FAQ- What did you want to know about JJ when you first started?

[Tori Applegate]

Basically, I'm trying to get some different answers here. I would like to know what everyone's thoughts, concerns, questions, fears, etc. were when they were newbies or even before they started Jiu Jitsu. Also, what was the answer to your question, concern, etc. I'm trying to put together a FAQ page and I just need some inspiration, plus I'm just curious to see what everyone's first thought or fear about Jiu Jitsu was. :-)

I'd like some input from men and women please!! Thanks 10P fam!!
<3

[Jon Watkins]

Before I started Jiu Jitsu, I was an adamant basketball player. I used to whoop the shit out of local college players but at 23 I was getting heavy from poor dieting. I could still whoop ass on the court for about 2 hours a day, but by hour 4 I was just light jogging up and down the court. One day, I was bored and decided to try salvia. Salvia scared the shit out of me and put it in my mind that I needed to turn my health around with a new outlet because basketball wasn't keeping me in shape anymore and plus it is very taxing on the knees of heavy person. I actually posted about my salvia experience on the old forum. Anyway, 2 days after my salvia trip, I went to a wedding where two hobbyist MMA practitioners invited me to spar with them because I had wrestled some in high school. I agreed to spar with them the next time they were in town. In the mean time, I started researching various fighting styles online and came across the Gracie University. I bought all 36 techniques that were available at the time and studied vigorously for the next 3 weeks practicing on anyone who would let me practice on them. I also stumbled across Submissions 101 on youtube at this time because I was looking for different ways to pass the guard and escape submissions that were not taught in the combatives program. After the 3 weeks were up, the two hobbyist MMA practitioners were in town and invited me to spar with them. I dispatched them both inside the first rounds of sparring with triangle chokes and they decided they wanted me to teach them some. They were just hobbyists, bare this in mind, and weren't very good at fighting, but I thought I might have a knack for Jiu Jitsu. This prompted me to visit the LaGrange Gracie Jiu Jitsu gym. The class was a basics class and the instructor showed the Americana, an upa Americana escape, and a basic clinch takedown. Then it came time to roll. I smashed a white belt, broke even on points with a blue belt, beat a blue belt on points, but then was totally tooled by a two stripe white belt who was also an MMA fighter. Being beat by him really pissed me off but I was nice about it, shook hands with him, and went home once class was over now obsessed with becoming better at grappling so I started digging deeper looking deeper into the finer details of different grappling styles and looking for the best Jiu Jitsu gym fit for me. It was around this time that I joined the first Nibiru forum during it's infancy and was on the leaderboard until they made this new site, but I digress. On the Nibiru forum I met Thomas Zwick of Summit City Submissions. He invited me to his gym whenever I was in Fort Wayne and I actually ended up moving to Fort Wayne a few months later because I was sick of living in my small town. So when I moved to Fort Wayne, I took up Thomas up on his offer and tried out Summit City Submissions. It was here that I felt at home. Noah, the instructor, knew/knows a plethora of unorthodox techniques that boggled my mind and I was hooked and have been training there ever since.


That's my general background story and it might vaguely answer your questions, but here are some direct answers. My fear was that I would never find a gym to train regularly. My questions were mostly about technique and still are about technique. My concerns early on were that I would hurt my training partner due to my inexperience in some way.

[Tori Applegate]

That's a good fear, hurting your training partner. I believe we've had a good few of those that were timid about giving any squeeze to anything for fear of hurting someone. That's a great experience man! It's hard to be out of shape and do Jiu Jitsu, that's for sure.

[Slick Rick]

I wanted to know what it would feel like to sub a person. I didn't know what to expect. After getting my first sub, it became an obsession.

[Slick Rick]

Why I say "sorry" to anyone I sub is kinda weird. Maybe it's the nice guy in me. People say don't say sorry, and I've tried not to. It's just the way I am.

[John Mejia]

That's a good fear, hurting your training partner. I believe we've had a good few of those that were timid about giving any squeeze to anything for fear of hurting someone. That's a great experience man! It's hard to be out of shape and do Jiu Jitsu, that's for sure.

When I first started Jiu Jitsu it was because my dad started messing around with the system while I was away playing hockey. Traditionally we liked to grapple and roll around like we knew what we were doing, (but we were awful) until I came back home and he tapped me with the lockdown. (Yes I tapped from the lockdown)... I thought my calf muscle was gonna be ripped off so immediately I got up and was like fuck this I'm not wrestling with you anymore because you're doing shady ass shit that's gonna prevent me from playing hockey. Eventually my dad met up with Josh (The Moon Head of 10P Chicago), and started doing privates. He kept insisting we wrestle, and I did, and the he hip bump swept me and ended up In mount, then he almost Americana'd me, in an effort to not lose I started going with him, not wanting to lose turned into a passion to learn Jiu Jitsu, and made me hungrier than ever to get out there and continue my Jiu Jitsu journey.

My biggest fears walking in we're
Will I get hurt?
How Much pressure is too much?
When do I tap?
What do I do when everyone in the gym kicks my ass?
What do I need to away from the gym to continue to get better?

The only advice I can give is to just enjoy it an have fun. If you don't like rolling around on the ground with sweaty men/women, maybe jiu jitsu isn't for them, or maybe that feeling of being humbled by someone smaller than you will keep you coming back for more.

[sean applegate]

It started out like learning magic tricks for me. Like one of those " bet I can make you tap out" type of things I could do to people for fun. Once I actually rolled with someone who knew something it changed into something else completely. Love it.

I can't say I've ever had any unordinary fears. Just the usual competition anxiety. When I dove into jiu jitsu, I dove in head first and haven't looked back

[Jon Watkins]

Thanks Tori. And yes it is hard to be out of shape and train Jiu Jitsu. I forgot to mention that Jiu Jitsu led me to lose weight from regular training. When I started training regularly I was 240 pounds. Now I am 205 and may even drop down to 185 if I can find figure out a healthy way to get there. Jiu Jitsu has also inspired me to keep my body healthy and focus more on my nutrition so I can always train regularly. It is probably the healthiest addiction I have ever developed.

[Josh Yelverton]

I started out doing muay thai and boxing as a kid, and I learned a little wrestling from my granddad who was a collegiate wrestler at the University of West Virginia, so martial arts weren't foreign to me by the time I started jiu-jitsu. A friend of mine who owned a gym (he trained in MMA and BJJ with a base in catch wrestling) invited me over to train and, naturally, I got tapped pretty easily. I got hooked instantly. I was already training in other arts, so I figured why not. Also, I had a phobia of being smothered/not being able to move, and grappling has allowed me to cope with that. Aside from that, my only residual fear is that between martial arts, freestyle motoX, and superX, I might suffer an injury that would keep me from doing everything. But then again, there's never reward without risk.

[Michael Milstid]

I wanted to know How to make my coach tap....Just saying

My 3 fears/concerns
#1 That I was to big for Jiiu-Jitsu and wouldn't be able to do the moves. because lets face it big guys can't do rubber guard!!!
#2 I would get bored and lose interest. And now I don't think this will ever happen
#3 Getting hurt or hurting a teammate. .......those nut shots.....enough said