The Atos Attitude

Three days after landing in San Diego, we took our first class at Andre Galvao’s Atos academy. We had made a visit to 4425 Convoy Street on the Saturday, but that was to mainly gawp in awe and trepidation, before scurrying back to the Suites to speculate what it would be like to train there.

My own relationship with martial arts, and Brazilian Jiu Jitsu in particular, has been up and down over the years. After some hard-partying in my teens and twenties, I fell into kickboxing around 2004, during a two-week pre-holiday gym binge. I’ve always been entranced by contradictions, and relatively arsey to boot, so when the instructor seemed less than thrilled to have a girl in his class, it only made me want to prove him wrong. And at a statuesque 5’7’’, making my body stronger, fitter and athletically capable seemed more achievable (and mentally healthy) than the size-zero aesthetic championed by all the women’s classes.

Over the years I’ve felt a little chuckle every time someone asks what I do in my free time. I enjoy seeing the shock on their faces when they realise that the woman in front of them chooses to roll around on the floor, grappling with a variety of men and their sweat, for relaxation. And the day that I got my purple belt, back in 2011, was one of my proudest achievements. But with obsession comes a whole heap of heartache, and there have been some definite slumps over the past four years of BJJ training.

As anyone who does it knows, Jiu Jitsu is hard, progress is slow, and your ego and body take a pounding. On a day where you beat the odds (being female, 10 or 20kg smaller and a decade older than anyone in the class) it feels great. But after a run of weeks or months where you’ve been smashed into the mat and pinned down by complete beginners who have zero official technique to their name, it can feel pretty lousy. The black dog of “who are you kidding?” kicks in, swiftly followed by “you really should have started this when you were younger” and “everyone’s wondering why you’re wearing a purple belt”. If anything is going to mess with your flow and rolling, it’s being caught in a cycle of introspection. But, and this is where BJJ is a cruel mistress, whilst walking away will temporarily alleviate the embarrassment, long-term you will miss it. ’50 Shades of Grey’ can take a hike, this is sado-masochism at its very finest.

And this is, for better or worse, where I find myself on this trip. Since last summer my mat time has been seriously sketchy, my technique is rusty, and my body could do with an overhaul. In terms of timing, only a lunatic would decide to embark on a five-month BJJ sabbatical. Whether it’s my body or sanity, something looks likely to break before Christmas.

Here we are on the first morning of training. F*ck knows why I am smiling.

Andre Galvao is a multiple world champion. His wife, Angelica, is a world champion. A quick glimpse through the internet confirms that most of the folk on the mat are competing, and pretty much all of them seem to be winning. It’s no lucky accident.

The first class, where we focus on back control, is relentless, precise, and nearly two hours long. We do one position, over and over, flipping between drilling it (for two minutes) and specifically sparring it (for five) for six rounds. Note, I did not say flipping between drilling, sipping drinks, chatting about our weekends and sparring. It might be fiendishly hot, you will certainly be fantasising about the water cooler with the fervour of a Pattinson fan at a Twilight premiere…but until Andre decides it is time for a break, you stay on the mat, and you work. Hard and with zero excuses. We finish off with five rounds of non-specific sparring. There is a distinct lack of dickishness or egotism, but once again, the intensity is up there at competition level. Your partner will smile at you, but once you touch hands, you may as well be in the Mundials.

Our second BJJ class of the week, on Wednesday, confirms the same level of precision and relentless exertion. Format-wise we drill the same trio of De La Riva moves continuously for around 45 minutes, before dividing into groups of three, with one person on the bottom and the other two jumping in to attack for nine minutes at a time. Overall, it’s another two hours. At one point I get kneed in the eye and quickly realise that stopping to feel sorry for myself just isn’t an option. Even more so, I am embarrassed to have sworn out loud in front of the class, and manage to cap it through the next couple of eye jabs and scrapes with a bit more dignity and restraint.

A peculiar kind of ‘luxury’, I have two amazing brown belt women kicking my ass. Angelica Galvao is the Pan American Champion 2012, Abu Dabi World Pro Trials Champion 2012, Houston Open Champion 2012 and bagged third place in the 2012 World Championships brown belt division. That’s if my research skills serve me correctly, she’s way too polite to tell me directly, though her incessant pressure, aggression and strength would seem to rule out any element of doubt. Chelsea Bainbridge-Donner, the other brown belt, has, according to her blog, been training BJJ for circa 12 years. That’s about eight more than me, and in Atos years, about a lifetime. Peculiarly, these facts comfort me as I am wristlocked into oblivion.

