tallgeese

Thank you all so much! Thank you, Patrick for, as always, running such a fantastic community that has so much value when it comes to discourse over the arts. It's been a pleasure to be part of it. I consider this part of my training, and it's always valuable for expanding my mind and keeping me open to possibilities and other systems. Thank you all again!

Happy Birthday!

Welcome aboard!

Welcome to KF!

Welcome to KF!

Happy birthday!

It started with simply a desire to learn to fight. Everything was about the combative nature of it. Fast forward nearly 30 years and it's something far more at this point. Now it's about the art, passing knowledge on, things more along that line.

Congrats! That's an amazing time to stay active and positive!

I'm all in on this. I come from a kempo lineage that was all about things working. Now, developing enough background and experience to determine a) what is actually effective vs. what looks effective, and b) having enough time on and understanding about how to best integrate your new tool into your response patter, can be difficult. However, it's worth it to have a more realistic outlook.

I have zero suggestions, but man am I jealous! Have a great time! Keep us posted on how it goes!

Congrats! It's great that you're able to come back in and learn again!

Happy Birthday!

Congrats on all of that! Great to hear you're still finding time. AND adding BJJ to your tools. Well done! Keep us posted on how it's going.

Congrats! Well done!

Welcome to KF and that's fantastic that you're looking to start training again. I'll echo some thoughts, tai chi is always touted as a great art for people in your situation. That said, I think it's also a great idea to check out places around you to see the tempo and places with older training partners available. Lastly, consider as well some of the weapons arts available. Many of them rely on precision over athleticism. This could be a good way for you to be involved, learn something new, and take care from getting injured. Keep us posted on your journey!

This is the greatest possible response ever!

And how was BJJ for you? I always ask. I loved it! so much so that i have now signed up properly FANTASTIC! Always love it when the art grows! Keep us posted!

Two very different things. Skills can overlap, but two very different things. When the fight happens on the street you have no advanced warning or notice. It happens with what you bring to the table that day. That means the only way to prepare is to train, as often as possible, in a way that will benefit your skill set at that moment. That means technical skills and physicality. Discipline becomes paramount as it can be tedious staying prepared to a degree needed. Are you always carrying the tools you've elected to work with? Are they well maintained? Are you mentally ready to deploy them? Have you done a complete needs analysis on the threats you face and picked appropriate training to address them? All big, important things when it comes to real world work. For comps I start about six weeks out with a ramp up to be ready. Any weight cut starts then with a realistic calorie restriction that is still healthy. I want to be walking around ready to step on the scale a week before. I start upping the intensity of my rolls for the first two weeks to remind my body what comp rolls look like. At 4-2 weeks out I do the bulk of my hard work. Shark tanks to work on endurance. Positional rolling out of bad positions. Shrpening attacks. Lots of drilling. 2 weeks out I spend time looking at the brackets and doing some intel work on everyone else. I don't get to wrapped up in their game, I just want to know their tendencies and I'll work the next two weeks around stopping those. 1 week out I cut out the grinding and just focus on my attacks and the specific defenses my digging has suggested I focus on. 2 days out I'm chilling. Some light rolls to stay on weight and stay loose. 1 day out I'm done. I chill, relax, and wait to go. I used to do longer camps, but as I've gotten older my body just won't hold up.

And how was BJJ for you? I always ask.

Keep at it then! Sounds great!

One of the thing that drives performance anxiety is increased heart rate. It's like a vicious loop. You start to work, the HR elevates, that in turn creates more anxiety. It's a left over evolutionary mechanism from when stress meant surviving the sabertooth cat attack. By control our breathing, we control to a degree the HR, which in turn minimizes the amount of chemical changes going on in your body. This leads to less anxiety and lets you keep thinking with your actual brain and not your lizard brain. Don't get me wrong, a certain amount of upward movement from your body's homeostasis is a good thing. Too much is where we start to fall apart. Control this unwanted portion is what we're talking about here. So, breathing. In for two, hold for two, out for two. It's got a lot of names and different times attached, but it all amounts to the same thing. By managing your breathing you'll see a drop in HR. This is going to lead to an appropriate amount of chemical changes in you body. And keep the anxiety at bay. Just concentrate on the breathing. I'd start it as they called my division to the table and continue until I stepped on the mat. It's that easy. It's not full proof, but I've had great success with this under very stressful circumstances. As always, practice and repetition is key. The more you're exposed to stressors of the same kind, the more you practice this technique, the less it will bother you. Give it a shot, let us know how the next competition goes!

I concur in large part with Wado here. To counter grappling you must have some sort of grappling training. You need not be an expert in it, but you must understand the mechanics of it. Particularly the sprawl. Given the parameters of you question however, I'd opt for hand tactics. A kick, no matter how well delivered, leaves you immobile. This makes controlling distance, escaping, sprawling, or any other form of counter difficult. Hands will allow you to keep your feet under and angling for an escape.

Happy Birthday, Brian!

