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Brazilian Jujutsu: this Aikidika's first class
To the moderators: this may not technically be the correct forum to post this thread. But I though it may be of some interest to my fellow Aikidoka.
I have been training in Aikido for the pat 10 years and Iaido for the past 7-1/2 years. Recently I have wanted to do some cross training in either Judo or Brazilian Jujutsu. Where I lived there had been a void in BJJ, or so I though. Last winter I was very happy to find a new BJJ school being run by one of my Iaido teacher’s former students. I visited the school and watched several classes. I was very unimpressed / disappointed by what I watched during those classes. I had then made up my mind that this place wasn’t for me. Seeing how this was the only BJJ school in the area (that I knew of anyway) I decided I would take a look at Judo as my backup.
So last month by shear dumb luck I was passing through a town close by and I drove right past a BJJ school that I had never noticed before. I stopped and went in for a look. The class was just starting to warm up in a group, and I had a chance to talk to the instructor for a few minutes while this was happening. He recently relocated from Brazil in the past couple of years where he has been training in Judo and BBJ since he was a boy. He was very pleasant and quite a funny guy. I liked him immediately. But once I saw him teach and roll around with his students I was blown away. I knew that if I was going to give BJJ a try, this was the place. I stayed and watched class for about an hour and a half. I thanked the teacher for his time and told him I would be back. He then invited me to come by anytime and try class free for one week. Last night I took him up on his offer.
While the class was a lot less formal than what I am accustom to from Aikido & Iaido. It still had a definite structure to it. The lack of structure was one of the things I didn’t like about the first BJJ school I visited this past winter. There were about 20 people on the matt, and we started out with a group warm up lead by one of the more senior students. The warm up was a good work out in itself. We started out running in various ways around the outside edge of the mat for about 5 minutes. Then we all spread out and alternated sets of push-ups and sit-ups. Each set of the two exercises was different from the lasr to focus on different muscle groups. We then did about 5 minutes of stretching. After the stretching we all line up to practice falls / rolls. The assistant instructor (also a BJJ black belt recently relocated from Brazil) pulled me aside from the group to teach me how to fall. I told him that I have been training in a martial art for the past 10 years that does a lot of rolling / falling, and he asked me to show him what I could do. So I did basic forward / backward rolls and a variety of break falls. At that point he smiled and told me to join the rest of the class for rolls. After we paired up and did some drills. First the instructor showed us a hip throw from standing. We practiced this very similar to Judo uchikomi / fit-in practice. We practiced the opening and loaded your partner up but did not complete the throw. We did several different drills in this manor ranging from a throws to ankle sweeps. After the drills were finished everyone lined up along the walls and it was time to roll / grapple with a partner. Since there we so many people on the mat, half the class spared in 3 minute intervals while the other half watched.. The instructor walked around and pair people together. I assumed I would only be watching this part as this was my first class, boy was I wrong. I was sent out in the 2nd group. My partner briefly explained the stating positions, and from there we went. I started out on the bottom in what they call the guard position with my legs wrapped around my partners upper body. I was able to hold my guard the entire 3 minutes. Even though my partner said he was trying his hardest to break my guard, I have a feeling he was taking it easy on me. Over the course of an hour of sparing / rolling I had the opportunity to spar with 5 or 6 different people of all different levels. It was really fun!
The biggest shock to me was how much endurance this stuff requires. I train in aikido and iaido about 8 to 9 hours total a week inside the dojo. In addition to that I train at home when I can, and exercise 3 to 4 times a week for a minimum of 45 minutes a pop. I also do allot of mountain biking. But I can say with out any doubt that this class was one of the toughest tests of my endurance I have ever had. I was happy that during the entire class my cardio never failed me, but by the end of the class my body / muscles were so tired I couldn’t do anything. Every muscle group I could think of felt like jello. The last person I rolled with gave up about 40 to 50lbs to me. I had rolled with him earlier in the class and I was able to physically dominate him. I actually almost submitted him several times. But this last time I was so physically tired that I could barely do anything to stop him and he had his way with me for 3 minutes. But those 3 minutes felt like 30.
Except for the one little fellow, everyone else I rolled with was my size or bigger. Out of the 5 or 6 of them, only one was able to submit / complete dominate me. I felt like a rag doll in his hands. Everyone else had a really tough time taking my balance or moving me. I think this is where aikido comes into play. Everyone I rolled with asked me afterwards were I first started to train in BJJ. They all though I transferred to there school from somewhere else. When I told them it was my first class they were all very surprised. Every single on of them commented that I had an extremely strong center / base and once I learned some BJJ submission I would be quite a handful. I explained that in the other art I study (aikido) we do allot to develop our center / base, but usually from a standing position.
While I was able to use my center effectively to defend myself and move / off balance my partner. I have to say that it really didn’t matter all that much. While my partners were taken back a few times at how I could move them so easily at times. When I did, they simply adjusted there position (very quickly I may add) and found many, many, many other ways to put me in a bad position. The other aspect from aikido I felt helped a great deal is ukemi, and I don’t mean the falling part. Part of ukemi is developing an awareness of what nage is doing so you can respond appropriately as uke. While rolling, especially when I was in guard and half guard I could sense the slightest change in my partner’s weight distribution and get a good sense of where they were trying to move. I could also feel when they were shifting there feet, legs or hands in an attempt to change position or go for a submission which helped me defend those moves much better than someone right off the street. Though pretty much every time I was the one in the worst position when the 3 minutes were up. But I really didn’t care how things turned out, I was just having a blast.
All in all it was a really fun experience, and I am defiantly going to cross train in BJJ. I just have to figure a way to work it into my schedule. IMO anyone doing aikido would really enjoy BJJ, and benefit from the workout.
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Originally Posted by Ron Tisdale
Be warned - it's addictive...
