(Or worse: men wearing spandex…)

So why do we do it?  What’s behind this bizarre fascination with grappling?

In ‘Blood, Sweat and… Sparta!‘ I take a stab at answering these questions.

And then, in a sister piece that doesn’t have much to do with grappling, I go off on a wild tangent (‘Bears, Belugas and an Offshore Tide on Hudson Bay‘.

These are the last two entries in the Top Ten Grapplearts Articles List that I’ve been sharing with you over the last little while. And even though I cheated by linking to two articles in one blog post, I still suggest that you check them out at the links below:

ARTICLE 1: Blood, Sweat and… Sparta!
http://www.grapplearts.com/Blog/2010/11/598/

ARTICLE 2: Bears, Belugas and an Offshore Tide on Hudson Bay
http://www.grapplearts.com/Blog/2010/11/609/

P.S.  The original blog comments for these articles were lost after a Facebook update.  But it’s fixed now, so please add your voice your opinion to the conversation in the Comment With Facebook’ section at the bottom of each post.

Nevertheless I was recently surprised to see that there are now more than 500 articles, tips and blog posts on here now! Not all of them are by me – some are articles by guest authors – but that’s still a heck of a lot of content!

So I thought it would be interesting to point you to some of the top articles from the archives…

Here’s my criterion for what consitutes a top article:  the amount of positive feedback I’ve received about it and how many people it has helped.

Now you might already  have come across some of these articles by surfing, via google, reading about it in one of my newsletters, or  following a link on a friend’s Facebook or Twitter feed.  (Thank your friend for me if that’s the case!)

But as I share the top articles there might still be a few surprises in store for you…

OK, enough preamble!!

The article that I probably get the most feedback about, and has probably helped the biggest number of people, is almost certainly Grappling with Claustrophobia in BJJ.

I don’t suffer from claustrophobia myself, but I’ve heard from tons and tons of grapplers who’ve had to deal with it to varying degrees.  Including a few successful MMA fighters who, for obvious reasons, wish to remain nameless.

The bottom line is that claustrophobia CAN be beaten, or at least, mostly controlled. For some tips and inspiring stories on how to beat claustrophobia in a grappling context please visit the following article.  Or send it to a friend!

Here’s the full url:

www.grapplearts.com/Grappling-BJJ-Claustrophobia.html

I’ll post again soon with top article number two!

It has nothing to do with martial arts.

But in a way it has EVERYTHING to do with martial arts!  Plus the sports-specific training footage is pretty cool too, and might give you some good ideas for your own conditioning!!

But sometimes the breaks are longer than a couple of days. Life intervenes, and before you know it weeks, or even months have gone by and you’ve only trained once or twice:(

It’s easy to get down about this and want to throw in the towel altogether, but hear me out. Training layoffs are normal, and ultimately inevitable. They happen to everyone.

Ecclesiastes (and the Byrds) had it right: “to everything there is a season.” It just wasn’t your BJJ season for a while…

I’m a black belt and a self-proclaimed ‘expert’ on grappling and BJJ. But this doesn’t make me immune to ups and downs in my own training.  One of my dirty little secrets is that my own training suffers every time I’m working on a new Grapplearts video. For example, I’m working on a soon-to-be-released video project right now, and because of the long hours spent writing, designing, filming and editing, I’ve been lucky to get on the mats once a week.

Kind of ironic, isn’t it? I’m working on a tool to give everyone else’s grappling skills a huge boost, but at the same time it causes my own skills to temporarily decline… (Don’t get me wrong, I’m NOT complaining about making videos. I work on these projects because I love doing them. I just hope that admitting this it puts things into perspective a little bit.)

You see, training layoffs and slow-downs no longer freak me out. I know that whatever is making training difficult will eventually pass and I’ll be able to get back into it full-bore! A BJJ black belt usually takes 9 to 12 years, so you’re definitely in this for the long haul. And on that timescale things are going to come up in EVERYBODY’S life, no matter who you are.

Let’s get a bit more specific…

Say that things get crazy for you at work. You’re putting in 70 hours a week at the office. You barely have time to brush your teeth, let alone sneak away three times a week for your usual training sessions.

It may take a few months, but then you finally get things under control and are ready to get your life back. Time to start training again!

