I Hate Dealing With Injuries!

Ok this might be obvious, but as the title says I hate injuries. You see, I love my schedule and I really can’t stand stopping for one second. I like all my crazy hobbies and I like how much I train, I don’t want to stop. I also hate doing what the physio tells me. I am stubborn and childlike in my training and how I live my life. So why should you listen to me? Well I have been training for almost 17 years and have over 10 years of teaching experience, 9 of which are from having my own school. It’s not a bad idea to listen and do as I say and not as I do. With that here are four points to help you not be Lorenzo.

Don’t be a hero, this one is the most important and can be the hardest. You know when in the heat of the moment in sparing you imagine it’s the world championship final and you are willing to lose your arm for the win? Don’t do that. Training is not a competition, yes sometimes you need to train harder, but this takes time to gauge correctly. Don’t let yourself get injured for no reason, you want to keep training.

What Lorenzo did: After each of these points I will tell you how I didn’t do what I’m saying. so my most recent neck injury came directly from this kind of rolling, I can remember the event. I was rolling with a much bigger opponent in nogi, he likes cranking necks, after cautiously tapping a few times I decided to tough it out, this seemed like a great idea at the time, but the neck hasn’t been the same again since. Remember you are responsible for what happens to you in class, you tap when you have no clear way out, you feel pain or you don’t know what your opponent is doing and it seems to be a threat you haven’t seen. Don’t be Lorenzo.

When you do feel niggling pains don’t ignore them. If you have a niggling pain, it’s fine to keep training, but either see someone or look up something you can do about it in advance of it getting worse. If it gets worse, get help and cut down on training and work around the injury not through the pain. 

Lorenzo didn’t do this, in fact he kept training like his injury didn’t exist, even though it started to affect his whole life and he was in constant pain. He didn’t get it looked at for ages and deluded himself into thinking he was going to be fine. Spoiler alert! It didn’t, he spent 3 months with bad pain, that kept him up and ruined trips to the cinema watching overly long films.

Once you do go get some help, and they give you exercises to do, you should do them. Specialists know what they are doing. They see injuries everyday, probably some worse than the injury you have. They take a look at your injury then they prescribe movements and other techniques for you to do everyday to help your recovery, and insure you don’t get injured again. It’s a good idea to listen to these people.

Guess what Lorenzo didn’t do? Yes you got it, he didn’t do the exercises. You know why? No? Neither does he. In the end he had to resort to torture devices like the one below to help relieve his neck pressure. He then got something else to strengthen it, he was lucky these two extreme ways seemed to help. Would he have recovered faster had he listened? Most probably. Will he listen in future? We all know the answer to this.

Start bulletproofing your body to avoid future serious injuries. Fix those hips, get flexible and strengthen those muscles around the joints. There are plenty of resources out there. List of things below that might help, go to that Pilates class to strengthen the hard to reach places, find a great yoga class that will correct your form and help you through, do those weights a bit (these can also cause injury so don’t overdo them). 

What did Lorenzo do? He did the above! One out of four isn’t bad, his injury must have been really bad to finally grow up and look after his body at least. The rest of his life… it’s a work in progress.

THINGS TO HELP KEEP YOU IN ONE PIECE

Knees over toes guy - to fix knees and hips

Pilates is great for strengthening around joints and prehab work

Yoga can also be great, but you need to be slow and think about strengthening over stretching, the flexibility will come.

Weights, are also really good. Find a trainer or a class that works for you, make sure you work on form over adding more weight.

Resolutions? You/I can’t tell me what to do!

Ok now that the click bait title got you, you can hear me brag about how I managed to keep my weight stable over Christmas (for the first time in my entire life as it happens). Then you can hear me tell you about how I am basically down a ton of weight from this time last year (all my students sigh in unison at this point as they have heard it over and over for a year). Or how my business survived the pandemic and we are all training harder, competing and doing better than ever. 

