Does BJJ really work for women?

A couple of months ago, I went to class.  Fabio has several classes most days, and I generally only go at night since I home school my kids, but every now and then I go to morning classes or afternoon classes. 

That day I went to a class I have only gone to a couple of times, and was approached by one of the newer guys, and he said, "I know you teach a women's class, and if you don't mind I want to watch you grapple today.  I have a wife and daughter, and I want them to learn BJJ too, but I don't understand how this will work for a woman.  No offense, but I don't understand how you could overpower a man."  ... or something to that effect.  

He was in no way being rude, or condescending, just honest.  And being that he is new, and had never grappled a woman, it's a legitimate concern.  

I however went into, oh my gosh, how I grapple today is going to form this man's opinion of ALL OF WOMEN'S BJJ EVERYWHERE FOREVER! panic mode. 

I immediately scanned the room.

No girls.

Mostly white belts.
Big ones.

More Panic.

Big white belt men generally give me the most 'trouble'.  When a guy uses just brute force and no technique I really have to work.  Technique is the only thing that I have to combat brute force.... and when you can mush my guard open with just your arms.  Ugh.

I have said before, that I don't grapple to win, I grapple to grapple.  But that morning, with the fate of all of women's BJJ in my hands, I started every grapple with the intent to prove to the world, or you know, just that one guy, that BJJ works for women too.  

And being that I am the instructor of a women's class, I felt extra compelled to prove myself, not just prove that BJJ works for women.

My first grapple was an older teenage boy, and I was so nervous I was starting to question whether or not I could take this kid.  So, I started to psych myself up, more so than when I am competing in the finals for gold.

The resulting grapple was probably a little more unpleasant for that innocent man-boy than it should have been.

I should probably have felt bad that I unleashed on that kid, but I didn't.  I smiled, thanked him for the grapple and walked back to the wall without making eye contact with the guy I knew was watching.  I wanted to look like I wasn't even trying, or that it didn't matter.

But in my head I was jumping up and down, See it works! It works!  Send your wife and daughter to my class!

But in reality, I just beat up a kid.  Oopsie.
(In my defense however, we go there to grapple, not hug, and I grappled him with my sanity in tact, I just took every opportunity I could to put him in a bad spot and submit him.  I unnecessarily unleashed my inner Leonidas on him.  But he went on to grapple another day unscathed.)

Next grapple.

Another white belt... but this was white belt with man strength.  A big giant man, with man strength.

I went straight back in to, omg, can I do this mode.

Turns out, I was worried for nothing.

Every grapple that morning I was able to remain dominate and submit my partner.  Except the grapple in which I grappled a 230 pound purple belt man.  I am pretty sure that grapple looked similar to this..


My last grapple of the morning was with the man in question.  I was not expecting to grapple him.  I had been feeling pretty confident, and proud of my self for repping BJJ decently for women everywhere. (Because, clearly that was what was going on.  lol)

He was very nice and complimentary though.  He said, he had watched me grapple all morning and was impressed, and he was pretty sure I was about to beat him up.

And I went into that grapple with every intent to show him just how effective BJJ was for women.  Or at least, as as effectively as I could.  There are plenty of other women who could prove that point SOO much better than I can.

Anyway, I submitted him several times, and afterward he seemed legitimately happy.  He said he was now excited for his daughter and wife to train, and how grappling me was completely different that anyone else he had ever grappled.  He said, no matter what he did he could shake me off, or get a decent hold on me.  And that made him happier about training BJJ in general because it does in fact work.


The point of all of that, was not to talk about how I beat up boys, or pat myself on the back, but to let anyone else who might be wondering, if BJJ is effective for women, it is.

That experience made me more confident in myself, and happier about teaching BJJ to other women. I hadn't ever really grappled a man with the intent to subdue him, or at least that had never consciously been my goal.

All of that being said, I want to add that I have been training BJJ for 3.5 years, and I believe it will take a couple of years for your average woman to be able to subdue and submit your average untrained man.  But, BJJ can be live savingly effective as early as six months into training.  Escapes and defense come first in the line of skills sets you find with BJJ.  And I always, always, always tell my girls, if God forbid, they were to find themselves in a situation where they have to fight for their lives, to fight to escape, not fight to win.  Get them off of you and get away.  And BJJ can absolutely teach you how to do that.

So.

Recap.

BJJ works for women.

The end!

Mission Accomplished!

This weekend Fabio Novaes BJJ took the NAGA Pan Ams by storm.

No seriously.  By storm.

This was far and away the biggest turn out we have had for a competition.

(We are missing four girls in this picture.)

We had more female competitors at this tournament then we had total for the Miami Open, most of them were competing for their first time, and every single one of our girls placed!  I am beyond proud of them, and not just because they all did well, but because they had the courage to get out there and do it.

This tournament was awesome.  Everyone who competed has been busting their asses for the past couple of months getting ready for it, and everyone had their hard work rewarded on the mat, not to mention the fact that because everyone pushed themselves so hard in their training, it benefited the team as a whole.  We are all better grapplers now then we would be if we didn't have this tournament to drive everyone forward.

