Very rough first draft after scrapping the first statement
Posted: Fri Feb 07, 2014 4:05 pm
The room smells like mildew and sweat. Muffled grunts and light thuds can be heard all around me. My arm is caught in an omoplata, a shoulder lock applied with the legs. The legs in question are more like telephone poles though, they belong to XXXXX, we call him that because he played a few seasons for the XXXXX as a defensive lineman. He's leaned down since those days, 6'4" 235lbs of muscle, and he's kicking my butt.
I sit and clasp my hands together and begin to pry my arm free. XXXXX loses his hold and I slip my arm out. This is the 10th escape for me. People have begun to watch, I shouldn't have lasted this long with him. I'm a pretty good brown belt, but he's nearly a black belt and has the advantage of size and strength not to mention he hasn't been tapped out by anyone in a very long time. But I refuse to lose, he may have all the advantages, but I won't be out worked. XXXXXX throws his giant legs around my neck for a triangle choke for the second time tonight and once again I sit back to defend and I'm out. I go to pass his guard and get swept onto my back. He gets side control and crushes me under his weight, he goes for my arm I manage to get back to my knees. XXXXXX grabs for my collar and tries to apply another choke. His grip is almost impossible to break and my collar beings to make a creaking sound around my neck like a hangman's noose tightening, I break his grip and begin my guard pass, I jump pass his legs and get a side control of my own, I grab his collar and press my wrist to his neck, the bell rings. XXXXX sits up exhausted and slaps hands with me. A mist rises from our palms, steam rises from our heads and kimonos, this was a good roll.
Dan Gable is famously quoted as saying "Once you've wrestled, everything else in life is easy." While not exactly the same as wrestling, the saying holds true for Jiu Jitsu all the same. You grapple, you get strangled by trained killers in sweaty bathrobes, and if they don't strangle you, they try to break your arms or leg.
It was after this epic sparring session that I decided to sit and write this statement. In fact, it was after a day on the mat that I decided to apply to law school in the first place.
I was helping my friend Casey prepare for an upcoming MMA bout in Atlantic City. It was a tough night and I still had work to do for my business, a business I've been running since 2003 when my parents retired.
I sat in my home office and looked down at the floor. The laminated study guide staring up at me reminded me of a promise I made over a year earlier. It was a promise I had not kept.
I sat with my father in his hospital room. Dad was dying, I was in denial, but deep down I knew I would lose him. Moments before I sat in a room with my mother, sisters, and wife along with two strangers, women from hospice who told me that they help families with "end of life care". I broke down in tears. I had cared for my father, now 93, since he retired 8 years earlier. As I helped him to the restroom he looked at me and asked me to promise him that I would pursue my life's ambition and become an attorney. I hadn't exactly given up on becoming an attorney, life just got in the way. It was up to me to rescue the business when it was I. Serious trouble years earlier, my mother and I cared for my dad more and more each year. Marriage, children, the dream became just that, a dream.
Life hasn't been easy, but that's ok. Sometimes life puts you in a few choke holds, it may even crush you a bit, but you have to fight to get up, break those grips and defend those chokes. You may not be the strongest, or the biggest, you might be considered second best but you have to get past that. You're better, you're stronger than you think you are just don't tap out.
I sit and clasp my hands together and begin to pry my arm free. XXXXX loses his hold and I slip my arm out. This is the 10th escape for me. People have begun to watch, I shouldn't have lasted this long with him. I'm a pretty good brown belt, but he's nearly a black belt and has the advantage of size and strength not to mention he hasn't been tapped out by anyone in a very long time. But I refuse to lose, he may have all the advantages, but I won't be out worked. XXXXXX throws his giant legs around my neck for a triangle choke for the second time tonight and once again I sit back to defend and I'm out. I go to pass his guard and get swept onto my back. He gets side control and crushes me under his weight, he goes for my arm I manage to get back to my knees. XXXXXX grabs for my collar and tries to apply another choke. His grip is almost impossible to break and my collar beings to make a creaking sound around my neck like a hangman's noose tightening, I break his grip and begin my guard pass, I jump pass his legs and get a side control of my own, I grab his collar and press my wrist to his neck, the bell rings. XXXXX sits up exhausted and slaps hands with me. A mist rises from our palms, steam rises from our heads and kimonos, this was a good roll.
Dan Gable is famously quoted as saying "Once you've wrestled, everything else in life is easy." While not exactly the same as wrestling, the saying holds true for Jiu Jitsu all the same. You grapple, you get strangled by trained killers in sweaty bathrobes, and if they don't strangle you, they try to break your arms or leg.
It was after this epic sparring session that I decided to sit and write this statement. In fact, it was after a day on the mat that I decided to apply to law school in the first place.
I was helping my friend Casey prepare for an upcoming MMA bout in Atlantic City. It was a tough night and I still had work to do for my business, a business I've been running since 2003 when my parents retired.
I sat in my home office and looked down at the floor. The laminated study guide staring up at me reminded me of a promise I made over a year earlier. It was a promise I had not kept.
I sat with my father in his hospital room. Dad was dying, I was in denial, but deep down I knew I would lose him. Moments before I sat in a room with my mother, sisters, and wife along with two strangers, women from hospice who told me that they help families with "end of life care". I broke down in tears. I had cared for my father, now 93, since he retired 8 years earlier. As I helped him to the restroom he looked at me and asked me to promise him that I would pursue my life's ambition and become an attorney. I hadn't exactly given up on becoming an attorney, life just got in the way. It was up to me to rescue the business when it was I. Serious trouble years earlier, my mother and I cared for my dad more and more each year. Marriage, children, the dream became just that, a dream.
Life hasn't been easy, but that's ok. Sometimes life puts you in a few choke holds, it may even crush you a bit, but you have to fight to get up, break those grips and defend those chokes. You may not be the strongest, or the biggest, you might be considered second best but you have to get past that. You're better, you're stronger than you think you are just don't tap out.
