Commandments of the Mat

So  I was reading an article from Gracie Mag “The 100 things you should do before you become a Black Belt” and at the end they included additional  20 commandments that should be followed by all competitors. It was a nice little article, but I certainly know people who frequently break these ‘commandments’, including myself:

Here are the commandments they state:

1-   Thou shalt not stall. –ok, I’m down with this one.

2-   Thou shalt not wimp out. –also kind of agree with one: this sport and most of life in general is about getting out there and doing what frightens you or makes you uncomfortable.

3-   Thou shalt not skip practice for silly reasons. –…but, but, the season finale of True Blood?! That’s not silly!

haha, just kidding…True Blood doesn’t run on a training day 😉

4-   Thou shalt not drink alcohol excessively. – I know a couple of very dedicated Jiu Jitsu people that are also commandment breakers, then. How will they ever live with themselves?!

5-   Thou shalt not partake in excessive slamming.

6- Thou shalt not wear stinky gis or neglect your hygiene.-Cleanliness is next to Jiu Jitsu Godliness: not really, but your teammates will definitely appreciate it and will be more inclined to train with you.

7-   Thou shalt not whine about refereeing. –Of course not, because it’s your coach’s job to argue with the referee vehemently, most likely in Portuguese.

8-   Thou shalt not be a “creonte” – respect your master and gym.

9-   Thou shalt not heed orders that go against your values.

10- Thou shalt not be rude during training.-Please and thank you.

11-  Thou shalt not make a trophy of your mangled ear.-…Why not?

12-  Thou shalt not succumb to cupcakes, candy bars and the likes.-I am a horrible, horrible sinner…

13-  Thou shalt not show off – be discreet. After all, the more exposed you are, the greater the target.

14-  Thou shalt not talk too much smack nor cause discord between training partners.

15-  Thou shalt not take cheap shots.

16- Thou shalt not take Steven Segal films seriously-…see #4. While they may not take the films seriously, there is an obvious respect for the aikido practitioner Steven Segal. I personally have never seen a Segal film, so I really have no room to talk.

17-  Thou shalt not count advantage points.

18-  Thou shalt not delay in letting go of your opponent when he taps.-for us, that more or less falls under the whole “not being rude” thing

19-  Thou shalt not take the stress of life out on training partners.-We are all about teaching The Facts of Life, however

…bad joke, sorry.

20-  Thou shalt not steal training partners’ flip-flops.-who does this?!

Are there any you think should be added to these commandments?

The Bad Movie Workout

Ok, this will make absolutely no sense to anyone remotely sane, but it’s something that I’ve done now and again if I have a some time to kill (so once every millenia or so) and have been meaning to write about it.

The bad movie workout.

It’s a pretty simple premise: that movie that you are kind of intrigued to watch, if nothing else to figure out why the hell anyone would enjoy this crap, but you don’t think you can spend the entire time sitting there listening to atrocious dialog, this is where the workout (or game, as I actually call it) comes in.

Pick an exercise that you want to get better at. This actually works great with chin ups and pull ups, but whatever works for you. Start said terrible movie. Then, when you get too annoyed with the acting, dialog, holes in the plot so big  that it should force the movie to stop all together, go and do said workout, usually for a preset number of reps.

When you are done said reps, or have worked out to a point where you don’t want to track down the actors who made this POS and punch them in the face, sit down and continue with the movie. Repeat.

There may be some movies that you find you actually enjoy, and that’s wonderful. For some tried and true terrible movies, may I suggest a few to get you started:

Or hell, just wait for all the damn twilight movies to come out, sit down and watch them all, and end up looking like this guy: