If you are looking for Jiu Jitsu classes in West Chester, PA you’re in luck. While West Chester isn’t exactly a rough town, there’s tons of drunken meat-heads and any one of them could potentially decide to beat you up. In these cases, it’s good to be able to fight on the ground, especially when considering that the vast majority of fights end up on the floor at some point. The premise is simple: choke the guy to sleep, or break one of his joints… a self-defense situation is about winning and going home safely.
The Jiu Jitsu program that I run is fairly straight forward. We start with a very brief warm-up, which consists of some basic movements that you will encounter all the time in competitive Jiu Jitsu. You want these movements to be completely second nature, so we incorporate them into the part of a session that just gets your body loose.
An example of this would be jumping your hips up into the air to catch a triangle choke. You don’t have to be practicing triangle chokes all of the time to get better at them, you can pick one element of a very important move, isolate the necessary movement, and make that movement as sharp as possible.
You get to mindlessly incorporate the element your “muscle memory”, and that way you won’t have to think about it when it comes time to choke someone, it just happens. You will be happy that you incorporated some solid exercise science into your Jiu Jitsu training.
After we warm up, we go through a few moves. These could be submission moves, the ones that actually end the fight (i.e. arm bars, knee bars, chokes, joint crushes, ankle locks), we could go over sweeps (moves designed to take you from a “bottom” position to a “top” position when you have more offense) or whatever fundamentals I decide on that given day. Sometimes we will cover “ground and pound” techniques so that you can use your fists, elbows, knees, or head butts to win a fight.
Ground and Pound is not Jiu Jitsu, but it works, and it’s important. The bottom line is this: any day that you come into a class, you’re going to learn something dangerous and powerful. You experience level does not matter, I will break the move down so that it’s simple to do at any level, and you will have it incorporated into your arsenal before you have left the building.
The final element of any Jiu Jitsu class is actually practicing he art. We refer to this as “rolling”, and at the end of any class, I HIGHLY encourage you to grab a partner and try to tap him (or her) out. In case you don’t know, “tapping someone out” means to catch him or her in a submission move. In order to say “you win” in the chess match of Jiu Jitsu, the losing practitioners will tap on either the mat, or on their opponent. This basically signifies the fact that the submission move was executed successfully, and to spare any joint injuries, the loser submits.
I use the word “loser” loosely. I have tapped out probably hundreds of times in my career as a Jiu Jitsu fighter. It’s part of getting better. You need to know what you can handle, what you can risk, and when to give up. I use the word “loser” because you should have been trying to win and… well… you didn’t. Don’t let it get to you, you’re going to win some and you’re going to lose some.
If you don’t do either, then you’re not going to get better. If that’s the case, why even bother coming? This is going to take work, it’s going to take sweat, and it’s going to take close contact with someone you would probably rather not snuggle with, though you might… some of us are attractive. Regardless, the only way to truly learn Jiu Jitsu, is to do some damn Jiu Jitsu.
When everyone is tired, class is over. Go home, think about what you learned, and take a damn shower. Personal hygene is a must in Jiu Jitsu. No one wants to touch your funky body. Then rinse and repeat…. not the shower, the entire process. After a while you will build a Jiu Jitsu style that works for you, and you will be dangerous on the ground.
For the class schedule, give me a call (908) 902-8475. Currently we have classes on Tuesday Night at 7:30, Thursday the Jiu Jitsu section of the MMA class starts at 7:30, and on Saturdays we will be hosting an open mat… though we haven’t ironed out the time for open mat yet.
All classes are held at Mr. Stuarts Martial arts:
342 Hannum Ave West Chester, PA 19382
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