Two days ago, I went to my very first Ninja Training Lesson. Because I signed up for 6 months of lessons, the Ninja Training School gave me my first Ninja Outfit for free, but putting it on for the first time wasn't exactly the awe-inspiring moment I was expecting. I still don't know all the technical terms (wikipedia research forthcoming), so for the sake of this story, we'll call it a Ninja Shirt and Ninja Pants. Ninja Pants were nothing fancy: white fabric thin enough to breathe, but thick enough that you can't see my Ninja Undies; elastic waistband not unlike something you'd wear to Ninja Thanksgiving so you can eat a little extra turkey; and a draw string to prevent any Ninja Moonings. Ninja Shirt was a little more complicated. It is almost a normal, long-sleeve, white, button-down shirt (much looser fitting of course), but there were a couple long strings hanging down from the bottom. I don't think my Ninja Intuition has developed quite enough because I could not for the life of me figure out how to secure this thing, so I put on a t-shirt under my Ninja Shirt flapping open like an ironic male model.
Now, before I go on to talking about what happened at my first lesson, I wanted to clarify something for my like 6 readers out there. This blog is about me learning jiu jitsu. It isn't some political satire and I'm not really taking many artistic licenses out of this thing. I'm keeping it anonymous though because I'm not sure whether my experiences are going to be positive or negative, so I don't want to be bashing people from behind the safety of my computer screen. Everything that I talk about actually happened to me as I go from an out of shape student who likes to relive his glory days as a High School Swimmer to somebody who may or may not learn jiu jitsu.
Ok, disclaimers out of the way, I'll talk about arriving to my first "real" Ninja lesson. Ninja Master's wife (Mrs. Ninja Master) had called me earlier that day to give me the heads up on a few Ninja Training Rules and Regulations. It was mostly stuff that I had figured out pretty quickly -- refer to anybody with a belt that has a belt that isn't white, yellow or orange as Mr. or Ms. Ninja (I'm assuming this rule is for my own safety as you don't want to piss off any Ninja Warriors lest they decide to kick my ass); bow at the door; bow before walking onto the mat; bow before starting lessons; and bow before going to the bathroom or getting water (Ok, to be fair, Mrs. Ninja Master didn't tell me about that last rule, but I planned on erring on the side of caution... for the same reason I was about to call a bunch of 11 and 12 year olds sir and ma'am).
The way Ninja Lessons are set up is on a 16-lesson cycle, learning a new skill every session. That way Ninja Novices such as yours truly can just show up and not be too far behind. Now, that being said, some of the fellow Ninja Students in my Ninja class were much closer to their 16th lesson than their first. Ninja Instructor (a purple belt [I think] student of Ninja Master) had his class circle up to learn a headlock escape. Ninja Assistants got down on the mat and performed, what appeared to me, to be an intricate maneuver to escape from a headlock. Ninja Instructor called this a "basic" move and it was clear to me that I was getting in way over my Ninja Head. Ninja Assistants demonstrated the move a couple more times, slower (much to my relief).
We paired off to practice the escape. I can't be sure, but I'm fairly certain my partner was 8 years younger than me, despite being about my height/weight. Apparently this Ninja Apprentice was on his second or third lesson, but this kid was good. Yours truly could barely figure out my right side from my left, but my opponent was like a spider monkey. He was a nice kid though, offering me tips and stuff (like, "Roll over to your right side... no, not left... your right..."). It was a bit of a struggle at first, but once I figured everything out, I realized that this is going to be an amazing experience. One of my concerns when signing up was that it didn't look like anybody was working that hard and just rolling around on the ground. Let me be the first to tell you that couldn't be further from the truth... this stuff is an incredible workout.
Well, since this is Easter weekend, I won't be back in the gym until Wednesday. I'll keep y'all updated on the sweet new moves I learn.
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