Here is the problem with resolutions, I find it hard to listen to what I tell myself to do, “Lorenzo, don’t eat burgers and cut down on bad food”… Same evening on an instagram story posting a picture of my double burger from some hipster burger joint somewhere. “Lorenzo, you need to do dry January” same story, that picture below of me drinking a glass of wine on the 3rd of January, I only really made it one day as I was still drinking past midnight on the 1st. 

My 2022 plans

So what do I do? What do I want to happen this year? I want to grow Wave, I want to plan to get to a new gym space in the next two to three years, that involves doing stuff now to get ready for that. This is the work part for the year, meh it’s exciting and stressful just thinking about it, but hey I’ve done this much, what else am I going to do?

I want to keep competing and training hard, it has taken me a lifetime to get to this point of loving all my gym, BJJ, yoga and other activities that improve my fitness keep me going and get me excited, even if I still pretend to hate it all. I mean I have to pretend to hate it otherwise I will hate myself for loving it, it wouldn’t be cool to admit that I actually like doing it. 

I want to do all the things I’ve always wanted to do like a big kid, I want to do scuba diving, I want to get into motorsport somehow, I want to travel and eat at all the restaurants and drink at all the bars I’ve seen on travel shows.  I am and always will be a big kid, but part of me was trying to grow up somehow, accepting myself has taken a big weight off my shoulders and meant that I can make mistakes, laugh and try things that I never thought I’d have the time to do.

want new relationships, I want to make lots of new friends, open up more and leave my comfort zone, I want to see old friends and keep in touch and see what they are up to. I would even like to meet someone special and share these experiences with, this one seems to be a big ask with all the other things I do, but hey why not? I can make it work.

Stuff? What stuff?

I am after experiences, all of the above are experiences. Yes they need some money, but I will find ways to make it work on less. All the money stuff will come, maybe next year, maybe the year after but waiting and thinking about that will make me miss the great life I have been able to create. 

The basic idea of this post is, don’t focus on the usual things, focus on doing things that aren’t eating too much, drinking too much or watching Netflix too much, you can do all those as well, but if you fill your life with fun activities and friends the health and happiness takes care of itself. Now go out there and do new things, be open to people and if you need some help open up to your good friends, they love you and care. You got this, if you knew me growing up you would believe you can do all this too, trust me :)

2021 Then 2022

Swings and roundabouts is an optimistic view of the last couple of years, from a break up that knocked me a bit, to huge pressures on my business and trying to figure myself out more and what I want from life once the fog of the last couple of years clears, to my business bouncing back with new vigour and a renewed love of competing, Traveling and working towards just doing the things I love. 

I learned to be a bit more content with myself, maybe a bit too much. I learnt that I am more disciplined than I thought, even if I could be better organised, I know I still have a lot more to learn.

Next year brings with it a lot of recent challenges back round, but I think 2022 will be the year I put it all together, I’m slowly allowing more people and opportunities back into my life, and feel my usual optimism and happy energy getting back to full swing. I have many achievable goals and some moonshots for the next few years. If you know me you know I keep moving forward.

Hope you all are well and achieve everything you want to do, life is for keeping doing, you can watch Netflix anytime, go do that thing you always wanted to do first. Look forward to seeing you all and chatting soon.

Oh and here are some comforting words from our friend Tom :)

What do you want to be when you grow up?

Do you want to be an astronaut? A Brazilian Jiu Jitsu world Champion? A film star? Maybe a reality TV star nowadays, we live in a time where all these things are in our reach, yes even BJJ world champ. It might not be the way you are thinking about it, Roger Gracie is one in a million maybe even billion but you can still find ways of doing everything you dreamed. 

The space tourism race is hotting up already and soon enough we will all be able to save up and head into orbit around the earth and enjoy the feeling of being gravity free and seeing that the earth is indeed round, although am sure some flat earthers will still blame the curvature of the windows or say it’s an elaborate illusion created to fool us. Either way you will have become an astronaut and your childhood dreams will have been mostly fulfilled, then the new dream will be landing on the moon and I’m sure soon enough moon tourism will be a thing too.