The Atos academy is supported by a fitness studio, Suples, next door. Having sampled the delights of Joint Mobility*, Bulgarian Bag and a women’s conditioning class, I can confirm that Suples is run to the same exacting degree as the BJJ side of things.

Ex navy SEAL Stephen Nave and conditioning obsessive Maurizio Tangari are perpetually on hand to correct every last detail of your technique, all of the time, whether you want them to or not. Their nurturing brand of sadism translates quite often into ‘motivational’ shouting, which is the same as normal shouting, just with slogans on the wall.

The ceiling might read “Be someone special” but they should probably add “someone whose body burns like napalm” in brackets at the end.

The upside is that the studio has the kind of fitness toys that a martial artist dreams about – bone dummies, normal dummies, bars, bags, ropes, kettlebells, soft kettlebells, cycley-wheely things – and the drills are precisely tailored to mirror fighting movements (no running machines or wide stanced press-ups here).

The downside is that every single one of those toys will be used to torture you past limits you never imagined you had.

In the past week, I’ve regularly gone from “I’m just getting back into it, and I’ll take it at my own pace” through “how on earth do I control this bag/weight/rope whilst speeding up yet again”, “I’m not sure how much more I’ve got”, “I haven’t got the energy to control my face anymore”, “I’m gazing into the abyss of muscle failure/cardiac arrest”, and beyond, all whilst being yelled at.

On one particular occasion I wept silent tears onto the mat as my arms failed to complete a punishment push up. The shouting continued. Being good at something is cue only for a heavier weight, or increase in speed or technique. Even Andre gets shouted at.

Atos has a drinks machine, containing a range of energy-type beverages. Post workout or BJJ session, you will gaze into this machine, searching for an elixir to heal all misery. Nothing will help you enough.

One week in, and I can safely say, there is nothing comfortable about this kind of training. Mentally and physically it will break you. There is a very strong chance of Post Training Stress Disorder. But in an odd way, I console myself with the thought that what doesn’t kill me makes me stronger. And (as I sit coated in Tiger Balm and aching in more ways that I thought possible) suddenly the idea of heading back onto the mat with a big white belt seems more manageable. I’m proud of myself for surviving. And if next week I last ten minutes longer before I cry silent tears into the exercise abyss, I’ll call that progress.

(*it still hurts. Think forcing your joints into mobility with a blend of mental and physical persuasion.)

The California Suites Crash Diet

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As mentioned in a previous post, part of the allure of this ‘hotel’ was its complimentary breakfast. As with many things Suites, my imagination had really set itself up for a smack in the face.

List of California Suites breakfast options:

1. Cereal (Raisin Bran/Cheerios/Frosted Flakes)

2. Bananas/oranges

3. Packet bagels

4. Unidentified cakey muffiny pancakey things

5. Coffee

6. Orange juice (very definitely made with concentrate)

So, in dietary essence:

1. Some sugar

2. Fruit sugar

3. Sugar and refined flour

4. Sh*tloads of sugar

5. Weak caffeine. Sugar optional

6. Who knows, but it’s very orange

If you want, you can jack up your intake with some sugary jam/jelly, topped off with a scraping of mysterious ‘Churned Spread’.

Taking the "best choice under the circumstances" approach, we opt to go down the bran, bagel and banana route. Andy gave it his best shot with the cakey muffiney pancakey affair, but was forced to abort. I have tried to talk to him about the experience, but he just rocks back and forwards muttering the words "so vile" to himself. I think he feels dirty.

Around day four, there was a cunning ‘Lord of the Flies’ style twist. It seems the Suites stock up on breakfast on a Tuesday, and let supplies run down for the rest of the week. Bananas are a hot commodity, followed by bagels, which means you can quickly end up with a child’s size portion of Raisin Bran as fuel for your training regime.

We still wake up at 6am for breakfast, only now it’s less inspired by culinary excellence, and more by the idea that we have to beat all the other hotel dwellers to the final banana. The day the buffet monitor told me they didn’t have any cold water to wet my cereal (I don’t like milk) was a new low though.

We eat looking at a sort of pseudo-lounge with the TV at the end bringing us right up to speed with the news and advertisements. If the latter are to believed, we are in constant danger of identity theft. It’s a depressing thought, as demonstrated by the man in front of me. There’s also a sort of piano-accordion-organ in the corner, should anyone fancy lifting the mood with a jazz waltz.

The road is long...

…though winding turns are in short supply.

Here we are, on the balcony outside our room on the first real day. Cute couple, packed with youthful (*cough*) enthusiasm. It was time to trip up the road and check out Atos, the gym where we will be training on a daily basis.

