6/27/2015
You can do side bends or sit up
But please don’t lose that butt.
My Anaconda don’t want none unless you got buns, hun!
--- Sir-Mix-Alot. Baby Got Back.
1.
It
has only happened to me twice during my Brazilian Jiu Jitsu career. I would say
that I’ve come within seconds of it happening another ten times or so, but
never reached fruition. I only walked away with dizziness and stars-a-gazing in
my vision. What I’m talking about is being put to sleep while under the
complete strangle hold of a Jiu Jitsu choke. Jiu Jitsu chokes are blood chokes.
You don’t lose oxygen to your lungs, but instead the main blood arteries in your
neck are closed off long enough that the blood to your brain is closed off, and
you go to sleep. With some chokes, it happens before you know. All of a sudden
your homies are elevating your legs up and asking if you are ok. I’m here to
write a story.
The
two chokes that put me completely to sleep was the choke called the anaconda
choke. Some people call it the D’Arse choke. I’ve also been put to sleep with
the Peruvian Necktie. The Peruvian is much scarier to me because it happens quickly.
Usually the guy has to be very flexible and fast to pull that choke off,
especially against a guy who knows that it’s coming up. But when it happens,
the guy is usually bearing a lot of weight on you and the choke is so tight,
that you may not even remember trying to tap before the choke puts you to
sleep.
The
other choke, the Anaconda, is actually my favorite choke in all of Jiu Jitsu. I
feel this way because you literally weave your hand around the opponents
closest arm to you, then around his neck, and you bring it back to yourself and
close the door behind it, so that even though the opponent has an arm close to
you, it is that very arm that is cutting off the blood circulation to his
brain. It feels very much like an Anaconda weaving its body around its prey.
Here’s
what it feels like to be put to sleep: You may be fighting the best of your
ability. Jiu Jitsu is like a chess match. Each move has an equal counter-move.
Many moves have many counter moves. So with Jiu Jitsu, it is not always the
most athletic person who gets the dominant position, or lands the choke. It is
often the person who can see or feel the move you are attacking or even
defending with, and out of pure wit, you are able to attack the weakness of the
position. While wrestling is a match of trying to break through a wall, Jiu
Jitsu is about finding the hidden door into that wall. It’s about being
efficient while using the least amount of energy so that you can fight for as
long as possible if needed, even if you are initially getting your butt kicked.
Being
put to sleep under a solid choke feels like going into a dream. One minute you
are fighting, and the next you don’t even know where you are. Slowly, you start
to come to. You become aware that people are around you. You may even be
familiar with where you are, but for some reason you cannot interact with the
environment around you. You can’t move your body at all. You see this sort of
tunnel vision. And I don’t know why this happens, but your eardrums are
ringing. It’s like a slow motion but very deliberate warbling sound. It’s as if
your eardrums are expanding and contracting. At least that is what I
experience.
Finally,
you become aware of where you are, but still can’t move or function like you
want yourself to. You might even be telling your body to move or asking
yourself why you are not standing up yet. The first few times this happens, you
even feel a little bit ashamed. It feels embarrassing. It feels like ultimate
defeat. Some people can’t handle that feeling, and that usually is where people
quit. It’s the ultimate knowledge that you just got your ass kicked.
The
wonderful thing about Jiu Jitsu is that everyone is getting their ass kicked.
So once you can get over that feeling, I think that it is actually funny to
either be put to sleep, or to put someone else to sleep. After years of
practicing, you know your body’s limitations and you know how to protect your
opponent/training partner, so that even if he/she experiences this, they are
still safe. Only the ego gets bruised.
But what
if you never fully woke up from that dream state? What if you were trapped in
your mind and your body would never listen to what you were telling it to do?
Well I am going to fictionalize that very happening. Sit back and enjoy the
ride as you get sprung into the figment of my imagination.
2.
It
was a normal day as usual on the mats. There were about 20 of us on the mats
and we had just passed the halfway mark into an hour of 6 minute matches. I had
already rolled with 4 guys and now I was up against my best buddy, Jason “The
D’Arce”. Off the mats we talked about arts, philosophy and the law. He is a
city attorney, but for now he will become my fighting canvas, and I plan to use
my brushes to paint the most spectacular ass whoopin all over him. I’m sure he
wants to do the same thing to me. He’s got some philosophesizing for me.
