Alasdair Stuart's Blog

Let’s talk about fear for a moment. There was a time when fear grabbed my jacket before I’d even left the house. My pulse would rise, the bottom of my stomach would fall and I’d walk to Judo with a sick feeling. I was the fat kid. No, not even the fat kid, I was the fat, 35 year old nerd who had no business whatsoever stepping onto the mat with chiselled young gods and goddesses with biceps, pectorals and all those other things that I’d successfully buried under a couple of decades worth of chocolate and pie.

That fear, to my tremendous surprise, has faded. I didn’t even notice it go. It left a friend though; the simple fear of reinjuring myself. I go on about this I know, but its been close to four months that I’ve been working with a busted wheel. It’s better, almost completely better but I still can’t kneel properly, still can’t move quite right, still don’t trust myself with the injured knee. There was a twang, and there was a scream and nothing has been quite the same since.

Then there’s the fear of getting beaten up. Make no mistake, I am 6’1 and over 300 pounds, but I’ve been frightened of fighting my entire life, for two reasons. The first is that, well, I’m a nerd. I talk, I actually talk for a living on some levels and the idea of solving a problem by beating someone up is something which I find massively unsettling and, well, a little uncouth.

Then there’s the other fear. Because I’m Big you see. I’ve been Big my entire life, a little too big for the world. I break things sometimes, or used to, because my spatial awareness wasn’t great because, well, I’m Big. You have to be careful when you’re Big. Careful and patient and you must never, ever under any circumstances lose your temperature. Because not everyone else is Big and if you lose your temper with someone who isn’t Big you could hurt them very badly.

I’m Big. I’m Clever. The two sometimes feel mutually exclusive.

So I’m scared when I step onto the mat. It makes sense, because fundamentally what you’re doing is learning to hurt people. And they’re learning to hurt you. And sometimes when people learn they make mistakes. And sometimes those mistakes lead to twanging. And screaming. And four months of physio.

I do it anyway. This may be bravery. It may be masochism. I prefer to think of it as a healthy respect for my art and my fellow students. And also maybe a little fear.

I’ve been scared recently for a different reason and it’s a slightly embarrassing one. I’m tough. Not in that ‘Can be punched many times without being hurt’ way but rather that I’m difficult to hurt. I’ve been seriously ill maybe three times in my life and seriously injured exactly twice. The first time I broke my arm by literally falling off the ground and the second involved a twang and a scream.

I’m scared of getting hurt again. Because I’m a cynic, and because whilst the black dog doesn’t live at the bottom of my garden he certainly plays there and most of all because I understand story on a genetic level. Now is the perfect time for our hero (Who in ths instance is me) to be seriously injured again just before he completes his recovery. In fact, the only time that’s more narratively smart for me to get injured again is less than a week before a tournament.

Again.

The thing I’m scared of is randori because randori is free practice and that means it can’t be predicted. Someone will turn the wrong way, push the wrong way, you’re as likely to do the same and before you know it it’s back to the bottom of the rehab ladder. So I don’t spar, apart from select circumstances and when I do I’m slow, I’m clumsy, I’m cautious.

Let’s talk about caution and violence for a moment. Caution in any martial art is a good thing. Fundamentally, you’re doing a combat sport, you’re fighting someone, and whilst the ‘storm in and blitz them’ approach works in the short term, it won’t work forever. No one’s Rocky, no one has fists of stone or muscles of granite. Everyone gets tired, everyone makes mistakes and everyone gets shut down when they do. So caution’s good, caution’s your friend, up to a point.

That point is when you freeze up and that’s where our old friend fear makes a return. Make no mistake, Judo is scary. Any combat sport is scary, but for me, at least there’s something visceral and frightening about the loss of control inherent in Judo. Your opponent isn’t just trying to beat you, they’re trying to throw you off your feet, hyper extend a joint until you can’t take the pain, choke you unconscious or just hold you still for twenty five seconds. Fighting hurts. Judo hurts.

