Monday, August 25, 2008

First post!

So here's the first post, exciting stuff! I've created this blog to keep track of everything I'm going to learn over my course of training Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu. I decided to do this after coming across Steve's blog over at SteveBJJ.com (great read btw).

I guess I'll post a little about my martial arts experience. I started about a year ago doing Shaolin-Do. I've always been interested in kung fu, watching Bruce Lee, Jackie Chan, Jet Li, etc. Not just the flashy moves, but how old the art was interested me very much. I loved the tradition aspect of it. So I find a kung fu school near by called the Chinese Shaolin Center and started. I did that for almost a year. I advanced up to 3rd degree brown, and learned a lot of stuff. I was really proud. But then I opened my eyes and started looking at some of the people who were being advanced to black belt. I couldn't help but think "how in the world??" And then I started looking into the actual history of the art. Originated at the Fukien Temple (whose very existing is debated). When the temple was attacked, masters fled to various parts of the world. One master fled to Indonesia. This is where they switched to the Japanese Gi (because the practice of Chinese martial arts was banned in Indonesia) and where they added "-Do" to the end of the name (for the same reason). Then I had a sudden light bulb one day - we're even practicing Japanese weapons. And the sparring was "air sparring," meaning you couldn't actually touch your sparring partner. I don't know...things just started adding up and I was liking it less and less, until one day I just stopped going.

I took a break from martial arts for about 5 or 6 months, but I was missing it all the while. Training my body to do new things, challenging my mind/thought process, etc. So I started looking into schools again after movingn to a new place. That's when I came across Universal Institute of Martial Arts. I've been training there for about 2 months now and I'm absolutely loving it. The instructor, Mel Locke, tototally rocks and knows his stuff (he was trained by Professor Pedro Sauer), and the other people who train there are really cool too. A lot of fun to roll with. I grew up with 2 younger brothers, wrestling all the time...the air sparring just doesn't compare to actually rolling heh

Anyways, that's all for the intro. Until next time... :-)

1 comment:

slideyfoot said...

Cool - always great to find a new BJJ blog! Good luck with your training: I look forward to reading more about it. :D