Great questions, and great news that you're being looked at to increase your leadership role in the school. That reflects well on you. Getting ahead of this is a great thing and it means something different to everyone. Diagnosing your own level and capabilities in regard to it is paramount. That said, here's some thoughts from my experience: 1) What are the signs/symptoms of burning out as it pertains to being an instructor? This generally reflects in how you feel as you're headed to class or preparing. If you are dreading it on a regular basis you're at risk. Next comes a general lack of caring about how it goes while you're teaching. This leads to not individualizing instruction around the mat. If you let it get to this point you're going to have long term problems. Students are smart. They recognize it when it gets to here. 2) What are strategies to prevent burnout? Time away is the easy answer, however, not always realistic. For instance, if you end up owning/ running a school it's on you to instruct. People will cover for you, but not routinely, nor should you expect them to. So it really become "how do I prevent burnout while still fulfilling my obligations?" Once we attack it from this end (understanding that you can and should take vacation now and again) we get to more useful items. First, don't be afraid to deviate from your curriculum . I know, it's there for a reason. That said, boredom is the enemy and will start you down the path to burn out. Experiment. Teach something you don't use often. Spend a week or two on it. Or, attack a principle or problem you're having from a radically different angle. Heavy sparring cycle? Throw in a knife. Working specifically on distance management? Instead of the same drill you've run a hundred times break out the sticks, do distance management from the guard. Pick something out of the ordinary. My most recent example? Take downs (hate 'em anyway) and instead of my usual fundamental curriculum (which I was bored with that night) I did some small joint manipulation along tuite lines from my first system. Very little to do with jits, however, its the same problem (getting the fight to the ground) from an angle most of the students had never seen. You'll find they really enjoy a divergent night now and again as well. 3) Assuming 1 and 2 fail, what are things that can be done to minimize the effects of being burned out on myself and my students? Here's where things get trickier. There are times, you just have to be there. End of story. In these cases, even when I hate changing out. I take a second to try and get my mind right. I may not want to be there, have a million things on my plate from my day job, be missing something my kid is doing, and want to burn the building down... it's time to put it away and go to work. These people are paying you to show up. That's what you do. Despite how you're feeling you have to put on the happy face and do your thing. That includes, getting around the mat and spending time with each student making individual corrections. This tiny detail is the one thing I've found more indicative of a good instructor than any thing else. And you have to purposely make it a priority on bad days. It's the detail that makes sure that your students aren't feeling the effects of your burn out. Now, if you really need to change channels you'll need to get creative in class. These people will lose the desire to give you money if you're an absentee instructor. However, they'll like the change if you're on the mat and having a student share something they just learned at a seminar. Or breaking down fight performance from a recent competition. IF you're there to make suggestions and game plan solutions. It takes the heavy lifting off you for instruction, but reassures your people that you're there and want them to continue to improve. Don't overlook the occasional question and answer session either. I use these in short weeks where a holiday or other event has disrupted our schedule and I have trouble getting excited to teach. Having students ask questions to clear up problems they are having is a great way to keep you engaged in problem solving, a good way to beat the boredom that is the begging of burn out. Plus it really varies the class up. Note, that the key word is "occasionally" this stuff works to alleviate your pending burn out, but it must be used sparingly or your students will note. 4) How do you effectively recover from burnout and get back to a point where teaching is fun again? If you let it get all the way to "I hate life" recovery is hard. You'll need time away. And never be afraid to do this. Before I owned a school I'd step away for a week at a time, just not go. Didn't even need to be on vacation. I'd just decide to pursue one of my other interests. If you're a long time student, don't be afraid to walk away for a month or two. You'll be back. Again, this is the easy route and unfortunately, most instructors can't do this due to responsibility at the gym. So, I'll share some of my work arounds. The single best one is, for me, to start working on your personal game in a radically different way. For instance, I was burning out pretty good last year. Sick of being on the mat, sick of teaching.... it's a bummer. But here I am, owning the place. So I can't stop teaching, or showing up, so I looked at my personal growth during the last 6 months. I'd been pretty stagnate and doing the same thing for that entire time. So I took every thing off the table I'd been playing. Spider guard- gone. Sleeve grips- gone. Top side- gone. North/ South shin control- gone. On the table went- deep half guard, butterfly guard, knee on belly and my personal white whale- the north/ south choke. Now suddenly I was thinking again, problem solving, and seeing improvements daily. Pretty soon my funk was gone. A couple years prior I had a bad case of it. I started focusing on kali after my jits classes and that made me drive thru jits to get to my stick and knife time. Suddenly, no more burn out. I was excited about something again. Sometimes it's changing the channel just a bit that matters. It can go a long way when you can't just be off the mat and take time away. If you need to, I've found mini-vacations to be kind of effective as well. Lets say you teach M/W/F/Sat. That's pretty robust for a lot of instructors and you're getting the point that the preventative measures we talked about are starting to wear thin. Take a couple of weeks and teach M/W as normal. Then have a "guest instructor" for Fri/ Sat. And most importantly about this- don't be around. Don't stick you're head in to "see how it's going" or check in. Be gone. Take a weekend trip. Indulge another area of interest. Just don't think about MA for those two days. Relax on Sunday and get ready to attack Monday again. This abbreviated schedule for a couple of weeks can really help out on the sanity. Anyway, just some thoughts. Hope you find them helpful. Having dealt with this in the past if you have any questions please let me know.

Glad to have you back!