So there goes the fear again, as the Doves once sang, and the way you deal with it is the way you deal with all fear. You face it. You look it in the eyes and you prepare for pain. You accept that pain, and the fact it won’t and can’t last forever, you can face your fear.

I sparred this week. More than I have for almost four months. I had two standing fights with no ground work and I lost one and won one. I threw a blue belt with Tai Otoshi, the throw that injured me, and it felt great. I turned, yanked, he sailed through the air in a perfect circle and landed on his back. My knee stung, a little, once.

I sparred on the ground too. Three times. I won two and I lost one. Groundfighting is the closest Judo gets to striking forms for me, because it’s there that things get fast. You and your opponent grapple for position, legs get thrown odd places, arms lock and you roll and turn and struggle until one of you is pinned, one of you taps or you’re both exhausted.

That last one happened. I was sparring with a black belt about six years my junior. I’ve worked with before, he’s a good guy, and like a lot of people cross trains with us and Brazilian Jujitsu. BJJ is Judo without the standing work and it excels at moving your opponent on the ground and locking in a never ending stream of extremely painful holds. I excel at being put IN extremely painful holds so I wasn’t exactly brimming with confidence when we started and locked up.

He turned under me, locked his legs around my arm and extended. This is an armbar. It’s the thing that, at the moment, former Judo Olympian Ronda Rousey is using to destroy her Mixed Martial Arts opponents as fast as possible. It hurts.

I stood up out of it. Just put my mass behind it and pulled and got my arm clear. I closed on him, put him down, got one of his shoulders on the mat and just ground. I have a lot of mass and I’m not scared to use it anymore so I pushed him into the ground, looked for a couple of holds, never quite got either and he tried his level best to get out of them.

The drill got stopped. I sort of slumped off him and we lay there for a moment before he patted my arm and said something which I think was ‘nice one’. I may have grunted. My heart rate was up. I was gasping for breath, my throat was dry and I’d not won.

But I had fought. Five half matches in one session, two good throws, a good solid choke attempt, some welcome tips from higher belts and exhaustion. Together those don’t just add up to victory, they add up to something better. Hope, possibility and the very real knowledge that I’m making progress, that I’ve earned my place on the mat. All of it, the pain, the anxiety, the fear, the caution, all of it is worthwhile because of that.

I’m scared of the big mat. There’s a good reason for this, and one we need to talk about. My Judo club is laid out on a balcony in the Railway Institute. There’s a sprung floor, two mats wide, some gym gear and an endearing and very small kitchen. Oh and a rack of water bottles with a sign beneath it saying

Lost Water Bottles. Are these yours?

Which appears to have been there a lot longer than I have. It’s not big, but it’s compact, neat, well put together.

The big mat is a different story. On the ground floor of the Railway Institute, where trains were once built and repaired, there are nine Badminton courts. The big mat, when it’s laid out, is laid out across a couple of these courts. It’s commonly used for tournaments, laid out so there are two competition areas with an alleyway between them. That’s the first problem. The first time I saw the big mat was as a spectator, sitting watching the tournament I’d prepared to compete in for close to a month happen without me. The big mat, right then, became something that I could see but not touch, somewhere I was allowed to be but not as anything other than a spectator.

It got worse when I came back and trained for the first time too; I spent a miserable training session down on the big mat not trusting myself, my leg, my skills, my memory or anything else. I remember getting changed for that session and being genuinely excited as I pulled on my new knee braces and ankle guards, promising that I wouldn’t spar, that I wouldn’t push myself. It didn’t matter. The knee brace irritated my skin, the ankle braces were basically socks with the toes and heels cut off and I was slow, lumpen, frightened. I was failing, worthless, being left behind and managing to do that on a larger mat, in front of even more people than usual.

I have a problem with the big mat.

James Brown, however, does not have a problem with the big mat. The godfather of soul may have long since been ushered off the mortal stage, a cape around his shoulders, but it turns out he has a fondness for the gentle way. Or at least, the gentle way has a fondness for him.

