CHAOS IS THE PLAN WINS A GRAPPLING COMPETITION

INTRO

SPOILERS!

Those that have followed me for any length of time are aware that my first passion was martial arts, and that my efforts at lifting were initially vectored toward becoming a better fighter.  The first book on physical training I ever bought was “Fighting Power” by Christopher P. Loren, which by all accounts is pretty not great yet STILL holds a special place on my bookshelf simply because it was my first, and it was all about how to train to develop powerful punches and kicks.  I did Tae Kwon Do from age 8-17, wrestled for 3 seasons in high school, and did some boxing, Muay Thai and submission grappling training off and on during college, before I got married and decided that martial arts training simply took too much time and I’d rather be with my beautiful bridge.  This prompted a switch to prioritizing lifting at the age of 21, and since that time I hadn’t engaged in any manner of grappling training at all…

 

…which meant it was an absolutely bonkers idea to sign up for a submission grappling competition, but sure enough it showed up on my facebook feed and I thought “why the hell not?”  Truthfully, it’d helped that there was a novice division AND a masters division to compete in, because given I had spent more time NOT training than some of these kids had been alive, I figured that qualified me to be a novice again.  And since I had dropped so much weight since adopting a carnivore-like approach to nutrition, it was a great time to compete in a weight classed based sport.

 

I still had some Combat Sports fight shorts I bought on sale to wear while I was lifting (a tip I picked up from Brian Alsruhe), and after ordering the cheapest rash guard I could find on amazon, I was signed up and ready to compete!  And sorry for the spoilers, but I actually managed to win too.  Here is that story.

 

TRAINING AND NUTRITION

There was actually none of this to be found...but ALWAYS bet on Hercules! 

I did absolutely zero grappling training to prepare for this grappling tournament, because Chaos is the plan.  And, in turn, I’ve been running “Chaos is the Plan: The Plan” for the 6 weeks leading up to it.  180 minutes of taking something off the floor and putting it over my head a week, along with daily walks, air squats/push ups, and conditioning work where applicable.  This particular variant I’ve been running has had a focus on mass gain, so I’ve included 20 breathing squats 3x a week, which has paid off as I’m up 8lbs of bodyweight.  I was lifting weights in some manner at least 5x a week, with weekends sometimes including time on the weights and other times being purely bodyweight.

 

The other element of Chaos is the Plan: The Plan is “eat meat and/or eggs, when hungry, until not”, and I abided by that about 95% of the time.  I sometimes ate when not hungry, simply because my schedule worked out that way, and I sometimes ate stuff that wasn’t meat and/or eggs (cheese, sour cream, pork rinds, protein powder, or an occasional meal out with the family), but the vast majority of my nutrition was on point, SPECIFICALLY what I ate close to competition.  This was a significant departure for me.  In my past life, my pre-competition meal was always going out to eat and loading up on as many calories as possible, typically of pure junk.  Taco Bell, pizza buffets, all you can eat fried chicken, etc.  This time, I made it a point to make my own food so that I’d know exactly what was in it and how it was prepared, and that makes so much sense that I can’t believe how stupid I was to do something different.  The last thing you wanna deal with before a big athletic competition is a whole bunch of new and weird food in your gut: having control of what you eat goes a LONG way.  In this particular instance, the night before the competition I had a 14oz piedmontese ribeye, 3 sunny side up pasture raised Vital Farms eggs, and all the fat trimmed off my kid’s sirloin steak from our family farm in Iowa.  For breakfast before the comp, it was about 10oz of the sirloin from the previous night (it was HUGE, there was lots leftover), 4 sunny side up vital farms eggs and 2 strips of some sort of high end no sugar added bacon.  This was outstanding fuel, and left me satiated and satisfied without buzzing from simple carbs.

 

The future is in "steak and egg loading" for athletics

The sirloin I cut breakfast out of (on the bottom left)...just look at that thing!

Breakfast of champions...quite literally

WEIGH IN AND WARM UP

I definitely had "Lunatic Fringe" in my head...

