So I hurt my fingers two days ago when some dude broke my pocket grip. They are sore when I bend them, but are fine with tape limiting their mobility. My question is the following: is it advisable to lift heavy without tape (i.e. deadlift) while healing, or should I wait a few days until the fingers are no longer in pain?
BTW, not doing pocket grip any more, grip strength and heavy lifting are too important to me. Gonna get down with the pistol grip from now on.
Don’t train through pain/injury. Let your fingers heal, then get back to lifting.
Also, while pistol grip can be a good grip to use in certain techniques, the solution to your problem is most likely not to totally abandon the “pocket grip” (not familiar with that name, but there are so many names for many techniques/grips in BJJ so I’m sure I just know it by a different name) but instead to stop trying so hard to force the technique/grip and learn to flow between different grips/techniques. The only times I have ever been injured while doing BJJ was when Inwas too stubborn for my own good and tried to force something or refused to accept that I had been beaten.
Thanks, Sentoguy. I will give it a *rest and do *non grip related stuff, machines and such. I was just trying to keep him from murdering me for the whole 5 minutes. Guy was twice as strong and was muscling me into submission after submission, like he was thinking “oh, good she’s way weaker and less experienced. I can totally take advantage of her for 5 minutes and do all the moves I’ve learned recently with little to no resistance.” I’m not even being sour about getting tapped, but seriously he just manhandled me around like a rag doll into various submissions the whole time. I think the instructor noticed because afterwards he lectured the class on how to be a good rolling partner when someone is way less experienced.
*Edit auto spell correct sucks 
[quote]Cherrybomb wrote:
Thanks, Sentoguy. I will give it a *rest and do *non grip related stuff, machines and such. I was just trying to keep him from murdering me for the whole 5 minutes. Guy was twice as strong and was muscling me into submission after submission, like he was thinking “oh, good she’s way weaker and less experienced. I can totally take advantage of her for 5 minutes and do all the moves I’ve learned recently with little to no resistance.” I’m not even being sour about getting tapped, but seriously he just manhandled me around like a rag doll into various submissions the whole time. I think the instructor noticed because afterwards he lectured the class on how to be a good rolling partner when someone is way less experienced.
*Edit auto spell correct sucks :/[/quote]
Listen to Sento, always.
You know, I read your post and it just pisses me off whenever some dickhead takes advantage of a student, who is not on their level. You cannot learn if you are constantly in a training atmosphere where you feel you are going to be injured.If your instructor cannot control the class, or is too stupid to notice this happening, find another school. I have read you training log and you work too hard to put up with crap like that. Ok, end of rant:))
I’m sorry to hear that Cherry, I understand just trying to survive and sometimes that mindset can make you just “hang on for dear life.” I would suggest talking to your instructor and letting them know what happened, and as hard as it can be to speak up and tell this individual to tone it down should this ever happen again. Some people simply don’t know how to adjust their intensity level depending on their training partner and are essentially bullies, but like bullies if you set boundaries and stand up for yourself they will often back off. And if not you can simply refuse to work with them, you have just as much right as anyone else in the class to feel safe and like you can learn.
Hope this helps.
Idaho, your indignation is sweet. Thank you for your support and visiting my log. 
Good advice all around, thank you both, Sento and Idaho. I think I’m still a bit too emotionally messed up over it to talk to the instructor. With internet anonymity I can say I was only able to avoid crying until I got to my car. Seriously haven’t cried like that in, like, a year. Maybe I’ll send an email to the owner/head instructor this weekend. I have a year and a half left with this training contract, so I should try to figure it out. Either that, or just continue taking only the one women’s gi class per week.
I usually tell my rolling partners, if even half seriously with the girls, “go easy easy on me.” I don’t know why I didn’t tell this guy and just assumed he’d err on the side of caution, maybe 'cus he was jacked I thought he’d be responsible with his jackedness. Stupid me!
Funny thing, with the tape on my fingers all day, I found myself subconsciously bending my fingers against it constantly. Fingers feel better now with no tape at all. Heh
Edit: I am just going to email the owner or the specific instructor, or both. With these large afternoon classes, the attendance fluctuates a lot and the group is not cohesive. They should really go over things like being a good team mate or rolling partner before rolling even starts. I’m an elementary teacher and even I know that. You first verbally express the behaviors you would like to see. Even when you think every one gets it, they always need effing reminders.
Guy sounds like a piece of work; it sound silly, but id just avoid rolling with him altogether.
I really hate bullies.
When I started BJJ, my fitness kinda made me stand out from the other white belts and one big guy, a purple belt, used to target me a bit.
But Thi kinda helped me to develop; I always remained super Mobile to keep from getting flattened out or if I was in guard, i woyld constantly be looking for subs (really long legs meant i loved triangles and omoplatas where i could transition outside to safety.
I hope this bully hasn’t spoiled the class for you and you stay focused on the goal
[quote]Cherrybomb wrote:
Idaho, your indignation is sweet. Thank you for your support and visiting my log.
