about realness? Is fighting really more authentic than sitting at my computer all day? Why is pain more real than pleasure? Is it that pain is a documentable affirmation of consequence?
That’s more or less what is going through my mind as I consider how to extract myself from a kimura submission hold that Roy Duquette has put me in. A kimura is a jiu jitsu hold, more or less the same as a hammerlock, chicken-wing, or ude-garami. It also fucking hurts. Roy’s in side control and is hyper-rotating my shoulder by pinning my chest and leveraging my upper and lower arms in opposite directions.
Roy’s a good guy. He is a trainer, coach, and therapist who works with all kinds of fighters at all kinds of levels including stars like Dennis Kang from the UFC and Emily Kwok, who in 2007 became the first female Canadian to win a world championship in Brazilian jiu jitsu. Roy has trained in a bouquet of disciplines himself including jiu jitsu, boxing, grappling, Karate, and Russian Sambo, and still spars regularly. He knows what he’s doing.
We’ve sat and talked at length about his philosophies of fighting and I’ve watched him train and spar several times. He employs a melange of styles, but not haphazardly. Roy is a classic new-school MMA practitioner: it’s not meathead bar-brawl stuff he employs, it’s more like chess with submissions. Roy is convinced that there is something elemental about fighting, especially martial arts, mixed or otherwise: “There’s no hiding when you’re fighting. That’s the realness of it—it’s an expression of you.”
Sure, but I think that’s really true about hockey or dancing too. You learn so much about someone just by playing a little pick-up ball or baling hay or cleaning a house with them. It’s not easy to hide yourself on the court or when doing hard work with someone. Roy tells me,
That’s exactly what I teach my students: to be connected to your opponent. If you can’t get into a relationship with your opponent you’re already in trouble. You have to focus completely. No matter what happened to you that day you have to leave it behind. In that way we could say that what happens outside the ring is less real than what happens in it.
Today I’ve convinced him to work with me a little, just for fun. I think I’m strong enough and I like to fight, but I have no idea what I am doing. I have no wrestling or grappling skills, but I’m game and excited to learn some jiu jitsu.
Roy also brings along a student of his: Emma Lynds, a thirty-six-year-old mother of two who is the only woman owner of a martial arts gym in Vancouver. She also has a black-belt in Hapkido and trains extensively in muay thai, boxing, judo, and jiu jitsu. The three of us take turns fighting over the next couple of hours. Roy and Emma are beautiful to watch: spinning, rolling, leaping over each other, countering, counter-countering, and countering again. Roy has a lot more jiu jitsu experience and is far bigger than Emma so he wears her down every time, but there’s no charity going on, he has to fight hard.
I love fighting with Emma. She’s 135 pounds and I can muscle her around, but she is so smart and skilled that I am constantly getting caught in holds that are very difficult for me to negotiate out of. Because I am fifty pounds heavier, Emma works from her back keeping me in full-guard most of the time. In our first bout, she just fends me off patiently for a few minutes, then locks in a triangle choke that finishes things. In our next few rounds, I figure out a couple of moves so I have some offense. Emma is really helpful, waiting as Roy pauses us and explains what I should be doing, and letting me try stuff out. It feels like I am in a fight, even though I know Emma could submit me pretty easily. Her conditioning is awesome, while I wear down quickly, which clouds my thinking. It’s really Emma’s quick reactions and strategic manoeuvring that impresses me most.
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