Day 5 - Self Defense and Sparring

Well lady and gentleman who actually read this thing, The Great White Ninja stepped up his jiu jitsu training last night and had his first real-life sparring matched. Now, I can't remember if I said I sparred for the first time during my last lesson. I certainly thought I did. But I was very mistaken. But that came at the end of the lesson, so let's take a moment and chat about what happened at the beginning of the lesson.

Ninja Instructor informed us that the next few lessons were going to be a more practical and "in the field" use of jiu jitsu -- In The Field Ninjaing, if you will. He told us that everything we were learning up to this point was good for competitions, but not if you got in a bar fight. He makes a good point... I'm pretty sure I couldn't ask my assailant to grab my collar and sleeve exactly in X fashion so I can counter and flip him over my shoulder like I was taught. So to remedy that, Ninja Instructor informed us that we would be starting in positions that were likely to occur when you piss off a good ol' boy named Bubba or a frat guy named Steve because you were accidentally hitting on their girlfriend (nevermind that she was totally flirting with you first and you were just returning the favor -- in their eyes, you're the bad guy here). So the first position was a standing front choke. Think Homer and Bart Simpson style of choke here. Getting out of a choke is pretty easy. What happens afterward to end the fight... not so much. Once you escape the choke, you're supposed to throw your attacker to the ground and lock him up in an arm-bar. Or, if you're especially pissed off, start pounding on his face with your fist. But be sure to only hit the flat part of his face (the temple) or else you might break your hand. Of course, you will probably break your hand anyway, but it will suck less than if you hit a roundish part of your attacker's face.

We also learned how to get out of a couple of bear-hugs which were mostly uneventful. The one that was not so uneventful was when your assailant has grabbed you from behind and is trying to drag you to his van for what I can only assume is CIA-styled torture. So, let me try and explain in words what was explained to me in actions. When the bad guy has you wrapped up, you only kinda escape, but not all the way escape because the goal is to toss him around your hip, drop him behind you and then break his elbow or face or ribs (depending on your mood). Now, I haven't mentioned my practice buddy until this point because he didn't do much that was noteworthy until this point. As an aside - I have realized that almost all of the people in jiu jitsu are good people and just trying to figure stuff out like I am. And like I have many many times in the past, these guys screw up from time to time. Sometimes, it's not a big deal and sometimes people get hurt. I've generally been lucky that I've had partners that know what they are doing. Last night though, the shoe was on the foot, as my partner, Ninja Newbie probably knew less than I did about jiu jitsu. So it really sucked when he dropped my fat ass onto his knee. So if somebody could tell me the difference between a sore back and a bruised kidney, I'd really appreciate an explanation.

Ok, time to stop complaining and time to start talking about this sparring business. 3 rounds of 3 minutes each that feels like an eternity. The first time you ever officially get to spar, you're paired up with an instructor to make sure you don't hurt yourself or your partner. I was kinda hoping that my partner/instructor could at least talk me through how to do this sparring stuff, but no such luck. It was 3 minutes of trying not to tap out. Which was successful until right before the buzzer went off when I got locked up into a headlock. That kinda sucked. Next partner was Ninja Newbie. Apparently he wasn't as new at this as I first thought because sparring against him was tough, to say the least. I figured out my problem -- I have no idea how to start or end a fight. I can put up a decent fight for like 2 and a half minutes, but I'm not gonna be winning anything... just not losing. And then I get tired and do lose. And I hate losing. But I supposed that I better get used to it for a few more weeks...

On Saturday, I'm going to be able to audit the "Black Belt" training classes that the Ninja Academy wants me to buy. It'll be 3 hours of training, so I'll have a full report here in a couple days.