Day 1

My first few entries are email exchanges with my brother, who suggested I try this sport in the first place.

Naps:

I had a good time tonight. There was another absolute beginner there, so the instructor (Ralil? pronounced with an H sound but I already know about those Brazilian R's) taught us some basic skills and just had us practice them on each other. We learned how to sit down into the guard position, the scissor sweep from the guard, the cross collar choke, the Americana armbar, and a bunch of other things. It was really, really cool how you need to position you body and your opponent's boby as levers and pivot points to gain maximum leverage for what you want to accomplish. I totally geeked out on the physics involved.

Things at the school were pretty informal and relaxed (this is California, after all) and all of the experienced guys were more than willing to help out. I would have appreciated more of a top-down approach, as in, "These are main ideas of BJJ. You should always..." But that is a minor complaint. I didn't have a chance to have my ass well and truly kicked by any of the experienced guys, but I suppose that there's time enough for that.

Thanks for turning me on to this. I hope it keeps being fun. Drop some wisdom about training on me too.

Naps replies:

It's like Nam. When you're new, you don't really count because so many guys watch the ultimate fighter, come out for a week and "die" or quit. No one will give a shit about you until you there a month or two.

If you watch UFC or any BJJ tournaments, the basic things are what win fights. Arm bars, triangle chokes, and guillotine chokes dominate so learn those. On the defensive side, never extended your arms. Always keep them tucked and move them like they're attached with a rope. Extended and separated is recipe for arm bar and triangle.

How's the back? We've both had our injuries and remember that you're paying them, so if you feel you can't roll that day and just want to do technique, let them know that. When I was plagued with my injuries, I was missing class because I wasn't 100% so my instructor called me up and said to use the time to sharpen my technique.

Try to do cardio on your off days. It doesn't matter what you know if you don't have the gas tank to go. When you get in better shape and you wrestle a guys that aren't, you can actually feel them give up. From there you can do whatever you want to him. That's when it's fun.

I told my instructor and he was excited that I passed the BJJ bug.

BJJ is like tough guys golf man. It's addicting cause the first time you tap someone out, you can't wait to do it again. And like golf, you can ALWAYS get better. In saying that, I hit golf balls at least once a week now. Golf and BJJ, a match made in heaven. Good luck. Keep the questions rolling.

Wait till you wrestle, it'll make rugby feel like flag football.