Warm up routines at Judo are a variable feast. Sometimes they remind me exactly how unflexible I am, sometimes they’re an exercise in terror as we do endless forward rolls and occasionally they make me feel like a large man who’s getting larger in the right way, fat turning to muscle, flexibility replacing stiffness.

They’ve never made me laugh before though.

We were on the big mat, being taken by a gentleman with a red and white striped belt. This, in Judo, marks him out as an official grownup. You’re assessed for belts up to brown and from there, when you start earning black belts you can either earn them by gaining points for fighting existing black belts or you can earn them academically. The first is harder, the second is slower, they’re both on my list of things to look at because my plan with belts is very simple; I turn 35 this year. I want to have my black belt in time for my fortieth birthday.

Once you have your black belt, of course, it’s not over. You go from 1^st Dan black belt to 2^nd, 3^rd, 4^th and so on. Once you get to 6^th Dan blackbelt, you’re awared a red and white striped belt, white standing for purity and red for the intense desire to train. You get this far? You’re in the top couple of percent of people who’ve studied your art. You get higher than this? Well, there have only ever been 15 10^th Dan black belts. The company gets rarified the higher you go.

Which is why this gentleman, whose name I didn’t catch, coming out, pressing play on his laptop and leading us through an aerobic warm up to ‘I Feel Good’ by James Brown was so surprising. Ne of the things that has always attracted me to Judo is the refreshingly low amount of macho chest beating bollocks but hand in hand with that is a certain seriousness. You’re learning how to throw people, choke them, break their limbs, knock them out by punching them in the body with the ground. It’s fun, there’ve been very few sessions that someone hasn’t laughed in but underneath all that is the knowledge that this is a very serious, brutal, efficient way of fighting.

James Brown clearly got that memo and decided to rub some funk on it.

You see, it’s also perfect Judo. It disarmed us all, instantly, put us on our mental backs and gave us the licence to relax. As the lesson went on, we broke down into pairs and focussed on driving the big bus. De ash barai is a throw where you drag your opponents’ arms around to one side whilst simultaneously sweeping their outer leg out. It’s two movements, done in perfect combination and done right it’s a fight winner. You put them down, land on them and pin or choke until they tap out and you win.

Done wrong, it’s embarrassing. Step, step, step pull sweep becomes step, step, step sweep miss or step, step, step sweep ankle kick or step, step, step sweep thin air. It all comes down to rhythm and pacing, and knowing to start the throw on the step before the step you throw on.

I hated it. Partnered with dour Scottish Dave we walked up and down the mat and I missed it every, single.time. Every permutation of failure fell out of my ankles and my hands as I failed to do three basic movements in order. I got frustrated, I got embarrassed, I remembered why I hate the big mat. Because I’m injured and weak, because I have no flexibility and speed and confidence, because I’m scared of moving my left leg.

And that, right there, was the breakthrough. We walked through the throw at quarter speed, and Dave, who is as boundlessly patient as he is cheerfully ruthless, pointed something out. I wasn’t landing the throw for two reasons; firstly because my pacing was ever so slightly off and secondly because I was pulling my left leg back instead of leaving it in place and using it as a platform for the throw. Four inches. Four inches lost through three months of pain and psychological trauma, and fear.

In a month it’s going to be three inches. Then two. Then one. Because fear is something you can negotiate with, and sculpt. Fear is something you have to have a dialogue with, bend to your will. Fear is something you wrestle with, and wrestling, these days is something I know a little about.

We got to start that particular fight too, as the instructor very pointedly called all the white and red belts out to demonstrate the technique. We’d all been partnered with high belts, all been nurse maided and were all given the chance to shine in front of the class. None of us landed it right first time but we all did it, all walked out and made the big mat our own for a minute.

The lesson rounded off like it began, classic funk and soul underpinning a Simon says game that taught me, to my tremendous surprise, that my forward rolls are on the way back. Then, the Godfather of soul, who in my mind was of course wearing a gold lame gi (With a cape), bowed, did that splits thing he did, and shimmied off the big mat. He’d made it his own and shown me I could too.