A film star? Well you have a video camera on your phone, all it takes is a half decent idea and some software and you too can be the star of your own film. Maybe someone other than you will even watch it. The same goes for reality TV star, you could post your highlights on instagram and combine that with influencer. 

BJJ world champion? If you train long enough you could be one of two in Masters 20 at the Worlds and whoever has the sturdiest hip wins at that point. Or you find some obscure world championship that no one has heard of and enter that so the competition isn’t too high and you can win that right now.

The point I am trying to make is that we live in a time that we can mostly fulfil our dreams, yes you can say it’s not how you imagined them, but they are still goals you can aim for and be proud of, we don’t all have the luck to start from a younger age or have pushy parents who aren’t too pushy or under pushy who help us propel to the heights we now dreamt we should have achieved. 

We can now do some of it ourselves and along the way have a great ride and make lots of great friends and actually have a better life than some of those famous people achieving the heights but feeling lonely and having personal issues and an inability to do normal things. We can go for a drink with our friends on the weekend and talk about something other than the one thing we are focused on, we can try other activities without the fear that injuries will scupper our dreams, we can take the odd day off without guilt and we can eat that cake and relish each gram of carbohydrate that will create a cushion for us to rest on around our waist. 

My point is don’t overlook how lucky you are, we live in the best times ever and you can do things most other people even today can’t imagine. Be happy and go make that film, if you do send, it to me and I can be the other person who watches it. You can achieve so many great things, go do it :)

Forget What I Told You About Habits

I wrote a post about how great habits are after reading atomic habits as well as all the other productivity books and posts I’d been reading over lockdown. 

The problem is they can take over your life if you obsess over them, and I did for a while. I woke up made my coffee, while the coffee was filtering through the funnel I sat and meditated for 10 minutes, after that I grabbed my freshly brewed litre of coffee (yes a litre, it’s what you need to get through your habits) and sat and did did my gratitude journal, then I “studied” Duolingo German for at least 15 minutes, after that i would do my kettlebells and other bits I have now blocked out of my mind. This routine took me an hour and a half each morning. I did it for the best part of six months straight, I gave myself a slightly reduced version for the weekend of like an hour or something, but still!! Even on the weekends I didn’t let myself off.

The Cracks started to appear

First I noticed it was hard to think of anything new to be grateful for when you are stuck indoors mostly and everything is shut, I started saying things like “I’m grateful for the windows in my room”, “I’m grateful for oxygen” it started to grate all this gratefulness. Then I realised I was getting better at Duolingo, but it no longer became about learning German, it became about not losing my streak! I was addicted to keeping this streak and if I woke up and couldn’t be bothered I still tried to answer the questions, but I could actually care less about the reason I’d started. The same thing started to happen with meditation, I started to hate Sam Harris’s voice again, I had got used to it for a while on the meditation app, but after six months his monotone orders to find the person meditating started to piss me off rather than open my mind. 

What happened next?

I stopped… yes, I quit caring about the streaks and the guilt of having to do this crazy routine and just stopped. I realised I have a main focus my work, luckily my work involves training so I go to classes, I go to a functional fitness gym, a yoga studio and do BJJ as well as some boxing. What doesn’t happen with these is that I don’t track it directly. I get up and go to the classes. If I don’t go i don’t feel guilty and you know what… I go more because of this! These habits are things I enjoy. I am sitting here in the coffee shop writing this post and it’s one of only 3 things I have to do today and each day to move the dial on my business and my self development. 

What did I keep in my schedule?

I figured out how to make my productivity journaling work for me rather than feel like it was whipping me with a stick when I didn’t do something. 

Routine is my friend now not my enemy, This is my average day now.

