The Warrior Geek
NYC Submission Shootout
So I’ve alluded to me training for some time and the guys and gals around here have been telling me for awhile I needed to write a post about what most of my day is taken up with. So I’m caving to the peer pressure and am going to talk about something I love, fighting.
I’ve been training in Brazilian Jujitsu for about two and a half years now down at Renzo Gracie’s place in lower Manhattan. Mind you my love of the fighting arts didn’t start here, I’ve been consistently involved in some kind of martial art since I was fifteen. I started training in Shaolin Kung Fu, largely due to my fascination with kung fu movies since I was a kid. I liked weapons, it had a bunch, and how can you go wrong with a system with Dragon, Tiger, Snake, Crane, and Leopard styles?
I moved from Shaolin Kung Fu to Wing Chun, Tai Chi, Chin Na, and then Shaolin Kempo, a mixture of traditional Japanese Kempo Karate and Chinese Kung Fu. I trained in that through college and really enjoyed it. Up until then my focus had strictly been on the Chinese arts. So I got involved finally with Judo, Brazilian Jujitsu (BJJ), and Muay Thai before moving here to NY.
Kempo student Aiden after passing his yellow belt test
Once I got here, I had to take advantage of the opportunity to train with the greatest names on earth at Renzo’s place. I continued my Muay Thai training as well and got involved in boxing and MMA through the last two year and loved it. Ultimately though I have finally forfeited all other martial arts for my love of BJJ. Brazilian Jujitsu is the closest thing to a chess match you can imagine. I’ve taught Shaolin Kempo, MMA, and a reality based self-defense system called Freeform Combative Arts for close to five years, before closing shop to focus on my training in an effort to excel at a sport I love, so I can one day teach it at the level I’m fortunate enough to learning it at.
I train rigorously and thankfully have a handful of regular training partners that go above and beyond what “most” people would be satisfied with. All of the guys and girls I train with have great senses of humor and most of them shockingly are geeks. No lie. When I entered the highly competitive sport, I expected to be surrounded by jocks, as BJJ shares some similarities with wrestling, so it tends to attract a lot of high school and college wrestlers. And there is the fair share of jocks to be sure. However, the thing that has been fun to discover is how many of my training partners are die hard video gamers, role players, war gamers, old school kung fu movie buffs, and more. Lets be honest, we geeks are everywhere.
So a typical day looks like getting up at 6 AM, scarfing down rough-cut oatmeal, honey toast, yogurt, fruit, and water. By 6:50 I’m out the door, coffee in hand, on my way to the gym. We start training around 7:45, drill till 8:30, then start rolling for four 6 minute rounds. Afterwards we drill until 10, then second 
The interesting thing about Jujitsu that is different from other martial arts I’ve studied is that there is so much more precision and training required to progress. In Kempo you learn a few strikes and a bunch of techniques on a lightly resisting partner, in Kung Fu you learn a number of empty handed or weapon long forms, in Tai Chi it’s the same. Jujitsu requires that you learn how to manipulate and submit a fully resisting opponent in both gi and no gi formats to progress. Welcome to the long haul. There is no sprinting in terms of jujitsu advancement. It requires a lot of effort, long hours, and hard work.
I relate it to boxing. You have training partners, but in the end it’s only you in the ring, or on the mat. It’s a battle of precision, skill, athleticism, intelligence, determination, stamina, and creativity. Jujitsu is a continually developing sport as people develop new submissions and defenses. The slightest variation of hip or limb placement and your or your opponents ability to capitalize on it, can mean the difference between having your arm raised and waking up on the floor.
Sunday AM training at Renzo's
The discipline required, the creativity, the scientific and analytical elements to the sport, and to a certain degree the raw satisfaction of overwhelming your opponent are all things that draw me to the game. Sure it hurts sometimes…well, more often than not. I’ve broken more toes than I care to imagine, I have a grade 3 AC separation in my left shoulder. I’ve gotten cysts, hyper extended joints, rolled my toes, jammed fingers, tendonitis, chipped a tooth, torn ligaments, and then there’s the cauliflower ear every grappler gets. Never mind all the cuts, bruises, and scrapes.
At the end of the day I love my job. I’ve seen guys spend the same amount of time refining an armbar that I’ve seen Golden Daemon winners put into painting models, Starcraft master gamers into strategies, successful authors into their novels, or highly touted GM’s into their campaigns. So sometimes I’m getting my geek on by writing the next big scene in a story, or post for GC, but others I’m getting my geek on by drilling RNC’s, omaplata’s, yoko sayanagi throws, and cross lapel chokes.
So lets talk a bit about crossing the lines of typical geek activities, into non-geek territory. Where do you find there are opportunities to geek out that aren’t typical “geek” activities? Also is the socially awkward, unhealthy person necessarily synonymous with geek?