This is the road outside our hotel. We’re looking happy, and in my case even a touch smug. Carlos had described the hotel as being about 1.4 miles away from the club, which makes it just around the corner in British terms.

Only there are no corners. Nope, it’s just a very long, six lane freeway. There are four ‘life-affirming’ (read ‘life-flashing-before-your-eyes’) crossings, if you choose to walk on the side with a pavement. The other option is a stretch of sand/weed/rock which reaffirms you are essentially moping around in the desert.

There are quite a few of these though. Also a deserted shopping mall where homeless people live in their vehicles. Over the days we’ve grown quite fond of the “car park of misery”.

So, to sum up, it’s about 92 degrees. Also, the gym is about 50 minutes away on foot. We are fast discovering that when Americans say “5 minutes away” they mean by car. The pavements are for decoration only and we soon notice folk giving us a wide berth when we approach. Presumably the logic goes that we must be too poor or crazy to be allowed an automobile.

Scorching heat + endless trudging along a motorway = dehydration and blisters. Boyfriend is looking a tad irritable at this point.

I once attended a personal development course where the leader made us rephrase the word “problem” to be “pro-blem”. For some reason, this was meant to help us see the issue as an opportunity to achieve and conquer.

Applied to the travel conundrum, let’s just say the following two things were more learning experiences.

1) Public transport. This is not London. You can’t just rock up at a bus stop, check the schedule, maybe even risk it and wait five minutes for one to arrive. Buses in San Diego run very infrequently (every hour and a half on a Saturday, not at all on a Sunday). That’s a lot of waiting at the bus stop. A quick glance around the fellow passengers onboard confirms middle-class America doesn’t use this as a way of getting around.

2) The search for the elusive ‘Jamba Juice’ store. Before we came to California, I was prone to evangelical outbursts about this smoothie outlet. I’d sampled a few in New York back in 2010 and saw it as a perfect addition to our new-and-improved healthy lifestyle. Day three saw us hiking up and down the freeway in search of the outlet we’d spotted a day previous. After an hour of “maybe it’s in this next mall” we decided it had been a collective and heat-infused mirage.

Look how stupidly happy I am when we found one a few days later though.

Here’s Andy doing his best “yes of course it was worth it darling” face. Followed approx. five seconds later by the inevitable brain freeze expression.

Home Suite Home

First, the backstory. Though we have diligently budgeted circa £1300 a month for accommodation, at the pre-trip research stage we hit upon a couple of problems. Namely "managers" asking for around £6,000 to be wired to Western Union accounts in advance, for apartments that may or may not actually exist.

So we struck upon a backup plan. Carlos at Atos (the Brazilian Jiu Jitsu gym we will be training at) had suggested a budget hotel nearby, the ‘California Suites Hotel’. Browsing the prices online, it came up at just £472 for a two-week stay, giving us a base from which to start looking for our new abode.

From the pictures, it looked clean, fresh and relatively modern, plus it had a pool, a spa, high-speed internet, complimentary breakfast and on-site laundry facilities (pretty essential given the high-sweat, high-contact nature of BJJ). Heck, we pondered, if it was that darn good, we might even stay there for the duration, and save some spondoolicks. Being as I’m in a ‘spiritual growth’ kinda mood, I’ll say the reality has given us a chance to readdress our relationships with commercial branding, comfort, and other human beings. Also food (more about that later).

Fountain = classy establishment. Fact. This one has two layers, which makes it double classy. Just outside the shot is a sign advertising conference hosting facilities, which is great if you want your clients to associate you with faded sofas, chintz and an idiosyncratic bird lamp.

On the subject of charisma, this reception area is home to two ladies, neither of which I have photos of as I’m a bit scared of them. One has a boyfriend called London (I foolishly, and mistakenly, assumed this would put us in line for an upgrade) and the other’s concierge service extended as far as repeating “Bike hire? Bike hire? What do you mean?” back at me on the third day.

This is the internal courtyard. Another fountain, even more class.

Look, a pretty flower. Savour it, that’s as good as it gets.

Room 1802, home for the next fourteen nights.

The bedspread and soft furnishings – put it this way, that oversexed dude behind American Apparel would splurge within seconds.

Here is our top-of-the-range TV, along with an adjoining door to facilitate any inter-room drug dealing, wife-swapping or just general escaping from the feds. And let’s take a closer look at those signs on top of the telly…

50 times faster than the phone line indeed. California Suites appears to be the only place in the world that measures internet connectivity in relation to 1980s dial-up.

