POV: JIU JITSU BLUE BELT - Stripe.1

(+035) - POV BLUE - Part.3 - Belt Testing. Origin Stories. Frontiers. Gauntlets. The Death of a Chicken. Rolling with a girl. Career Day. Stripe.1

1. belt testing with the Trojan Horsing Owner

He’s going to test.

he invites you to ride along in the orange Audi.

he is going through the formalities on the journey to black belt.

There are black belts and then there are black belts. He says.

a formality. a checked box. a pawn on the field of play.

With a drive long enough for back story the Trojan Horsing Owner explains that the way he came up, kind of like he was in the League of Shadows or something, was that the way he was trained was that if something looked out of place at all on the property or something didn’t belong he was not to assume innocence. He was to act and ask questions later. And without going into too much detail he just said Dad made some enemies and he got out of that life but that sometimes the ghosts come back to haunt you, and they were always on edge, cause who knows what these people are willing to do and to who, and that these experiences where highly formative, and so you still to this day hide the weapons around the house for easy accessibility, and you probably shower with the door open, and you don’t be too inviting, and if you get picked on at school for being asian American or smaller in stature or this you train like hell and you bide your time very patiently and you follow the rules of engagement and nonviolent honor code to a T and all that, for sure, above and beyond, but that when they still don’t leave you the f*ck alone you emerge like from underneath a bench in the basement locker room or some sh*t when it’s just you and the ridiculing party, and you speak to them one final time in the only nonverbal language that is universally clear, and you give them a sinister dead leg with your knee to critical nerves in their glute hamstring area and leave them to think long and hard about what they’ve done, which is easy because they can’t move anywhere, and you go about your business like a peaceable and law abiding citizen and funny enough there aren’t any more problems from that person.

At this exact moment symbolically someone hits a chicken on the freeway and it explodes into a mess of feathers.

…

And The Trojan Horsing Owner explains that he’s gone back to Dad’s roots with the vehicles, and that he took a trip recently to drive with some other S-CLASS whips, and that it was memorable. And you both conclude that some people in need that. Some people are built like that.

And you talk about how some people will express anger and rage in ways unfathomable to those who’ve never seen it. And That when two of these kinds of people get together that sometimes all they need is to see that in the other person to understand one another and reset and continue with this understanding in mind.

Like two dogs.

He said you have no idea how many times he’s seen that.

He said that dad finally crashed because he lapped the whole field and that it f*cked him up bad enough to quit.

And as bizarre as it sounds there is some appeal to going out in a blaze of glory.

And when you get to the dojo your adrenaline is going so hard from the conversation you don’t think you really need to warm up. You just put on the gi and roll around a little bit and prepare to represent.

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2. Belt Testing

Schools are kind of like biker gangs in this way, everyone is different.

There are articulated systems out there that make benchmarks clear. 10p - Gracie University—

And these types of systems are marketable, and honestly helpful for general orientation

But then there are always other benchmarks, that also matter.

Like if you can take it.

Like if you’re willing to run the gauntlet.

Just as on the drive you think back to the discussion of Simon Kenton Running Every Gauntlet in every tribe from Kentucky to Chillicothe. The Gauntlet in Native American terms meaning that everyone in the village form youngest to Oldest lines of up with any sticks or lashing, whipping and bludgeoning objects they can find to beat you to the brink of death or knock you in like a torture tunnel anywhere form 50 to 100 yards to even a quarter mile long. And Simon Kenton, the guy that has a boyscout camp right down the street from the dojo, you say, was a criminal fleeing from his past overseas when he came here because he thought he killed a man. Most of the frontiersman were criminal vagabond cowboy types with survivalist and fighting ability. And how it happened was Simon fell in love with a Woman going to be married, and he showed up at the wedding at 16 years old to challenge the groom in front of everyone right as they were leaving the church, and the groom was a grown man, and Simon been drinking to get up the courage, and so like in the good old days they fought and he got absolutely obliterated. Simon. He got a beating he’d remember. And to everyone it seems that the groom had beat some sense into him, and that Simon turned a new leaf, and he worked honestly and attended church and straighten his act. he played it right. He licked his wounds. he knew no wrong. Until one day the groom was out chopping wood by the wood pile and low and behold Simon rushed up on him with his fists and the fight was on, and Simon had grown in strength and remembered everything. Anyway, Simon beat him so badly he thought he’d killed him. So he fleed to the New World where he could remake his identity in the harsh wilderness and that he did, and they say that he was the best white man to ever play the Indian game. And that he could cover 100 miles in a day. And the Indian thought he was magic and they called him Bahldir —which in their language meant like “The Man Whose Gun is Always loaded” Because he could fire off a musket shot like every 3-5 seconds. But one time the Shawnee came up on him in the woods and took him off guard. And they thinking that he was a magical white demon ran him though every gauntlet they could find. 8 or so. of 10. and every time they’d run him though one and he’d invariably get knocked unconscious, they’d give him time to heal up while they transported him, even taking pains to carefully dress his wounds so he wouldn’t die of infection or anything, they’d heal him so that they could beat him to the bring of death all over again,

like hell

but the point is certain things are not as easily taught.

They just must be endured.

you’ve seen guys and girls at the gym do this and they just become totally different people on the mat. Their level of confidence and familiarity. They have been transformed.

Not everyone has to do this, endure the pain and fear, I don’t think.

People can pick up alot even if they don’t FULL ROLL. Even if they just drill. You know a couple people like this, Some schools don’t even ROLL for the first 6 months. Im not criticizing this. I think it can be helpful to alot of people. It might even be best for some people.

but you walked into a gym that was totally free and open. Where basically anyone could try anything. Ask to roll with anyone. The limiting factors were only what you knew.

and from your experience, if you do this…

if you can…

if it’s somehow part of the equation of your training and you survive.

And you’re inducted into the tribe and get that first stripe like times of old.

you run the gauntlet.

assuming that people aren’t just being total d*cks, they actually want to help you

you run the gauntlet and survive.

Eventually Simon Broke through one of the lines and escaped into the woods on his second attempt to escape.

He climbed out of hell.

there is something deeply meaningful on the other side of that.

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3. The Belt Test.

4 people on the mat.