Bjj Grrl

My house is currently full of Helen's ukulele group. I have retired to this coffee shop for a while.

My favourite Jiu-Jitsu blog is Bbj Grll (bjjgrrl.wordpress.com). She offers lots of insights into Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu in general, and into women's experiences in particular.

She seems to be involved with a sport-style group, which is a little different than mine, but close enough.

One thing that strikes me in her musings is how unbalanced it is for her rolling with guys. Some, she says are great. Others are jerks or are what she designates a spazz. A very big lot aren't deliberately unpleasant, but just can't prevent themselves from muscling through a technique. They probably don't even think they are.

Let's say you're rolling with somebody stronger. They go for a submission with both hands, and you defend with both hands. You have a slight leverage advantage. They keep yanking until they break your grip, and tap you out. If you'd been equal in power, or greater, they'd never have gotten it.

What they should have done is to notice the situation, and let the attack go. They would need to figure out something else that would work on anybody, not just somebody weaker. Bjj Grrl lives her life surrounded by people who don't do this.

She has an entire blog entry dedicated to publicly crying out of frustration. She says that small guys who experience the same thing tend to get wall-hitting mad. She is referring to the constantly out-muscled person's eventual reaction.

She also talks about the constant threat of injury from bigger, heavier training "partners". She says that faced with somebody who muscles things, she switches to a mode of defence, defence, defence to lessen the danger. This is also frustrating.

But you might say that is what the real world is about. Small people, including most women, are just unable to beat bigger ones. A real attacker would not "go easy".

A good thought, but incorrect. A street attacker is most likely not well versed in Jiu-Jitsu technique. The trained individual has a distinct advantage regardless of size.

I am about as skilled as any student around here. We have a guy who is a relatively new Blue Belt. He went through the White Belt program, and earned his new belt about 4 months ago. Since then he's trained regularly in the advanced class. He isn't exactly unskilled, which is what a street attacker would be. He is also about a hundred pounds heavier than me, and twice as strong. His name is Than.

When we roll, he uses these attributes to try and bull his way to submit me. I'm sure he does the same to our even smaller students. If he grabs my wrist, he can put my arm pretty much wherever he wants. Nothing I can do about that. He usually tries to gain the top position. It would be too much effort to try and prevent this.

So I end up on the bottom, barely able to move as he tries to get something going. I defend. I wait. Every so often I explode. About half the time I pull something off and he's in trouble. The other half of the time he catches me and crushes what I was doing with weight and power. I go back to my waiting game.

I can do this because, although smaller than Than, I'm durable enough to take what comes. Our best female Blue Belt, Elizabeth can't risk what I can. Than might be bigger than me, but he's over twice Elizabeth's mass. If she explodes on Than, and he reacts, she might get seriously injured. All she can do is to wait and defend, wait and defend, until time is up.

In a real combat situation, she would go for it anyhow. Against somebody with no clue what she's up to her move would likely succeed, and end in either a submission, or a broken or unconcious attacker.

The point that Bbj Grll makes is that it can get very frustrating. Rolling is often an exercise in discomfort and wasted training time.

I don't mind rolling with Than. We have about a dozen people in the class, so I get mass-crushed less than 10% of my rolling time. Imagine being the tiniest person in the group. You would always face being mass-crushed. I think you'd appreciate rolling with guys of any size who didn't do this, and instead relied on actual skill and real technique.

The good news is that guys like Than don't stay in crusher mode all that long. I've already noticed that he's already starting to get more skill oriented. This is good for him, making him readier to face anybody and not just people littler than him. It's good for small people he rolls with, as it lessens the risk of injury when they spar with him.

Is it any wonder that BJJ Grll becomes ecstatically happy whenever she gets to train with a bunch of women?