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[TN94z]

I used to train in BJJ 7 or 8 years ago and was forced out because of a divorce...blah blah blah. I have since gotten remarried and have a step son. He was around 5 at the time we got together. Over the years I have showed him a few things and he is a really fast learner. So we finally got him into a BJJ class and he is now addicted! He is 10 years old now and I would have given anything for someone to start me out that young. He is freakishly flexible and really smart so I think he will be really good in a few years. There is a kid in his class that actually won 1st place in the State of TN grappling tournament. I told my step son to work with him as much as possible.

The good thing is it gives me an excuse to get back into it myself. I'm 34 now and it has been so long that I will basically be starting over myself...but it should be fun. I think we are going to do BJJ and Muay Thai both. I figure if he sticks with it, he will be hard to handle in a few years! Needless to say, I am pretty excited!

[NinjaShogunRua]

That's awesome. BJJ is great, and it's nice he has a chance to start early. Is he starting off in a fundamentals class?

[dbader08]

Good to see some of these older posters around.

[TN94z]

Originally Posted by NinjaShogunRua

That's awesome. BJJ is great, and it's nice he has a chance to start early. Is he starting off in a fundamentals class?

Yeah, it's been fundamentals so far. Starting from takedowns into side control, knee on belly, wrist control from mount, etc....He has spent a lot of time talking and showing these things and explaining why. And he also teaches about the history of the art and what it's about. Then he turns the kids loose and allows them to work on it for a bit. He's really a great teacher. I talked with the main teacher (the guy I used to train with) and I was telling him how much I liked the kids' teacher and he told me that their teacher was the only one he would allow to teach his kid besides him. Pretty big words...

Originally Posted by dbader08

Good to see some of these older posters around.

I've been around the whole time. I do a lot of reading and post here and there. I "try" not to get into the bandwagon and nuthugger threads and it seems like many of the threads end up there nowadays....so I lay low for the most part. But I'm still here.

[TN94z]

Started Muay Thai today. Wow! I didn't realize how out of shape I really was.

It all came back quickly. I haven't lost as much technique as I thought I would have. I have some flexibility issues, but that will be taken care of before long. The boxing technique was second nature as I boxed for a while, so we moved into Muay Thai pretty quick. The foot work is a lot more different than I figured it would be as compared to boxing. A lot more square than the bladed boxing stance. So that will take the most getting used to for me. We didn't get to elbows. We mainly did punching combos and then added kicks into the combos and lastly knees were thrown into the combo. VERY good stuff. I will work on this at home now since I have all of the gear. I want to progress as quickly as possible.

[TN94z]

My step son's first BJJ tournament is in the books. It was an all day affair and the NAGA wasn't too bad. It was VERY crowded but pretty well organized. The only slow down that I saw going on was the fighters not being at their designated rings to hear their names called, the fighters' coaches not being at the ring, and the kids not having their gi's on to be ready when called.

No gi---
This was Jacob's first match in any kind of tournament and he was SUPER nervous. He went out and did his thing but he was so nervous that he couldn't remember basic sweeps and takedowns that we had worked on. He ended up getting a bronze medal though. At some point he fell on his knee wrong and that hurt him for a little while. Luckily, we had about an hour or so wait before the Gi matches started. I talked with him and went over a few things and got him calmed down before the Gi started.

Gi---
He got bumped up to a different class for his Gi match, I think because he had teammates in his other class and they were trying to keep from so many of them fighting each other. He had weighed in at 88lbs with a max of 89.9, so I think that's why he was chosen to move up. Between Gi and no Gi, I had showed him how to grab the lapel and explained about jerking his opponent down to get him off balance and increase his chances of a takedown. As you will see in the video, he really exaggerated this move, but it seemed to work. The video was the fight for 1st place and he ended up winning this one 15-0. I was really proud. Jacob has the red tag...he's the really blonde kid. At the very end, the kid got Jacob down and was going for mount, but that was the end of the match. It ended right before I dropped the camera.




Our team ended up with 4 golds, 4 silvers, and 5 bronze...I think.

[MIZjitsZOU]

Congrats to your son. That was fun to watch. I do Judo and he has a pretty good O soto gari (major outer reap). If he likes those foot sweeps you should look up Ko soto gari (minor outer reap) and O uchi Gari (major inner reap I like this one!). He also might like Tai otoshi (body drop) b/c you can combo that one with what he was doing, or he could combo the o uichi gari. Fun to watch. Tell your son good job.