I’m not gonna lie to you; your first couple of sessions probably won’t be pretty… In fact, there are TWO areas where you’re probably going to be most challenged in your game.

The first problem you’ll likely notice is that your ENDURANCE now sucks. You’ll be sucking wind bigtime when you drill, and especially when you spar. This inability to go for as long and as hard as you could before your layoff is partially due to a decrease in your objective fitness (by ‘objective’ I mean that you could measure it on a treadmill).

In the running world they talk about specific measures of fitness like ‘VO2 max’ and ‘lactate threshold.’ These are numerical values which tell you how fit you are. And if you haven’t been training for a while then all your numbers probably just went down!

In addition to these objective physiological factors killing your endurance, your ‘sports-specific fitness’ just went down too! For example, you won’t be moving as smoothly and efficiently as you were before your layoff. You’ll use muscle to pull off moves where once you would have used leverage. You’ll use strength instead of timing. You’ll rely on gross body movements where once you would have automatically made more subtle adjustments.

All this means that you’ll be burning more energy, which, of course, makes you get tired faster.

Now I said that there were two problem areas after a layoff… The second thing to go out the window when you don’t train is your TIMING.

It’s a mental thing.

Your opponent will start to pass your guard but your brain will be like the computer in the original Star Trek series (…computing… …computing… …computing…). You’ll remember the perfect counter to the guard pass long after the chance to actually use it has come and gone.

When your timing is messed up like this then your brain is soaked in molasses – always a little too slow and a little too late.

But the good news is that it will all come back to you. As I’ve now said many times, training setbacks happen to everyone. Your timing and your sports-specific endurance AREN’T gone forever; they’ll come back, I promise!

Remember that every Mundial medalist has had layoffs, and every UFC champion has spent time on the couch waiting for injuries to heal. If they managed to get back into it, so can you. To get back to your previous level you need to stay strong, believe that it will all come back to you, and KEEP TRAINING!

Here are some real life tips-from-the-trenches about what you can do minimize your loss of skills during these inevitable training layoffs and get you through the tough times. (I’ve included a lot of links to other articles, make sure to check them all out!)

Layoff Survival Strategy 1: Make Time for Grappling

There’s no doubt about it. The more you train, the better you get (provided, of course, that you don’t overtrain).

Friendly competition between training partners is the heart and soul of getting better on the mat. So if you don’t train as often, chances are that you’ll be left in the dust relative to most of your training partners.

Everyone continuing to improve while you stagnate can be very frustrating, and sometimes it’s a natural reaction to want to throw in the towel completely. The thought process might go something like “screw it, I won’t train until I actually have the time to do it properly.”

But this is a mistake…

Here’s a noted authority (that would be *ahem* myself) talking about how often you should train in a week:

“But let me reassure you that training once a week is much, much, much better than not training at all. You will maintain at least some of your timing and conditioning, and will be much further ahead when you can return to your previous level of training. Of course if you can augment your weekly training session with some cardio or strength training so much the better.”

So if you’re going through a crazy busy time, try to figure out a way to somehow sneak out and train once a week… Or once every two weeks… Or even just once a month…

My BJJ coach, Marcus Soares, calls guys who train infrequently ‘tourists’ and jokes about them needing a visa to be allowed into class. But it’s all in good fun. And the truth is that he’s still glad to see them…

Now it’s true you probably won’t improve much with once-a-week training (unless you’re a complete beginner). But at least it keeps your head in the game and prevents your skills from backsliding completely.

If you can’t train at your regular club because you’re traveling for work or pleasure, then you’ve got another option. Find a club to train away from home!

Many BJJ and grappling clubs offer drop-in training, especially for out-of-town training. There’s often a small fee – usually $10 to $25. But even if it’s a really high drop-in fee (I’ve seen up to $40) it’s still less than what you’d pay for a single person at a good restaurant, so just consider it part of the whole vacation.

And even a single training session in an unfamiliar club will give you valuable insight into how other people train. To find a school either use Google or search the Grapplearts school database.

Training in a new, unfamiliar club can be an experience worth going out of your way for!

