Finding My Corner · Living Strong Community

Finding My Corner

Yesterday I spent part of my day training no-gi Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu. I got in about four rounds of what we call randori, or live training. Everybody I trained with was younger than me. At 65 years old, I can pretty much count on that these days, which makes me laugh.

Now, because most of you here in the Living Strong community are not martial artists, let me set the stage a little.

Each round lasts six minutes. For those six minutes, two people are grappling and wrestling with each other while looking for opportunities to control the other person's body. We move through different positions, looking for ways to control an arm or a leg or apply a choke. If an arm lock or leg lock were taken too far, something could get injured. If a choke were held too long, someone could go unconscious.

Obviously, we're not there to do either of those things.

That's where something called the “tap” becomes important. If your partner catches you in a position where you know the technique is there, you physically tap them with your hand or your foot, whatever is available. If you can't do that, you say the word “tap.” It is a very simple form of communication that means: Stop. Release me.

And you release. Immediately.

So when you watch Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, it can look like two people rolling around trying to choke each other and bend each other's arms and legs in directions they probably shouldn't go. And, well, that's partly what we're doing. But underneath all of that is something much more interesting to me: awareness, communication, trust, control, and the responsibility to take care of the human being you're training with.

One of my training partners yesterday was probably around 6'2", at least 200 pounds, and extremely strong. Before we started, I told him what I was working on. I wasn't interested in seeing who could overpower whom or how many times I could get him to tap. I wanted to flow and connect. I wanted to move from one position to another, pay attention to the transitions, and recognize opportunities for arm bars and chokes as they appeared. If I arrived at one of those positions, I wasn't concerned with finishing it. I wanted to recognize that I had gotten there and continue moving.

For me, the work yesterday was in the transitions.

He understood exactly what I meant, and then we started moving.

What impressed me about him wasn't his strength. That part was obvious. What impressed me was how little he needed to prove that he had it. He knew how to move his body. He knew how to use his weight without simply dropping more than 200 pounds on a 65-year-old man. When he applied pressure, it had purpose. When he didn't need the pressure anymore, it disappeared.

Then there was one small moment that stayed with me.

Somewhere in the middle of all that movement, my foot became caught in his pant leg.

I felt it, and he felt it.

Had we simply continued moving, my body could have gone in one direction while my foot remained trapped in another. That's exactly the kind of moment when somebody can get hurt.

But neither of us needed to say anything.

We both felt what was happening. There was a subtle pause in the movement. We slowed down just enough for me to free my foot, and then we continued.

The entire thing probably lasted only a few seconds, but afterward I thought about how much was contained inside those few seconds.

Awareness. Assessment. Appropriate Action.

My A-Game.

Awareness: Something had changed.

Assessment: What is happening right now? What is the risk? What are we actually here to accomplish?

Appropriate Action: Slow down. Free the foot. Make sure we're okay. Continue.

There was no tap because there didn't need to be one. He didn't need me to tell him I was in danger. He was aware enough to recognize the situation as it was developing and adjust what he was doing.

That impressed me.

Strength is easy to see. Awareness is quieter.

This man had the physical ability to hurt me. I had the ability to hurt him. That's the reality of the activity we had chosen to practice. But neither one of us was there to hurt the other. We were there to work together, challenge each other, learn something, and leave the mat able to come back and do it again.

After our round, we talked. He asked how old I was. When I told him I was 65, he seemed genuinely surprised. He commented on how strong I was and assumed I must lift weights.

I told him I don't. I train.

That conversation brought me back to something that sits at the heart of my book, Living Strong Through Martial Arts: A Life Time Journey of Martial Virtue.

As I grow older, there will naturally be things I do less of. There may be less speed, less explosiveness, less strength, and eventually less movement. I'm not interested in pretending aging isn't happening. I'm interested in discovering what happens when I continue practicing while it does.

In some ways, I think of my life as a living thesis.

What happens if martial arts isn't simply something I do to prepare myself for life? What happens if the practice becomes part of how I actually live?

I train while I can train. I move while I can move. I adapt when adaptation becomes necessary. I pay attention to what my body, the people around me, and life itself are teaching me. I continue working at becoming more skillful at being human.

There was another moment yesterday that seemed completely ordinary at the time.

One of my other training partners was a young guy, probably around twenty years old. He was maybe 5'10" or 5'11", long and lanky, incredibly quick, and fast. It was time for our six-minute round, but there were other people training all around us. We needed enough room to grapple without crashing into somebody else's round.

So we walked around the mat looking for a little open space.

We found our corner.

And then we got after it.

I've been thinking about that simple moment ever since because, in more ways than one, I'm finding my corner in the world again.

Yesterday my corner happened to be a few feet of mat shared with another human being. Today it may be somewhere else. Tomorrow, who knows?

Maybe the important thing isn't having one permanent corner. Maybe it's what I do with the corner available to me today.

Can I be present there? Can I recognize what is actually happening rather than what I wish were happening? Can I assess what's in front of me and choose an appropriate action? Can I create something meaningful with the people, circumstances, abilities, and moment I've been given?

That's not really a Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu question.

It's not even a martial arts question.

It's a human question.

And that's why I'm sharing the story here in Living Strong.

So now I want to invite you into the thought.

Where is your corner in the world right now?

It doesn't have to be a physical place, and you certainly don't have to spend six minutes wrestling with somebody who's trying to choke you. Your corner might be your family, your work, a relationship, your health, your faith, something you're creating, something you're rebuilding, or simply a season of life you never expected to find yourself in.

Wherever your corner is today, perhaps the more important question is this:

What are you doing with the space you're standing in right now?

I'd love to hear about it.

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Finding My Corner