Jiu-Jitsu is not for the WEAK!

Today was an Amazing Saturday at Unit 2 and Team Roberto Traven BJJ!  It started off with an amazing Women's BJJ class at 10am.  It was a full class of 11 incredibly tough and willing to learn ladies.  All these ladies come to class with an open mind and more importantly open ears.  They all listen very well.  No matter what is asked of them they will try their damnedest to do so.  This also includes the warm-up.  Now if you go to any legit bjj school... You know what scratch that.  If you bring your ass to Traven's BJJ school you will understand that this term "warm-up" is just a term used loosely.  The "warm-up" is actually, in most cases, a very difficult workout.  So f-ing what!  There are reasons for this "warm-up".  Jiu-Jitsu has a lot of technique involved and you can focus more on learning and applying this technique if you are already a little fatigued, also Jiu-Jitsu involves a lot of anaerobic and aerobic conditioning.  So performing this workout will only help you in your competitions and your progress.  Also, this is a great opportunity for a lot of you who have busy lives to take advantage of a great situation.  You can come to BJJ and get an excellent BJJ session as well as a chance to get an overall total body workout that you may not have time to do other wise.  Another advantage to these workouts/warm-ups is to work off a lot of the terrible shit you eat on a daily basis, or the beer you feel you have to drink, or get the most out of your one workout session per week (see first blog entry).

(Now back to the "perfect Saturday".  I also had a personal training session with a client today who is willing to come in and kill herself to get better; she doesn't complain and bitch about what she is told to do.  Some of you could learn from all the ladies I had the privilege of working with today.)

While I was training my client I could see a training partner of mine, Richard, who was covering the 1130 class for Traven, as he is in Jacksonville at Jacksonville BJJ for a seminar.  He is already known for making the warm-ups quite exhausting but still very beneficial, so people should have known what they were getting into and jumped on the opportunity for a great class.  I believe the class started with about 5-6 people so Richard made 5-6 stations at an allotted amount of time per station and an allotted number of times for the circuit to be completed.  Well, after this was made people still continued to show up for class late.  Maybe for a reason or maybe just to try and avoid these warm-ups.  (You know who you are and what your reason was; if it was the latter take a look in the mirror and reevaluate your mental and physical toughness.) So every time someone showed up late Richard added a station and the warm-up continued.  I believe by the time it was all said and done another 5 or so guys had showed up making the entire workout take upwards of like 40 minutes or so.  Most were screaming and grunting their way through the stations, others were quietly focusing and pushing themselves inside to complete it, but 1 individual decided that he wasn't mentally and physically tough enough for this workout and no longer wanted to participate in things like this so he walked out and went to the front office, filed his complaints to the owner/operator and canceled his membership.  Now I don't think an acronym does my feelings and reactions justice so LAUGHING MY F-ING ASS OFF!  Wow! Seriously are you that weak of an individual that you cancel a gym membership where you joined to learn from one of the best ever competitors and instructors bc one of his more experienced students made a warm-up "too hard".  Well if that is the case then I say good ridden bc there is no room for you on this team and truthfully there is no room for you in any gym.  Stay your ass at home and do P90x so no one sees you quit and cry bc something is too hard.

People listen! You can not be the best at anything if you don't work hard.  "Anything worth having is worth working for."  No sport is one sided. Whether technique or strength and conditioning is your specialty it involves a balance of both for you to succeed.  If you don't believe me then come to our gym and tell me bc we have all types that are working to balance out what they are weaker at to become a complete student that will help me prove my point.  If you are just a strong person then come on in and get your ass kicked by a much smaller guy who is extremely technical and if you are purely technical then come on in and get slammed on your head and thrown around by a very strong, avg sized student who will send you running to your nearest squat rack, or the damn doctor!