It's been a long time true believers. Three years in fact. I've moved from Washington to Texas to Colorado in that time. Currently I am living in Trinidad, CO (near the New Mexico border) and am teaching Judo at a Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu academy. I have gotten WAY out of practice in Aikido and Judo, a fact which was emphasized this past weekend at Pat's Aiki Buddy Gathering.
The ABG was great, met some new people, one of which used to follow my blog "hey, didn't you used to write that training blog, Johndo?" and if he's reading this, please comment with a link to your training blog and I'll put it up.
Teaching at the BJJ place has been great, while having many challenges. First off, I felt like having to defend my views of Judo as a viable martial art since most Judo guys don't do enough newaza to really make progress against a martial art that specializes in it. Secondly, BJJ historically comes from Judo as Maeda taught the Gracies. Hearing things like "well Judo emphasized strength so the Gracies had to modify techniques for leverage because Helio was so frail used to get under my skin. Kano was around 5'2 and weighed 90 lbs and Mifune was around 5'2 and 100 lbs so there is little evidence they were using strength based techniques. I can not argue however that the spirit of BJJ is something to envy. These guys train 3-5 days a week, about 2 hours a class, sometimes two classes a day and have a blast. They kicked my butt the first day (although moving up to a mile high in altitude, not having done Judo in years, and being out of shape didn't help me). As I'm (slowly) getting back into my groove I am seeing how the basic ground positions we emphasize are overlooked by them and the the guard/mount relationship maybe Judo guys don't spend enough time on.
I have also after much tossing gotten some of them to stop standing in a wrestler's stance and stand upright when throwing. That continues to be an uphill battle as the teacher keeps using that stance. When he does randori (they call it rolls) with me, he grabs a sleeve or anything he can get and throws a foot up to put on my hip and falls dragging me to the ground. I need an exercise to practice at home to counter that and get him to stop using that crutch. Well this is getting long, if you took the time to read all this, thank you. If not, I don't blame you. I will (at a few requests) start posting 3 times a week after each BJJ class. Any tips/suggestions/anecdotes/etc would be welcome.
-John
The ABG was great, met some new people, one of which used to follow my blog "hey, didn't you used to write that training blog, Johndo?" and if he's reading this, please comment with a link to your training blog and I'll put it up.
Teaching at the BJJ place has been great, while having many challenges. First off, I felt like having to defend my views of Judo as a viable martial art since most Judo guys don't do enough newaza to really make progress against a martial art that specializes in it. Secondly, BJJ historically comes from Judo as Maeda taught the Gracies. Hearing things like "well Judo emphasized strength so the Gracies had to modify techniques for leverage because Helio was so frail used to get under my skin. Kano was around 5'2 and weighed 90 lbs and Mifune was around 5'2 and 100 lbs so there is little evidence they were using strength based techniques. I can not argue however that the spirit of BJJ is something to envy. These guys train 3-5 days a week, about 2 hours a class, sometimes two classes a day and have a blast. They kicked my butt the first day (although moving up to a mile high in altitude, not having done Judo in years, and being out of shape didn't help me). As I'm (slowly) getting back into my groove I am seeing how the basic ground positions we emphasize are overlooked by them and the the guard/mount relationship maybe Judo guys don't spend enough time on.
I have also after much tossing gotten some of them to stop standing in a wrestler's stance and stand upright when throwing. That continues to be an uphill battle as the teacher keeps using that stance. When he does randori (they call it rolls) with me, he grabs a sleeve or anything he can get and throws a foot up to put on my hip and falls dragging me to the ground. I need an exercise to practice at home to counter that and get him to stop using that crutch. Well this is getting long, if you took the time to read all this, thank you. If not, I don't blame you. I will (at a few requests) start posting 3 times a week after each BJJ class. Any tips/suggestions/anecdotes/etc would be welcome.
-John
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