7:00 Wake Up shower and get ready

7:30 Listen to a podcast/possibly watch some crap to warm up my brain

8:15 Cycle to the gym

8:45 Hang out outside gym chatting to the early birds 

9:00 Train hard for 45 minutes at Forgewarehouse

10:00 Breakfast and look through emails

10:30 Work on my 3 tasks

13:00 Teach

14:00 Train BJJ with the guys a bit

15:00 Work on some more of those three tasks if I didn’t finish it in the morning, this is in a relaxed fashion

18:00 Yoga at the power yoga

21:00 Check my journal and plan the next day.

This doesn’t mean I quit the other habits

I haven’t quit, no sir, I am looking at in person German classes next to get a better more fun way of learning it. I also have a list of things I want to learn, so those will be in another post soon am sure.

Moral of the story

You control your life, and you have one of them. Sure you don’t want to not do anything, but don’t let the things you do consume you and not be fun. 

5 Reasons One 2 One lessons Will Turbo Charge Your BJJ

Ok this post is kind of cheeky, but at the same time it’s a question I ask myself as a teacher and asked myself as a student a lot. I rarely took one 2 one classes, if I did it was usually to solve an issue I was stuck on, like how to get half guard working or how to sweep people better in my guard. 

Group classes are great, you learn a technique and try it out on your friends you get to spar loads (everyone loves to spar :) ). Then there comes a point where your favourite technique seems to stop working and you run out of places to go, you get stuck under that same guy over and over again and you want to figure out this specific puzzle so you can move on and do other techniques and not repeat the same boring cycle. Lets look at FILL NUMBER reasons to do one 2 one classes with an instructor

You want to fix a part of your game.

Lets say you want to sweep better or improve your escaping, you know what to do but it doesn’t seem to be working. This is a great time to do a one 2 one private class and pick your instructors brain on why it’s going wrong, the instructor can talk you through which techniques to use when and get your timing right, it also might be a matter of combining techniques. Your instructor can help you with all this, and give you techniques and ideas on how to pull off that sweep and have other options for when it doesn’t work.

`The most common questions we get are:

How do I improve my escapes?

How do I keep people from passing my guard?

How do I sweep someone?

If there is a part of your game you think needs fixing, one 2 ones can help.

You want to add whole new techniques or change your game

You want to change your whole game and add a whole new arsenal of techniques top your repertoire. Maybe you want to add leg attacks to your nogi game, or you are a guard player and you want to learn to play more of a top game. 

You want a game plan for competition

Your competition game will be different from how you train in class, you will have set pieces that you use in competition from how you start to strategies for timing during the match and techniques you go for to prevent points being taken against you and points you could make as you compete, so that if you don’t get the submission you still win.

You can go over worst case scenarios and learn tricks for getting out of situations such as when your opponent stalls. 

You just want to spar with someone at that level

This is another benefit, it’s good to feel for a longer period how it feels to spar with someone at this level. You might not get to spar that much with a higher level opponent and this gives you the opportunity to see how that feels and what your goal is. 

You just want to progress faster

If your goal is to improve at a quick pace and you don’t have time to attend all the classes, then private sessions are a good hack for this, you can learn the techniques that work and skip the bad habits you can develop in regular sparring. 

They are worth it :)

They are great, what are you waiting for! Go book one now hahah, but seriously if you want to get better at BJJ they are an easy way to turbo boost your game.

If you can’t afford them, don’t worry. At Wave our instructors are here to help, you are free to ask them to roll, and if you see them at an open mat you can ask them for advice there too. 

Whatever your goals we can help you achieve them, if you have a question now just ask :)

We Are Coming Back!

Hello all of you, have you missed us? We have been working away on new ideas and fixing up some old ones. We have been training other things to ensure we are back stronger and focused. But most of all we have been counting down the days till we can get back on the Wave mats.

What is the plan then?

Phase 1 May 17th to June 20th

On May 17th we will start with distanced/bubble beginner classes. We will be running the below schedule for classes and they will be limited in size so register early so you don’t miss out.

