Lockdown News: Part XXVII...

I recently decided to celebrate the easing of lockdown by treating myself to a haircut. Going to the barbers for me has always been a treat. I'm a sucker for a bit of pampering and, in the days of life as a journalist in that London, myself and a friend would often venture to what I thought was quite a flash hairdressers run by a posse of almost identical and amazingly beautiful Hungarian women. 

In retrospect, I now suspect it may have been part of a people smuggling operation. The haircuts and the level of pampering on offer was, however, a joy and worth any potential moral compromise. 

Fast-forward a decade and I now have a new favourite barbers in Guildford. This is run by men. Proper men. With tattoos and muscles and opinions about sports. I generally go in and explain that I have no idea what I want doing as I don't know the terminology. But I'll give them a rough description and they'll tell me it in Barberage, which is the language of all male hairdressers. Then we'll swap pleasantries about football, which I studiously learn from the telly the night before, they'll get to work and I'll relax. 

A strange thing happened the last time in, though. He was doing his thing and I was explaining why I thought Carlton Palmer was a massively under-rated defensive midfielder, and he started trimming my actual ears with an electric razor. 

He didn't ask. He just went straight in. I am quite fastidious about ear and nasal hair. But I couldn't remember if I'd done it recently. He obviously thought I hadn't and he piled in. He probably assumed I was some old bloke who just didn't care any more. He was being kind. A bit like leaving a pile of paper towels nearby to help the drunk in the pub who's fallen asleep and pissed himself when he wakes up. 

So I am now clearly the sort of man who needs additional help to remove his unsightly ear hair. It could be my lowest moment. If I hadn't had many more. Male grooming is a jungle.

Belt Up!

So here's a thing. I've been promoted to purple belt at BJJ. This was a surprise. About seven or eight months ago when the world was briefly re-opened, I felt like I was getting back some quality and game plan. Then we went into another lockdown and I was mainly doing online MMA classes, with odd online BJJ drilling classes thrown in.

I felt I was massively off the pace after such a long lay-off. On top of this, I was also feeling my age with a couple of constantly nagging injuries. 

Then the end of a recent class came and two very good white belts were promoted to blue. Then I was called out and told I was being promoted. 

The belts in BJJ are so deep that I expected to remain a blue belt for a while longer. There were things I wanted to add into my game to expand my repertoire and I wanted to be more solid in what I did. For example, I'm reasonably confident with my standing and throwing game, my guard pulling and anything once I'm in full guard, particularly if I have an overhook. Wristlocks are obviously a key thing for me, too.

I've been trying to add in a more solid half-guard game and some open guard and x guard stuff, plus some Williams Guard techniques. I'm pretty sure this a path I'll continue down. 

The new belt is a good stage to re-assess matters. So my battleplan going forward is to assess what my game actually is and develop it, deal the obvious technique or positional holes elsewhere, and add related techniques in. 

The thing I already know is that I want simple and functional game that will work in gi and no gi and for self-defence. I also need to focus better on what I'm doing while I learn to wear the belt and not worry about the colour.

The great advantage of going from white to black in another martial art is that I've felt imposter syndrome before. I felt like I'd blagged it for about six months when I got my black belt at hapkido. Then I settled into it and it was fine. I'm sure this will be a similar process.

I'll never be the most talented martial artist in the world. But I can be a continually improving one, so the key route for me is to stay fit, avoid exacerbating existing injuries and work out where I am and what I need to do. That sounds like a plan.