Let’s talk about violence. Violence is what I do, at Judo, and have done to me. You can dress it up all you want, emphasise the politeness, the courtesy, the humour, the remarkable amounts of clothing we wear, but the simple truth is this; once a week (And twice a week every other week) I’m learning to fight. When you learn to fight you learn two things; how to hurt someone else and how to survive them hurting you.

Shameful confession the first; there is a throw I genuinely hate having done to me. Any of the Goshi throws, or the Pussycat Doll Hip Bump, hurt like hell, because fundamentally what you’re doing is being picked up and dropped back first from half your height. The end result is like the Earth punching you in the spine and that’s even before you take into account the fact that most people will put you down with some extra force. Nine times out of ten now, I will bounce back up like a hairy Easter bunny whenever I’m thrown. Drop me with a Goshi throw? You’ve got about a second to drop on me, lock in a chest hold or get some way into an armbar or submission hold. They hurt, plain and simple.

Which of course is an asset, which I’m covering up because I’m still a shy, retiring English academic. So here’s the thing, out in the open; I am getting much, much better at popping straight back to my feet. I’m hard to throw, I’m hard to keep down and in a fight, that’s an asset. A big asset.

Shameful confession the second; I enjoy choke holds. Choke holds aren’t the simplest way to end a fight, that, for me, is lying on my opponent for twenty five seconds so their shoulders are pinned to the mat, but that isn’t important. Choke holds, and armlocks, are the closest Judo gets to strikes. You land them right, it’s over, you’ve won and crucially, you land them right, it’s over fast. I like them, they’re simple, they’re elegant and they work and I’m getting good at them.

Notice what I did there as well? I’m getting good at them, hidden at the end like an afterthought. I have two big assets, aside from my major asset of being big; I’m hard to put down and if I can lock a choke on, then you’re going to lose. I have what could be called fight skills, and that, on some level troubles me. The reason why it troubles me is because I’m still a polite, softly spoken nerd who’s slightly afraid of his size. It’s going further and further away but it’s still there and it manifests itself in sparring. I’m not alone either, as I found out this week. We all have tells, we all have physical ticks that come out when we spar, ways of dealing with the physical and emotional stress of the fact we’re actually fighting. It’s the equivalent of accent, to go back to the physical language metaphor I keep using. We all talk the same way, but we all talk with regional accents and for the first time, this week, I saw that.

I still got beaten, but this time, I saw it coming.

We did two things this lesson; Osaekomi drills and sparring. Osaekomi drills basically come down to the ‘They shoot horses, don’t they?’ school of repetitious physical exercise and neatly slot into the other movements we’ve been taught already. You control your opponent from the shoulders, turning them into you and putting them where you want to go and then you do two things, both fast; you ‘chicken wing’ their arms up, collapsing their elbows and dragging them towards you and then, well, you basically punch them in the chest with your chest.

Did I mention I’m six foot one and large? And that Steve’s taller and larger than me? And that this drill involves you doing this movement at speed and on the move? Ten times? This was tough, and it was tough in a way that I’ve started to notice a lot of drills are now. You work through the same motions over and over and each time you do it’s like working a pump. The pump pushes muscle memory up until it swamps conscious thought and you’re not thinking about your aching arms, or landing the throw right, all you’re thinking about is the movement, the intent, the set up. Zen and the art of putting someone on their arse if you will. So you focus by not focussing, you think by not thinking and suddenly we’re in exactly the realm I’ve spent maybe five seconds of my life in; you trust your body, it knows where you need to move and what you need to do.

