Jiu Jitsu, Brazilian style!

So, I had my first Brazilian Jiu Jitsu lesson last week and it was kinda like having your nuts slapped with a wet towel: painful yet somewhat refreshing!

It was fantastic in fact, the BJJ instructor Arlans Siqueira is a really nice chilled out guy. We started with some light stretches then pretty much got down to it. Arlans started by showing us the mount and basic guard position and one way of getting out of the guard to advance to side control. We then moved onto an arm bar from the mount and how to escape from an arm bar. We practised the arm bar and the escape and then combined the techniques so that we were just flowing from arm bar to escape, to arm bar to escape, again and again. It was pretty cool once we got the hang of it.
After that, we got to do some sparring or “rolling” as I’ve heard it referred to. This part of the lesson was a huge eye opener and a lot of fun. For me and my partner this was the first ever lesson in BJJ actually I think he has done one lesson before (and watched a crap load of UFC vids) so we didn’t have much to work with in terms of well anything! I had a few tricks up my sleeve from previous Krav Maga ground work lessons but really not many clean or legal submissions. In KM anything goes, so eye gouging and hammer fisting your opponents face off is ok…but for BJJ sparring I decided just to stick to the arm bar.
I was pleased because I managed to pull off an arm bar from the mount and my partner escaped just as we had practised moments before, and the rest of the time I spent face down with my partner on my back trying to flip/roll him off me, which I eventually managed and then got choked because I didn’t turn into him quick enough. Oh, I also attempted an Americana? which didn’t really work out on account of me basically learning it from watching Pride. All in all, Great fun and plenty of tapping haha.
Arlans rolled with most of the other guys in the class tapping each one out one by one, made it look effortless and then we called it a day.
I left feeling really excited at what I had just been taught and really looking forward to my next BJJ class next week.

Incidentally Arlans is featured in the July edition of martial arts illustrated which is pretty cool.