BIG PROMOTIONS ?
A huge congrats to Gretchen, Cory, and Kenny on their promotions!
Gretchen is an incredibly consistent student, always coachable, and carrying a positive attitude. She has been such an asset and ambassador for Jiu-Jitsu and for our academy. Congratulations on earning your Blue Belt, Gretchen!
Everyone who has trained with Cory and Kenny know that their belts simply didn’t match their skill level. Both came to Sanctuary as Blue Belts and I wanted to make sure that they put some time in before promotion, but it was apparent pretty quickly how technical and skilled both of them are. Still, I wanted to make sure that they possessed the standards that I expect to be met from upper belts in terms of consistency, attitude, maturity, and leadership qualities. Needless to say, both of them are incredibly consistent, hard working, and have incredible attitudes and are never loth to help others. Congrats to both of them on earning their well-deserved – if a little belated – Purple Belts!
STARTING LINE
I’d like to extend a huge welcome to all of our new members! We’ve seen a large increase of new White Belts in the last month and it’s amazing to see all of the classes filling up and also being able to introduce new people to the art and sport of Jiu-Jitsu.
If you are among these new members, please keep in mind that Jiu-Jitsu is a marathon, not a race. It’s an incredibly challenging art and sport that takes years and thousands (not dozens) of classes to gain proficiency. Take it one class and lesson plan at a time, try to improve 1% every day, stay positive and focus on your small successes, and the large successes will follow. Above everything else, consistency is key! If you have any questions about anything – including frustrations regarding progress, training, promotion, etc., – please talk to me or another upper belt. We aren’t Black Belts or Brown Belts or Purple Belts because we’re better than you or more important than you, we simply have more experience. If we haven’t directly experienced what you’re experiencing now, we have friends and teammates who have, and we can suggest an array of tools to utilize to help you along the way!
JIU-JITSU 101
Starting this Tuesday we will be offering Jiu-Jitsu 101 on Tuesday evenings at 4:30 P.M. All members are welcome to take this class for free, and if you’ve been training for less than 6 months, I would highly recommend it! For those that have been training for longer, it might be a bit too rudimentary – but it’s never a bad thing to get more mat time, even if it’s just a refresher! Otherwise, if you know any friends, family, or coworkers that have expressed interest in training Jiu-Jitsu, this is the perfect way to get them started. We will be running this program again in August, so spread the word!
Jiu-Jitsu 101 is a four week course that is designed to get all participants fully acclimated to the movements, positions, concepts, and techniques of Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu. This course is tailored for the complete beginner, so no experience is required. We are limiting this course to ten spots to ensure all participants get as much one-on-one attention as possible. The entire course is $50, and that $50 can be applied towards any future membership.
This Sunday at noon! I hope you all can make it, if you haven’t signed up already. Jiu-Jitsu is such an amazing sport and art because we are able to share the mats with – and train with! – the most elite practitioners and athletes in our sport. This simply isn’t true with other sports. The average basketball player will likely never share the court with LeBron, but it’s highly likely (inevitable, even) that the average Jiu-Jitsu practitioner will share the mats with a living legend of the sport. This is one of those times, so I hope all of you can share this opportunity with us!
JULY 16TH!
Every third Sunday of the month we host a Women’s Open Mat here at Sanctuary Jiu-Jitsu. Women from all over the state of Wisconsin – and the larger Midwest! – come to this event. This month it will be on July 16th. We hope our members can take advantage of this and make it out!
Fundamentals: we closed out the Closed Guard curriculum this week and will be moving on to Half Guard this coming week. On Monday we studied the Cross Choke, on Wednesday we learned the Kimura, and on Friday we studied both the Hip Bump and Scissor Sweep.
Advanced: in our Advanced Classes this week we covered the De La Riva with Far Side Lapel Control, which is a bit of a modified Sit-Up Guard. We drilled attacking the Single Leg after entering Shin on Shin Guard, as well as learning how to enter the De La X position and attack a simple sweep and less simple back attack from that position.
No Gi: in No Gi this week we reviewed entering into the Saddle position from the Knee Slide, first attacking the Knee Bar and then controlling the far side leg and attacking the Leg Lace or Cloverleaf submission. On Thursday we learned how to defend and escape the Saddle position, freeing our knee to nullify our partners attacks.
This week in Kids’ Class we worked Closed Guard setups and attacks. For both the Cross-Collar Choke and the Kimura we started at the finish and then worked backward to the setup. By knowing their end goal, students were able to problem solve to get to the correct position for each submission.
We ended the week by playing an energizing game of Sock Rolling. The goal of this game is to take the sock off of your opponent without losing your own sock along the way. This game helped our young athletes focus on attacks and force movement while always keeping defense in the forefront. As it turns out, not losing your sock is a great motivator!