My First Grappling Session

Monday evening, I went to the gym to try a regular BJJ class
with no idea what to expect. Six guys showed up. I had seen
his pictures but never met the blackbelt instructor D.
Except for him and another student, M, the rest of the group
were familiar: B, the heavy-weight bluebelt, J, the
brownbelt and judo expert, who also taught my Tim, and R,
the senior whitebelt close to promotion.

R was as lively and helpful as in the other classes. He
trouble-shooted my guard-recovery and pin-pointed where
things went wrong. He also showed me one of his favorite
arm-bar drills with a long blue stuffed bag in the gym.

The class was much less formal or structured than the
beginner's and people talked and joked about this and that.
The technique of the day was the "shrimp, load, and sweep"
when the opponent was trying to do a samurai guard pass. A
swift knee-on-belly after shrimping was key.

When it came to sparring, I rolled with B, J, and R. And
invariably, my mind went blank at some point. Once engaging
the "enemy," none of the techniques I learnt came to mind.
Sometimes all I could do was to hold desperately onto my
opponent, hoping to prevent his move. Of course he could
just wait out and let me exhaust myself. However, holding
didn't work with J at all, he was able to shift his
body-weight around, squeeze me, and get out gracefully. I
lost all my sparring by a cross-choke, collar-choke, or an
arm-bar.

So I'll change strategy next time, instead of using force,
I'll try to relax and be correct and quicker in my moves.
Relaxation is to let the skills I learnt come to me. I am
one of the lightest in the gym. Forcing my way is not smart.

I absolutely love the sparring and could see why it could be
addictive. It was a mental as well as physical game. On the
mental side, there's the challenges to relax and accurately
judge the situation and time the moves. On the physical, I
sweated all through the 1.5-hour class but was not tired.
And the people, they all tried to help me. It was amazing.

At the end of the week, I signed up for unlimited classes.