Jason
is a smaller guy than me. I’d say he is pushing 175. He’s much more athletic,
quicker, and just a bit spunkier. I, on the other hand, am a power-guy. I’m
pushing 240 lbs. easy. I eat my cheerios every day, and I lift weights as if
later I plan on throwing grown men. And actually, I plan on doing just that.
I’ve been training a little bit longer, so I know that in order to beat a
faster, smaller guy, you don’t try to use speed. He will beat you with that.
You have to slow him down. You slow him down, and slowly constrict his body
until one minute he realizes that he is face to face with you, but all his
limbs are immobile and his lungs are slowly collapsing as you put on nothing
but hellish body pressure. You can’t use your speed if you have nowhere to go.
Enough
of the pre-fight talk. The music is bumping some hip hop music. The other
opponents are facing each other. The bell that rings of battle’s begin is about
to sound off. In our minds, we size each
other up, and we strategize. Ding Ding Ding Ding. Six minutes has started.
Let’s bro fist, slap hands and do this shit.
Me
and Jason are in our grappler’s stance. We’re circling around each other,
waiting for the first strike to happen, and then it does. Jason reaches for my
collar. I, in turn spring forward like a snake pouncing on a cute baby rabbit.
I use the arm that he tried to grab my collar with, and I arm drag him and
immediately get to his back. It’s a fight of limbs as I try to get control of
him with my arm grips so that I can set my deadly hooks in with my legs. Jason
is not going for it. He is too smart of a grappler to know what is going on.
Plus, he is still full of energy.
We
again face off, face to face, as he has escaped my first strangulation attempt
on him. I see the wry grin in his face as he gains confidence in this minor win
within the battle. This time, I press the attack like a lion going in on a
zebra. I reach for a pant leg and his color at the same time, in order to sweep
him on his back. It works. I now have gained side control on him with me on
top. I bear down with all my weight on him, and immediately work to close off
all escape routes for him. He’s a squirrely motherfucker, though. I do my best
to collapse him as flat as I can on his back, but he moves very quickly. Just when I think I have an arm attack on him,
he does the biggest buck and roll that he can muster, he frees his arm that was
destined to be mine and he gains his guard back.
I’m
super frustrated at this point because I just lost the dominant position.
Jason’s legs are doing the best job at keeping the rest of my body away from
him. He has also grabbed both of my lapels. What happens next is absolutely
amazing. This man who is at least 50-60 lbs. lighter than me uses his leverage
on me. He uses his grips on me, tilts his weight back, and is victorious in
getting the balloon sweep on me. This is essentially where he sweeps me over
his boy, and he lands on top of me. What a damn bold move, and it worked.
I can
see it in the The D”Arce’s face, that he is now over confident, and doesn’t
secure the position quick enough. I do the best two or three shrimps that I
can, and I escape his full mount, and actually catch him slipping again; I am
able to close up a triangle choke around him. As I’m locking the choke around
him, he is caught like a bear in a bear trap. He has one arm in and one arm out
of one of the best and oldest Jiu Jitsu chokes in the world. My legs are
frantically trying to choke the eye-balls out of his socket. I want his head to
turn purple like a grape as his senses should slowly diminish.
But
damn it, he escapes that choke. He rushes to get me into the side control
position as he throws my legs away from his oxygen deprived and ugly head of
his. With much speed, I hurry up into the turtle position. And this is where
the beginning of the end happens. I feel him try to push me over to my side,
attack my feet, and even try to set up a crucifix, all to no avail. What I
wasn’t prepared for was his quick Anaconda choke. He weaves his arm in around
my closest arm, around my neck, and back out to where he can latch on to his
other arm and put the final nails into this coffin. It happens so quickly, that
I don’t even know how long it took, or what happened next. My feet were in the
air, and my homies were there to aid me back to Jiu Jitsu life, so that I could
fight another day.
3.
The
problem was that I was never able to come back. At least not for a while. In
the garden of olives, just before Jesus was about to be arrested and condemned,
he told his disciples to pray. But they were all so very heavy with sadness
that all they could do was sleep. In the meantime, Jesus went and prayed to his
father that if the cup of punishment could pass from him, let it happen.
Otherwise his will be done. Jesus would then rebuke his disciples for falling
asleep while the Devil was on his way with a legion of roman soldiers and false
accusers.
