Notes on Brazilian Jiu Jitsu: My First Steps

What’s up everyone, those of you that know me know that I’m an overly active individual, I just like doing “things”. I think it might have something to do with my moms “you can do anything” attitude. Back in August or September, I joined a gym out here in Southern California called No Limits Mixed Martial Arts. It’s the largest gym I’ve worked out in (roughly 70,000 square feet). They have three rings, two cages, a whole bunch of bags, an upstairs for yoga, lots and lots of room for wrestling mats, and a full weight room. Yeah, it’s pretty big.

When I joined, my goal was to get into BJJ but I heard the training was pretty tough and that I should consider some cardio kickboxing. I did that for a couple of months to strengthen myself up and increase my endurance then decided to start up the BJJ classes. The first class I took was insane, as a matter of fact, if I think about that day really hard, I’ll probably pass out. It was a no gi class (since it was my first class, I didn’t know the difference) I was tired, out of breath, and as much as I lift weights, NONE of my muscles were working, it was a nightmare.

As beat up as I was, I managed to wriggle back the next morning to take the gi class. That class started off a little slower paced but I learned a lot of useful things. Once the lessons/techniques were covered, we went live and again, toward the end of class, it felt like an elephant landed on top of me and took a nap. Do you know what it feels like to have an elephant take a nap on top of you? The next day, I squirmed to the next class, limping and aching, and repeated the process. After class was over, I felt like I was gonna pass out again HOWEVER, I didn’t feel like that until after class, progress baby! I’m three weeks into it and I plan to update you all often.

Here are a few birds eye visuals of my practice grounds.
No Limits Overhead View