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| Young Bill liked douchey facial hair... |
Contrast that with my foray into kickboxing. I will readily
admit that I am far better suited to BJJ. I am bendy, love strategy and have a
pretty extensive background in wrestling. If BJJ felt like learning to swim,
kickboxing was like learning to breathe on Mars. That being said, I stuck at it
and got to where I was not (totally) fearing for my life while sparring. Then
came the faithful day, where I ended kickboxing against one of the bigger guys
in class (I am about 5’8” and 160 pounds). He insisted I didn’t need
headgear…we would “go light.” Next thing I know I am laying on the ground and
looking up at other people. The guy insisted he forgot we were going light. My
head hurt, I had trouble thinking clearly at work the next day, I quit
kickboxing. I imagine the knockout looked something like this...
So, why am I bringing up these two experiences? It is
certainly not to bash kickboxing. It is a great sport/marital art. However, at
the very core of it, you can never really go all out without the very real
chance someone is going to get hurt. However, in BJJ you really can go about as
hard as you want and be injury free. Another example of this principle, we have
a really cool white belt name JD (not his real name). The other day him and I
were rolling. I caught him in a north-south choke. (See below for an example of the north-south by the Marcelo. Fun fact, he taught me the north-south)
I am not really sure what
happened, but he got choked out. I heard him snore, let go, and he had that
“million mile” stare. After a few seconds, he came to, looked at me and said,
“I think I almost went out.” If you have done BJJ before, you know this
situation all too well. Everyone laughs, the athlete takes a minute to collect their mind and then it is back to training. It is one of the coolest things about the
sport, you have bested your opponent, everyone has a laugh and you are back at
it.
There are injuries in BJJ. I have had my shoulder separated,
a tear in my MCL, teeth chipped, back hurt…so on and so forth. However, most of
these injuries occur from 1 of 2 scenarios. 1). I did not tap when I should of.
Sometimes prides gets the best of you (like when I should have worn my head
gear in kick boxing) and you don’t tap. In this case, it is solely my fault.
The nice thing, you learn quickly from being too dumb to tap. And, if you don’t
learn quickly, you quit quickly. 2). A freak accident occurs. Jiu-jitsu is a
group of athletes trying to submit each other by threatening physical harm…things
are going to happen, people will get hurt. Personally, I have never gotten hurt
when I thought there was ill-intent on my training partner’s side, just a
crappy occurrence. I healed up and got back out on the mat.
Most BJJ gyms are friendly places where everyone wants the
athletes to learn the sport. If it is your first day, yeah, you are probably
going to get submitted. But, you will live to train another day, and another,
and another. Eventually, you will get to be that student that shows the new
student the ropes. It is endemic in that way. On a related note, if you find a
gym where people are getting hurt a lot, they have cultural problem and you
might want to find a new gym.
To answer the question I have been asked a lot - yes, I have been choked out, a few times.
The first time my good friend Ryan caught me in a d'arce choke and my hands
were trapped. I woke up about 6 feet from where the choke started. Ryan said he
let go of the choke and I spider walked across the mat, fell down and then came
to. After that, I got up, cleared by head and rolled again.
(Here is a great d'arce from an arm-drag)
