Jiu-Jitsu In Action!

One of my team mates Bill is a cop in a small rural town and was able to use his knowledge of Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu recently to get himself out of a really bad situation. He used a series of techniques that enabled him to protect himself and subdue his attacker with out anyone getting hurt.

He was required to bring in an escaped mental patient. The guy is an ex pro surfer who was in an unstable condition and a danger to himself and others. Bill knew where the guy was and went to pick him up. He approached the house on foot armed only with handcuffs in his pocket. The guy calmly came out of the house and met Bill at the front gate. When informed that he had to go back to the hospital he crash tackled Bill to the ground. He had no time to react to the tackle but quickly got closed guard. The attacker then put an arm on the ground and postured up to punch with his other hand. Bill said it was like everything went into slow motion, he attacked the arm on the ground with a kimura and broke the attackers posture down. The attacker then fought real hard to get his arm back and posture up again. Bill used his opponents momentum to pull off the hip bump sweep to mount. The guy then struggled to turn over and get up and Bill transitioned to the back position. He thought about the choke but decided to stabilise the position first and keep the seat belt grip. In the scramble Bills cuffs had fallen out on to the ground so he had to keep control of the guy with the back position and scoot over to the cuffs and put them on his attacker. He then walked him to his vehicle parked around the corner. After he put him in back of the paddy wagon he called me, still out of breath, to tell me that the stuff we have been working on in class just saved him and a mental patient from getting hurt. :-)

My Old White-Belt Minus A Stripe

To acknowledge his proficient use of the techniques under extreme pressure I did an impromptu grading by pulling a stripe off my old white-belt and presenting it to him after training. He's very pleased with how it all worked out and can now truly attest for the effectiveness of Brazilian Jiu-Jiutsu in a real life situation. He has also started bringing his two oldest sons in to train with the team.

I'm so pleased that he was able to use BJJ to gain the best possible outcome. Full credit to Bill and his hard work on the mat. He travels a fair distance to come train with us and I couldn't ask for a better team mate.

The way I try to coach is to be a part of the team. I train as hard as I can and try to push the pace, all with a smile on my face. I never want to be the fat instructor with his thumbs in his belt walking around like my shit doesn't stink talking about the old days and how tough I used to be. I want to be in the trenches fighting along side my mates in the battles that are taking place on the mat right now. 

But this style of coaching means its hard to sit back and take stock of how everyone is progressing. So the last couple of training runs I've made sure I sat out a few rounds of sparring to see how everyone is progressing. I was overwhelmed with how well the guys are rolling. Lots of nice movement with some technical sweeps, transitions and submissions. All of them have progressed a massive amount in a relative short amount of time. There attitudes are excellent and they are all trying to make each other better while having fun. I think slowly but surely we are building something very special together here in Gympie and It feels really cool to be a part of it.

C u on the mat!!

Rex.