Gracie "Bubba" Dummy

[drkev]

I have difficulty finding training partners and I want to get into JuJutsu competition.

As a supplement to my class training (and so that I can train at home) I have been looking at purchasing a Bubba Dummy (or similar).

I was just wondering if anyone had any experience with these dummies and if they could give me any advice.

The Gracie's sing the dummies praise emailed Rorion and He endorses it but they make money out of it so this is not an accurate opinion!!!

Please help me if you can

I have never used one of the dummies - they might be good for training mobility on the ground, but...

If you want to compete, you will definitely need training partners. What makes live grappling so difficult for us trad jujutsuka is the unpredictability of response and resistance from your opponent, and the only way you can get that is live sparring.

From your profile, you already train in (trad) jujutsu. Does your club do any 'back-to-back' (i.e. newaza) randori? Can you get together with other club members and roll? An hour or so once a week or even once a fortnight will quickly improve your game.

I think there are a couple of BJJ clubs down in the south (try searching on SFUK.net) - or you could join your local judo club, which will be a good first base for BJJ tournaments, but will also give you chance to compete in Judo shiai, and should complement your JJ training quite nicely.

If all else fails, you could just enter as many competitions as possible and treat them all as randori sessions!

Cheers,

Mike

[drkev]

Thanks for your advice I was planning on entering as many comps as possible like you say. That way I would gain experience of being at a tournament because as I understand it the pressure is somewhat different to a training session.

I have approached one of my local Judo clubs and it turns out the Instructor is a JuJutsu instructor as well!

I don't specifically want to learn BJJ but traditional JJ does not adapt to competition well and all the fights I have seen appear to involve 99.99999% ground fighting.

I want to do full contact too but will gain experience at semi first.

Are there any websites or free resources on getting into MMA or NHB or advice on starting out.

My JuJutsu is good and strong which means I have a firm base to start from but now I need to apply my JJ.

www.sfuk.net is probably the best UK web resource for MMA - plenty of advice for beginners in the forum archives, and plenty of listings for clubs and amateur and semi-pro MMA events, submission grappling tournys etc.

Try and ignore the occasional snide comments about trad MAs, and you'll be fine.

Cheers,

Mike