Good advice all around, thank you both, Sento and Idaho. I think I’m still a bit too emotionally messed up over it to talk to the instructor. With internet anonymity I can say I was only able to avoid crying until I got to my car. Seriously haven’t cried like that in, like, a year. Maybe I’ll send an email to the owner/head instructor this weekend. I have a year and a half left with this training contract, so I should try to figure it out. Either that, or just continue taking only the one women’s gi class per week.
I usually tell my rolling partners, if even half seriously with the girls, “go easy easy on me.” I don’t know why I didn’t tell this guy and just assumed he’d err on the side of caution, maybe 'cus he was jacked I thought he’d be responsible with his jackedness. Stupid me!
Funny thing, with the tape on my fingers all day, I found myself subconsciously bending my fingers against it constantly. Fingers feel better now with no tape at all. Heh
Edit: I am just going to email the owner or the specific instructor, or both. With these large afternoon classes, the attendance fluctuates a lot and the group is not cohesive. They should really go over things like being a good team mate or rolling partner before rolling even starts. I’m an elementary teacher and even I know that. You first verbally express the behaviors you would like to see. Even when you think every one gets it, they always need effing reminders.[/quote]
Again I’m sorry that this individual did this to you. Don’t feel ashamed of being shook up, you are right to feel bullied and have every right to defend yourself. Contacting your school owner would be my suggested course of action. It should be their responsibility to make sure their instructors know the types of behaviors that they will and will not tolerate in their classes. I would then also directly tell the specific instructor yourself in private before the next class if you are able to (I know this can be a difficult thing to do, so if not just trust that the owner has told them).
If you wind up getting matched up with this individual again (which honestly, as an instructor I would not do unless I had seen significant improvement in this individual’s attitude, and even then I would privately ask your permission before doing so) and they still refuse to be a good training partner, then either tell them as loudly as you are able to, “Stop going so hard on me! I am here to learn, not to be your grappling dummy!” (Or whatever your own words would be to this effect) This should not only get your instructor’s attention, but also somewhat embarrass him and the resulting fear of peer pressure/social pressure from the rest of the class should cause him to back off.
In other words, try to use your words first. If none of that works then use your body…get up walk away from him and flat out refuse to work with him, period! If your instructors don’t understand or continue to try to pressure you to do so and do not respect you enough as a person to respect your decision, then continue walking right out the door and go to another school (and demand that they cancel your membership, they will give you grief initially but will ultimately give in to avoid you bad mouthing them all across town).
This is NOT something that you should have to deal with and again, any good Martial Arts school should not be tolerating bullying in their school! Good luck and keep us posted.
And glad your fingers are feeling better.
Fingers are feeling about 90%, which is good, considering how much they hurt a few days ago. I can clench a fist without pain, which means by Monday I can deadlift or DB OHP! BJJ will probably have to wait until Wednesday.
Just emailed the gym, addressed it to the owner who is a black belt and head coach, as well. I’m sure he’ll share it with the instructor I had, too. Explained everything to him and asked for a proactive approach to the problem each class before rolling even starts, as opposed to the reactionary problem-based approach they seem to take on it.
He’s a really nice guy, and almost half the gym is female (though most do boxing and kick boxing). I know he is really interested in keeping everyone safe and happy in the co-ed classes, however. We’ll see how the message is received…
Fingers feel 100% now! Talked to the gym owner, and he seems to think it was somehow my fault because I didn’t tap when the guy didn’t sink the choke, and that I was holding onto his sleeve with a strong grip. He said he had rolled with the guy before and that he is a white belt, and strong, but that he is a nice guy and probably didn’t mean anything by hurting me. He said he is going to make a short video on safe rolling.
My women’s BJJ instructor is a higher belt and often takes the same classes as this guy. He says that is b.s. what the owner said and that if I had rolled with a blue, purple, brown, or 300lb black belt, I would have been safer than I was with that white belt. Hehehe, if I pointed the white belt out to him, I’m certain he would make sure to roll with him and submit him over, and over, and over, and see that others did the same.
[quote]Cherrybomb wrote:
Fingers feel 100% now! Talked to the gym owner, and he seems to think it was somehow my fault because I didn’t tap when the guy didn’t sink the choke, and that I was holding onto his sleeve with a strong grip. He said he had rolled with the guy before and that he is a white belt, and strong, but that he is a nice guy and probably didn’t mean anything by hurting me. He said he is going to make a short video on safe rolling.
My women’s BJJ instructor is a higher belt and often takes the same classes as this guy. He says that is b.s. what the owner said and that if I had rolled with a blue, purple, brown, or 300lb black belt, I would have been safer than I was with that white belt. Hehehe, if I pointed the white belt out to him, I’m certain he would make sure to roll with him and submit him over, and over, and over, and see that others did the same. :)[/quote]
Your women’s BJJ instructor is correct, and while this white belt is obviously responsible for his actions, the gym owner (and instructor of the class in which you rolled with this guy) is also at least somewhat responsible for his actions due to not explicitly laying down the school’s code of conduct while rolling from the get go, or perhaps even more so knowingly pairing someone who is somewhat wild/a bully with a much smaller relatively inexperienced (no offense intended) student. It would have been one thing if you were a high ranking student and they paired you with this guy so you could really test your skills against just a strong athletic “average skilled” guy; that would make sense especially if self defense is a focus of the curriculum. But as it was they just sort of “fed you to the wolves” and are now trying to do damage control.