“How can you sleep and not pray? The spirit is willing
but the body is weak.”
Well
that’s what was going on with me. My spirit was totally willing to come out of
this. In fact I was totally aware of what was going on. I knew when people were
talking to me. I knew who was talking to me and I knew where I was and the most
important thing, who I was. But I could not get my body to respond. I stayed in
this coma state for a very long. It was in fact worse than a coma. I could not
communicate with any parts of my body. I could not even blink to show you that
I could hear you. But I was there. I had never left. Hours turned into days.
Days turned into weeks. Weeks turned into months. Finally it was a few years
later and I was living at a girlfriend’s house.
The
girlfriend at the time had agreed to take care of me in my diminished
condition. She was not very nice to me, though. She would feed me bad food. She
would talk about me while I was in the same room, with her friends.
“Yeah, I’m really getting tired of taking care of the
sleeper over there. Hey dumbass, when are you going to wake up?”
Oh
she was very cruel indeed. Years into this captivity of my mind, I learned how
to stop feeling sorry for myself. I learned to play mind games to keep myself
entertained. Even when the TV was off, and the bitch was out doing her thing, I
could sit there and make up the greatest of tails inside my head. I preferred
the quite alone times anyways. I would replay that last roll with Jason, over
and over in my head. I would think about the positions we were in and I would
dissect everything. I would map out different attacks that I could have used on
The D’Arce.
More
times than not, I would come away the victor. I esteemed my friend, Jason, very
much, but I esteemed my Jiu Jitsu just a little bit more. I had to beat him. I
had to have my rematch. I couldn’t lay here forever. That was the only thing
that made me sad. I missed my friends. I missed Jiu Jitsu. I missed being on
the mat. I would take getting choked out every day of the year if it meant that
I could continue to roll another day. You see, once you become addicted to
fighting, every other day in your life gets compared to the greatest moments of
your time in battle. Not much tops fighting. Sex doesn’t compare, most other
sports activities are just a way to have other passions, but nothing can
replace fighting. Even your career and your dignity as a man can be attributed
to fighting, because one never truly knows himself until he has fought.
4.
The
day comes when I’ve had enough. The sadness is too much. But I see a light at
the end of the tunnel. I can feel a tingle at the end of my toes and fingers. I
can actually begin to twitch my fingers. I begin mind training myself to
connect with those parts of my body. Months later I can move more and more of
my body. One day I can sit up and move my arms again. I am awake again. I have
been doing this all the while my girlfriend has been away. She is not really my
girlfriend anymore, but it is fun to call her that. As they say in French, Shit
is about to hit the fan.
Like
usual, she comes home from work. She slams the door shut. She bitches to me
about how worthless I am as a man. She says horrible stuff to me about me non
existing sexual performance. She calls me a fallen god who will never again
resurrect himself.
“Well you know what, asshole? I have a date tonight
with Bob from down the street. We’re going to fuck right here on the couch next
to you. Enjoy the show, baby”
In my
mind I’m laughing. But to her I don’t even so much as flinch an eyelash. I’m going to show her that I’m awake
tonight, right in the middle of her naughty behavior. I love it. It’s my
best form of revenge on her. And that’s exactly what happened.
They
were in the middle of a sex crazed fuck fest on the couch next to the hospice
bed she had me laid up on, in the living room. She was getting it doggy style,
like the dog that she was. I quietly stood up from the bed. I had my clothes on
underneath the blankets. And I had my Brazilian Jiu Jitsu kimono under the bed.
I had set everything in place that afternoon, knowing I was going to make my
attack.
As he
was banging the shit out of the woman in which I hated much more than I ever
loved, I weaved my arm in under his arm, around his neck, and quickly set in
the tightest of Anaconda chokes this side of the Mississippi. I did it so
quickly and with such power, that he immediately passed out and went to sleep.
I simply dropped his body.
The
bitch immediately started screaming. I said, “I’ve been awake for months now,
baby. How do you like me now?”
She couldn’t move and she stared at me with all of the
color gone out of her body. She looked as if she had seen a ghost. I simply
walked out. The first thing I did was went back to the Brazilian Jiu Jitsu
place. I saw Jason there. We hugged, slapped hands, and started with the
rematch. We sprung at each other like two coiled snakes releasing our energy
for the battle. It was beautiful. The end.
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