For example, in a previous life I was required to travel across the continent to just outside of Lakeland, Florida. Once there, I worked in a gray office cubicle, chained to a computer, for 10 hours a day. There were no BJJ clubs in town at the time.

One of the highlights of my time in Florida was the once-a-week visit to Orlando where I would train with BJJ black belt Marcelo Grosso. I’d leave right after work and then spend 1 1/2 to 2 hours in traffic get to Orlando, but training at this club was a really cool experience! And it helped prove to me that my timing and sports-specific endurance wasn’t going to disappear overnight.

Who knows! If you train a few times at a new school you may even learn a technique or two with which to confound your training partners when you get home again!!

Sometimes the best way to get through a tough time is with a little help from your friends. Specifically friends who are willing to train with you at unusual times and/or in unusual settings.

Being physically flexible is a good thing in BJJ, but so is being flexible with your training schedule! And a little lateral thinking about where and when to train can go a long way. I’ve rolled with training partners who had full time jobs and could only meet me for 6 am training sessions. And late at night on mats laid down in my kitchen. And in police stations, the back of a friend’s factory, and on a tarp laid down on top of grass in the park…

Take a good look at your schedule. Being conscious about how you spend your time is incredibly important!!

Laura Vanderkam – the author of “168 Hours; You Have More Time Than You Think” – cites a poll in which the average North American thinks he/she only has 16.5 hours of leisure time in a week. But, strangely enough, the average American also watches somewhere in the range of 18 to 23 hours of television every week.

Hmmmmmm….

(I threw out my TV years ago. One of the best things I ever did: freed up tons of time…)

So let’s say that you absolutely, positively don’t have time to train. Fine. I accept that. I’ll even agree that it sucks and feel appropriately sorry for you.But not if you’re still managing to watch all new episodes of Entourage, Glee, and Dancing with the Stars, plus posting on Facebook five times a day. If you can do this then you DO have the time to train, and I’m a little less sympathetic!

Layoff Survival Strategy 2: Find Time to Exercise

Do anything you can to avoid becoming a sedentary blob!!!

When I was in Florida there weren’t any BJJ or submission grappling clubs in town. I’ve already talked about my weekly pilgrimage to Orlando, but another piece of the puzzle was the daily run. Almost every day on the way from office to hotel room, I’d squeeze in a quick 2 to 3 mile run on a trail around a pretty lake.

Running is such a good way to build up your endurance. It’s been called “the king of the exercises” for good reason… Some people find running boring, but I think that being outside makes it a lot more enjoyable for me.

Here’s a list of tips that might help you if you’re one of those people who ‘just can’t run.’

Here’s what it comes down to: human bodies are very adaptable and this is a double edged sword.

On the one hand, it’s a good thing because it means that our bodies actually respond and adapt to the stresses encountered in the environment. For example, if you lift a heavy weight every day then eventually you’ll get stronger and that weight won’t seem quite so heavy.

But our adaptability can also be a bad thing. For example, as a species we’re very good at accumulating body fat. Maybe this was a good thing when our caveman ancestors needed to store energy for the winter, but in the modern era we’ve got so much cheap food all around us that our programming to eat more works against us.

So if you spend your days driving a desk in an office and don’t counteract that with exercise then your body will adapt, but in the wrong way. Your metabolism will slow down, your body fat will increase, your endurance will decrease and your bones will get weaker. These changes will make life much harder for you when you get back on the mat, and put you at an increased risk for injury. So it’s really important that you find a way to include some physical exercise into your weekly 168 hours.

Assuming you sleep 8 hours a night, that leaves you with 112 hours of waking time every week. And from that perspective you should probably be able to squeeze in a couple of hours of straining and sweating somehow, right? And one or two hours a week are a hell of a lot better than nothing!

I don’t believe that holidays are an excuse to let yourself go. After all, cruise ships usually have treadmills as well as ridiculously overflowing all-you-can-eat buffet tables! In fact, I wrote a whole article about how to staying fit on holidays…

When it comes to working out you can do a lot with a bit of determination and improvisation. If you want some inspiration then check out the workout routines of these MMA fighters (some of these fighters are no longer active, but you might still get some good ideas from their routines nonetheless).