I don’t smoke anymore, but if I did, a fine that costs almost as much a week’s stay here might put me off.

The Suites has also plastered these signs on most walls to deter anyone who feels glib with their cash.

Despite the state-specific warnings, most walkways, stairs and balconies boast at least one smoker. This is our neighbour, a man who I suspect lives here and who spends pretty much all day every day inhaling nicotine like he’s hoping he’ll drop down dead and get away from the bedspreads.
The activities on the other side of 1802’s walls are no less ‘My Name Is Earl’. The inhabitant of 1804 kindly shared his all-night televisual experience with us for the first two evenings, and in my mind acquired the physical and psychopathic tendencies of Anton Chigurgh in ‘No Country For Old Men’. When he finally packed up the body parts/shotgun/sports bag full of bank notes and skipped town, he was replaced by some new lodgers, who, from the sounds emanating through the adjoining door, I would guess to be three Mexicans and a high-pitched transsexual prostitute.

Making the most of the current lack of shopping trolley in the pool (and for my part, ignoring the nagging suspicion of flesh-eating bacteria) we retired to our ‘spa’ area, and a whirlpool that runs hotter than the showers.

18 hours in just ten paragraphs

So, last Friday was the Day Of Travel. Post binning, bagging, boxing and baying, this is what I’m left with.

Suitcase number one is holiday clothes. We are banking on California living up to its ‘Sunshine State’ reputation. On the upside, vest tops and cut downs don’t take up a heap of space.

The drawback is that since we stashed our winter garbs up in the Warminster loft, London has decided to get all autumnal on our asses, which lead to me going out in Havaianas whilst this was happening.

Here’s hoping the desert air can cure another bout of snottiness.

Suitcase number two is Brazilian Jiu Jitsu apparel. Whilst the boyfriend’s primary motivation for picking the US of A is to worship, correction, *train* at Multiple World Champion Andre Galvao’s Atos academy, my own dalliance with the sport has been touch and go of late. Still, I’d hate to have an epiphany and then find I have nothing to wear.

The mini suitcase is full of camera equipment, leads, computer harddrives etc. It’s breaking the two bag rule a bit, but it’s hand luggage and we’re hoping to wear and ditch some of the other stuff on the way back.

Onto Heathrow airport, and flight BA 273. By some strange twist of fate, the Worst Possible Idea’s launch day was accompanied by The Day I Was Picked As The Security Control Passenger. Or so they told me anyway. Between online check-in and boarding the vehicle, I was stopped and sent back twice, had my belongings unpacked twice, and was patted down twice. After five separate incidents where staff surreptitiously flicked over their paperwork to confirm my name was on their secret list, even I was questioning my connections and wondering if I’d accidentally joined an extremist sect. After all, I do like talking to strangers and I’m not the best at concentrating.

Boyfriend and I took up residence on the plane, which was kindly chilled to match the outside air temperature (at 30,000 feet). I bravely battled on by stealing every blanket in the vicinity, doing my best ET impression and tucking into the free wine.

Ten and a half hours later (three of which were spent unconscious on my part) we landed, and were greeted by Homeland Security, and an hour-long queue. If anyone is thinking about illegally hopping into San Diego, I’d say skip it, those guys have a talent for analysis that would shame Sigmund Freud.

This is what people look like after half a day in the air travel system. The rings under my eyes could be exhaustion or a migration of mascara, by this point I was past caring. It was time for a taxi to the illustrious-sounding ‘California Suites,’ our home for the next two weeks…

Losing the baggage, or losing my mind?

I heart stuff. From the coffee table books, to the cupboards full of shoes, to the tatty old bus tickets “just in case I need to remember”, I am a master-hoarder.

But in light of the recent decision, stuff doesn’t work anymore. Stuff needs storage, and storage costs money. And second to stuff, having enough money in the bank to pay for a hotel room or an emergency plane ticket is what makes me feel secure enough to embark on the Worst Possible Idea.

So it’s time to delve into the deepest, darkest corners (both metaphorically and literally – I actually have a space in my room affectionately known as ‘”the mouse cupboard”) and embark on a clearout.

Operation Ditch The Baggage operates on three levels:

1) If it can be sold on eBay, list it. Even if only raises 99p, and involves a painstaking triage of “how much will it cost to ship to Tasmania?”, “what is the measurement around the inside of the armpit?” and “can you send me a photo of the underside of the sole?” type questioning, followed by hours in the post office queue (a place where time stands still and iphone signals are zero) it will be uploaded. Even though it makes the minimum wage look like a “Get Rich Quick” scheme in comparison, every penny counts when it comes to the Travel Fund.

