Choose Strong
For Tim.
Thu, Oct 9, I took the express bus to the capital and caught a local at
LiuLiQiao to People's U in Haidian District. Hauling a backpack and a sports
duffel under an umbrella, in the rain and the hubbub of the north 3rd Ring, I
made a right turn one block earlier and ended up checking in an ATour Light
instead of the planned James Joyce Coffetel. The good thing was that it was only
five min walk from the BJJ gym I found on the Web.
Top Brother China HQ hid in a gray glass tower off South ZhongGuanCun Street
opposite the Friendship Hotel. The business was missing in the directory in the
lobby and the doorman, a friendly porky middle-aged guy in dark uniform heavily
trimmed with bright golden insignia and a shiny police-style hat, sent me up the
7th floor.
Creamy white mats took up three quarters of the 20' by 80' space with an 8'
ceiling. One brown belt, one (three-stripe) purple, one white, and three blues
(four, three, and no stripes) showed up for the Friday morning open mat. The
owner OYang whom I met yesterday was not there and others, except the coach,
didn't seem to care.
The black-belt Brazilian coach, Luis, joined us after a few run-of-the-mill
warm-up drills led by the four-stripe blue-belt. A bug-eyed heavyset black man
in his 30s, he wore thick dreadlocks and spoke some English. He made us do some
guard-passing positionals followed with free rolling. So far, the open-mat was
far from what we had in California, where we simply paired up and rolled.
The purple-belt who turned out to be a college alumnus was bigger and much
younger and caught me twice in toe holds. Next, I went against the three-stripe
blue-belt but by then poor sleep and the jet lag had caught up with me and I
slowed down and was running out of gas. I knew the feeling and was content with
spending most of the time at the bottom. Luis went with me next and finished me
with a rear naked choke and said that I was tough which nowadays to me was close
to "poor technique." I went with the big two-stripe white-belt twice and was
able to finish him a couple of times. Last I swept the blue-belt girl a few
times. Overall, I was happy with my performance, considering.
I might have taken it for granted but once on the mat, it felt natural to mix
with jiu-jitsu people as we spoke the same body language. One round was often
enough to bring out comraderie. I felt welcome and I was sure I could make
friends with the folks had I stayed a couple of weeks.
Sat, I went to the gym hoping to attend a class but they were closed. They
didn't keep their printed schedule! I would very like to pay the owner for
Friday but felt okay as open mats were free in my home gyms.
Sun, on my way to cousin Jianxun's place near PEK, I stopped at WangJing and
after some prowling around on foot found Bolo MMA, a storefront among bistros,
salons, and convenient stores on YuanAn South #1 Road. The mat space was no
bigger than 1000 sqft. The black-belt owner, Li Sha, was teaching a kids class
with a few parents watching. He looked his late 30s or early 40s, middle-weight, and typical grappler with powerful legs and a muscular upper body. He was on
guard when I said I came here to train. ("I'm passing and would like to take a
class" would've sounded less alarming.)
He didn't even have a printed schedule as everything was on a WeChat app and
told me to come back in the afternoon for the open mat and gi and no-gi classes.
I sat down and watched the kids class, left around 12, and sauntered toward
south along the broad WangJing East Rd, carrying my bags. I wanted to find a
hotel nearby, especially to check out a minimalistic one I saw on the Web.
The lush tree-lined road coasted a long narrow park hugging a stream in the
middle and hemmed in by the north and east 5th Ring. The past days' downpour had
washed the city clean. Under an overcast sky, traffic was light and the air
fresh and dry. I came across a couple of cyclists and half a dozen joggers in
colorful running attire and in less than a mile, turned right, and arrived at a
residential center. An opening on the south side of WangJing street led to a
small square around which lined restaurants, coffee shops, and grocery stores.
There was even a Peet's Coffee. A few steps on the neon sign of the chain hotel
"ZhuXiaoDing 3F" met my eyes. I settled in, took a nap, and came back to Bolo.
The gi technique of the day was the lasso and spider guard pass. There was Sha
the coach, Le Zhi, a four-stripe featherweight blue-belt, a heavy blue-belt, a
two-stripe white-belt, and two white-belt girls. I drilled the moves and in free
roll, did the hon kesa entry from the cross-side bottom with Le Zhi and defended
the backtakes by Sha. I told Sha where I trained and he told me that he got
his black belt from a Japanese. "Oss!" we said to each other. I knew the word
from a Rickson post but rarely heard it in the wild in Nor Cal. Again, had I
stayed, the Bolo people would sure become friends.
It was a great feeling to know that wherever I go, there would be friends if there
was a BJJ mat. I paid ¥100 for the class and insisted on no change. I added Sha's
contact. I liked him and the area. Who knows. If I go back and stay in Beijing for
some reason, I wouldn't mind training at Bolo.