In these classes, you will be partnered up with your bubble buddy and drill the beginner syllabus followed by sparring with that same partner.

Phase 2 June 21st 

We will expand our schedule initially to the below as we wait for people to get comfortable with training again. With more beginner classes and advanced classes, as well as no gi classes.

Phase 3 when classes start to get busy again.

We will keep a check of the class sizes and once they start to get busy again we will build up to a new schedule. This was the plan for pre pandemic and we can’t wait to show it to you. I just don’t want to fill this whole post with schedules and get confused, but believe me when I say it’s the best schedule you have ever seen, or not seen yet :)

Grading! 26th of June

We are going to hold our Summer grading on June 26th in Ravenscourt Park. This has become our summer tradition to do this outdoors and you are all welcome. Register at the link below for our grading. This is free and everyone is welcome, even if just to watch and laugh at coach Lorenzo’s speech :)

As usual, this will be followed by our member’s summer party which is going to be a big thank you to all our members for believing in us and standing by us all this time. 

Big Thank You!

Thank you to everyone who has supported our little club during these challenging times. We owe you all a huge debt of gratitude and we are happy we have weathered the storm and are back on track with our goal of being the best Brazilian Jiu Jitsu academy in the country, as well as helping our community and kick some ass at the competitions. Whether you want to forget your stresses or are looking for a release we are always here for you.

5 things you can do to (ximprovexyourxlifexrightxnowx) get on with all of this (gestures widely around for anyone else who agrees).

5 things you can do to improve your life right now get on with all of this (gestures widely around for anyone else who agreest).

The above is the title I was sent in response to my last post which you can read here, they argued that some of what I had written wasn’t easy to do during the current situation and came up with alternatives to help us through these times.

In my defence, I have chosen to think ahead and imagine a world where we can train, travel and see people again, it’s a bit like a fantasy rather than our current reality, and a hope that we will get back there soon.

I do get it though if my post touched a nerve and so in response here is Irina with an alternative 5 things you can do right now to get on with life, enjoy :):

And just like that let’s all come back from that imaginary travel or our favourite BJJ class (sigh). 

I’m not a life coach either, but it has become clear we need to help ourselves to get through this, there are too many variables – when will the lockdown end? Can we just abolish homeschooling? When can we get vaccines? Etc etc, this uncertainty just doesn’t help.

Hopefully, my five points below might make your day-to-day just a little bit easier.

1. Firstly, what I learnt in 2020 is that online classes are amazing. No one is judging you, you can pause to work out that tricky move at your own pace, you don’t need a special gym kit for it, some of the classes might be suitable for parents. And the beauty of it, you can have 5min doing squats & star jumps, 20min yoga or try that 30min dance routine because why not? 

   It seems almost impossible to squeeze a workout between work calls & parenting, but it would do you more good than that glass of wine you’re looking forward to. 

   Personally, I find the effort-reward scenario works best for me, for a session of Netflix I need to do at least 20min of fast paced training, and yes my bar is low but I manage to move some every day. If you can’t do a full hour of hardcore training – do whatever you can for your mental health. 

2. Secondly, everyday cooking got boring pretty quickly for me, who knew I’d be missing work canteen –ready to eat food! cooked by other people! different every day! 

   Making daily meals can quickly deplete your recipe collection, and while I just can’t get myself to cook new recipes all the time I suggest:

   Experiment with recipes you know by adding more herbs, lime juice, kimchi, try new protein or spices, or exploring your corner shop/supermarket for the food you haven’t tried before. 

   Scale it up with restaurant meal kits if you can afford those. From bao buns to Katz deli style salt beef, the choice is yours, and yay for supporting the restaurant industry. 

   Scale it down with more affordable options, tinned food (which might surprise you) or easier recipes for days when everything seems to be more challenging. I’m a big fan of Tin Can Cook and Good Food for Bad Days: What to Make When You're Feeling Blue by Jack Monroe, but there are also some recipes on BBC Goodfood website or by Jamie Oliver.

