BJJ March 1

Went back to BJJ for my first real gi session after a long absence.

It was great. I rolled no-gi on Monday night, and went to judo on Wednesday, but it was great to get the old blue gi on and get back into BJJ proper.

I am really enjoying the gi game at the moment. I love the control the gi offers. I like the way you have to set things up and be patient, watch out for traps. lay your own traps… it’s a whole different kettle of livers from no-gi work. My condition was fairly average but not bad considering the layoff.

As most sane people are either sleeping or watching TV on Saturday mornings, it’s a very small class, which means lots of attention from our coach. We worked on the De La Riva guard, which I like to use because I have long legs.

I got tapped out by my instructor to knee-on-belly, which was bad considering I weigh about 20 more kilos than him. But man, I felt like my sternum was going to implode. I didn’t even tap, he just got the impression I was done and got off me, and he was right. Must have been something to do with the agonising wails pealing from my gnarled and twisted face.

He is off to Tokyo today. The head of Paraestra, Yuki Nakai, has called some kind of emergency meeting on account of the new BJJ federation of Japan… I think the International BJJ Federation of Japan is not happy at having this new kid on the block. Aside from the fact that they have competition in terms of business now where they didn’t before, I also heard that the more “federations” there are for a sport, the harder it is to ever be accepted as an Olympic sport, which I think the BJJ community is hoping for at some point.