Combatives COVID and College: The year 2020 in Review

2020

 I have neglected writing for quite a while. It seemed rather pointless to write on a JiuJitsu blog when there was no JiuJitsu to be had. I would be tempted to blame it on the seemingly endless number of papers that I have written for school over the past year, but I know that it really was that without being able to train, I wanted to forget about it until I could return to it. When the lockdown first happened, a part of me wanted to chronicle what it was like going from training almost every day for years, to abruptly not training at all for what turned into over eight months. I tried writing one post about it, but found it to be just a sort of wallowing in sadness type of ordeal, and abandoned it. So most of last year will now just have to be written about from memory. 

2020 was quite the proverbial roller coaster ride for me. With my unit's deployment to Kuwait, I was given the tremendous privilege of becoming our Brigade's Master Combatives trainer, and was given the charge to teach Combatives to as many soldiers as I possibly could while the deployment lasted. JiuJitsu is something that I typically spend quite a bit of money on between tuition, gear, traveling, and competitions, and now I was going to be getting paid full time to train, teach, and share my passion with others. It was an absolutely unbelievable opportunity that I am deeply appreciative of. 

The meaningfulness of this opportunity was enriched by how long and how much work it took to get there. Almost eight years ago in basic training, the Drill Sergeants had us write down three goals for what we wanted to do in the Army. The first thing that I wrote down was that I wanted to become a Combatives instructor. 

I also had a unique sense of pride in achieving that goal as North Carolina hasn't had a Combatives program since I have been a part of it, and no one I know is really sure of if or when it did. The position itself is really supposed to be held by a Sergeant First Class, and as just a sergeant, I had to receive a rank waiver just to attend the Master Combatives Course as it had a minimum rank of Staff Sergeant requirement to attend and become certified as an instructor. The Illinois National guard where I spent the first two years of my Army career did have a phenomenal Combatives program, with an annual state-wide Combatives tournament and regularly scheduled Combatives courses. Much of what my vision for what the program could become was an improved version of that.

 I, fortunately, was able to take the level 1 Combatives course while in Illinois. Then, after transferring to North Carolina, the 82nd Airborne Division Combatives instructors were gracious enough to let me walk-on to a level 2 class and get certified with them. A very cool side note was that I got to run into and get to train with one of those instructors while in Kuwait. 

After a decade of training martial arts, years of doing Army Combatives tournaments around the country, fighting anyone in uniform that would have a go, and endlessly discussing the benefits of Combatives training to leadership, the stars aligned and I was given full charge of launching a Combatives program for the Brigade. Almost eight years after basic training, that long time dream had manifested into reality.

The program had to be created as it hadn't existed within the Brigade before (or at least within recent memory). The Army provides most of the administrative and training content, but I did find myself having to navigate a new world of equipment and facility requests, risk assessments, and an assortment of other administrative tasks, which all quickly made it apparent for the suggested rank for the position. Master Sergeant Fuller has my everlasting appreciation here for his support in navigating these requirements. An old school military guy with a stern disposition, blunt and honest style of communication, refusal to accept any form of mediocrity, while simultaneously unmatched in the lengths that he will go to take care of soldiers. His experience, mentorship, and support for kick-starting the program were imperative to its launch and successes. I cannot express the appreciation that I have for the voluntary support that he provided me throughout the duration of the program.  

The program launched though and I believe that it was a roaring success! The soldiers just absolutely loved it! So many of them wanted to know how they could get into a class, take another class, help-out with another class, or continue training outside of the program. I also received all types of positive feedback from various levels of leadership, and it all made me feel like I was a part of something that was truly meaningful. I was teaching a useful skill to these soldiers while simultaneously being able to pass on a mindset that I believe is incredibly valuable to the military. All while doing something that I just absolutely love. A young PFC's dream, years of training, navigating Army politics, suffering, and craziness like flying across the country, had instantly all been worth it on the day of that first class.

The pandemic restrictions subsequently really really hit me hard. We had just finished day one of a level 2 class and I was ecstatic. The class was full of phenomenal soldiers that were hungry to train, and we had access to a bunch of excellent training sites and training materials. I was walking back from that class when I got pulled in and told that COVID had come to Kuwait and Combatives, as well as just about everything else, was getting shot down. No opponent has ever dealt a blow that hit as hard as that did. All that hard work that had turned into something so productive and meaningful to me had just evaporated just like that. I was beyond devastated, and at first, refused to accept the news. I was a shell of a person for probably two weeks and dreaded running into soldiers that were a part of the program. 