2) If it can’t be sold on eBay, it goes to charity. I need all the good karma I can get.

3) If it’s not really selling type stuff (that’d be the old bus tickets then) it goes in the bin. I will admit to misusing wine at this point.

The upshot of Operation DTB is a house full of boxes, carrier bags, rucksacks, envelopes and courier parcels for about four weeks. I make a few hundred quid (extra thanks to the boyfriend, flatmate and my mum for donating their unwanted bits to the eBay cause) and some new friends (my word, not theirs) at the Post Office. I have a lot of weird dreams (sorting through 20 odd years of old letters will do that to you) and end up with two 23kg suitcases of holiday-based belongings and some house things which we will stash in the boyfriend’s mum’s loft.

Two weekends before we leave, we drive the housey stuff up to said loft. Despite a bit of pre-pickup wonkiness (“I might have forgotten which pedal is which in the car”), I discover a natural affinity with the white van man.

You might imagine that these emerging talents, coupled with the newly minimalist belongings, would result in a state of inspired zen calm. Not exactly so. Half the time I’m gleefully transferring 99p increments from PayPal into my bank account, overloading the charity shop, and slinging black sacks into the bin. But in the early hours of the morning, or whenever the wine wears off, I also find myself wondering if I’m perilously close to a breakdown. Is this spiritual cleansing, or some crazy nihilistic attempt to delete my entire existence? Would I be able to tell the difference?

I find myself staring at empty cupboards, thinking “Christ, I had such great storage in this flat, will I ever have such brilliant hanging space again?” The final round of goodbyes, and encouraging “We’ll miss you” declarations prompt legions of “I love my friends and family so much, and I’m so happy, and sad, but mainly happy, actually I’m not really sure” teary meltdowns, to the bemusement of my boyfriend.

But as the last few boxes are offloaded, and my place in the flat is slowly transferred over to the new inhabitants, it dawns on me that even if I’m veering closer to cuckootown than San Diego, it’s a decidedly one-way street.

The seed of an idea

Anyone who knows me, knows I love a list. I also take pessimism and risk-assessment to award-winning levels. If there was a yearly trophy for ‘Most Likely To Find 100 Obscure Reasons Why Something Will Go Wrong’ I’d have a cabinet full.

Whilst that particular skill comes in handy in my work as a television producer (“Watch out for the moving vehicle/rain-bearing cloud in the east/man making V signs in the corner of the shot/imminent presenter meltdown”) it has on more occasions than not, also made me miserable. And (as I’m sure my other half will testify) a bit of a pain in the arse. I might yearn for a life full of arthouse-inspired passion, but when you can shoot down even a walk to the corner shop within milliseconds (“What will we buy, how does that fit into the eating plan and should I take a jumper?”), it rather kills the spontaneity.

I’ll be 39 at the end of October, and with the encroaching birthday comes the realisation that I’ve probably spent half of my life governed by an over-arching need to stop everything going belly-up. In jobs, houses, relationships…I’ve stuck it out with the mantra of “it might be grim, but imagine if it got worse.” Ironically quite often it has – I’ve lost jobs, boyfriends and houses anyway – but even when things are going ok, I’ve managed to find something to fret about. I’ve had dream jobs (filming all over the world for MTV, spending all day thinking about colour palettes as a Creative Director, chatting on Facebook in the name of Social Media Strategy), and I’ve had a fairly dream salary bracket too. I’ve still found something new to worry about - what my boss will say if I take a day off, whether my shiny new laptop will get stolen, whether that mark on the leather sofa will cause me to lose the deposit on my flat. In short, I’ve built some very gilded cages for myself.

When I met my boyfriend, he was planning a six-month sabbatical, a trip across the world to train Brazilian Jiu Jitsu. And whilst our relationship developed, and the prospect of missing him loomed ever larger, another less-romantically-admirable emotion was building too. I was jealous. I’d watched friends, family members and exes follow their dreams (or even just a whim) and head off to foreign shores. And they all seemed to be doing ok. And yet I was still tied to that sofa, watching my bank balance, sniffling into my tissues (I have a real talent for colds) and muttering “Well, that’s great for them, but there’s so many reasons why I couldn’t do it.”

I don’t know why or how or when, but there was a moment where I just got bored of myself. It was probably less “Carpe Diem” and more “For Pete’s sake, how long is this game going on for?” but I came to the realisation that a few potential mistakes have to be better than a lifetime of feeling mildly disgruntled.

At the end of the day, it was just a decision. Right or wrong, I am going to put trying to control everything on hold, and just live a bit.