I came into this competition at the very BOTTOM of the 171-185lb weight class.  When I signed up, I was directly on the line, weighing consistently between 168-172.  With my current training and nutrition protocol, I did not want to lose weight, nor did I want to cut weight for the weigh in, so I signed up for the higher weight class, and while eating my face off for 4 weeks managed to get my weight consistently between 173-174.8 (SO close to 175).  When I weighed in for the comp, I weighed 185…in full sweats, and fight shorts, and Cerberus strongman shorts…with my shoes on…and my wallet, phone and keys in my pocket…having eaten that breakfast I mentioned 30 minutes prior, and the dinner from the night before, all sitting comfortably in my belly.  And honestly: THAT is the way to make weight for a competition.  Cutting weight is for martyrs, and carb loading is for chumps.  Fueling up on meat and eggs had me feeling like a warrior.

 

Just like with all my other competitions in other sports: I did ZERO warm-up.  It’s worth appreciating that I train 5 days a week at 0430 with practically no warm-up: doing something physical at 1000 is like cheating to me.  I’m already warm and loose by then!  Plus, I didn’t want to get anything “in my head” prior to the first match.  Didn’t want to get a feel for the mat or have my body make any sort of contact.  I wanted the experience to be as raw and real as possible, as I honestly trusted my instincts more than I trusted any sort of strategy, and I didn’t want to have my instincts influenced.  Chaos was, in fact, the plan.

 

THE MATCHES

Match 1: Ultimately, I was just trying to figure out what the hell I was doing here in the first place, and IF I had in fact bitten off more than I could chew.  The dude I was against was fairly strong, and I wasn’t able to manhandle him like I would have liked.  Alongside that, I was cautious about over-exerting myself and gassing, since I came in with more a wrestling background than jiu-jitsu, with the former being 3 2 minute rounds where you just go all out the entire time rather than a single 8 minute round where pacing can play a role.  This resulted in me being overly cautious in retrospect and surrendering many opportunities where a little aggression and force probably could have gotten me a tap.  I could actually feel when my opponent’s stamina gave out around the 5-6 minute mark, and this prompted me to continue pushing the pace and start applying subs with random abandon, because I was confident that, if I lost position, I could get it back again by nature of him being gassed and be being fine.  He managed to fight me off until the end, wherein we went into sudden death and the goal was to escape as fast as possible.  I was, once again, out of my element here, and did little to keep him secured and was too lazy in my own attempt to escape.  I was initially awarded the win, but the decision was reversed upon review.

 

Match 2:  I had to go up against the same guy from the first match, because we only had 3 people in our bracket and it was a double elimination tournament.  I didn’t find out I had lost the first match UNTIL I was called up for this match, because I was pretty damn confused about what was going on.  At this point, I actually got angry: I basically had my win taken away from me.  I think that was ultimately to my advantage, because I was more aggressive as a result.  I knew if I lost, I was done competing.  I also knew that this dude wasn’t going to be as recovered as me, and I was familiar enough with his gameplan to know what I wanted to do.  He fatigued very early in the match and I was able to get sidemount without much difficulty.  This time, when I applied the Americana, I was more aggressive with it, and I imagine that prompted the tap: the sensation of being “in danger”.

 

Match 3:  Here I finally got to go up against the other competitor.  I watched him grapple the guy I grappled, and he managed to get a win via armbar, so I knew he had technical skills.  I also saw him being very active in the standing game, but not necessarily effective.  He threw out a lot of “noise”: lots of movement and hands going all over the place, but not necessarily accomplishing anything.  I imagine it was more to intimidate and distract, but once he and I locked up I could feel that he didn’t have the strength of the other guy and that I could manhandle him pretty easily, which removed any ability to intimidate.  I worked a lot of weird angles in the clinch and tried my best to make him feel uncomfortable, and sensed him trying to hip throw me a few times (unsuccessfully).  Once we got to the floor, he scrambled a bit, but his strength and stamina seemed to fade pretty quickly.  Similar to the last guy, I was able to eventually get side control, and from there applied an aggressive Americana to force a tap.

