Advice for Beginners in Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu: Stiff Arming, Holding and Muscling

Sometimes, Jiu-jitsu seems to require us to move in exactly the opposite way than what seems logical. We have to work against what many of our instincts tell us and train our bodies to move in more effective ways.

One example of an instinctive habit that has to be broken in order to do bjj well is stiff-arming. A good example of what I mean when I say stiff-arming is what most people instinctively do when someone gets into mount and puts all their weight on you. For most people just starting out, their reaction to all that weight is to push the person off of them and try to keep them off with stiffened arms. Another time when I really notice it is when a person's guard has being passed and they are trying to keep the person from getting into side control by pushing them away with their arms, using all their strength.

There are a number of reasons why this is not the best method to get out from under someone. I'll outline the ones I can think of. If you have any to add, feel free to post them:

1. When your arms are completely outstretched, they are vulnerable to attack. This is especially true when you are under someone mounted on you, but it is also true if you are under someone's side control. Stretching out your arms to try to push someone off is like handing them an armbar on a silver platter.

2. The stiff-arm will wear you out. If you are pushing someone off of you, or holding them at bay with all your strength, you are losing energy that you could be using much more effectively. You can tell if this is happening by the feeling of having "jello arms" or "heavy arms" after you just spent thirty seconds trying to push some heavy dude--or dudette--off of you. Those feelings of muscle exhaustion happen after you've put them through a sustained contraction. Simply put, you deplete your muscles of their energy.

3. Stiff-arming is ineffective. After all that energy exertion, most of the time you will find that you either were not able to push that heavier person off of you or that you ended up having your guard passed and are caught in side control. The reason why is that your arms vs someone's entrie body weight is not really a fair match up.

Another common instinct that has to be overcome is holding. Holding happens usually when a person doesn't know what to do and is worried about either losing control of the other person or are scared of what the other person might be trying to do to them. So, for example, when starting out, you might be worried about what the other person has planned, so you grab onto their wrists and hold on for dear life, using your strength to keep the other person from moving their arms. Or, if you happen to get into a bad position, like bottom mount, you might respond by latching onto the persons arms or neck, using muscle to hold them so they can't try to submit you. It can even happen when you get into a dominant position, like side control. You hold onto them as tight as you can because you don't want them to escape.

The same general downfalls that apply to stiff arming, also apply to holding.

1. Whenever you are holding onto someone with all of your strength, you have committed to that position and other people can use it against you. While you are expending all your energy trying to hold him, he is working underneath you--getting underhooks, slipping a knee in, setting up a sweep.

2. Again, you are depleting your muscles and tiring yourself out.

3. Holding only works if you are stronger than the other person. If a person--bigger or smaller than you--knows more technique, they will be able to use your holding against you, like in the video I posted. So you will have wasted your energy.

Stiff arming and holding are both examples of what people who pracitce jiu-jitsu call "muscling". If you are wondering whether something you are doing falls under that category, here are some tell tale signs you can check to see:

1. If you are doing something with so much force that you are using all your strength and you can't breathe easily, then chances are whatever technique you are trying to do has gone awry somewhere and you are now trying to make it work out of sheer strength and will power. That might get you somewhere with smaller people. But people your size or people who out rank you will overcome that.

2. If you don't know what to do and so you are using all of your strength to try to keep a person off of you, that's using your muscle instead of technique.

3. If someone is trying to submit you and your only way to escape is to try to rip your arm out of their grasp like the hulk, that is muscling. Again, you might be able to pull your arm out if the person is smaller, but if it is someone your size or someone who ranks higher, chances are that your arm will end up barred.

If you are a stiff armer or a holder, don't worry. Everyone who does bjj starts out doing these things. We don't know what else to do. As you start to learn more and the number of techniques and concepts you understand increases, the less muscling you will do. You will replace your instincts with new, more effective ways to move out from under heavy people. You will learn how to do escapes that don't rely on brute strength and how to do submissions that don't drain every ounce of life out of you while you're applying them.

