Jiu-Jitsu is not Capoeira

We had a new girl come to our Women's Class this morning. She came in a little late--we had already gone through warm-ups and had just started technique--so I did not get to talk with her as much as I normally would a new student.

When she stepped onto the mat, I told her to sit down and asked her if she new what Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu was. She said, "Not really. But it looked really beautiful."

Agreeing that it was beautiful, I then proceeded to explain that Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu is mostly ground fighting and told her a little bit about what the goals of BJJ were. She looked a little confused while I was talking, but as many women are a little overwhelmed by BJJ on their first day, I didn't think much of it.

I showed her the basic hip out from under mount, showed her an americana from mount and a few other basic moves that we show on the first day. She worked hard at it and seemed to be really into it. When we grappled, she threw herself into it full force and was not shy. She seemed to to really be enjoying it.

It wasn't until after class was over, when I was telling her about our class options and we were talking about her coming back that she started asking some questions.

"You guys don't do the dancing here?" she asked.

This caught me off guard. "Dancing?" It took me a second to guess what she might mean. "Do you mean Capoeira?"

"Yeah," she said.

She said she had thought this was a Capoeira class and had been waiting the whole time for us to start dancing. Poor girl came expecting a dance class based on self-defense moves and instead got thrown into grappling! She was a really good sport about it, though, and she said, "It wasn't what I was expecting but it was still cool." She said she wants to come back.

In case you were wondering, this is Capoeira. Just a little bit different from BJJ. :)