Benefits of Jiu-Jitsu

You do not need not be fit to start Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, regular training will improve your general fitness, flexibility, strength, coordination, reaction time and, above all, self-confidence. Of course, you will also learn to look after yourself. Regular training also results in, for want of a better expression, an increased strength of character. Lessons learned on the mat can filter through and change for the better the way you think of yourself off the mat. The International Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu Federation, our governing body, organizes regular gradings, as well as regional and national events. Undertaking the study of Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu makes you a part of something much larger than just a martial arts club.

The best way to find out more is to come along to our school and join in. We understand that starting a martial art can be quite daunting, but as a novice, we will not expect you to know it all. Much care will be taken to ensure that you know what to do and that you are learning at a comfortable pace even the instructor was a novice once. All you need to start is a willingness to learn. After a few lessons you might wish to buy a judo gi which is the hard wearing traditional suit, they can be purchased from our school.

WHAT IS JIU-JITSU

Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu practicality consists partly in learning techniques by practicing them together, and this requires a particular kind of trust. The atmosphere in Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu clubs is therefore very friendly, and there is often a vibrant social life off the mat.

Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu is above all a practical, defensive martial art. At its core is the principle that aggression can be overcome by seeming to yield to it, by using an attackers strength, size and momentum to a defenders advantage.

Men and women of all ages, shapes and sizes can therefore become very good at it. Training is gradual, but as you progress through the belt structure you will learn to defend yourself against increasingly demanding attacks, using a system of throws, locks and strikes.

THE BRAZILIAN JIU-JITSU STRATEGY:

The self-defense strategy for Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu students is clear: taking the opponent to the ground. Once the fight is on the ground, the BJJ Practitioner strives to achieve a position where the level of control and dominance over the opponent, and then apply a submission hold. With this end in mind, any Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu student pursues a common set of positions which are called the BJJ Fundamentals. In order to perform this overall strategy, the student must be aware of the three phases of combat:

Free Movement Phase: This is where any fight begins. Without grips and body dominance, striking techniques become the most important. The Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu practitioner needs to avoid the "fire line" and seek the opportunity of getting into the standing clinch as a means to take his opponent to the ground;

Standing Clinch: Once the clinch is established, the range of striking options diminishes dramatically. On this situation the fighters are looking for spaces to strike and striving to stay in balance. The BJJ Practitioner needs to unbalance his opponent and take him down and utilize Ground Combat techniques.

Ground Combat: Almost every fight ends on the ground, even if the two opponents involved are strikers. On the ground, the fight nature changes, grips and body control become the rule and not the exception. The constant contact creates a lot of op-portunities for the BJJ practitioner move up the level of control until he can defeat his opponent. The common strategy is performed through a set of interrelated ground techniques including: closed guard, open guard, side control, mount control and back control.

JIU-JITSU AND THE BENEFITS OF A SOUND BODY
(A couple of everlasting teachings from Carlos Gracie)

Jiu-Jitsu constitutes the natural defense the weak person disposes of against the strong person. It is a sort of leveling process through which brute force, confronted and dominated by the wise application of rational mechanics, is led to admitting that the human being, usually taken as a body endowed with a soul, should actually be deemed a soul that happens to reside in a body. This, however, no matter what our philosophical or religious orientation is, must never mean disregard or lack of attention towards the body we use in this world. We don’t understand, really, how, in order to reach wisdom, love, or in order to adore and serve God, respecting His laws, it can be necessary or possible to harm one of His most beautiful and perfect creatures.

If it is true that the disharmony in our thoughts and feelings can generate physical harm, it is no less true that the care we take with our body reflects not only on that body, but also on the mental health we all need to achieve a harmonious, happy life.

Of course one doesn’t need special abilities to master certain resources of Jiu-Jitsu, which allow us to defend efficiently. Let us not forget, notwithstanding, that, no matter what we look forward to, we will always have better chances of reaching it if we use our greatest spiritual and physical possibilities. Jiu-Jitsu, which cannot escape that peremptory rule, is nothing but its application in self-defense. Being, further, a sport, and indeed one of the most complete, how could it possibly turn its back on physical preparation?

Without health, in its whole meaning, there can be no complete happiness. Very often, however, instead of studying the laws we must respect in order to avoid diseases, we are more concerned about what is the proper medicine or process for repairing the consequences of our ignorance or conscious infractions.

It is illogical for man, who is the most perfect being to inhabit Earth, to have a shorter life than that of other animals. We are among those who fiercely believe we should live more than any irrational being. Therefore, if we compare the current average duration of the human life to that of the parrot’s, we don’t understand why, when one of us decides to live a hundred years, it is something so extraordinary. Imagine if, like any elephant or turtle, one of us happened to live until the age of two hundred!

However, as we see it, all that would be very normal if, throughout generations, with strange perseverance, we hadn’t been driving away from the natural laws.

Among other explanations, for instance, is nutrition. What do we really know about how, when, how much and what to eat in harmony with natural laws?

But let us stop here before, my dear reader, your tolerance goes away completely and you, with justifiable irony, ask: “And, by the way, what about Jiu-Jitsu?”

You are partially right. Due to the fact that it is, however, a difficult – if not impossible – task, in its amplitude, we won’t neglect our duty of warning you that wishing to know, exclusively by means of reading, the secrets of this traditional art of defense and attack is as efficient as studying singing by mail.

To you, friend and reader, my sincere thanks, and we’ll see each other again. If I didn’t succeed in pleasing you, at least I hope I didn’t totally disappoint you.