“Not that kind of hurt. Not an injury. A good kind of hurt. A good kind of pain. The pain that means you are getting out of your comfort zone—pushing yourself. And that is a good thing. Because if you stay in your comfort zone, you’ll never get better. Does that make sense?”
“Yes, it does, Uncle Jake. I can try harder,” I told him.
“Good,” he said. “Because today you ran that mile in seven minutes and eight seconds. Next time, I want it done in under seven. And you won’t be able to do that unless you push harder and get out of your soft little comfort zone. Got it?”
“Yes, Uncle Jake, I got it.”
Uncle Jake walked away and, for the first time in a long time, I felt like I had let Uncle Jake down. I didn’t want to let it happen again.
chapter 8
Today started off really bad in jiu-jitsu, but it ended up REALLY GOOD.
Sometimes when we trained, we trained without the gi, which is the jiu-jitsu uniform. Sometimes we trained with it. Both ways are fun. Lately we had been wearing our uniforms more for training, because the tournament at the end of the summer was with the gi. Today we were training with the gi, and at first it was not fun at all because Danny was destroying me.
He was fast and strong—but he was also really good at jiu-jitsu. He usually knew the defense to every move that I tried on him, how to do it, and he knew the defense really well. When he started doing moves on me, it was a real problem. He always made me think he was going to do one thing and then did something else. When he did get a move on me, he was so strong that it was hard to escape.
So Danny was all over me. I was rolling the best I could, but he was always a little bit ahead of me. When I tried to pass his guard, he swept me and ended up on top. Then, as I tried to sweep him, he passed my guard. As I tried to replace my guard, he mounted me. From there, he started to choke me and as I defended the choke, BOOM, he put an arm lock on me and made me tap out.
“That worked better than I thought it would,” he said.
BETTER THAN YOU THOUGHT IT WOULD? REALLY? I thought to myself. Danny always acts like everything is luck or like he really isn’t that good—which I don’t like one bit, because that means I AM EVEN WORSE!
“Let’s go again,” I said, determined to do better.
“Sure,” Danny said with a smile…that smile that ANNOYED ME LIKE CRAZY!
We shook hands and started again. This time, I shot in for the take down and got it. I put Danny on his back, but I ended up in between his legs in his guard. From there, I looked to get around his legs so I could do a submission on him. But before I could really make any progress, he sat up, lifted his hips, and sent me sailing through the air back onto the bottom position with him mounted on me AGAIN. This time when he went for the choke, I was more careful with my arms. TOO CAREFUL. By the time I actually tried to defend the choke, it was too late and I needed to tap AGAIN.
“That choke works well,” Danny said to me.
I KNOW IT DOES, I thought to myself. I was getting frustrated, so I took a breath to calm down. I knew I could do better. And I thought of an idea: my secret move, called the ‘loop choke’.
“Let’s go one more time,” I told Danny.
“That’d be great!” Danny said, still smiling. Of course he was smiling! He was crushing me!
We shook hands and started again.
I made Danny work hard, but I kind of let him take me down. Then he was in my guard. I grabbed his gi collar by his neck, loosely, so he wouldn’t suspect anything. You see, in jiu-jitsu, there are a lot of moves that you can do where you actually use the gi against your opponent. There are ways of grabbing the gi that help you take your opponent down, trap their arm, or even choke them. The loop choke I was about to use on Danny used his gi against him. But I didn’t want him to know the choke was coming, so I didn’t grab the gi very tightly at all.
Then I let Danny start to pass my guard, which means get around my legs. To do that, he sunk his head down on my chest, but he didn’t notice that I had snuck his gi under his chin and onto his neck.
Then, just as he started to get around me, I reached up around his head with my other hand, grabbed my own sleeve and squeezed—this was the loop choke—I had his neck caught in the loop of his own gi and I was closing the loop.
It was tight! I felt Danny start to get tense—he hadn’t seen the choke coming. He tried to pull away, but couldn’t because I was holding him behind the head. He tried to drive forward, but that only made the choke tighter. Then I felt him panic. His body jerked around and he put one of his hands up by me face as he tried to push me away. It did no good. This choke was TIGHT.
He struggled a little more but I held on—and then suddenly, he had enough and he tapped—hard and fast! I GOT HIM!
I let go and Danny looked up at me. I didn’t know what he was going to say. I had finally beaten him!
“That was awesome!” Danny said with a big smile.
“Thanks,” I said, surprised at his reaction.
“What move was that? How did you do it?” he immediately asked.
That caught me off guard. That meant that he had no idea what I had just done. He didn’t even know what the move was called! And obviously, he didn’t know what the defense was either. Then I paused and thought to myself that if he didn’t know what it was, I would be able to keep getting him in it. Eventually he would be able to figure it out, but for now, I thought I might as well keep my secret move a secret!