But don’t think that you have to do epic UFC-style workouts. When you’re under the gun, then do Yoga, running, crossfit, bodybuilding, Pilates, Zoomba, pole dancing or fitness bootcamps in the park, it really doesn’t matter!

The bottom line is to do something – anything – to keep moving.

Layoff Survival Strategy 3: Keep Your Mind Active

Yogi Berra said “baseball is 90% mental, the other half is physical.” And the same is true in grappling.

I’m not going to get into the nitty-gritty of it here, but there are no shortage of studies demonstrating the power of visualization. Basically, if you think about an activity hard enough, then your brain basically is ‘tricked’ into thinking that you are actually doing it. And that literally improves your objective performance of the task.

The take-home message is that the more you think about an activity, watch an activity, and research an activity, then the faster you’ll improve at that activity!

I believe that deliberately, attentively watching grappling videos – either footage of people rolling/competing, or instructional footage – is a form of visualization. And in the modern digital age there’s no shortage of online video, DVDs, downloadable instruction, etc. etc. that you can use to keep your mind sharp during layoffs.

Here’s some specific examples of how the internet helped my training. And while we’re on that topic, here’s some great advice on how to actually use instructional media to get better (plus a bit of background on what’s happening at the neurological level too):

I’m not saying that watching instructional DVDs and youtube clips is better than actually training. But doing something is a hundred times better than doing nothing! Unchallenged muscles shrink and get weaker. And your grappling brain works much the same way, so challenge your noggin any way you can. If life takes you away from the mats for a while, keep your chin up and your eyes on the prize. You WILL eventually figure out a way to train regularly again.

And since you’ll eventually get back to training I’ll leave you with a few tips on coming back from a training layoff!

Take care, and good luck
Stephan Kesting
www.grapplearts.com

And  when it comes to tapping out bigger, stronger, heavier opponents there’s nobody quite like Marcelo Garcia.

Not only is he a four time world BJJ champion and three time ADCC champion in his weight class, but he’s often fought in the absolute division as well.  In fact he’s faced weight disadvantages of a hundred pounds or more, and has almost always emerged victorious!

Here’s a video we shot at his NYC academy where Marcelo actually breaks down his best strategies and favorite techniques for both sweeping and tapping out larger opponents.

Go watch it now: it’s really good!  And believe me, he defeats larger, stronger guys with these exact techniques ALL the time!!

P.S. While we’re talking about fighting larger opponents check out this 5 DVD Set I filmed with 3 x World Champion Emily Kwok.

Emily trains with Marcelo and has basically ‘reverse-engineered’ his game.  It’s full of techniques, drills, strategies, and tips to Defeat the Bigger, Stronger Opponent. Since I produced it I’m clearly biased but it’s really good and has gotten amazing reviews from grapplers large and small!

]]> http://www.grapplearts.com/Blog/2011/04/how-marcelo-garcia-defeats-larger-stronger-opponents/feed/ 0 http://www.grapplearts.com/Blog/2011/04/what-getting-better-is-really-all-about/ http://www.grapplearts.com/Blog/2011/04/what-getting-better-is-really-all-about/#comments Sat, 02 Apr 2011 22:59:37 +0000 admin http://www.grapplearts.com/Blog/?p=841 I just got in from an awesome training session, but before I head out and enjoy the sun for a couple of hours I’ve just got to share this with you.  You see, a couple of days ago I heard a great quote that’s been rattling around in my brain ever since because it’s totally applicable to BJJ, MMA and submission grappling.

“To live through an impossible situation, you don’t need the reflexes of a Grand Prix driver, the muscles of a Hercules, the mind of an Einstein. You simply need to know what to do.” –From The Book of Survival by Anthony Greenbank

Becoming a good grappler also involves getting in shape and honing your timing, but mainly it’s simply a matter of knowing what to do.

For example,

• If you’re mounted and your opponent is defending his neck and his arms, do you know what to do?
• If you’re passing the guard and your opponent defends by flipping into an inverted guard position, do you know what to do
• If your 250 lb opponent is defending the armbar by clasping his hands together, do you know what to do?

The list goes on and on…

Getting better at grappling simply means that there are more and more situations where you DO, in fact, know exactly what to do!  So keep on training, ask those questions, watch those videos, read those books and you won’t be able to stop yourself from improving.

