Teaching Snakes to Bite: The Day your White Belt Taps you out
It is a special day when your adopted white belt taps you out.
Blake Pollard showed up to Cornerstone shortly after I had gotten my blue belt, and he was the first white belt that I adopted. He came to try out class for the first time with 2 of his friends from the Army. I can admit this now, but if I had to pick someone who would have quit first it would have been him, but he toughed out the challenges of being new to the sport and was the only one of the three to stick with it.
He quickly became a frequent fixture at school and was at class almost every night to train. As most of us that train know, our teammates often times become members of our extended family, and Blake quickly became the team's younger brother. Him and a few others of us would end up forming the "squad," a group of us that trained together and hung out together on the weekends outside of class.
Just a short clip of some of the typical antics that the squad engaged in:
This past weekend I traveled back to North Carolina for some National Guard training and we were able to get a lunch class in together. We haven't been able to train together in a while and both of us were eager to show the other what we had learned in that time. Our roll began with its usual antics of over the top intensity, and a flurry of ridiculous attacks. He started off and continued to attack with multiple straight ankle locks, which I parried aside without much concern and countered with my own. On one of his dives for my ankle I countered by spinning around and shooting a knee-bar, which I was confident would end that match. He shocked me though by rapidly switching his grips and shooting a nasty toe hold. My foot exploded in pain and I quickly tapped. That white belt had come a long way and was no longer someone to be trifled with.
The thing that I like about Blake is that he fearless. Despite being smaller than most of his training partners, he challenges everyone he come across, regardless of their skill level or size. There is a video somewhere that I unfortunately can't find of him challenging a world class wrestler and Judo black belt to a take down competition. Himself and the entire school that we were visited laughed as he doubled down on his frequent flyer miles. He always has a smile on his face and loves talking trash and taunting his teammates. He constantly makes everyone laugh and has a personality that every school should have. I hope that he now looks for his own white belts to adopt and take under his wing until they one day are beating him up too.
Winning medals, belts and being a mat savage is awesome, but there is something unique about being able to teach in small capacities and getting to watch as those people grow and develop both on and off of the mats.
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