“I’m not really sure. I just kind of grabbed onto your neck and squeezed.”
“Wow. Well, it worked great—whatever it was,” Danny said.
“Thanks.” When I looked over, I saw Coach, who had been watching the whole thing. Luckily, he hadn’t heard what I told Danny, so my secret was safe. And I’m sure Coach was proud that I was able to beat him.
“Bring it in everyone,” Coach Adam said to the class. We all gathered around him in the center of the mat.
“Listen,” he said in a serious tone, “we have the big tournament at the end of summer. And we have a lot of kids that will be competing. I will have a lot of work to do as we train to get ready and a lot of work the day of the tournament. I need some help. So I am going to pick a team captain to help me out.”
That was AWESOME, I thought to myself. I might be a TEAM CAPTAIN!
“The team captain will help run practice, help keep track of equipment, and help warm everyone up at the tournament. I will pick the captain not just because of jiu-jitsu skills, but also because of attitude and leadership. I will choose a person who is a team player. Any questions?” Coach Adam asked.
No one said anything. But I was excited.
“Okay then, bring it in,” Coach said. We all circled up close and put a hand in the middle of the circle. “Victory on three!” Coach shouted, “one, two, three…”
“Victory!” we all yelled.
Victory was our gym. And I was aiming to be its captain.
chapter 9
I woke up this morning and Uncle Jake met me down in the garage for our workout.
“Just do five pull ups, Marc,” he told me. This was a small number, so I was a little surprised. I did them.
“Now ten squats,” he said.
“Got it,” I replied and started doing squats.
“Ten push-ups when you are done.”
“Okay,” I said, surprised that this workout was kind of easy so far. I finished the push-ups.
“Okay, now do it again—five pull-ups, ten squats, ten pushups. Nice and slow, I just want you to stretch out a bit.”
I followed Uncle Jake’s instructions and completed another round.
“One more time through,” he told me.
“On it,” I responded, and knocked out another set of pull-ups, squats, and push-ups. This was weird. This was much easier than our normal workouts.
“Now just stretch out a bit,” Uncle Jake told me.
“Okay.” I did some stretches with my shoulders and neck.
>
“Stretch the legs more,” Uncle Jake said. This made me think. He must have some leg exercises coming my way. I reached down and grabbed my toes and stretched out my hamstrings, the muscles on the back of the leg above the knee.
After another couple of minutes of stretching, Uncle Jake looked at me. “You good?”
"Good for what?"
"Are you ready?"
“Ready for what?” I asked, not quite sure what I was supposed to be getting ready for.
“Doesn’t matter. ARE YOU READY OR NOT?” Uncle Jake questioned me with a stern voice, which told me I just needed to be ready, NOW!
“Yes, Uncle Jake. I’m ready.”
“Good,” he said, “because you are going to go run a mile, and you are GOING TO get out of your comfort zone and you are GOING TO run the mile in less than seven minutes. Understand?”
“Yes, Uncle Jake. I understand. I’ll do my best.”
“No. Not today. Your best hasn’t been good enough. You need to dig deeper. You need to go harder. You need to get out of your comfort zone and run with everything you’ve got. DO YOU UNDERSTAND?” Uncle Jake actually seemed mad at me. I knew I was going to have to run HARD!
“Yes, Uncle Jake. I understand.”
“Good,” he replied, “let’s go,” and he walked out the door. I followed him as he made his way down the driveway. We lined up in position to start.
“Alright. I need you to run HARD. As hard as you can. Okay?”
"Okay."
"Here we go. Standby..."
I took off running, Uncle Jake was right behind me. I was running at a hard pace. REALLY HARD. A pace I knew I couldn’t keep up—but I was going to try.
By the end of the second block, I was already breathing hard.
“Stay with me,” Uncle Jake said. “STAY WITH ME.”
I was trying, but about halfway through the third block, my lungs were starting to BURN! I could feel fire in my throat!
I backed off a little bit—and as soon as I did, Uncle Jake knew somehow.
“KEEP THE PACE. YOU NEED TO PUSH THROUGH THE PAIN.”
I couldn’t answer because I was breathing too hard. But I did pick up the pace and was running full-throttle and staying with Uncle Jake.
“Now, when we turn the corner and start heading up the hill, this is what we are going to do: GO FASTER.”
I didn’t answer, but Uncle Jake must have seen the look on my face, which was questioning how I could possibly run FASTER.
“Don’t look like that,” Uncle Jake said. “Don’t feel sorry for yourself. Put those feelings out of your mind and just do—do it. RUN HARDER. Stop thinking and do.”
I listened to Uncle Jake. And I did what he told me to do. I stopped thinking about the pain, stopped feeling sorry for myself and just RAN. AS HARD AS I COULD.