Which is probably a good time to talk about Ford Prefect. Ford is one of my heroes and I first met him in the TV version of The Hitch-Hiker’s Guide To The Galaxy. He’s a Betelgeusian journalist, a travel writer who comes to Earth, gets a bit stuck and ultimately saves Arthur Dent when the plant is destroyed. Ford is polite, well spoken, precise, odd as hell and largely unshakeable. I wanted to be Ford when I grew up, and, in some ways, I am. He’s the Doctor with slightly better more traditional dress sense, a man who can survive the end of a planet as long as he’s got his towel. Ford also, at one point in the books, decides to, as he puts it, take his brain off the hook and let his body come back to it if it needs him. This strikes me as remarkably good advice for Judo.

Which brings me back to tells, and Scottish Dave manhandling me. Scottish Dave is one of my favorite sparring partners because he doesn’t hold back and at the same time is very generous with advice. I tried an Uchi Mata on him during practice, ballsed it up spectacularly and he talked me back down, pointed me at what I needed to do and then let me throw him. Then, when we sparred, he grabbed me by the belt and yanked me towards him.

This is the second time it’s happened and I’ve learnt something from it, in fact two things; firstly older people are crafty, have been on the planet longer and know some tricks and secondly I need to close the distance. I’ve had a lot of success planting my feet and making my opponent come to me but for him, and other people, it doesn’t work. For them I close the distance fast, I wear my size and I use it to grab them turn them and put them on the mat. Some people I let come to me, others I don’t give them the chance.

I worked out why he does this too. It’s a good way of using my size against me, turning me and taking me off my game and off my balance. It’s also a fantastic tactic if it’s the end of a lesson and you’re knackered. He threw me twice, I threw him not at all but he had a couple of extra opportunities I blocked in time. It’s not a victory but I came away from that match knowing more than I had at the start. I know his tell now and he helped me see mine. I tried the same technique three times in a row on him, and each time he blocked it and each time it became easier. The reason for this is simple; I didn’t trust myself to try something else in case I hurt him and I was stressed because, well, I was in a fight. So I tried the one technique I had locked in my brain over and over and it didn’t work and I got thrown twice. To make matters worse I didn’t tuck my head either time so I bounced my head off the mat pretty hard twice. So much so that when I popped back to my feet and Dave asked if I was okay and I said yes, he insisted I take a couple of seconds. I didn’t complain, oddly.

Second fight, second opponent, Sandra this time. Sandra’s one of the club black belts and she’s, again, an excellent sparring partner to learn from. Sandra likes chokes, like me, and she’s very good at them. We locked up and, as before, the same throw stuck in my head. Osoto Otoshi. Bring them on to you, step behind them and push. Tried it once. Nothing. Tried it again, nothing. Sandra threw me.

Jamie walked past, ribbed her about us spending too long on the ground and Sandra grinned, popped back to her feet and said ‘We’d only just got down there, hadn’t we?’. I laughed, she laughed, we locked up and she tried a throw. I blocked it. I tried Osoto Otoshi. She blocked it. She tried a throw. It landed. Popped back up, locked up again. What’s the best throw to try in this situation? Osoto Otoshi! What’s the worst that could happen?

She blocked it. Which was the point where my body had had quite enough. I stepped in to her, grabbed her round the waist and lifted her off her feet. She’s really good, so she caught herself as she fell but it had worked. I’d broken my tell, done something unexpected and taken her off her feet as a result. She still won, as did Dave, but they both showed me something vital. I don’t just need to breathe, I need to relax. My body’s a better fighter than my brain at the moment and the sooner my brain shuts up and gets out of the way, the better I’ll do. Although it will be sitting on the sidelines and taking notes.

I’m starting to trust myself more. It’s almost like an Orrery, with two planets starting to move into alignment, one my brain, one my body. I know the techniques, I’m within sight of having the confidence to use them and all I have to do is keep doing something which is almost impossible for me; fight. The more I fight, the more I’ll learn how to win, how to move and think and I’ll see my boundaries expand even further than they already have. I’m hard to throw, harder to keep down. Defensively I’m in pretty good shape. Offensively, I need to meet my opponent head on physically, but head off intellectually, at least for now. Sharpen the sword now, work out how to make a better sword with a fancy pommel later.