 

GENERAL TAKEAWAYS

Always remember that

 

* I got asked about any sort of adrenaline issues during the matches, and upon reflection, I never once felt it flare up.  I know I had a fight or flight response at some point, because when I went to eat my post-victory meal the fork was shaking pretty decent and my appetite was so turned up I am sure I could have put away another one of those 5lb cheeseburgers I had before, but during the matches themselves I found myself pretty clear headed, cognizant and loose.  I attributed this to a few factors.  Even though I haven’t grappled since 2005, I’ve been competing in SOME sort of physical competition for most of my life with just a few breaks, so I’m no longer a victim of general “competition jitters”.  I also did spend 3 seasons wrestling in high school, so this wasn’t absolutely totally alien to me.  But the biggest contributing factor is that I genuinely never felt threatened by either one of these individuals.  Thinking back on the matches, I can’t recall either one of them even attempting a sub on me: it was all just jockeying for position.  And as the matches went on, I could literally feel their strength and stamina fade, while mine remained unchecked.  In truth, I got to experience the “killer instinct” I had heard so much about: as they got weaker, it made me stronger.  I felt like a shark sniffing blood in the water: as soon as I felt them wanting to quit, I got MORE energy and wanted to push harder and harder to totally break them.  It’s funny, because one of the primary reasons I walked away from combat sports all those years ago was BECAUSE I lacked that killer instinct.  I was too nice.  Perhaps it’s the confidence that comes with being in better shape that helped with that.  However, there was SOME sort of fight or flight effect, because after the comp was over I got some amazing Mexican food to celebrate (still kept it carnivore: carne asada, huevos, shredded queso, beef cheek (cabeza) and birrira) and aside from the fact I could have eaten about 3 servings of it all, my fork was shaking a bunch.

 

* It dawns on me that I was essentially “persistence hunting” both opponents.  I couldn’t match them in skill, so I had to just wear them out until they got tired enough that I could slap on a sloppy submission.  Which I’m TOTALLY at peace with, but it’s just a comical observation.  Someone pointed out to me that me forcing the competitors to stand up so often was actually achieving this very goal, which is something I didn’t THINK about but must have instinctively understood.  Each time they stood up and locked up with me was more time for them to lose strength and stamina.

 

* I clearly had no idea what I was doing when it came to submissions.  I remember 4 from my training: the armbar, the Americana, the triangle choke, and the rear naked choke.  I only managed to attempt 2 of them the whole time (armbars and Americana), and only the Americana worked.  But my body still remembered how to wrestle, which made it so that I was pretty good at getting to positions where I COULD apply some subs if I knew how.  Instead, I ended up just using this time to make the other person uncomfortable and panicky.  Biggest thing was applying pressure to the neck with my elbow whenever possible: just take away their oxygen. I contemplated covering their mouth with my hand at some point, but decided it wasn’t a really cool thing to do.

But it's not unprecedented

 

* When it was all over, I had a bunch of scratches on my face and neck, bruising up and down my body, and my ears hurt from rolling all over them on the mat.  THIS is the “armor” that Dan John talks about building up through wrestling/tumbling.  I was also sore in a bunch of muscles I had forgotten about.  Similarly, Dan relayed a story about his brother who ran a marathon with no training.  When it was over, his feet were torn up and bleeding so bad that it took him 3 months to fully recover.  3 months is about the time you need to spend training for a marathon to build up all the small muscles and calluses in order to survive the race.  The takeaway there was that a marathon is going to take 3 months of your time; either before OR after.  It’s similar here.  You CAN go out and win grappling without training for it, but there will still be SOME sort of “training cost”.

 

* Not having a coach was kind of a blessing, because I could hear the OTHER coach’s instruction and knew what to expect the other guy to try based off of that.

 

* Carb loading is for chumps.  So is cutting weight.  I came in SO well nourished and ready to perform.  I also have to wonder if I’m a product of “being that which does”.  I’ve eaten like an apex predator, and got on the mat and felt no need to be pensive or reserved.  Yes, that’s entirely self-congratulatory: I’m ok with that.

 

 

WHAT’S NEXT?

I mean, the precedent is there...

Since I got gold in the novice division, I wouldn’t feel right doing it again, so if I do compete in another grappling tournament, it’ll be at the white belt non-novice level.  That does pose an interesting challenge, as I technically don’t even have a white belt in a grappling martial art, but typically people sandbag DOWN rather than up, so I can’t imagine anyone will get too upset about that.

 

What I’d REALLY love to do next is get in a boxing smoker.  I’ve trained boxing a bunch in my life but never had a chance to get a match.  This gives me hope that I could do something like that. 

 

Until then, I’m keeping my eyes open for other competitive venues.  I’ll do a strongman show if it looks fun, a powerlifting meet if it’s convenient, I do an annual 10-mile race alongside my wife and am open to some more half-marathons, and ultimately just like getting out there, having fun, and NOT training for any of it.  Chaos is the plan!