#17.5 Lydia-SCU Jiu Jitsu and Kate

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I'm Lydia. I'm the Vice President of the Santa Clara jiu jitsu Club. And I'm Kate's best friend. Nice. Awesome. So, give me background to how you met Kate. How you were introduced to the club. Should I tell the, like a censored version of how we met? Oh, you don't have to censor anything. You're good. I met Kate freshman year in October. Or it might have been September, I don't know. But I was going to hang out with my roommate's friends and just in the swig kitchen, it's like the dorm kitchen, they're making dinner. And I, I never hang out with my roommate's friends. This is like a one time thing ever. And I just see this redhead sitting on the couch. I'm like, I've never seen you before. Like, what are you doing here? And she's just sitting alone doing her own thing. I'm like, well, I'm not really friends with my roommate's friends, so like I'll talk to this girl. And we were just talking about. Star Wars movies, like just stuff that I, no other girl talks to me about. I'm like, wow, this is amazing. This is all my interests. And so we cook, we like got like close real quick but later I find out that she was actually on a date. I didn't know that. I was like, this is just a girl sitting alone over here. I feel like most of them didn't even really talk to her that much. I was like, oh, interesting. I wonder who she was on date with Uhhuh. And I find out it's the person who left like the hangout like halfway through and just didn't come back until two in the morning. 'Cause we were just watching a movie at the end of it. And we like hung out till two in the morning and I'm like, interesting. Like you came back and we later find out that her date. Left to go make out with someone else. Oh no. And it's, it was cra like, that's insane. And like her date had like hickeys on neck and it was just, it was crazy. I was like, wow, at least I met you. You know? And ever since then, like we were just friends and it was just like a one time thing. There was like one in a million chance that we'd ever meet each other like that, you know? Yeah. Yeah. And so, like ever since then, we just stayed close and she wrote me into the Jiu jitsu Club helping her start it out. I originally was just here to send emails and do some busy work just 'cause she was doing it all alone. She did have a co-founder, but she did a lot of the heavy lifting right in the earlier stages, and so I just wanted to help her out with it. I had no idea what Jiu jitsu was. I did TaeKwonDo in the past, so like I have martial arts experience, but at that point in time I had never heard of Jiu jitsu. She showed me a move. I'm like, why am I going between your legs right now? I don't know what's happening. But, yeah, no, I'm very grateful that she introduced me to it and that got me into the club and everything. What has jiu jitsu brought into your life? It's definitely brought me the courage to try new things that are outta my comfort zone. 'cause it wasn't in my comfort zone to begin with. Mm-hmm. And, it made me a lot more confident in my ability to, learn new things, especially in the sense that Jiu jitsu is very much a kind of a chess game. It's you just keep going. You keep learning new things, new counters to something like, I'll learn a new move and be like, oh, this is insane. Like I can do so much stuff with this. And then you go against like a blue belt or like a purple belt and they shut it down immediately. I'm like, what? There's levels to this. This is crazy. it's just, it's brought me to like. So it taught me how to like, keep trying new things, be creative in like stressful situations. Especially because it's, jiu jitsu is very stressful at times when you're like, like I don't mean it, it's like, it's not stressful in the sense of like, I'm trying to find a way to say this. It's, it puts you in a, in stressful position and uncomfortable spots. Yeah, absolutely. There you have to think under pressure. Mm-hmm. And I think that's just open my thinking a lot. This is your senior year? Yes, it's my senior year. You did it this last year or just one year, or how many years? So, I started with the club, back my freshman year. Okay. And so technically I've had a full year, sophomore year, full year, junior year, and one quarter. senior year, so mm-hmm. Two years and two quarters. So two and a half years. Nice. And so if you could, compare your education and your goals with Jiu jitsu How do you think they relate? It's, so I'm a computer scientist. That's my major. And I guess it definitely relates in terms of problem solving. it's with coding with, so a lot of people know, it's like sometimes it feels like you're hitting your head against the wall trying to figure out how this works or like trying to code something to fit a problem. And it's just, it's a lot of puzzling, you know? Yeah. And so I'd say that actually fits pretty well together. Awesome. So do you think you'll continue after? Absolutely. Yes. I love Jiu jitsu I have, I think it's super fun. Kate's celebrating in the corner. It's great exercise. And on top of that, it's it's a fun, it's a mental exercise. It's a physical exercise. It's a stress reliever. And I honestly think the Jiu jitsu community is like some of the best community like I've ever met. I've made so many friends in the community, everyone's so welcoming and nice and yeah, I'm, I would, I definitely wanna keep doing it. younger, students from the university if you could give them advice, what would you tell 'em Like students just in general? Yeah, Try new things that you don't think, because I never would've thought I would've done Jiu jitsu This isn't just about Jiu jitsu but just don't be afraid to try new things. Like I came here with no expectations. I was just like, I'm just gonna come do whatever calls to me. Just try as much as you can, even if it's something you don't like. Like I've tried multiple clubs that just did not mesh with me. I tried like elective courses that I didn't like in school. It's this is your time to branch out, try to try new things that you maybe would not have had the opportunity to if you didn't come here. Yeah, absolutely. Anything you wanna close with? I'd say I'll talk about Kate a little bit. Okay. Let's do that. I'm trying to find a way to start. I definitely say that Kate is my favorite instructor that I've had so far, and I just, I really appreciate her style of teaching in the sense that she goes very in depth of each move that she's doing, why you're doing each little aspect of each move, like why your foot is specifically here, or why you're grabbing what this script and not this script. And I think part of it can be attributed to the fact that she has to teach people who don't know anything. And so I feel like my learning was accelerated because I was in a community where we're all learning together. And in such an in-depth thing, it helps me connect my building blocks more efficiently now that I know, like a deeper side of it. And I just, I think she's an excellent teacher and she does not give herself enough credit for it. I've learned everything I know is because of her and her philosophy of jiu jitsu the flow rolling, like the puzzle, everything like. It's not all just about beating the person. It's like, how can you learn from this? Like, why are you doing these things? It's taught me how to think. It's taught me so many things and I give her a lot of credit for it. Awesome. Yep. Yeah. Great job, Kate. All right then. thank you for talking. Thank you. Thank you. I appreciate your time. Thanks for having me. Take care.