Like so many things, it just takes time. As a beginner, the best thing you can do is to try to not rely on your strength. Focus on figuring out what the problem is (ex: that you are under mount) and ask your instructor what techniques you need to learn to get out from under mount (ex: hip out or an upa roll).

At first, you will feel like you are getting squashed and submitted all the time. You might think the techniques aren't working and be tempted to fall back on strength. But keep working on the little details, and through trial and error find out how to make those techniques work for you. As you add more and more tools to your toolbox, you will start to find out that you know what to do when someone gets into mount and you won't have to rely on the instinctive urge to try to push them off of you. You will re-train your brain until your instincts line up with the techniques you are learning in class.

What is the Goal of BJJ?

Today, a friend of mine and I were getting coffee and she said she wanted to try out bjj with me. Of course, I was excited. So my friend asks me, "So what is the goal of jiu-jitsu?"

Simple question, but one that is hard to explain to someone who has never tried bjj.

"Do you try to pin the other person?"

That gave me a jumping off point. "No. BJJ is different than wrestling because, instead of trying to pin someone by relying on superior strength and speed, your goal is to learn to use technique, leverage and momentum to get into a dominant position so that you can do a submission -- a joint lock, choke or muscle lock. It's not about getting into a position and holding it. It's about being mobile and learning to use the other person's movements and positions against them."

Then, I started trying to explain what you do in a grapple. I could see from her facial expressions that she was trying to understand, but had a hard time picturing what I was saying. So I invited her to come over to my barn so I could show her. To my great pleasure, she did.

Stephanie came over too and we spent an hour or so showing her some of the basic positions and submissions -- mount, side control and taking the back and a kimura, an armbar from mount and an rnc. She was on overload by that time. So Stephanie and I grappled--just a relaxed flow roll--to show her a little bit of what bjj looked like in action.

She liked it and is coming with me to class tomorrow. Yay!

The thing that struck me, though, is that I had forgotten about how overwhelming bjj is in the beginning. It's fast, in close quarters, scary at times and there are so many details that you are aware that you aren't going to remember even a quarter of what you are seeing and hearing. I look at this as the first hurdle--getting over that fear of the unknown. The second big hurdle, in my opinion, is learning to deal with the progressive, trial and error, long term nature of bjj.

But as we were walking out of the barn, my friend said, "I'm glad I did this with you guys here first. If I had gone in there not knowing what to expect it would have caught me way off guard."

I hope she ends up enjoying tomorrow's class!!

Tip For Beginners

If you are new to BJJ, here is a tip that will save you some time and energy: Don't try to gi choke someone while you are inside their guard.

Twice today, someone tried to gi choke me from inside my guard. What they did was try to stack me from inside my guard and then use pressure to keep me pinned and try to gi choke me.

It didn't work. Why? For a number of reasons:

1) Their arms are outstretched, in my guard, just asking to be arm-bared. Because their weight is forward, my hips are mobile and, even when you are trying to smash the ever loving crap out of me, I can maneuver around to get an armbar from guard.

2) Because their weight is forward, they are in prime position to be swept, with me ending up in mount.

3) When you are in someone else's guard, your primary objective should be to pass. Any submission you try on the person's upper body will only be exposing your arms and neck for submissions.

Now that I've gotten that off my chest... :)

What is Brazilian Jiu-jitsu?

Check out this awesome video of Fabio explaining what Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu is.



This really explains a lot about Fabio's philosophy of BJJ. It's not about strength. It's not about size. It's about leverage, momentum and flow.

One of the things he said in the video is that he doesn't want to hurt the people he grapples physically, he wants to "hurt them inside" to make them take a look at themselves. I have experienced this under Fabio. He makes you face challenges that you hate. He puts you with people who can just pick apart your game and frustrate you. He doesn't say much about it, beyond a little encouragement. He makes you work through it. That approach has forced me to grow so much--not only in bjj but as a person--over the last year and a half.

