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Some days ago—never mind how long precisely—having little or no enthusiasm for my current fitness goals, and nothing particular to interest me in the weightroom, I thought I would take up Brazilian Jiu Jitsu.
A gym recently opened near my home and my office. It's something I've kind of always thought I should try, and no time like the present, so I signed up. They offer classes four nights a week for nogi, three nights a week for gi. I'm more interested in the nogi, in that I feel like I'm a little old to buy a karate uniform, but I'm considering getting one so that I can attend more often/conveniently. My schedule is always weird, so I'll go more if I can go any night. Idk.
I've been to three classes so far. I suck, obviously. But I'm rapidly learning new things.
Mostly, in rolling, I find that I run out of ideas. I don't actually know enough to launch any offensive. I vaguely understand the concept of guard, passing guard, mount, etc. But I quickly run out of strategies to actually attack. So I'm basically just trying to survive whatever my partner is trying to do. Which works some of the time. For a while.
The weird part is realizing that I'm big and strong. I work out a lot, but I'm a bit of a hermit about it, really. Home gym master race. And my goals are generally rather obscure things that no one else cares about. The only social sports things I really do are climbing, where my upper body strength is apparent but also limited by my comparatively large body weight for a climber. But now I'm rolling with someone, and I'm much stronger than he is, and he obviously knows a lot more than me and is much better than me, and he is constantly on the offensive, but I can just rip out of the submission. I rolled with a 17 year old who is training for a comp, and he was constantly on the verge of submitting me, and would have easily if I didn't have thirty pounds on him.
It's weird realizing it. Because normally, in my life, I have few opportunities to really test strength outside my basement.
But eventually, every round has been a process of getting choked out in ways I didn't know were possible. Guess I'll see if I get any better.
Anyone have any tips on getting started?
I know that BJJ stands for "Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu". I know this. I get it.
But whenever I see a gym with a sign saying "BJJ", my brain immediately goes to "blowjob-job".
Lol bjj people themselves joke about how gay the sport appears since it's just you trying to make another grown sweaty man submit
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If it pays the bills...
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Firstly congrats on starting bjj, it is hte ideal combat sport for a guy 25 and beyond in terms of fun and practical aplications. You are fairly strong so try to not use your strength or felxibility at all when you are new as that hampers tehcnical growth. When you climb through the ranks, you will encounter some absolute freaks, former wrestlers, pros who are just as strong if not stronger than you are.
It was the opposite for me since everyone in my gym weighed more than me at a smaller height with way more experience so I made up my mind to get as strong as I could. I stopped doing mma nearly a year ago due to work and got a shoulder injury this year but will resume soon i hope.
Yeah, wrestle a lot, get good at defending basic subs and do not use any athletic traits as that way you mask technical shortcomings. On the inury side, start some prehab for your knees, I had my knee get fucked once whilst rolling when I had a guy in butterfly guard. Also get a wrestling headgear or whatever it is called to avoid cauliflower ear and be wary of things like staph infection.
You will get better, I got manhandled by a guy who I outweighed by 50 lbs, I am 160 lbs for context. You need to know what it is like to be in a state of chaos and what getting choked feels like to be able to remain calm.
Why should someone care if they are masking technical shortcomings? It seems impossible to not use any athletic traits.
It was an inelegant way of giving a perfectly obvious piece of advice. The idea being essentially that if one were to rely on being bigger/faster/stronger than one's opponents in training, then when one runs into opponents who are bigger/faster/stronger one will have no way to defeat them.
This happens pretty frequently with Bigs in basketball who put up numbers in high school or college, only to fail in the NBA, because they are now no longer bigger and stronger than the players they are facing. Hell, you see it at every level, there are kids who were Bigs in middle school but never hit that growth spurt to make the high school team and never developed their ball handling and shooting enough to make it as anything but a center. So if you're a 6'7" center on your college team and you think you're good enough to play in the NBA, you better start working on the skills you would need to make it as a wing or guard, because you aren't going to be a center in the NBA.
At our gym any given class is broken down into partner drills and rolling. Drills are working a single technique from a single position, rolling is free play. I'm still figuring out how to meter strength in both. In Drills, the goal is to offer enough resistance and speed to make the practice valuable, but not so much that your partner can't learn the technique cleanly. Last night, I had my partner tell me during a drill that started with me bear hugging him in close while he had me in side control "Hey, you don't need to go super hard during this, just go 60 or 70%." When I was already going maybe 50%, in my mind. There are people who I could essentially arm-wrestle into a kimura and tap, that would be unhelpful as I wouldn't learn to leverage and hit the move against someone as strong as I am. At the same time, when rolling, I use strength to resist my opponent. I owe that to them, they'd really be getting nothing out of rolling with me if I didn't put up any fight.
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To avoid injuring yourself and your partner when you grapple. Grappling is very risky and there is a reason why they teach you proper technique. You make exponentially more progress and it allows you to do bjj for a lifetime.
Yeah but you risk getting injured even with proper technique and going moderately hard, if you are purely focused on being the technical guy, you will be able to do more of what you like as a recreational hobby. So nerfing your strength makes sense, it lets you enjoy the sport as a leisure activity where you have no ego involved and you dont end up getting a bad injury.
i really recommend everyone try grappling at some point in their life, quite fun at the right gym.
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My... (why doesn't English have a word for a compadre?) pal started a BJJ club with his coworkers. One of them knew a trainer and there was a rent-a-gym they paid for. This way the trainer was aware of everyone's skill and ability due to a smaller and fixed group and could provide targeted guidance.
What about "my mate"?
Compadre means specifically one's child's godfather. Or godchild's father. Or godchild's godfather.
Oh, I see. Thus ‘padre’. Thank you for explaining.
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