This is a quick response to each professor that sits at the table during Thanksgiving and says "jiu jitsu is for everyone" Any maybe in a weird business like way it really means "anyone can sign up"
JIU JITSU IS NOT FOR EVERYONE!
How many times have you heard full contact Rugby is for everybody? American Football? Or even full contact ice hockey?
Jiu Jitsu is a full contact sport much like the ones mentioned above, yet you keep hearing people say that it is meant for everyone. Unfortunately I think we’re kidding ourselves when we say it’s a sport for everyone.
Ok Here is an IDEA on how BJJ may not be for everyone...
Right off the bat, you're asked to start off at a super low on the totem pole rank and by rightly so.... Second, you are jumping into a highly demanding physical sport that requires extreme physical punishment. You're going to be super sore every day for a long time. You're going to learn movements that are unorthodox. You're going to have to physically try to break arms, pop shoulders, choke someone unconscious, hyperextend their limbs and control larger more fit adversaries. Grasping the very basics of this can take a minimum a few years. Once you become a blue belt and you begin to learn a thing or two you're already in a bracket that is known for people constantly quitting. That's right, more blue belts quit in Jiu Jitsu than any other rank. Seems like the odds are already against you.
Chances are if you’re doing Jiu Jitsu, you have to have something wrong with you mentally.
Most people are playing with balls in their free time (think Basketball, Volleyball or Tennis) or watching Netflix and playing video games. How weird would it be to hear that Steve from the accounting department likes to practice maiming and killing others in his free time? For most well-adjusted garden variety individuals the thought of recreational simulated murder on other living breathing human beings should be repulsive, yet a lot of us take joy in consensually strangling and almost maiming our friends irreparably. T his isn’t even mentioning all the various aches, pains and injuries we incur with our frequent practice. Training hurt and sore is more common that you can imagine. A lot of people, rightfully so, have an aversion to getting any type of injury, yet here we are slapping tape on ourselves and hitting the gas.
The benefits of jiu jitsu are amazing. You can become in amazing shape, your able to defend yourself especially on the ground, your constantly engaged in chess like physical wrestling combat puzzles that have an exponential set of solvable limb related hyperextensions. Keep in mind your adopting the ability to simulate murder as well as the art of ripping apart ligaments. You can also hurt yourself and that is not a risk everyone should take.
Jiu Jitsu, in the beginning will more often than not, take and take without the possibility of ever giving back. You’ll climb hurdle over hurdle only to be met with plateaus and injuries with each reward being placed further and further apart. Jiu Jitsu is for everybody until it's not. I'm gonna go ice my neck if I can remember or unless I get distracted watching a Danaher video….
Train Safe and Train Often,
Matthew Tropp | BJJ Report
Info@bjjreport.com