School owners and instructors are of course human and capable of lapses in judgement, and your school owner may genuinely have not realized his lack of explicit rolling conduct or may have been dealing with issues regarding this student for a while now and have been actively trying to alter his behavior but has been unsuccessful, who knows. If you trust him and you like training there then just chalk it up to experience, but if it ever happens again I would seriously consider looking elsewhere to train.
Glad you are feeling fully healed btw.
Serious suggestion- Don’t spar with white belts unless you’ve seen them spar before and know how they move/do things in general.
At the very least, it gives you something to expect before you go in.
Regarding the other topic on hand- A couple of weeks ago I sparred with a very young kid. He’s the son of one of the instructors, regularly spars with adults, and practices in the comp. class. That being said, he’s still a kid (probably no older than 12). I neglected this, and didn’t bother to control how much force I used.
In short, I rag-dolled him. He took it without saying anything and his parents didn’t seem to mind, but someone later reminded me that he’s a kid and that I really shouldn’t be using the same amount of strength I would use against normal adults. Which is true. I should realized that his age mattered quite a bit.
People will frequently do things without bothering to take into account various circumstances. I wouldn’t go so far as to thinking that the guy meant to bully you. He could have been, or he could just have easily have been not paying attention to the situation at hand and went normally.
[quote]magick wrote:
Serious suggestion- Don’t spar with white belts unless you’ve seen them spar before and know how they move/do things in general.
At the very least, it gives you something to expect before you go in.
Regarding the other topic on hand- A couple of weeks ago I sparred with a very young kid. He’s the son of one of the instructors, regularly spars with adults, and practices in the comp. class. That being said, he’s still a kid (probably no older than 12). I neglected this, and didn’t bother to control how much force I used.
In short, I rag-dolled him. He took it without saying anything and his parents didn’t seem to mind, but someone later reminded me that he’s a kid and that I really shouldn’t be using the same amount of strength I would use against normal adults. Which is true. I should realized that his age mattered quite a bit.
People will frequently do things without bothering to take into account various circumstances. I wouldn’t go so far as to thinking that the guy meant to bully you. He could have been, or he could just have easily have been not paying attention to the situation at hand and went normally.[/quote]
Certainly a possibility.
That said, IMO you should not be using strength while grappling no matter who you are rolling with. Of course in the real thing (competition, self defense, battlefield application) you are going to use everything in your toolbox to win. But if you are using strength while training, then you are probably not developing your technical skills or other attributes such as timing to the degree that you could be.
Most men don’t get this realization until at least Blue, maybe even purple belt though. So I agree about generally not training with white belts if you don’t know them.
Majick: Thank you for your insight. I wonder if this was the case with this white belt. He is a strong man, and sometimes when one is inexperienced in exercising control, one does not realize when they need to implement said control.
Sento: I am going to be most apprehensive about rolling with another white belt man again. Edit: and I am going to keep a mind to ease my strength on grips and whatnot while rolling with men again in the future. I’ve asked the other women if I am a good rolling partner, and they said that I am and they don’t think I use my strength too much with them.
In an interesting turn of events, I was invited to watch the Rousey v. Holm fight at one of my female BJJ training partners’ house. A handful of us were there from the women’s class, and she said that while training at another dojo, one of the men there who also goes to our BJJ gym said that the owner recently (unsure of timeline) talked to all of the BJJ guys and told them one of them had hurt one of the women they had rolled with. I don’t know any more of the particulars than that. The guy told my friend that he thought it was him, though in truth or wasn’t this man who had hurt me. One of the other women said a different guy had hurt her recently as well. I wonder how many others in the group of men felt it was themselves?
So maybe the owner, knowing this had happened a few times recently with different women and different men, decided to make the announcement public instead of taking those men aside. It’s his gym and he can do what he wants, but I am unsure of the wisdom of making many of them afraid they had hurt a woman. I’m afraid it may be negative to gender relations in the group. But what do I know, maybe he has dealt with this similarly in the past and it garnered the desired result. Edit: Also, I was thinking, maybe if a guy has to ask himself if he was the man who hurt his female rolling partner, maybe he needs to assess how he rolls with those who may not be as strong as himself.
Now, I think I know why the guy who hurt me has given me a side-long look each time he has seen me at the gym.
there’s always at least one jackass in every school…no matter how often the instructor lectures the class or takes the student on the side to counsel them, they will still be a jackass. Their technique usually never improves and eventually they hurt enough people and get kicked out, or they get hurt themselves or their ego takes too many beatings and they quit. Sometimes they stick around, but often guys who started long after them surpass them
I know this is an older thread, but the info is good.
Do you know how to tape correctly? Most people don’t.
This is a good “how-to” Kurt Osiander's Move of the Week - Finger Taping - YouTube