Stethoscopes and Armbars: BJJ & Self-Defense

Exam on Tuesday on the endocrine/GI systems which is weird and throwing me off because our exams are usually on Fridays. But I’m excited because after the exam I have dinner plans with a classmate then plan on training! That’s the best way I know to make a day slightly better where you wake up at 5am to start studying for your 3 hour exam at 1pm.

This past Thursday I got to be a part of this program called Runsafer. Todd Williams started it (a 2 time Olympic distance runner holding 21 US titles AND a BJJ black belt… gosh the people in BJJ sure are awesome). He teaches runners about being safe and we demonstrated some basic grip breaking if they grab your arm, using your feet on their hips to break a choke from closed guard and stand up in base, then a hip bump sweep. I loved when everyone thought sweep was just about the coolest thing ever (non-BJJ readers: you start on the ground with them on their knees and your legs around their back and end up completely on top of them). Chris reminded me that when you first see it, it looks like magic. To this day, I still think it’s magical when I can sweep a guy that has a lot of weight on me with ease and using no muscle. BJJ will always seem magical to me!

It was also a great reminder that BJJ is applicable in real life. I genuinely love the aspect of competition jiu jitsu where I can pull guard and try (usually unsuccessfully) to berimbolo or pull off fun sweeps and just worry about jiu jitsu and not being punched or kicked. But it’s also a bonus that I do have a really good self-defense base to fall back on. I’d like to think that if an (unarmed) guy took me to the ground I would be able to successfully defend myself and get away (based on the presumption that he has never trained in jiu jitsu before). [Side note: My brothers have been kind enough to let me prove to myself that if a guy much larger than me knows no jiu jitsu and doesn’t throw a punch I am more than capable of locking in an omoplata or RNC at will.] It was a really cool experience to get to share some of those techniques with others this week! There's also been this video floating around about called Jiu Jitsu for Women that sort of shows that women can in fact use jiu jitsu as self-defense and stop an attack (so you should take 2.5 minutes to watch it).

So a big week is ahead! Like I said, I have my exam on Tuesday. I get to go to a Saulo AND Xande seminar on Thursday (which, the excitement I am feeling cannot be put into words. I’m sure that will get its own dedicated post on Friday), and on Saturday there will be the promotion of 5 new black belts in the RJJA Midwest! So there’s going to be a giant party – it’s going to be epic. (There are going to be FIFTEEN black belts training together here in Toledo this weekend. Is that amazing or what?!)