After finding out there were guys training Judo and Brazilian jui jitsu in the next town over, my BJJ teacher, Nate, and I drove over to train last Tuesday night.
They do a mix of mainly Judo and some BJJ, which share common roots. And on Tuesday, along with the regular teacher who’s a black belt in Judo, there were two other Judo black belts who happened to be traveling through town and showed up to train. It was fun and interesting.
Three black belts teaching was good experience. But I noticed a couple of things.
The first thing was their focus on their Judo. During the introductions, I mentioned that Nate is a brown belt in BJJ, but the Judo folks didn’t ask any questions about his training or what we do. When it came to sparring, with everyone trading partners every 10 minutes, Nate submitted the three black belts plus two regular students, one weighed about 245 lbs. I held my own with the big guy which was interesting because the guys I’ve practiced with are between 145 and 175 lbs so it was different game trying to move around with such a solid opponent.
The other thing I noticed was their use of Japanese. For some that’s probably something cool, but for me using jargon, especially from another language is a pet peeve. Using Japanese words only confuses and complicates information that’s already new and sometimes unclear. It just throws up an unnecessary barrier between the teacher and learner. I guess it promotes the history and a sense of being in the group for people who like jargon.
I’d guess they might ask more about BJJ next Tuesday and I’ll ask what their moves are called in English, or Spanish.