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Saturday, January 28, 2012

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. :)

9 comments:

Afrorican said...

Thats pretty funny!

Unknown said...

I get that sometimes when I tell someone I train in brazilian jiu jitsu. Never actually st the school, though. :)

slideyfoot said...

It's surprising how often people mix them up, simply because BJJ has the word 'Brazilian' in the title. But hey, seemed to help Cobrinha. :)

Anonymous said...

I actually had the intention of signing up for Capoeira and visited a school with that purpose. However, they had a BJJ class training right before and while watching the instructor asked me if I wanted to try. I said yes and have been grappling ever since.

I never did take that Capoeira class.

Jiujitsu365

HomeImprovementNinja said...

I actually used to take capoeira until i hurt my foot jogging and couldn't do it anymore. it's really an awesome workout and the flexibility/balance/strength work helped my bjj a lot. My GF still does it as her only workout and is in really good shape. How many out of shape capoeristas have you ever seen?

it's amazing how misundertood bjj is. my GF's friend asked me how we keep our gis so white if we are allways getting blood on them. i was confused and she said "insn't bjj like UFC where you hold someone down and kick and punch them in the face."

Megan said...

OK...the title alone made me laugh. It amazes me that people get them confused.

A.D. McClish said...

Haha, yeah, it was a funny misunderstanding. To her credit, she not only stuck out the whole class, but she came back to another class! The experience also made me look up some capoeira videos. She was right. It is really beautiful! :)

Liam H Wandi said...

I'd have just told her "Dancing? What do you call what we just did then?" ;p

Julia said...

Thanks again for the awesome inspiration.

(also GRRR to blogger! This is the millionth time this week I haven't been able to leave proper comments using my openID)