DJC launches its first BJJ session

Friday the 25th of January saw DJC launch its very first official BJJ session, for those of you who are not aware BJJ stands for Brazilian Jujitsu and is a separate Martial Art to Judo

BJJ was developed from Judo in Brazil(i know i was shocked too!) by Carlos and Helio Gracie back in the 1940's it centred around the groundwork aspect of Judo and took the Judo gokyo Ne-waza techniques and enhanced them and the whole concept of BJJ became concentrated on using the ground game as the central point of the martial art,

The reason that it is not called Brazilian Judo is because at the time it was founded the word Judo and Jujitsu were interchangeable

BJJ is now extremely popular due to its high exposure in the MMA sphere with the sons, and great-grandsons of Carlos and Helio still competing in America.

BJJ has no formal Japanese element, meaning no bowing or eastern etiquette, furthermore there are no Japanese words. The attire as you can see whilst similar is not revered as part of the said etiquette which you can wear pretty much whatever colour suit you wish(i went with the swish navy blue with lemon piping)

Also as BJJ is a separate martial art all of our players taking part were required to wear a white belt(except for Andy Melville who has previously been graded) some of the Judo dan grades were very pleased about this and enjoyed the experience of being a beginner again.

The session was held at Tavistock after our regular senior Judo class and was led by Mark and Kylie Adams both purple belts under Kenny Baker at FLO Martial Arts in Plymouth,

The session was very informative(as are all of

Marks sessions) and very practical with the judoka all having to try and forget habits that they have engrained over in some cases 30 years or more(don't grip the gi!)

I would encourage any of our members who might be curious about BJJ to have a go, we are currently holding them every last Friday of the month, if any of you are super keen you can look at taking a beginners course at FLO Martial Arts

Overall feedback from the session was highly positive