The State of My Life

The State of My Life - Starting BJJ by Vincent Cooper

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I can barely raise my arms above shoulder height right now.

It has been a very eventful week and starting Brazilian Jiu Jitsu has been great...but also a lot of work.

I checked out a class last week and met the sensei. I was very impressed with him both physically and as far as being a great guy and went to my first class on Tuesday. Straight away I did 3 rounds of 6 minute sparring. Not so bad. But knowing zero technique meant I was more just wrestling. Wednesday though I did 5 rounds of 6 minutes. I was the only one there to complete this. Everyone else in attendance took at least one round out. This killed me. Again, still with nothing in the way of technique I was basically just making up things and wrestling. Since then I have been aching in my chest, shoulder and neck area. Thursday was a national holiday so no training but went back again this morning. I finally got a submission against a purple belt...but only because he slowed down and let me finish my technique. Still, got to start somewhere and that was my first submission. Before that I had either held other white belts to a draw (because strength, not technique) or was totally dominated by blue and purple belts, as well as the instructor.

Oh, and everyone is (as usual!!) bigger and heavier than I am too.

Still, despite the aches and the bruises I have enjoyed the whole experience immensely and, as if you needed anymore encouragement, would say BJJ is definitely something worth looking at. I am starting to pick up a few techniques now and try to practice the form by myself at home so I hope my skill will improve quickly.

That is not all however. The dojo just moved to a new location that is much bigger and more plush. Talking to the sensei today he was making noises about the possibility of me teaching a kids karate class there. There are innumerable reasons why I would be into this and why I think it would be a fantastic experience for me so I will follow up on it next week and see what he has to say.

Aside from training I really haven't felt like doing much at all and am just sitting around relaxing as much as I am able to, reading and sipping protein shakes. Hopefully my body will acclimatize quickly to this level of training. I think I would have been okay if the Wednesday class was only 3 rounds of sparring, but 5 with heavier, bigger and more experienced guys was just too much for me right now. As a result I haven't really concentrated at all on any other plans that I had formulated to be completed over the next couple of months, but that is okay. I can be flexible in my approach and I have already done a lot of things this year. One thing that I have pursued though is Naomi's swimming lessons and she is developing well. Just needs to build up her leg strength more than anything and once she can kick harder I think her confidence will increase in being able to stay afloat and actually swim.

UFC 119 this weekend and a ton of NFL games that I recorded to catch up with. All good stuff.

Train hard, live easy.

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