Thursday, September 2, 2010
How did you get into BJJ?
I got into the martial arts the same way a lot of people my age did: I saw Bruce Lee and I wanted to be just like him. My parents never really wanted me to get into martial arts as a kid, though, as they thought it would encourage me to fight. So I just watched movies, read books, and dreamed of defeating a room full of thugs with my nunchucku. I decided to find a place to start training. Luckily for me, I knew a friend and he introduced me to a Jeet Kune Do club , so I jumped right in and joined up. Working with them led me to quite a few schools in Singapore, where I trained for several years. It was great, we trained a bit of everything – boxing, Muay Thai , Jun Fan, kali, silat, sambo, kyokushin karate , judo, hakka kuen , freestyle-wrestling, shootwrestling, and traditional jiu-jitsu. So I got exposed to a lot of ideas and styles. There was very little sparring or live rolling, however, so while I learned a lot, the timing under pressure just wasn’t there.
I gravitated towards jiu-jitsu and JKD, and I started training at another gym as well. This gym was not affiliate to any clubs, and it was there I really got baptized in the jiu-jitsu fires… I quickly learned that all the leglocks and neck cranks in the world don’t help you if you can’t escape the side control of a seasoned jiu-jitsu practitioner. It was really tough…I got pretty discouraged at one point and actually gave it up for a few months. But the love of jiu-jitsu I had developed was deeper than the frustration, and when I went back, I found some very encouraging training partners who helped me through that period. Since then I have moved around the country a good bit and been at many different gyms, and I’m happy to say that I’ve never had to take more than a week or two off from training.
posted on 6:41 PM
