I decided to give myself a big present and treat myself to a week at AOJ plus a private lesson. It wasn't the primary purpose of my trip to SoCal, but I figured I'd take advantage since I'd be staying 5 miles from the gym.
I had everything lined up before I left, so it was just a matter of checking in before classes. After a ~5hr drive I went in for the Fundamentals and No Gi classes that evening. You have to rent or buy their no gi uniform, wherein I decided to stop hemorrhaging money and rent instead of buy.
They get a lot of visitors on a regular basis, and it's not a super welcoming vibe. I knew that going in though, so didn't take it personally. Partnering up for drills was a little awkward b/c no one wants to drill with the unknown brown belt, but I ended up with a blue belt woman. She was nice but I could tell that she wasn't super comfortable. When we were given the option to stay with our partners or switch she found someone else very quickly.
I really struggled with the drilling portion, partly b/c I hadn't even thought about jiu jitsu for over a week, and partly b/c I was in an unfamiliar environment not knowing a soul. When it came time to drill whatever we wanted to drill, I went for the baby bolo to leg drag and found myself blanking. Tried a couple of times and could not for the life of me remember how to do it or much of anything really.
After the drilling came the rolling, and I finally started to feel comfortable. Rolled with some blue belts, a purple belt and a big white belt. The big guy was using a lot of muscle and seemed like he was probably 6 months in or so. I made very sure to not let him get a dominant top position, swept and got the paper cutter choke. Most everyone else was rolling nice. A LOT of people sat out during rolling in the later rounds, which surprised me.
Did no gi after the Fundamentals class and it was a small class, just six of us. Started with stand up technique which is not my jam, but we moved on to passing half guard which was a little more in my wheelhouse. Everyone had to roll with everyone, so there wasn't as much awkwardness. The guys in this group seemed older and more laid back, and seemed pretty cool. After rolling there was a final ab workout of butt scooting forward down the length of the mat...without using your legs or hands. I'm still feeling that one.
I did my private with Rafa yesterday where I got a lot of help with getting out of DLR, finishing the long step pass and finally some berimbolo work. He was nice, answered everything and was happy to go into detail. We rolled for a couple of rounds at the end, and he made sure to put me in positions to use what we went over.
Today was the 9am Fundamentals with Gui. Lots of brown belts in that class. I paired up with a guy that was a bit of a character. Nice guy, just a bit out of the mold. Rolled during all the rounds, a couple of brown belts and blue belts. One blue belt girl had great footwork and wrecked my guard quickly and got a north south choke.
I stayed to watch the adult competition class afterwards for awhile. Similar to how we structure it with drilling and rolling.
Overall the only thing that bothers me is how many times I was turned down for rolls. I can't believe that they were all worried I was going to injure them, but maybe some of them have an across the board policy of not rolling with outsiders. To an extent I don't blame them, but it's kindof a bummer to be turned down for no obvious reason.
A couple more days of training ahead and then heading back home to my happy little gym. I'm generally pretty friendly to visitors to our school, but I'm definitely going to make a point of being more outgoing and asking people that don't look like they could kill me to roll. It makes such a difference in your experience.
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