By the way, I am in this video at one point (in the background) but I was only able to grapple with one arm because I hurt the other one at NAGA. That's why I am scooting around weirdly. lol Hope you enjoyed the video!

Beginner's Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu

August 1st marked my one year BJJ anniversary! Woohoo! It is hard to believe that one year has passed so quickly and that so much has happened in that time. I am still a beginner in the world of Jiu-jitsu, but I thought I would share some of the major ideas that I have learned in the last year, in regard to getting the most out of training Brazilian Jiu-jitsu. Like I said, I am still a newbie, so take it as you will. :)

The first thing I did when I decided I was going to write this blog was to ask Fabio, my instructor, what he would say to beginners coming into BJJ. He knew what he wanted to say right away. Here are the basics of what he told me.

1. Don't think about the belt! Thinking about the belt will get in the way of you growing. Just think about learning.

2. Don't worry about doing the "right thing". No one knows what the right thing is when they first come in. You won't do the right thing. Don't worry about it. You need to try. That's how you learn what the right thing is.

3. Everybody's different. It's not about learning slow or fast. People learn differently and some people pick it up faster than others. But don't worry about how fast or slow you are picking it up. It depends on how much you move and how open you are to learning.

4. Nothing good comes easy. Jiu-jitsu takes time.


As for me, I am an uber nerd, so I have a lot to say about everything. ;) So here is my list of things that I learned about training BJJ that have helped me.

1. Jiu-jitsu is not about strength. It's not even about speed. IMHO, It's about control, leverage, balance and adaptation. If you are straining when you're trying to do something or if you are having to use a lot of strength, you aren't doing the technique correctly.

2. Relax while you're grappling. It seems counter-intuitive, I know. But you will not be able to move like you need to if you are tense and straining.

3. Don't worry about doing moves "fast" during drilling. Doing it fast does not prove that you are doing it right. In fact, you may miss important details if you are trying to go fast. If a technique works, it will work when you are moving in a relaxed, smooth way. Speed will come later, after your muscles are used to making the motions. That happens naturally, over time, with lots and lots of repetition.

4. Expect to be on defense a lot. For a long time. It doesn't mean you suck. It means you go to a school with people who know more BJJ than you. That's a GOOD thing. :) It means they have a lot to teach you.

5. Don't be afraid of getting in bad positions or of getting submitted. Try things. Learn what works and what doesn't. If you get into a bad position, use it as an opportunity to practice your escapes. Once you are in a bad position, relax. You are already there. Don't waste energy trying to explode out of it. Take a deep breath and start working your escapes.

6. In the same vein, don't look at your grapples in terms of "winning" and "losing". Instead, focus more on trying to take one or two things away from that grapple that you can learn from. That way, every grapple is a mini-lesson in and of itself.

7. If someone has a style that frustrates you, don't avoid them. Roll with them more!! This has been a huge thing for me. They are frustrating you because they are doing something that you don't know how to deal with. If you keep working, keep trying things, keep presenting yourself with that situation, eventually you will adapt to whatever it is they are doing. Think of that frustrating person as an opportunity to refine a certain part of your game that needs attention.

8. Don't worry when you feel like you aren't progressing. Everyone feels like that from time to time. It's normal. You ARE growing, even if it doesn't feel that way. You will notice it when you grapple someone who is newer than you. :)

9. If you want to get better "quickly" the best thing to do is to grapple. Get as much mat time as you can. There are no "secret techniques" or "short cuts" that can help you get better faster. Watching videos on YouTube and reading books are helpful, but they can't replace live grappling. The only way to progress is to put in the time on the mat.

10. Ask lots of questions to your instructors and higher belts. They will most likely be eager to help you.

11. Find one or two people who you can just "try stuff" with on a regular basis.

12. If you get an injury, give it time to heal. I know you don't want to sit out. It sucks. But you will be out longer if you don't give your injury time to heal and it becomes something that needs surgery to be corrected.

