Thursday, January 24, 2008

Bait......

I get asked on a daily basis by friends and family (usually in response to my grunts and groans from a recently "tweaked" body part) why I do it? BJJ that is. If it is causing my body so much angst, why do I put myself through it. At my age as well!!!! Bloody hell I'm only 41, hardly ready for retirement..... Still, I do often wonder how if i am going to be a twisted wreck in 10 years time and whether or not I should be doing a softer contact sport like, karate or kung fu, etc??

I was watching a Demian MAIA dvd last night on "Escaping Side Control" and was amazed at how simple his theory was and why I hadn't thought of it!!! Probably because he's a World Champion, etc training all his life while i have a meagre, all be it well trained, 7 months under my belt!!! Anyway watching the dvd was like baiting a hook. Being how I am still at the stage where I get stuck in side control and find it hard to escape, or end up turning the wrong way, etc, MAIA'S simple therories on arm position, etc make perfect sense to me and I can't wait to try them out. It's like, right, these blokes won't know what's coming, I'll be escaping like a pro next time.... So this challenge of learning and being able to actually perform a technique so that it works is one of the things that I love about BJJ. Except of course when I try a "secret" move on Jason and end up tapping, or making a strange noise.... Still, I nearly passed his guard the other day!!!

Jeroen being as open minded a coach as he is makes it easy to say, "I saw this on youtube, etc what do you reckon?" and then he points out the pitfalls or finer points of whatever the technique is....

The other thing that keeps me coming back is, I almost got Dave in a triangle the other day! And then he stacked and crushed me but I was close goddamnit!!!!

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Softer contact sports like Karate or Kung-fu, they sound like fighting words.

You know when you mention your secret moves and training here that they're no longer secret. I won't let on though, your secrets are safe with me.......