When we turned the corner and headed up the hill, I RAN EVEN HARDER.
I felt the burning in my lungs and the soreness in my legs—I ignored them and ran harder.
And then the pain and the burning faded, and my mind was empty other than a voice inside saying, run harder, run harder.
When we got to the top of the hill, I tagged the fence-post and turned around.
For a split second, I hesitated. Reaching the half-way point at the fence felt good, and I was proud of how fast I had run it. As my mind drifted and relaxed for a moment, I was snapped out of it by Uncle Jake.
"GO. NO MERCY!" He yelled.
No mercy? Sheesh. I had never heard Uncle Jake say that before! And it got me FIRED UP. He took off down the hill in a full sprint and I followed him—as FAST AS I COULD.
I felt great going down the hill. But when I got to the bottom, it hit me.
The motivation from Uncle Jake’s “No mercy” comment faded.
I suddenly felt the pain in my legs and the burning in my lungs again.
I backed off. I slowed down. Just a little bit, and just for a second. And as soon as I did, again it seemed like Uncle Jake knew it. He looked back over his shoulder, saw me, and slowed down.
“There it is. You just went back into your comfort zone.”
I kept running. I wasn’t comfortable, but I wasn’t pushing myself as hard as I had been.
“You have to push through it, Marc. You have to. I know you’re tired. I know your lungs are screaming. It doesn’t matter. IT DOESN’T MATTER. STEP IT OUT. WE ARE ALMOST THERE. STEP. IT. OUT!”
I didn’t want to run harder, but more importantly, I didn’t want to let Uncle Jake down.
I dug deep, put aside the pain and the agony I was feeling in my legs and lungs, and ran as hard as I could.
By the time I got to the last block, I didn’t think I had anything left. BUT I DID. I ran as hard as I could all the way do the finish line at my driveway. As soon as I got across it, I stopped and collapsed to the ground.
“Stand up, hands up!” Uncle Jake said. I didn’t move a muscle.
“Stand up, hands up,” he said again.
I looked at him. He was standing there with his hands over his head like he had just won a race.
“Come on. GET UP,” he said one last time.
I pushed myself back to my feet. I was exhausted. “Hands up,” Uncle Jake said again as he raised his hands over his head. “Get ‘em up.”
I put my hands up over my head. It did feel pretty good.
“Six forty-eight. You did it.”
“What?” I asked, too tired to even know what Uncle Jake was talking about.
“Six minutes and forty-eight seconds. You just ran a mile in under seven minutes. Good work.”
“Yes!” I shouted as I got my breathing under control.
“But more important,” Uncle Jake said, “you got out of your comfort zone. That’s what I like.”
“Thanks, Uncle Jake,” I said.
And it was kind of weird. Because even though it didn’t feel good to get out of my comfort zone because it hurt, at the same time, it really did feel good to get out of my comfort zone because I knew I was getting better. I needed to remember that. Always.
chapter 10
I DON’T LIKE DANNY RHINEHART.
I don’t like his smile, I don’t like his voice, I don’t like the fact that he is so smart and so fast and so good at jiu-jitsu. I don’t like his face. I DON’T LIKE HIM.
And today made that perfectly clear. We had to train together again today. I was hoping to get him in another loop choke, so I didn’t mind too much when he took me down. I immediately grabbed the collar of his gi again and began setting up the choke. He leaned into me and started to pass my guard. I was just about to reach with my other hand to catch him in the choke when he swam his head under my arm and got his neck completely free. That was okay, because he was thrown off balance. I grabbed his arm that was bracing him from falling over and swept him so now I was on top.
It was a great sweep, but Danny managed to get me in his guard. So I started to work on getting past his guard. But that wasn’t easy with Danny. He was strong and really good at messing with my balance. He pulled me in, pushed me back, pulled me in, then pushed me back again. I had no control.
Then he almost swept me but I stuck out my arm to stop from falling over. When I did that, he made some really strange movements. His hips moved, then he grabbed my head and pushed it; then he scooted to the side while reaching for the belt on my gi. I had no idea what was happening.
Then, all of a sudden, I was curled up in a ball with one arm intertwined with Danny’s legs. That would have been bad, but things got worse. Danny moved in more strange ways, but I could barely move at all. I didn’t get it until I felt pressure increasing on my shoulder. I tried to resist, but I couldn’t. Danny’s legs were wrapped tight around my arm and I was stuck.
I didn’t want to tap to this because it didn’t even seem like a real move! Danny slowly shifted his weight further and further forward, twisting my shoulder more. I tried one more time to get my arm out of this lock, but it wouldn’t budge. But I didn’t wa
nt to tap!
So instead of tapping, I yelled, “Ahhh!” as if my shoulder had been hurt.
Way of the Warrior Kid 3: Where there's a Will... (A Novel) Page 4