13. Don't talk crap about people. Don't brag. It's a fast way to lose friends and help from your training partners.

14. Go to tournaments. I hate them, because I put to much pressure on myself. But I still go because it is a good way to test myself, to see where my bjj is working and where it isn't. Don't wait until you're "ready" to go to a tournament. You're never "ready". At whatever level you compete, it will be a challenge. That's why it's so enlightening! :)

15. This last one is more of a personal learning style. For me, it is more beneficial to to understand the concept behind a move--why a certain move works--than to just memorize steps. BJJ rarely happens exactly like the technique demonstration. Grapples are fast moving and positions change quickly. If you understand the concept behind a move, you will be able to use that move in multiple situations, instead of just in the situation that it was demonstrated in. For example, if you learn an armbar from mount, try to understand why the armbar works. Then, you will be able to get an armbar in many other positions: from guard, from side control, etc. Details are important, but for me, concept is primary.

Anyways, that's my $.02 on the first year in BJJ. Hope it is helpful in some minute way!! ;) BJJ veterans and fellow newbies alike, feel free to add more to the list!

I Almost Had 'Em!

Last night, I grappled with a younger kid who has been coming about a month. I was going slow, making him move and leaving space for him to escape and to attack. He would get me in something--a triangle or an armbar and I would do the escape.

Right at the end of the grapple, he had tried to do and arm bar and I rolled out and came into side control. It was a low side control. He hooked the knee close to me around the back of my neck. Didn't have an arm or anything. Was just squeezing my neck, trying something I guess. Fabio called "Time!" and he let go. Promptly he stood up and said, "Oh man! I almost had her!" He went and sat down and told his mom about how he almost had me in a submission and time stopped right before he could "get me". LOL!

I don't mind it too much. He's a little kid. Probably eleven or twelve. But it brings up a good point that many beginners don't realize. I say "beginners" including myself, because I have been guilty of this before too.

"Almost" isn't anything. If you weren't able to finish a submission properly, whether it be because you had incorrect technique or because your opponent knew the escape and executed it, then you didn't "almost" have it. You had an attempt. And that's a good thing. But there is a world of difference between trying a submission and being able to carry it through to it's completion.

It's ironic that I rolled with that kid on Thursday afternoon because the rolls were reversed last night at class. I rolled with a purple belt nick-named "Joe Boxer" who is strong, fast and highly technical. When he rolled with me, naturally, he toned down the speed and the strength. But not the technique. Like I did with the kid, he allowed me to get into good positions, to go for submissions, and then he would escape out of them with ease.

Though I went for several submissions, I knew I was no where close to finishing any of them. There was no "I almost had 'em!" lol

It is important, when we roll with higher belts, to realize that they are more than likely slowing down and working defense for our benefit. They are letting us get those dominant positions and to go for those submissions because they want us to grow.

It's all about working together to build skills. The higher rank is practicing defense--escaping bad positions and submissions--while the lower rank is working offense. Its a good way for everyone to get something out of the roll.

But there's one sure way to bring a fast end to a good rolling relationship like that. Talking smack. All that courtesy Joe Boxer showed me when we rolled would disappear if I went around telling people how I got mount on him and went after a million submissions and "almost had him." He would grapple me at his speed after that. Then we'd see if I could get mount and go for submissions. What would happen would be a lot of me being plastered to the mat and a lot of me tapping. Not fun.

The best way to look at a grapple with a higher belt is a chance to push yourself; to go for it. You should be able to trust that they will roll safely with you--that if they get that armbar, they won't crank it. They'll hold it and make you do the escape. So you can feel at liberty to try things because you know you can trust your rolling partner.