I eventually came to terms with this new reality though and looked for mechanisms of productivity and purpose to occupy the days until I could return home. I resumed working on college and made
tremendous progress there. I passed the Security+ exam which is something that I had put off doing for years. I eventually transitioned into a Battle NCO for the Brigade and did a bunch of work to maintain the facilities and prepare for going home.

 I will say that I am grateful though. Although it was challenging at many times, I tried to maintain a perspective of gratitude for the remainder of the deployment. While it was a rough time to be on a deployment during a pandemic, I knew that I was in a better situation than many people at home. I was surrounded by good people, I had a consistent and reliable source of income, and I didn't have to worry about many of the things that I would have had to at home. I'm also grateful for the friends that kept in touch with me during the deployment and were there to share those victories and challenges with me. 

Overall my memory stores it as a good deployment. Although briefer than I wanted it to be, I was able to experience a dream of mine and share my passion and knowledge with a large number of soldiers within the Brigade. The challenges that I went through during the deployment I believe made me a better person and leader. I enjoyed many great conversations with good people that were about everything from complete silly nonsense to serious ones about all sorts of facets of life. I also worked for great leaders that I thrived under, and their mentorship led to significant development of my civilian education and career progression, as well as military understanding 

Combatives

It is hard to put into words how meaningful getting to teach Combatives was for me. An almost lifelong goal of mine actualized, it was such an incredibly meaningful and rewarding experience. 

 The soldiers that attended classes just absolutely loved it. It didn't matter that training sessions were 8-hours long, they trained so hard, asked so many questions, and just soaked up every piece of knowledge that they could. I found that teaching was so unbelievably rewarding too. I would typically only sleep several hours a night, but I was electrified walking onto the mats packed with those eager soldiers. 

My daily schedule was rather rigorous with a 0500 wakeup, an hour of physical training, 8-hours of teaching, another hour of physical training, and then college and studying Army training manuals. I tried extremely hard to ensure that I wasn't teaching my way of Brazilian JiuJitsu, but the Army's curriculum of Combatives. I should have been exhausted, and I often very much was and was constantly teased about how many monsters  I would go through in a day. Stepping into that room though, I found myself completely ecstatic for another day to get to teach and share my greatest passion with excited students.

One of the coolest things about the growing program was the students that graduated that helped out with later classes. My very first class was a level 2 or Tactical Combatives Course (TCC). TCC graduates are qualified to teach Combatives at the squad level, they just aren't able to certify training which requires a level 4 or Combatives Master Trainer Course certified instructor. In the picture on the right, four of those graduates are assisting with a level 1, or Basic Combatives Course (BCC).  I had soldiers like SPC Palmer that brought years of boxing experience, SPC Schmitt that had years of Muy Thai experience, SPC Parks that had multiple years of taekwondo and Brazillian JiuJitsu experience, and many other NCO's that had real-world combat experience. All of these soldiers brought with them experience and perspective that contributed greatly to the quality of the classes and the level of instruction. It felt like every class was becoming better than the one before.

The program felt like it was on fire with the rapid growth and support that it was beginning to receive from commanders. I was receiving so much positive feedback from students, and leadership at all levels of the Brigade, and we had so many more exciting things planned. COVID had broken out back in the States, but it looked like by some miracle that we'd miss out by being located out in our little piece of sand in the desert. Unfortunately, that hope ended up being false and as mentioned earlier, the program and almost everything else on base abruptly halted to protect the health of the soldiers in the face of the pandemic. 

There was still a hope that things would return back to normal though, and I held out for that hope. I even passed on the flight back to the states that I was supposed to be on for a flight two months later hoping that maybe, just maybe, the pandemic would end and I would get the chance to teach just one last class. One month passed though, and then another. After the third month, I accepted the grim fact that I'd probably never get to teach again in this capacity. 

The program ended up certifying 101 soldiers and added 5040 hours of certified training hours. I'm doubtful that I will get to teach Combatives again, but life has always been pretty interesting so who knows what will happen. There have also been some talks about sending additional soldiers to get certified as Combatives instructors, and nothing could make me happier than one of those level 2 course graduates to become instructors themselves and continue to spread the benefits of Combatives within the Army. 