He’s also my friend and a mentor.

Recently I asked my newsletter readers if there was something in particular you wanted to ask Erik.  (Hey, if you were signed up for the FREE Grappling Tips newsletter you’d have been able to ask questions too!).

Anyway, within 5 minutes the email floodgates opened and the deluge of questions started.  At last count there were more than 500 questions in the queue…

We just finished getting the interview ready for you!  Here’s just a bit of what Erik shares:

• What training with the Gracies in their ‘garage days’ was like
• How wrestling can improve your BJJ, and visa versa
• The theory of the jiu-jitsu wheel
• The strategic and tactical differences between catchwrestling and BJJ
• The key to rapid-fire submission attacks
• Erik’s philosophy on training with and without the gi
• What’s the best time to attack with leglocks
• Leglock safety tips
• How to develop a fighter’s gameplan
• Tips for defeating larger, stronger opponents
• What training with Brock Lesnar is like
• The best conditioning exercises for fighting and grappling
• A glaring weakness (and fantastic opportunity) in today’s MMA game

-

There’s at least three ways you can listen to this interview:

1) Hit play on the video below, and/or
2) Right click on this link and select ‘save as’  to download the mp3 file to your computer, and/or
3) Subscribe to the Grapplearts Podcast in iTunes.

Thanks and Merry Christmas!

Here’s what one anonymous Australian BJJ student in his thirties had to say:

—————————–

Hi Stephan,

Thanks for that cool post on BJJ for non ‘natural athletes.’  I think he’s come to the right place – that post should help him.

I too was a natural ‘unco’ as we say in Australia (i.e. ‘uncoordinated person.’)  High school sucked in many ways, but into my 20s and 30s, mindful training helped me overtake some of those former athletes, many of whom – now in their late 30s – are looking like Homer Simpson…

A BIG thing that helped me was ‘functional’ strength training, ie incorporating useable movement patterns and ‘instability training’ that challenges stabilizer muscles.  This included:

• Kettlebells: for me the hype’s been 90% true. (backed up with solid programming, of course)
• Yoga – mainly Iyengar and Ashtanga Yoga
• Scientific stretching: PNF work, Pavel Tsat’s techniques: great for plateu busting
• Sandbags
• Gym rings- basic
• Basic gymnastics, handstands, rolls, judo rolls, tumbling
• Floor-to-ceiling bag
• Rope-climbs – especially for grip work.

All this training is designed to correct the movement dysfunction created by a lifetime of chairs and playstation or video games (I was more of a reader).

And as you said, consistently following a program is super-important!

The main thing I want to get across is there’s so much ‘smart’ training information out there that can help people.  Scientific flexibility, functional strength, Tabata protocols, viking warrior conditioning, yoga etc…  I try to take a ‘Jeet Kune Do’ attitude to digesting it all – absorbing what is useful, discarding what is useless.

Strength and athleticism is TRAINABLE !!

—————————–

And here’s what Christopher said about plateau-smashing on the Grapplearts Facebook Page:

“This article really put things in perspective for me. Thanks!

I trained 1-2 times a week for a good while, having tons of excuses etc, for over 2 years back and forth. Stagnated. Also frustrated to see classmates advance and me not because of the lack of commitment. My own doing.

This week I have hit 3 classes and have 1 more to go. I am already feeling myself move better and seeing how things link quicker. I didn’t put in the mat time. I have mastered a craft off the mat and I can attest it took me about 8 years of every day, 10-12 hours a day to get there.”

—————————–

You can click here to follow all the discussions on the Grapplearts Facebook page. (And while you’re there, hit ‘Like’ too!)

Fair warning: what I’m talking about today has absolutely nothing to do with martial arts training.  But – in keeping with a previous theme – it has everything to do with deliberately facing self-imposed challenges, whatever they may be.

Recently we talked about why martial arts training provides some of the few ‘real’ rites of passage in today’s society (click here for that article, entitled Bood, Sweat and… Sparta!!! ).

In that post I touched on an 82 day solo canoe trip which – for me – had served as a coming of age ritual of sorts.  When I finally got back to civilization I contributed a piece about the last three days of that trip for a book called Paddle Quest: Canada’s Best Canoe Routes.