But at the end of the grapple, keep in mind the reasons why you were able to move and work those positions, escapes and submissions. Remember to say "Thank You." And remember to do the same thing for the newbies that come in after you. ;)

Mixed Results

Last night was a night of extremes in grappling. I grappled a couple of pretty new people and some experienced blue belts. The results of each of those grapples were soooo different.

First, I went with a girl who has been going to our gym for a while. She is kind of timid and, for a long time, didn't really attack when she grappled. Now she is starting to get a little more confidence and she is transforming her game. She's attacking more, she's starting to really understand the concepts more. In our grapple, I could see the wheels turning. She tries to set up and apply the things we have recently been learning in class. It is great to see!! She's the type of person I really root for, you know? She's such a meek, sweet person, but I want to see her kick some butt!! lol

My second grapple went very differently. I went with Yeti, a blue belt who helps me out a lot. He helped me last night, alright. Helped me to see how much I have to learn!! lol. No, he didn't do anything rough or mean. He was just moving. Moving a LOT faster than I was. He is not only faster, but loads more technical than me. He can pick me apart SO EASY!! But I enjoy rolling with him because, even while he's kicking my butt, he's telling me how to defend the submissions he's putting on me. I usually come away from rolls with him with at least one little tid-bit of information to improve my game. That's a great rolling partner. Someone who can kick your butt, but make you feel like you accomplished something anyway in the end.

One of my other grapples of the night was with a younger guy who is relatively new to BJJ. He has a lot of heart and it's easy to see that he's motivated to learn. But he is still in that go-crazy, I'm-never-going-to-tap, have-to-smash mode. That was fine for most of the grapple. I favor chokes with newer people and I'm not as afraid of finishing chokes on people who don't tap. But then I caught a heel hook on him. I was applying it really slowly, but I had it. He just refused to tap. I said tap. Another blue belt sitting on the wall said tap. But he refused. I would have had to pop his ankle to get the tap. So I let go, got him in my guard and got a gi choke instead.

Afterwards, I told him he should be more careful with leg locks. Not everyone will let them go. He said, "Well, maybe I don't want them to." Sigh... I hope he doesn't end up with a popped ankle. I won't do it. But at a tournament, guys will pop ankles without hesitating. For his sake, I hope he learns to tap.

I'm leaving tomorrow to take our youth group to a Student Life camp in North Carolina. I'm REALLY excited, since this will not only be a great experience for myself and the kids, but also a mini-vacation for me and JJ! I won't get to grapple for the week. That is, unless some unruly kids refuse to go to sleep after we tell them to. I get kinda grumpy when I don't get my sleep. After about two in the morning "lights out" takes on a whole different meaning!! ;)

Advice for First Time Competetors

No, I'm not giving advice. That would be funny. And dumb since I've never gone to a tourney. But here's a blog that has a lot of great advice. Enjoy!

http://georgetteoden.blogspot.com/2009/10/advice-for-your-first-competition.html

Defense

I think--note the "think" and not the "know"--that I'm slowly getting better at defense. Lately Steph and I have been grappling with two guys from our class, Phil and Josh. It's really been helping me improve in all areas, but especially in defense.

Phil and Josh easily outweigh me by 70-80 pounds, plus they've been taking Jiu-jitsu longer than me, so trying to move when they have their whole body weight crushing me is really difficult. I'm nowhere near close to getting submissions on either of them, but I am at least moving better and looking less like a rag doll getting pretzeled on the floor.

Baby steps, people.

Also, I almost jogged a whole mile without walking today. I did walk once, but only for about ten seconds and then I started jogging again. That's already an improvement from the last time I tried to jog a mile. It's crazy for me to think about people who run twenty or thirty miles. I think it would take me a looooooooooooooooooooooooooong time to be able to do that. Ok, let's be honest. I'll prolly never do it. lol

Anyway, my stats as far as weight goes are the same. I found out the actual weight classes for the NAGA tournament in November and I would have to get down to about 130(without my gi) to drop into the next weight class. That isn't going to happen. My body likes 140. It doesn't want to leave 140. And I've decided not to try to make it leave 140 because, from what I hear, they will probably combine weight classes and if I drop all that weight I'll just weigh that much less than everyone in the weight class I'm slotted for now. Garbage.So I'm going to stop worrying about weight and just focus on training.