3. All of above goes into my third point - break the routine. Been doing BJJ – try online Zumba or Pilates class, going for a walk after work – try early morning walks, a week of veg meals instead of your usual meat, escape room in a box, puzzles, bloody gardening, oh and writing this post definitely gave me something new to do! Also, those parents who’ve been reading the same book for the bedtime over and over again, I see you and I stand with you while reciting Gruffalo from any page, do pour yourself some wine.

4. My fourth point helping others if you can to make you feel better. This works like that oxygen mask on the plane (remember those?), helping others should come after you took care of yourself, and should be do-able/affordable for you. There are charities which appreciate a DD, be it even a fiver, there could be a neighbour who might be lonely, there could be a local mutual aid group in need of a driver, drop a few pasta packs in the food bank collection point. Or you could help your friends by reading a story to their kids via Zoom and giving them 20min of peace. Making a difference is good for us, and it definitely makes us feel better.

5. Which brings me to my final point – do ask for help. We have our bad days and our good days, and sometimes the bad days overshadow the good ones, and it’s important to know we’re not alone. When video calls might be overwhelming – try an old fashioned phone call, speak to support lines, chat to someone from local mutual aid, reach out to your BJJ pals. 

I’m interested to know what helps you to get on with your day? Feel free to share, and let’s stick together till we can roll again ☺

5 things you can do to improve your life right now.

People always ask me…. No, they don’t, but I’m going to give my two pence worth anyway. The below five things will help you feel better, live longer and make you way happier 

Disclaimer: I am not a life coach with an online diploma, so can not guarantee what I just wrote above, but hey who cares? It’s got to work right?

1. Pick a sport and stick to it, but something you have to go to a class for. This can be dancing, yoga or even Brazilian Jiu Jitsu just stick to it until you are good at it, don’t change after a year because it’s too hard, it’s not only the sport, go hang out with the guys in a pub after training, you can have a lime soda if you really don’t want to drink, but there is no better connection than doing activities with other people. You can talk about it meet people you would never meet and have fun in a way you can’t anywhere else.

2. Learn a language, get Duolingo on your phone and do it every day religiously, then at some point find a friend from that country and trade conversations, you don’t have to be fluent in a month, no one is going to judge you, and if they do? Tell them where to go. This will work your brain, help you meet new people again as you can practice with other people also learning and when you travel to that country, you will feel a deeper connection than you had before, it will be great! Trust me.

3. Travel more, and I don’t mean sit on a beach in Magaluf, I mean to get stuck in, eat the local food, spend time with the locals, BJJ is great for this, as locals do BJJ meet them, chat with them and drink with them, bonus points if it’s the language you were learning in point two as now you can also practice, getting drunk and trying to speak a foreign language is the best way to do this, no inhibitions and no one will remember, I once spent a whole morning in Spain trying to speak Spanish to a guy who couldn’t speak a word of English, we weren’t drunk but erm… we had other substances to break those inhibitions, I swear for that morning I was fluent in a language I had minimal learning in!! It was transcendent.

4. Get off your phone and stop reading the news, ok I am bad at this one, but it will clear your mind and you can read more important things, what’s happening in America is out of your control, what’s happening right now is out of your control, work on things you can fix, the rest will take care of itself.

5. Meditate every day, you don’t have to be good, it will help you be calm if you are good, but it will also just help you learn to stop and smell the roses once in a while. It slowly creeps into your every day and even just 10 minutes a day will be life changing. Doesn’t have to be spiritual, it just has to be about focusing on one thing, not the infinite rabbit holes that our minds take us down.

Do I follow all these? Sure!! Am I good at them? No, but that’s not the point, I’m getting better at all of them and the only person I have to be better than is myself from a few minutes ago, yesterday, or the day before. I also have to not judge myself for making mistakes and missing days of doing things. Each day we start over with a new chance to do it again. You are great and I love you, ok now go away, it’s getting too cheesy :)