Here, with the kind permission of Allister Thomas, the editor of the book, is the story of one of the most formative experiences of my entire life.

Hudson Bay, from the Seal River to Churchill

A map library is a dangerous place to be if you have the urge to jump into your canoe and go for a paddle.  It only took one September afternoon in the University of Toronto map library to connect enough lakes, streams and rivers to get from Jasper, Alberta in the Rocky Mountains to the coast of Hudson Bay.  This was a trip that would take me halfway across Canada, most of it far beyond the reach of roads and civilization.  It took another eight months of preparation and almost three months of paddling to complete this trip of a lifetime.

From the beginning I knew that this would be a solo trip.  All my paddling partners were firmly entrenched in their jobs or studies, so a three-month trip was out of the question for them.  Partners would have made the going easier and safer, but I was going to have to rely on meticulous planning and cautious canoeing to provide a safety net.  As my friend, longtime arctic trekker Gino Bergeron, once told me: “it’s okay to go on a solo trip, but you need to make sure that you always stay at least one notch below your limits.”

The Athabasca, Fond du Lac, Cochrane and Seal rivers carried me 2,700 kilometers across Canada.  I paddled down rivers, ran rapids and sailed across lakes.  I poled, lined and portaged my way up rivers.  I struggled to find old portages or bush-crashed my way to create new ones.  It was a beautiful, and at times deeply challenging, journey.

But it was the last 60 kilometers – from the Seal River delta along the coast of Hudson Bay to Churchill, Manitoba – that caused me the most hardship.  And I feel that there is a real danger to glorifying canoeing on Hudson Bay – this was the only part of the trip that I would hesitate to repeat on my own, or recommending to other paddlers.

The threat of sudden storms, extremely swift tides, and the ever-present threat of polar bears should not be underestimated: Hudson Bay is the most potentially dangerous and unforgiving body of water that I have ever paddled.  It was also beautiful, unforgettable and, in retrospect, the perfect ending to my journey.

As the Seal River spills into the cold waters of Hudson Bay it divides into a huge delta – islands and channels form such a complex mosaic that even with a compass and a detailed 1:50:000 topographic map you soon give up trying to keep track of your exact position.

Most river deltas deliver a slow and tired waterway to its final resting place in a lake or ocean; not so with the Seal.  This delta seethes and churns with whitewater all along its 15-kilometer length.  Needless to say I was pretty focused on navigating the continuous rapids, but after several hours of careful maneuvering in the delta I was finally able to spot the vast expanse of Hudson Bay.  Finally, at the base of an enormous wave train, I was able to taste oceanic salt in the water.

I pulled my 16-foot Kevlar Prospector through the intertidal mud, and climbed the low promontory where paddlers typically meet their pick-up boats from Churchill.  There was, however, no boat waiting for me.  The trip had been so long, and involved so many variables, that I hadn’t wanted to commit to a specific pick-up date.

An option that had crossed my mind was wait at the mouth of the river and try to hitch a ride to Churchill on a chartered pick-up boat when one came – as it surely would – to get another group of paddlers.  In fact I’d just met two such groups with scheduled boat rides  in the last few days.  Things were getting a bit busy on the tundra, as one of these groups consisted of 18 teenagers and two adults.

Although they were willing to give me a lift I was hesitant to take advantage of their offers.  I love canoeing with people, but when it really came down to it, I didn’t want to spend the last days of a spectacular solo trip in the company of any group.  My plan, for better or worse, was to paddle the Bay itself.

Instead I filled all available containers with fresh river water, checked my EPIRB (Emergency Position Indicator Radio Beacon) and tide table, bucked down my spray deck and took paddle in hand once more.  It is difficult to explain now, but at the time there was a feeling of doing the right thing.  An acute awareness – almost a hypersensitivity – of the wind and waves came over me.  This red-alert mode stayed with me the entire time that I was on that windswept and tide-torn coast.

Beluga Whales

I pulled away from shore, looking for the deeper navigable waters that lie beyond the tidal flats, and my heart sank when I saw whitecaps on the waves.  Looking more closely, however, I realized that the whitecaps were the white backs of surfacing beluga whales.  In a matter of minutes I was in the middle of a pod, and it seemed like there were hundreds of these great mammals all around my fragile craft.

I was transfixed by the sights and the sounds.  There were squeaks, moans, whispers and hundreds of other whale noises.  Once I swung around in my seat, trying to locate the crying baby I had just heard, only to realize that the keening had come from a beluga only 3 meters behind me.  Although full of respect for the power of these magnificent creatures, I never felt that I was in danger; they never came close to touching me.

This dance continued for a while as I paddled south along the coast.  As I finally paddled away from the beluga pod I felt I had made the right decision venturing onto the waters of the Bay.  Even if I was stormbound for a week, paddling with the whales would have made it worthwhile.

Late that evening, about 10:00, I decided to get some rest.  Unfortunately the tide had gone out so far that making it all the way to shore was impossible (the tidal flats are up to 5 km wide in this part of the Bay).  “Camp,” therefore, was established on a small elevated mud plateau in the intertidal zone, about 2 kilometers from the actual shore.  I dozed fitfully for a few hours, not wanting to sleep too deeply for fear of polar bears and the returning tide.

At this latitude the sun rises at about 3:00 AM during the summer months, and as it rose I started dragging and portaging my gear back across the flats, towards the approaching tide.  With the wind so calm I wasn’t content to stay put and wait for the water to come to me; I wanted to get in as many hours of paddling as possible before the afternoon winds picked up.

It was hard work and I soon became absolutely ruthless, using my canoe as a sled for my gear and dragging it through puddles barely deep enough to cover the toes of my boots.

Eventually I was afloat again, and in the early hours of July 22nd I paddled past the Knife River Delta.  I was now about halfway to Churchill.  But in order to find water deep enough to paddle in I had to be far offshore.  The low relief of the land and its tundra vegetation meant that shore was barely visible, often just a thin line on my right-hand horizon.  In order to go the right way (south) I had to follow compass bearings while trying to compensate for the effect of tide and wind.  The consequences of getting washed out to sea by the 5-meter tide was constantly on my mind.

To avoid the steadily rising offshore winds I decided to make camp in the early evening.  The site was on a sandbar parallel to the coast.  The presence of plants and a high waterline were reassuring: they told me that it was unlikely that I would be washed away during the night.  While eating dinner I studied the far-off grain elevators of Churchill, thinking and strategizing about the best way to negotiate the waters of the Bay the next day.

Suspicious clouds in the distance convinced me to use boulders from the tidal flats as anchors to secure my tent, and I also piled boulders and driftwood into my canoe to stop it from blowing away (which had come close to happening during windstorms on previous trips).

That night, despite the ferocity of a tundra rainstorm, I fell into a most delicious sleep.  The adrenaline had finally worn off, after 32 hours of almost continuous paddling and traveling.

Offshore Tide

During the third and final day of paddling, I decided for the first time to try and paddle with an offshore tide.  To be safe, I stayed between the shore and the last exposed boulders of the intertidal zone.  If the tidal current overpowered me and started washing me out to sea, my plan was to paddle over to one of the tiny rock islands and hang on for dear life until the tide subsided.

I also resisted the temptation to leave the shore and cut across the final large bay between myself and Churchill.  Although that shortcut might have saved me about 10 kilometers of paddling, I had heard too many horror stories about storms coming in as paddlers set off to cross the expanse of Button Bay.  No, better to take a bit of extra time and hug the shore.  I didn’t want to have an accident now, not so close to the goal.

But hugging the shore had its own inherent difficulties.  The huge tide and the speed of the current heading out to sea made it necessary to set the canoe at an angle and ferry across the offshore current, just as if I was crossing a river.  And then there were times that the water was so shallow that it was easier to use the paddle as a pole, shoving myself along the sand and gravel seabed.

Fort Prince of Wales, and Churchill

Just as my arms were about to fall off, I reached the base of the thin peninsula separating me from the outflow of the Churchill River and the port of Churchill.

The 2-kilometer portage across the base of the peninsula was easy when compared to the prospect of having to paddle around the tip in ever-more-turbulent seas.

And the portage even went right past Fort Prince of Wales, built in the 1730′s to guard the northerly territory of the Hudson Bay Company against the French!  The gates were open and I got to explore the fort on my own for an hour or so.