Lastly, tonight Steph, Phil and I are going to see Fabio Novaes' school. Our instructors, Mario and Ben, train there and we want to go see them in action and get a feel for our "parent school". We fall under the blanket of Fabio Novaes Jiu-jitsu since we train under Fabio's students, so it'll be cool to see the school and meet the people there. I'm excited!

http://www.fabionovaesbjj.com/index.php

Rolling

When I first started Jiu-jitsu, the white belts who had been there longer than me kept telling me, "Just roll," every time we grappled. I got frustrated because I didn't understand what they meant. Everything was about strength for me. I was trying to muscle my opponents into my submissions.

I'm still doing that a little bit now, but I'm figuring out how to rely on balance and technique more. I am beginning to understand what my higher ranking friends were trying to tell me when they said to "just roll".

Also, I'm relaxing a lot more; letting go of my ego and just trying to learn. I'm not killing myself trying to get submissions. I'm looking for them, but I'm not straining and fighting. I'm trying to go with the flow, defend, get into a dominant position and then find a joint I can isolate. I'm definitely still a sucky white-belt. But I think I am a little less sucky than I was when I first started. That's not much, but at least it's something. ;)

Flow and Tell

Height: 5'4''
Weight: 140 (yay!)
Exercise so far: walking 45 min.
Planned exercise: some bjj drills during the day and bjj class tonight
Food and beverege intake so far today: cereal and milk. water.
Planned lunch: chicken and water and maybe a salad
Planned dinner: chicken and rice.

I'm finding that I don't move enough while grappling. I also don't go for things with enough confidence. Last night, Steph and Phil came over and we grappled. Suffice to say I wasn't feeling it. I kept getting out-muscled, which tells me I was relying to much on strength and not enough on technique. But even beyond that, I was letting myself get frustrated and I kept giving up.

Basically, I was having a pity party for myself.

I'm over it now. One thing that Phil said made sense to me. Basically, he said that I'm a white-belt and I'm going to suck. Just get over it and learn. He's right. I've only been taking classes for a month. I can't expect to be winning when I grapple against people who have taken class longer than I have. I need to relax, let go of my pride and just try to learn from the time when I get submitted.

So that's what I'm going to try to do.

Also, I'm going to try to move more and try for more things when I'm grappling. It's all about isolating a joint or an appendage and then applying pressure. I'm just going to work on moving and on being more bold. I'll get tapped, but oh well. Hopefully I'll learn from it.

Day Three of Operation Clear Belt: Sick...and still going.

That video has nothing to do with jiu jitsu. It was just so hilarious I had to post it.

Height: 5'4''
Weight: 142
Exercise So Far Today: Getting out of bed. lol Yesterday I had jiu jitsu class.
Planned exercise for tonight: Some grappling (hopefully), walking for 1 hour, warm up exercise.
Food Intake: Yesterday I cheated a lot. Fatty, fried badness. But today I'm back on track. Slimfast bar for breakfast. Planning on having chicken and broccoli for lunch. Not sure about dinner yet. Something chickeny, most likely, without a lot of carbs and fat.

So, I'm sick with some kind of annoying cold. But life goes on. Class on Saturday went well. I got my first leg-triangle from guard. Though, I'll admit I pulled it on a guy who had come in for his first lesson. lol. I take what I can get, alright? We learned a few take-downs and Mario (our instructor) showed me 4 submissions from side-control: kimora, americana, inverted arm-bar and a triangle. In my grappling, I'm still having a few big issues:

First, I am still not moving enough. One of the guys in my class told me I'm like concrete. I get into a position and sit there. Not good. So I have to "roll" more. That's what they always tell me. "Just roll." Right....I'll work on that.

