the kind of sub you actually respect
i had my first mixed martial arts lesson today, very unexpectedly.
our regular tuesday jiu-jitsu instructor, whose class i look forward to all week, wasn't there this evening.
instead there was a shorter guy, maybe 5'6" with a thick country accent, who introduced himself as "stoney." stoney is a veteran cage fighter.
he said our regular instructor had sent him to "entertain" us in his absence. i did not doubt him.. i had heard of stoney.
mostly from people saying: "great technique! but try it on stoney and see what happens!"
and so we did. the three of us who showed up to class all tried to pin him, and within seconds (literally, seconds) all ended up in some terrible submission hold.
his credibility thus established, we spent the next hour working stoney's four-point standing clinch system. we were enlightened on the finer points of delivering knees to the chest and stomps to the head.
also, he imparted a technique he called the "off button," which essentially consists of driving your weight through your elbow into some part of your opponent's face. it turns off their attempts to escape. very reliably.
since it's not really dangerous, it's mostly just mean and funny, in a schadenfroh kind of way. it was, he admitted, his idea of a joke. you gotta love a guy who crushes faces for grins.
just as hilariously, he kept talking about "taking them down, stomping the head, then doing jiu-jitsu."
all of us students kept looking at each other incredulously.
we asked: why, stoney, would you need to use jiu-jitsu techniques on someone whose head you just stomped? shouldn't that pretty much take care of it?
he replied, confidently, that there are some really tough people out there.
now, the idea of someone tough enough to take a soccer kick to the head and keep trying to fight you is pretty much terrifying to me.
but apparently stoney would not be impressed. indeed, stoney would be upset if you gave up so easily. he expects more of an effort.
anyway, despite all his beautifully efficient ways to hurt people real bad, despite mma's reputation as a sport for thugs, stoney brought us some philosophy too:
there is always someone bigger, stronger, or more skilled. you can't win every fight, and that's something you have to come to terms with.
you have to judge your progress against yourself, compete against yourself.
he told us to just do our individual best, and be content with that and nothing less. his final analysis was that what he did, what we were doing, was ultimately for self-improvement.
i agree.
our regular tuesday jiu-jitsu instructor, whose class i look forward to all week, wasn't there this evening.
instead there was a shorter guy, maybe 5'6" with a thick country accent, who introduced himself as "stoney." stoney is a veteran cage fighter.
he said our regular instructor had sent him to "entertain" us in his absence. i did not doubt him.. i had heard of stoney.
mostly from people saying: "great technique! but try it on stoney and see what happens!"
and so we did. the three of us who showed up to class all tried to pin him, and within seconds (literally, seconds) all ended up in some terrible submission hold.
his credibility thus established, we spent the next hour working stoney's four-point standing clinch system. we were enlightened on the finer points of delivering knees to the chest and stomps to the head.
also, he imparted a technique he called the "off button," which essentially consists of driving your weight through your elbow into some part of your opponent's face. it turns off their attempts to escape. very reliably.
since it's not really dangerous, it's mostly just mean and funny, in a schadenfroh kind of way. it was, he admitted, his idea of a joke. you gotta love a guy who crushes faces for grins.
just as hilariously, he kept talking about "taking them down, stomping the head, then doing jiu-jitsu."
all of us students kept looking at each other incredulously.
we asked: why, stoney, would you need to use jiu-jitsu techniques on someone whose head you just stomped? shouldn't that pretty much take care of it?
he replied, confidently, that there are some really tough people out there.
now, the idea of someone tough enough to take a soccer kick to the head and keep trying to fight you is pretty much terrifying to me.
but apparently stoney would not be impressed. indeed, stoney would be upset if you gave up so easily. he expects more of an effort.
anyway, despite all his beautifully efficient ways to hurt people real bad, despite mma's reputation as a sport for thugs, stoney brought us some philosophy too:
there is always someone bigger, stronger, or more skilled. you can't win every fight, and that's something you have to come to terms with.
you have to judge your progress against yourself, compete against yourself.
he told us to just do our individual best, and be content with that and nothing less. his final analysis was that what he did, what we were doing, was ultimately for self-improvement.
i agree.