As I prepared my final dinner of the trip and waited for the winds to die down enough to cross the wide Churchill River, I reflected on the past months and realized that arriving at my goal was creating conflicting and discordant feelings.

On the one hand, I was elated at having arrived; the grail was within my grasp, and the goal I had striven for in eight months of planning and  paddling was finally before me.  On the other, I knew this was the end of a certain simplicity, wherein life had come to consist of sleeping, eating, setting up camp and paddling.  The act of living and traveling in the bush had become ‘normal’ to me; I only had a few hours left and I knew I would miss it.

Nonetheless, I was ready for ice cream, warm showers, music and the train ride taking me south.  I wanted to see the photos on my 15 rolls of film, and I wanted to spend time with friends and family.  I also felt slightly guilty about wanting these things, so seemingly antithetical to the whole experience of the summer.

On the three-day train ride from Churchill to Toronto I stared making peace between these conflicting feelings.  I mourned the end of the adventure, but nothing could take away or diminish my memories.

And because I still had two weeks of food left in my bags, every time the train crossed yet another mysterious and inviting river, I wanted to stop, get off, and start all over again

This may sound a bit weird coming from a guy who runs a grappling site, but I want you to ask yourself a question: why on earth are you spending hours and hours rolling around on the ground with men wearing spandex and/or pajamas?

Really… I mean it’s not the easiest of activities.  And it’s sweaty and sometimes it’s even painful…

Obviously there’s self defense benefits to training, but if that was your only concern then you should just buy a gun!

There are health and fitness benefits, sure, but wouldn’t it be easier to just hire a personal trainer a few times a week?

I think that a large part of the appeal of grappling is that it ISN’T a walk in the park!

We don’t train because it’s easy.  We train because it’s hard!

And the major milestones in your training – attending your first class, competing in your first tournament, getting your black belt – function as a sort of rite of passage, which is something that we’ve mostly lost in our society.

We have to remind ourselves that in bygone times rites of passage weren’t easy.  There was no guarantee of success.

But you need the possibility of failure to get the transformation and transcendence.

Let’s look at some historical rites of passage.  Not only is there the possibility of failure, but many of them were actually pretty brutal.

Did you see the movie 300?  Do you remember the flashback to King Leonidas killing the wolf as a teenager?  That was actually part of the brutal krypteia ritual that young Spartan men had to undergo in order to come of age.  And not all of them survived.

Old navy rituals for pollywogs (new sailors crossing the equator for the first time) sent many injured men to sickbay, but also marked an important transition in the sailor’s career.

And not all Australian Aborigine adolescents who took off into the bush for months to do their walkabout returned.

Am I saying that you have to go out and assassinate slaves bare-handedly like ancient Spartan youths?

No.

Am I saying that you should get beaten with boards and flogged with wet ropes like a sailor in the Royal Navy?

Not exactly…

But there is a certain glory in dragging your butt to class and getting it royally kicked.  Or waiting to compete at a tournament, scared s***less.

Most people get up, go to work, come home, watch some TV, and go to bed. And repeat it all the next day.  Repeat, repeat, repeat…

That’s NOT what you’re doing – you’re doing something tough.  Something challenging.  You’re putting it on the line in a public setting and you could publicly fail.  It’s not easy, but it’s probably going to change you and make you a better person.

Of course I’m not suggesting that all modern rites of passage need to come from the martial arts.

For example in my career with the fire department there have been certain ceremonies that served to mark the the transition from civilian to recruit, and then from probationary to a full-fledged firefighter.  And there was also an 1,800 mile (2,880 kilometers) solo canoe trip across the Canadian North that I undertook as a sort of vision quest.  It remains one of the pivotal experiences of my life.

Whatever the rites of passage have been in YOUR life,  they’ve served as markers of psychological time.  They’re lines in the sand where you can say “there, regardless of what happens now, I’m a little different from when I began.”

The martial arts – training, competing, conditioning – are an entirely voluntary, self-imposed, self-improvement ritual.

By pushing yourself physically, mentally and emotionally you’re going to grow as a human being.

You train because it’s hard. Good for you.

Click here for part two of this article: Belugas, Bears and an Offshore Tide on Hudson Bay