Pins, men, coaching and The Book

I'm working on The Book every night now until I get it done. My schedule is like this:

1. Exercise
2. Work on software projects until 10 pm
3. Finish 5- 10 pages of The Book
4. Relax

This means my usual day is from 10 a.m. to 2 a.m., but that's okay. I love my life. I'm working on all kinds of fascinating fun stuff. My current software projects are all interesting and profitable, the best of all possible combinations. The photos the staff at Black Belt sent me were wonderfully well done.

So ... what can I tell you without putting up pages of the book, which both Jim and the publisher are saying I probably shouldn't. I think they exaggerate the extent to which that would have a negative impact on sales, but whatever.

Well, one thing I have noticed that both Jim and I do is emphasize continually improving your position. For example, once you get a pin, switching positions to get a BETTER pin. 

As Jim says, 

“Practice doesn’t make perfect. Perfect practice makes perfect.”

Or, as I say, 

“You know what happens when you practice half-@##, Ronda? You ###ing lose!” 

That is always the point where Jim says, 

"I cannot believe you talk like that. You're supposed to be an educated woman."

(Yes, it is amazing I have a Ph.D., isn’t it?)

However you say it, the point is that you want to practice every drill, every repetition, doing it as close to perfect as you possibly can. The difference between being number 1 in the world and number 100 isn’t so much the hours on the mat. It’s what you are doing in those hours.

A second point we agreed on was adding boxes with Coach's Tip, to explain why we were teaching certain techniques in a certain order or certain way. Although we assume most people who buy our book will be students or competitors in judo, grappling and mixed martial arts, we also realize that some of them will be coaches, either now or in the future, and we wanted to add a few bits just for them.

It's good we agree on this because there are some other parts of The Book that we disagree on that we're going to need to hash out. Principally, Jim wants to do everything perfect from the beginning and I disagree. He thinks you should do perfect judo and not teach bad habits.

I, on the other hand, think it is fine when people are beginning, to do techniques that are more reliant on strength, and to refine their techniques later. In fact, I actually, to a much greater extent, think it is fine to do techniques that are more reliant on strength forever.

This has caused Jimmy Pedro, Jr. (and long before him, Willy Cahill), to characterize me as "a brawler".  Coach Cahill even saw me compete, and coached me on international teams. I am not the least bit offended. They are both right.

 My point is that someone like me, who was stronger than > 90% of the opponents she ever fought, was perfectly reasonable in relying on strength. I was just naturally strong and trained my ass off to be stronger yet.  I went into this argument before, so I won't repeat it.

One thing I find amusing about all of this is when Jim and I are discussing it (he would say arguing), he says, 

"You always think what you think is right."

My late husband, Ron, used to say that, too. This has led me to the conclusion that it is just a man-thing. As I used to tell Ron,

"OF COURSE I think the way I think of it is right. That is kind of the DEFINITION of 'what I think', no? If I didn't think I was right, I would be thinking something else."

I will never understand men. 

Matwork, now, that is much simpler.