Martial Vitality

  I enjoy listening to the Shintaro Higashi podcast, and a recent episode addressed dojo etiquette . Shintaro said that he had heard that it is a breach of etiquette for lower ranking BJJ players to ask higher ranking BJJ players to roll. In other words, it would be odd for a white belt to ask a blue belt to roll. I have a limited view on the subject, having only started training in January 2017, and having only trained at one school. I have attended seminars and camps outside my own school, but those settings are a bit different. I am also only a blue belt, so I do not have much experience being a "senior belt." For what it's worth, at my home school, One Spirit Martial Arts , I have not encountered this situation. As a white belt, or as a blue belt, I did not feel any concern asking to roll with a higher belt. I do not feel weird when a white belt asks to roll with me. I believe this is a cultural norm set by professor Sauer and the head instructors at the academy. I...

Last night I returned to Jiu-Jitsu training at One Spirit Martial Arts , the HQ for Professor Pedro Sauer's association. I had suspended my membership in August last year in order to concentrate on my KMG G1 grading . It was very good to be welcomed back to OSMA. Several of my old training partners and instructors were there, and it was good to catch up with them. We started the class with some functional movement drills. We started in cross-mount, then moved to mount, then moved to cross-mount on the other side. We then moved to the opposite side in a reverse motion. The goal was to be as technically correct as possible and capture all the details that make life difficult for the person on the bottom. For techniques, we worked a standing self-defense move against a thumbs-down grip, transitioning to a standing arm bar. On the ground, we worked on the arm bar from the guard. My partner was a blue belt who helped me with the movement mechanics for transitioning from the guard to a p...

A year ago I started learning Jiu-Jitsu at Professor Pedro Sauer's school, One Spirit Martial Arts , in Herndon, VA. I don't take the quality of instruction for granted. Having access to so many talented instructors is a blessing. It's particularly special when I can attend a class taught by Prof Sauer himself. I find myself in a catch-22 situation when Professor teaches. If I'm on the mat, I can try the techniques and concepts he is teaching that night, but I can't really record what he's sharing. If I'm off the mats, usually staying for a few extra minutes before heading home, I can record what he says. However, I'm not in the class, so I don't get to try the lesson. Thanks to a new set of video instructionals, I have found a way to have recorded access to Professor's wisdom and concepts. Last month Jiu-Jitsu TV began offering a set of 81 video lessons from Professor's 2017 seminar series in Australia and Singapore . I decided to take advan...