Second, I am still not aggressive enough. I keep waiting for a perfect opportunity to pull one of the sumbmissions I know, insetad of just moving and trying new things out.

But, aside from those things, and from the fact that I still suck technically, it was a good class.

Our other intructor, Ben, told us that the most important thing we can do to get ready for a competition is to grapple. Grapple as often as we can. So me and steph are going to meet at my house on Sundays and on Thursday nights. We'll see how it goes.

As If I Didn't Have Enough Blogs

I have a new hobby. Jiu Jitsu. Not many people who read my regular blog will be interested in hearing about my jiu-jitsu journey, so I decided to begin yet another blog.I think I may have a disorder.

Anyway, a couple of the guys in the youth group take Brazilian Jujitsu classes at Summerlin Academy in Bartow and they invited me to go. I went. And now I am hooked. :)

When I first decided to go, I thought it was going to be more like karate. You know, standing up and kicking and punching. The kind of thing you'd see on a Kung-Fu movie. I was surprised to find that Jujitsu is nothing like that. Most of our moves happen on the ground, on top of your opponent or under them. Personal space? There is none. I frequently find myself thinking, "You want me to put my head where?!?!" lol.

Because of the...ahem...close nature of the training, I asked my sister-in-law Stephanie to take the classes with me. Fortunately, she is now just as obsessed as I am.

They work us out hard. I've only taken four classes so far (we have class twice a week on Tues and Sat), but already I am seeing a change in my body. I've lost about five pounds. I can actually feel my abdominal muscles (thought there is still too much cushion there for my taste). After every lesson, I usually wake up the next morning so sore that I can hardly role out of bed. Stephanie and I are enjoying it so much, we've been really motivated to practice outside of class too. We usually walk for 45 min. to an hour every night. And we grapple with each other when we aren't too sore.

I'll give you an idea of what class is like. We walk in and start stretching. Then we have an exhausting warm up that includes but it not limited to: running, knee ups, side-steppers, a weird running things where we hold out our hands behind our back and kick our palms with our feet while we jog, push ups, training with light weights, ab exercises, shrimping, hip-outs, and other various jujitsu specific exercises.

By the time we are done with our warm ups I am already winded.

Then we have our training portion, which takes up the majority of the time. Ever since our first day in class, they've taught us defensive moves we could use right now if someone attacked us. I love that. I walked out of my first class with three new moves I could use if someone knocked me to the ground in a rape situation. They show us submissions--moves that are designed to make your opponent tap out because of the pain. They also teach us how to get out of holds and bad positions. The moves are complicated. It's sort of like chess because you always have to be thinking a step ahead.

At the end of class, we have 2 min grappling sessions with different partners. Basically, I am rolling around on the ground with someone trying to get in a dominant position and maybe pull a submission on them. Since Steph and I are the newbies in the class, what this usually means is I spend two minutes trying not to get folded into a pretzel. I usually fail. ;)But I am seeing improvement.

On Tuesdays, we focus more on boxing. Last night, we put on head gear and our instructors took turns trying to punch us in the face. They weren't hitting hard. And we had on mouth pieces and head gear, so even when they hit us it didn't really hurt. The point of the exercise was for us to defend ourselves, and get out of the bad position--on our backs and vulnerable--and get into an attacking position.

It was actually really fun. Who knew I would want to PAY someone to punch me in the face?

So, I'm going to stick with it. I have to buy a Gi--a jujitsu uniform--but I'm buying a cheap one for now. But, if I stick with it for a year, I am going to buy myself a fancy Gi like this one:



Last but not least here is a video of one of my instructor in competition. He is the one with a shaved head.



Here is another one of him teaching a lesson. He has hair in this one. :)



Last but not least, here is a picture of SOME of the bruises all over my body. lol