because they are forced to rely on their technique.

Danaher on Training Tired:

One of my old training partners and instructors, John Danaher, recently touched on this on his Facebook Page. “Anybody can train when they feel like training – the real question is whether you can train when you don’t feel like it. This constant pushing for better results comes at a price. You see the gym is empty behind us. A few hours previously it was packed with nearly eighty people in an afternoon class. Now they are gone. But Mr Cummings remains. This pattern of extra effort beyond the norm is the distinguishing characteristic of all great enterprises. So often people ask me how my students became so adept at the skills they display in competition – if they could see the daily price they pay in time and effort their question would be answered before it even left their lips…”

It is important to try this. When you train tired, you also find out more about your weaknesses. When we train fresh, especially bigger and stronger practitioners, we can mask weaknesses with explosive strength. You can’t do that when fatigued and as a result, you will find out more about situations where you are weaker.

This is also important especially in self-defense scenarios, when you won’t have control over when you can stop fighting. You will have to know what you are capable of and what you are NOT capable of when exhausted. While, training tired you will gain a deeper understanding of your own strengths and limitations, and in the process will toughen you up. Don’t push it to the point that you hurt yourself, because then you won’t be able to train at all.

Savarese BJJ would like to congratulate Mateo Santiago, a North Arlington Kid Martial Artist on being awarded Student of the Month for the month of June. Mateo, known as Happy Feet at the school, trains consistently 4 days every week alongside his older brother Antonio. He is also one of the Award Winning Kids Competition Team members, having been part of every Team Title that the kids have won. Over the last few months, Mateo has really grown as a Jiu-Jitsu practitioner and is getting close to being promoted into the teens program.

About Savarese BJJ

Lyndhurst NJ Children’s Martial Arts is beneficial in many ways. Children who participate in Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu classes quickly increase their physical fitness level. Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu involves both large and small muscle groups in the body. Improvement of physical well-being is not the only goal.

Our program can and will help your child increase their confidence, self-esteem, discipline, while teaching them life skills that will last them a lifetime.

Our award winning program, your child will be able to progress at their very own pace. We understand that everyone learns differently. No matter if your child can only train once a week or every day, we have the program that will fit your needs.

New Jersey kids Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu develops many traits in your child. These traits include:

• Increased self esteem
• Greater Self Discipline
• Increased ability to Focus and Concentrate
• Elevated Self Confidence
• Overall Improvement in Attitude
• Improved Physical Fitness Level
• Development of Leadership Skills
• Greater Respect for themselves and others
• Increased Patience
• Greater work Ethic
• Better Understanding of How to Channel Aggression

Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu is also a fun, competition based sport if your child chooses to compete. We prepare students to compete as well in separate competition based classes and we have one of the top competition teams in NJ, winning 6 team championship in various tournaments over the last 3 years.

Don’t let your child become a statistic. Call Savarese BJJ at 201-933-5134 for a free class.

How to properly add to your jiu-jitsu is a question I get asked a lot by white and blue belts. There are many answers to that question but the main ones are as follows: don’t quit trying and perfect your fundamentals. Everything in BJJ builds upon the fundaments in one way or another.

Too often, I see a student fail at a technique they recently learned. Instead of trying to figure out what they are doing wrong, the student will write off that technique as something that does not work. The old idiom “Rome wasn’t built in a day” applies here.

You will not perfect a technique or be able to add it to your jiu-jitsu by practicing it 5 times. The technique should be drilled over and over until the movements are down. Following this, you can start to try it against people while rolling. If you are not successful against a more experienced person, try it against someone smaller or less experienced than you. Eventually you will be able to make progress against your more experienced partners.

Malcolm Gladwell explores a similar concept in his book Outliers. Throughout the publication, Gladwell repeatedly mentions the “10,000-Hour Rule;” claiming that the key to achieving world class expertise in any skill is to practice it for 10,000 hours. Without putting in the time, there’s no way of knowing if something is going to work for you by hardly practicing it.

Try and fail. Then fail again. The only way to become successful at anything is to fail at it first.

When I was a purplebelt, I worked for over a year on my half-guard. My good friend and training partner, Joe D’Arce, used to tap me with darce chokes constantly. I used to joke “that choke was perfected on my neck.” Moreover, I would also get flattened a lot.

One day during a training session with Fabio Leopoldo, he fixed a small detail for me to win my underhook and not get flattened. From there, the position took off and became a strength in my jiu-jitsu. It then opened up other options like arm drags and sweeps. The point is, I failed for months before it became one of my strengths.

Don’t give up. Keep trying.

I always tell my students that you are only as good as your worst position. Keep trying the techniques until they work and turn your weaknesses into strengths.

Professor Chris Savarese is the owner/head instructor of Savarese Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu in Lyndhurst NJ. If you would like to try a free class, call 201 933-5134 to set one up.