COVID

Up to the point that restrictions took effect, Kuwait had seemed like a JiuJitsu summer camp. Massive gyms, multiple mat spaces, and multiple effective training sites. Deployment life was lifting heavy weights, doing JiuJitsu multiple times a day, crushing massive amounts of food, and hanging out with JiuJitsu people. Outside of Combatives, we had grown our JiuJitsu community to a class size with 40+ people regularly in attendance and had a black belt, a brown belt, a strong squad of purple belts, and a host of regulars and newcomers to the sport. Some of the highlights of the deployment were training hard and then hitting the DEFAC with a dozen or so guys to eat and talk about JiuJitsu. I even got to run into several former training partners, and we had some truly legendary battles out on those mats.

Overnight, that all evaporated.

The gyms, which were the greatest source of stress relief and passing the time were shut down. The mats went along with them. All of the restaurants, hangout spots, and additional amenities were closed. Drop off laundry turned into waiting 2-3 hours for a chance to use a halfway functional wash machine. Food also required a 2-4 hour-long wait in line for your turn to grab a to-go meal. The base turned into a rather dismal place with obviously miserable people sauntering about. Timelines changed, and no one knew when we were going to be able to go back home, which significantly contributed to the frustrated mood of the place. Casual conversations shifted to asking what flight one was on in a sort of "how much time you got left" sort of thing.

College

There was a bright spot for me amongst everything. Without JiuJitsu and typical methods of distraction, I suddenly found myself with this glaringly large amount of unoccupied time. My lengthy college journey had long been neglected, so I decided that this was the perfect opportunity to resume pursuing that goal. As a 17-year-old kid, a poor selection of an Associates's Degree meant that I had only 46 credit hours towards my Bachelor's degree out of the 90+ credits that I had earned at community college. For a long time, this had discouraged me from pressing on. With a newfound abundance of time and federal funding for tuition, I was out of excuses for pressing on, and decided to pick back up where I had left off on my educational journey. 

 I found studying to be an almost therapeutic escape from the conditions, and I progressively took more and more classes until I was maxed out on what I could handle. A conversation with a college advisor led to a tactical transition into a more current program. That, combined with a hellashish amount of studying and work meant that at the end of December 2020, I'll have 105 credits completed. It is unbelievable to have only five classes remaining to finish my degree. I also padded up my resume by passing the CompTIA Security+ exam and the (ISC)2 SSCP exam. It was undoubtedly rough, and I spent many a night staying up to 0200 writing assignments just to wake up at 0500 to do PT, but I'm very glad that I put that work in and am so close to finishing a long-time goal of mine. 

Some of the Sandbox Gym Crew

We also stayed busy at work as well. Our PT sessions evolved into these brutal workouts, that daily challenged my physical limits. It was almost a cruel game of who could come up with the most terrible workout for PT that day. We scavenged about for anything that we could find to workout with, and fashioned pull-up bars, a bench press, and a wide variety of other contraptions to train with. No piece of concrete, equipment, or slab of wood was safe from being incorporated into what became our "Sandbox Gym." I designed a shirt to remember those workouts, which I'm pretty much childishly proud of. My favorite workout that emerged and became a well known hit was the "Waterjug Wednesdays." Teams of three would have to move two 44 pound waterjugs three miles. One person would carry the jugs forward, while the second person would perform an exercise such as 10 pushups and 20 squats, while the third person kept up with the waterjug carrier and recovered. After the second person had finished their exercise, they would run to catch up to the waterjugs and the group would all swap positions. 

Being up at Brigade, we were lucky to stay busy, and there was never a shortage of work to do. I transitioned to a Battle NCO role, and when I wasn't working there was out in a connex in sometimes 120-degree heat moving boxes, or doing some other method of area improvement. Work and PT were also methods of keeping my time and mind busy, and I actually overall rather enjoyed participating in them. That hard work was noticed, and I ended up being awarded an Army Commendation Medal and Army Achievement Medal for that productivity throughout the deployment

My memory tends to put a positive spin on events, but I'd have to say that looking back on it, the deployment really did have many great moments and memories. Everyone always says that the thing that they miss the most about the Army is the people, and I definitely have found that to be true for me too. We talked a bunch of shit, worked really hard in unbelievably hot weather, and somehow ended up having a really good time. I also got to make a brief excursion up to Iraq and Syria and earn my deployment patch. That initial adjustment to losing JiuJitsu and Combatives was so rough, but overall I adjusted course and ended up having a really great time. The pictures below capture just a glimpse of some of the times that we had:

Coming Home

Landing back in the states was an emotional experience. Breathing that fresh Texas air that was free of the stench of diesel and overused porta-potties, as well as being free of the constant roar of those many generators that filled the base. Everything that was green was beautiful after a year of looking at sand, and seeing people smiling was a cherished thing. I do sometimes miss being around the guys, but overall I am very happy to have the deployment behind me.

