Wednesday 23 July 2008

BJJ AND SELF DEFENCE

So here i am teaching at the academy when a voice from within the class says " i came to learn Brazilian jiu jitsu not this " on closer inspection i notice a young guy wearing a tee shirt and shorts at the front of the class ?

i stop the position and ask the guy what he meant by this to which he replied " i saw a bjj competition the other day and they were on the floor fighting "the class erupted with laughing, i addressed the class explaining this.
Over the time i have spent in bjj i have noticed in its evolution a lot of bjj academy's have stopped or they do not teach the basics, when i say basics i mean they teach sports bjj not the self defence side of it it seems most academy's nowadays neglect this element of bjj  but bjj is and will always be a self defence art designed to handle situations on the streets, it wasn't developed for points or to be fought under time constraints, it was devised to defeat any opponent any size any situation with devastating results.
the new student had recently been to another academy and saw them rolling together on the floor and assumed that was what bjj is.
He stayed around and participated in the class and at the end he approached me and said it was a real eye opener and he would definately come back, i asked him why it was an eye opener and he said had he not came down and trained with us he would probly not have known bjj was developed for self defence and assumed it was just a form of wrestling in kimonos................

he has returned to the academy and it has been a year since this happened  he is still there at every training session and still learning and loving the self defence...............

basics basics basics and keep teaching the self defence aspect,s lets not forget what bjj was devised for....

EK

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