Snow stops play.

Now here’s a long/short story of just how far-fetched my current enjoyment of training has become.

Factory BJJ is 26.1 miles from my house – according to Google Maps.
We have just had about 8 inches of snow in the area where I live.
I’ve held a driving license approximately 10 weeks and drive a 1.1 Fiesta.

Already you can see that Real Life is doing all it can to make sure I appreciate the time I actually manage to spend within the four walls of the gym.

It takes me ages to get there on a good day, and as a new driver, I’m not the most confident behind the wheel.

Eight inches of snow adds a certain element of danger to this, and I should clearly know what to expect, especially following an afternoon watching countless boneheads sliding up and down our street like it was an oversized curling rink.
Despite warnings from relatives/ friends/ people on the telly/ voices in my head - I want to go training.

Feeling like a budget-Bear-Grylls, I decide to set off early, giving myself a whole extra half an hour to knock the snow off the car and create a little clear track up the drive. Simples.

35 minutes later, my car is finally clear, but the driveway looks like its been untouched by human hand, and the miniscule wheels on my Ford Meander are churning up snow like they’re on commission, with not even a suggestion of forward movement. But I want to go training.

With snow in my shoes and socks, wet legs and a default facial expression like Dolph in Universal Soldier, I spend the next ten minutes knelt on the ground digging out snow from under my chariot.
Only to find that it would still rather stay in sunny Bolton.

Um….. Grit.
I need grit.
Because I want to go training.

After foraging in the shed, grit in hand, I scatter like the village idiot feeding the pigeons. For nowt.
Still no love from any of four potentially forgiving wheels.

As I slowly go snow blind, and the start of training, which is still 26 miles away, becomes imminent, I have a sudden flash of genius: “Twin sister. Never driven in her life – she’ll sort it.”

With said 8-stone sister, cutting a dash in a fleece dressing gown, pushing on the boot, my car finally motivates itself to leave the driveway.

I’m going training.

Approximately two minutes into my 10mph journey, convinced I can almost feel the cold of Factory’s mats through my shoes, nature intervenes and the back end of my car is thrown out on a patch of ice and I skid towards a corner at a glacial pace – hardly moving in real life, but positive in my new-driver-hat that I’m about to eat it like Ayrton Senna in an oversized golf buggy. It’d be worth it for Jiu Jitsu.

After my nowhere-near-death experience, I realise there’s still approximately 25.9 miles of motorway, roundabouts and, God forbid, other drivers to encounter, and it dawns on me there’s no way I’m even going to nearly make it for half seven.

As the Scots would say - Bawbag. I neeeeed to go training.

I aim for the end of the street I started at, hoping that this side is less treacherous. Not as daft as I look, me.
In attempting my well-drilled, go-to panic move (a turn in the road) I successfully mount the pavement, get firmly stuck and set up my very own Miami Vice-style roadblock. Now I’m ready to halt any felons/all my neighbours in their tracks. Ideal.

Cue an awkward 15 minutes of shouting at next-door neighbour and sister as they try in vain to dig/ grit/ push my car closer to my intended destination - and out of the way of the entire population of my street.

Two tea-towels-under-the-front-wheels-later and we’re facing the right way, well past the start of training. I might make it for the warm-down, if I charter a jet.

I’m now yards from my front door, abandoning the car, well brassed-off, the neighbours think I’m a berk, and my belt remains in my bag, undisturbed, unworn and untied.

I text Adam, informing him of my troubles. He replies:

“Fair play. Stay warm dude!”

Now why didn’t I think of that?


Probably because I want to go training.

Fiending for jiu jitsu!!!!

Now I haven't updated this blog for quite some time - nigh on four whole months - and there's numerous reasons for this - all of which relate to the epic perpetual battle between BJJ and real life.
(Broken computers, relocating, busiest time of year at work, blah, blah…excuses)

However, I’m glad to report that one of the roadblocks to my blogging has been training itself.
Having passed my driving test, after countless attempts (I drive like I grapple – eratically) I have actually been able to commit to training a little more, which has meant less time thinking about jiu jitsu and marginally more time trying to actually improve at it.

Over the last sixteen weeks or so, I feel like I have made definite and noticeable improvements in my game – so much so, that I feel I’ve entered a new stage in my Jiu Jitsu – actually recognising what I want to work for, understanding how to go about it and then achieving it

This conceptual progress, although relatively small, has helped me to improve my guard passing no-end, added a few new submissions to my arsenal and seen me able to escape from and consolidate positions with far more success than ever before.

But along with this has come an unwelcome monster – a facet of my personality that can make me irrational, selfish and a complete nuisance - the untameable and unrelenting desire to be in a gi, on a mat, all the time.

I feel as if I have begun BJJ all over again, so to speak - and to a certain extent I have.
Each new sparring session at Factory brings with it a new set of tips from coaches and team-mates, and where I would have traditionally nodded and then immediately failed to implement said hints, I now feel that I’m being given an extra piece of the ever-growing (and never-ending) puzzle – and more importantly – I can see where it fits.

That’s not to say I’m moving on in leaps and bounds – its baby steps all the way – but this gradually evolving understanding of what I’m trying to achieve has renewed the buzz that initially made me stick at Jiu Jitsu in the first place – and there’s no chance of it waning any time soon.