2020 had one last unexpected turn of events for me. I had been offered and accepted a junior systems administrator position supporting the Navy in Jacksonville, FL. This was a big step in my civilian career, and I felt like was the reward for all of those late nights studying back in Kuwait. I was two days away from out-processing from active duty, when I found out that instead of transitioning back to civilian life, I would be staying on active-duty orders to have knee surgery. I messed my knee up four years ago during an Army competition. The paperwork was "lost" though, and being unable to afford the surgery and time away from work, I just never did anything with it. The paperwork was all sorted out during the deployment though, and after four years of constant pain, I was finally going to be getting it fixed. I had extremely mixed emotions about the news. I wanted to get back to training and competing in JiuJitsu, as well as jump back into progressing within my civilian career. I have grown tired of being limited in what I am capable of doing physically though, as well as constantly being in pain from it. I am looking forward to seeing what quality of life I can recover after the surgery. So, with all of that, instead of Jacksonville, I instead headed back to North Carolina. I found a spot that I love in  Raleigh, a longtime favorite city of mine, to settle into. 

Getting home, I was really expecting to want to go and do all of the things and see all of the people that I couldn't while I was gone. I found though that after the long deployment and the current state of things, I spent most of my time alone at my new place working on school, reading, watching tv, or really just doing nothing. Getting a surgery date drastically shifted that though, and encouraged me to go forth and adventure where I could as my days of mobility would soon be limited.

I did make it a trip down to Jacksonville to see my Lenny Bro and visit school number 99, only my third for the year. Lenny Bro (Really Alex, but I've always known him by his JiuJitsu nickname), was a blue belt when I showed up at Cornerstone. Now a brown belt, that tradition still lives on. We had a great week of home construction on his new place, good food, and lots and lots of JiuJitsu and his new home school. It was great to see that he had found such a good place that had great JiuJitsu and good people.

My New Home School

Raleigh NC is home to some phenomenal JiuJitsu. In fact, it's great to be living during a time where you get to select from a variety of schools, when before it really was how far do I have to travel to find a place. I knew a number of JiuJitsu people here too as I lived in Fayetteville NC for four years. I ended up picking Elevate MMA because of their culture, modern methodologies of training, and they were known for key things that I want to improve upon. Wrestling, guillotines, as well as a continued exploration of no gi and leg locks. I'm incredibly excited to be here and at this school, and looking forward to seeing the development that comes during my time here.

2021

The new year will kick off with knee reconstructive surgery January 14th. I'll be honest, I'm absolutely terrified of having surgery. I had one on the same knee when I was 15, and it was the most difficult thing that I've ever gone through. Movement is one of the most enriching parts of life, and being immobile for quite a while will be a rather large challenge for me. It is also rather quite a bummer to have missed so much time training during the deployment, only to start the new year by missing probably just as much if not more. The surgeon gave me mixed feedback about my recovery potential. My ACL is missing, and I have extensive damage to my meniscus. The worst diagnosis though was the arthritis that my knee is filled with from four years of bone on bone contact. The word "chronic" came up multiple times while reviewing the MRI results. The surgeon is optimistic that the surgery will be successful and restore most of the stability that my knee has been missing, but the prominent presence of arthritis means that the pain will just be a constant for the rest of my life. I will also be looking at a full knee replacement whenever it becomes to painful to maintain normal function.

I will be off the mats for quite a while, but I'm hoping that I can find a productive way of spending time at my new school, perhaps by sitting off to the side and taking notes or dusting off the old camera and capturing pictures for others.

In the meantime, while recovering, I plan to finally complete my undergraduate degree and I have stocked my bookshelf full of IT books that I plan to study to assist with jumping back into the IT world again in the future. 

In closing, I'd like to again express my appreciation to the many friends that supported me that were either with me or back at home. 2020 was a trying time, but I am grateful for the health that I had during it, the challenges that grew me, and the many memories that were made during it.