Being a white belt is all relative!

So it's a Friday night and we got some snow. I was crossing my fingers that I would have another private session because of the weather, but no luck. I get down there tonight and there is a good group, maybe 8 guys or so.
Scratch that, 6 guys and a girl. (I'll get to that interesting caveat later in this blog.)
When I first arrive I start thinkin to myself:

"Did I misread the schedule, all these people look like they are in the advanced class."

I came to find out being in the beginner class at my gym is all relative.
See beginners all have white belts. However some of us have cool purple stripes on the tips of our belts. For every purple stripe on your belt you are that much closer to earning your purple belt.
Obviously my belt is as white as the pure driven snow that was coming down earlier today, but as I look around, many of my fellow classmates have belts adorned with varying degrees of purple tape stripes.
"I'm in for it today."
 Then I see my trainer for the day.

AVI
First impression: Bad Ass.
The other trainers or Sensei I have had to this point all have seemed like mild mannered gents by day, and Jujitsu masters by night. This guy looked the part of action movie hero or villain.
I found out quickly that Sensei Avi, fit the part as well.
His warm up was the most intense thus far, which believe it or not I thought was a good thing. We began the same. Light jogging, inside stepping, outside stepping, high knees, heels to butt, then some shrimping. (Shrimping is when you lie on your back and push off with one leg and shift to the other side of your  body. Its a basic but important movement in BJJ). But it was followed by some good old calisthenics. 8 people in the circle each counting off 10 of each exercise.
Simple multiplication tells you 80 of each.
80 Jumping jacks no problem.  80 Crunches doable. 80  Push-ups.... lets just say I did as many as I could. Sensei Avi is for real.

Move of the day: Gi choke from full guard.
So after our warm up Sensei shows us the move we will be working on today. It's complicated. It's complicated for me at least. I thought the 4 steps for the guard break was a lot to remember. But I do my best to watch and learn and soon we are pairing up to practice for ourselves.
I watch everyone pair up with each other, and I am odd man out (who wants to work with the new guy right?) Then a fellow classmate asks if I want to work in a trio. It takes a real man to befriend the new guy. Or in this case a real woman. The welcoming classmate is Liz, the only girl I've seen in the gym thus far. I appreciate her hospitality and join her and her training partner AJ. AJ is one of what seems like an endless amount of younger, stronger, former high school wrestlers to be training in BJJ.  For every average Joe who is training, their is an  AJ. Now if you know me, or get a sense of my personality yet from this blog, I am slightly pessimistic  and highly self deprecating. But in this instance I am actually glad that there are several quality athletes in the gym. Training in this discipline isn't like working out at a gym. It isn't a show. You are all there to make each other better and to learn. So having training partners like AJ around is awesome. (More about AJ in a minute.)

Training with a female:
So here is how training was set up. AJ practiced the move on Liz, I jump in and Liz practices the move on me, AJ jumps in and I practice on him.
Training with a female is quite a head trip at first.  First of all Liz deserves a lot of credit, it takes a lot of guts to be the only female training with all males. I try and act as if she is just one of the guys and I thought that's exactly what I was doing, but she kept telling me to relax. I think she was mistaking my inexperience nervousness for training with a girl nervousness. It didn't matter who my training partner was. I have only done this twice, I barely know how to even play the part of tackling dummy. After some beginning jitters we all start to hit our training stride and the class is my favorite class yet. (It is actually my third, I didn't write about my second. It sucked, and there wasn't much to write about) I find working with more experienced fighters is really an added benefit. Both Liz and AJ have some purple stripes, I will look to train with other purple stripes in the future.

AJ
Like I said after Liz practiced her move on me, AJ jumped in so I could practice on him. I have to admit, I began to dislike training with AJ almost immediately, for one simple reason. I would do the move, and he wouldn't tap. Then Avi would come over, try and figure out how the dopey new guy was screwin it up this time, and I felt like a total tool. It was an incredibly frustrating situation. I felt incompetent, unathletic, and weak, and I thought:
"This a**h*%# is just trying to show me up! Never again will I train with him"
I couldn't have been further from the truth. AJ said something that made perfect sense. And I could tell all in one second, he was the type of training partner I want to train with from now on.
"I am not going to tap if you aren't getting the move right."
Folks, it was like a light bulb went off in my head.
You are doing your training partner a DISSERVICE by "courtesy" tapping. 
If they are f**king up the move, and you tap NO GOOD can come of it.
They think they did it right.
They continue to practice the move incorrectly because they THINK they made you tap,
and then when they are rolling or even worse competing and they attempt that move it will blow up in their face.
I was courtesy tapping the first two nights, just because it felt like the polite thing to do.
I'm an idiot.

Its funny the way you relearn things you have known all along just because you are actually doing them yourself. I knew and still know that BJJ is about securing the move properly and not about strength. If you know anything about the Gracie Family (considered the first family and creators of modern day BJJ), you know they aren't big strong guys. Still, they would take down guys twice their size and submit them because of their knowledge and understanding of Jujitsu.

Ok not exactly BJJ but you get the analogy.

But when I couldn't get AJ to tap, what do I do, I just kept pulling harder.
Avi came over, readjusted some of my limbs, and wah lah, AJ taps.
Avi reminded me,
"If you have to try and strong arm a submission in BJJ you KNOW you are doing something wrong."
I am sore 4 days later from trying to strong arm a submission, my body KNOWS I was doing something wrong.
Look forward to telling you all about my first roll, next blog, exciting stuff people!
Thanks and keep reading!
Steve