Nicely done, Team Fabio Novaes!

   

And not to neglect the ever so slightly less pretty side of the team:

Thank you for all that you do Fabio and Roberta!!

A strange observation.

I have noticed recently that I grapple my best when I am completely and utterly out matched.  It makes no sense.  

If I grapple someone who I cab obliterate with my eyes closed (which is limited to 40 pound sleeping 5 year olds) or someone who is close to my level, sure I do okay.  I can do things right.  I can finish submissions.  I can escape submissions... and of course get submitted.

But there are two really awesome grapplers in particular that when I grapple them, I feel like I am absolutely at the top of my game.  I lose.  Hard.  For the entire duration of the grapple.  But I feel like if I always grappled the way I grapple them, I would be way better than I am. 

It makes about as much sense at this picture does.

Sadly, I can only be awesome 5 minutes at a time, and generally with only those two people... and I spend the 5 minutes of grappling super powers losing.  Its like a cruel joke.

It is especially cruel when I feel like I can walk on water post grappling them, then go grapple someone else and it's like... Oh yeah, I forgot, I am terrible at this!

It's like a depressing reverse rags to riches story every time.

I think this officially offends me.

"I am too girly for Jiu-jitsu."

This is what about 75% of the women I approach about BJJ say to me when I invite them to come train.

Perhaps I am just getting tired of hearing it, but it is starting to sound like,

"I think you are an enormously manly freak, and I don't want you to sweat on me."

I know they are in no way referring to me, or the rest of the girls who train when they say they are too girly, but it is starting to sound like an accusation of a lack of being girly.

Consider this your personal news flash people.  I am a girly girl, and I also know how to choke you out.

Just because several time I week I don a gi, train hard and sweat my butt off does not mean I am not also a feminine, dress wearing, nail painting, making up loving, shoe collecting woman just like those of you who think you are too girly for BJJ.

It just means that I stand a chance of defending myself or my children if God forbid I ever need to.  It also means that I am stronger and more healthy than I've ever been in my entire life, and because of Jiu-jitsu I am better role model for my own girly daughter.  It also means that I have an excellent outlet for stress.  On top of that, Jiu-jitsu has helped me learn to to love me for who I am, and has shown me that I am stronger than I ever thought I could be.

 Yes, I am a grappler.

Yes, I am a girly girl.

They are not exclusive.  You can be both.

It wasn't me, it was the one armed man!

I had to grapple someone with a shoulder injury recently.

At Fabio's, like most places I am sure,we are not wise enough to take time off when we hurt our selves.  We stupidly power through the pain risking further injury because, you know, taking a week off to heal up is just a poor use of time.  lol  So, people with shoulder or elbow injuries often tuck the offending arm in the belts and grapple one handed.

You'd think grappling someone with one less arm would be advantageous... but it isn't.  At least not when it is the arm on your go to side.  I had nothing to get a hold of, and no arm to tuck neatly at my side when in side control. ..which left me very little control.

It is good practice though.  It makes you think outside the box.

Fabio actually has us do that sometimes on purpose.  One person will have to tuck both their hands in their belt.... the result is generally a cruddy grapple, but a cruddy grapple in which you learn you can do amazing things with your legs if you have to rely only on them.  Either way though, I don't like to be the one with two arms grappling the no armed, or one armed man.  I like having handles.

What I learned at the Miami Open.

This time around I didn't get out a competition what I normally do.  Normally, I see where the big holes in my game are, and what areas I need to focus on.

However, this time, I learned the value of what it is to be a good sport and good competitor.  I saw very clearly the opposite sides of the spectrum.

This may end up being a very long post, but it is what it is.  I'll just explain what happened.

My first fight started out well for me, I swept the girl three times, but was never able to establish a top position so I didn't receive any points.  At one point I had a gi choke sunk in, but she was defending, I didn't want to just crush her face, and I saw an opening for a sweep, so I took it instead.  Then she ended up back in my guard, and to prevent me from sweeping her again, she went for a can opener type guard pass... holding my arms down by my biceps.  I tried to go for an armbar, but hesitated since I wasn't sure if I could secure her arm with mine trapped down.  I didn't get the armbar, and we ended up in a scramble.  She tried to take my back.  I don't mean this in a cocky way, but at that point I didn't feel extremely threatened and was mostly just focusing on not letting her in hooks in.  I turned my head to see where her legs were, and I left my self open for a choke and she took it.  I don't mean to take away from her choke at all... she saw it, went for it and got it.  Good for her.

We ended up exchanging numbers.  She seems like a really nice lady, I like her a lot, and was happy to meet her.


Fast forward eight.... Yes, eight emotional hours, to absolute.  I was on the fence about doing it all day.. and the further it got pushed back, and the more tired I got the less and less I wanted to do it.  I mentally defeated myself in spite all of the encouragement I had, I finally decided I wasn't going to do it.  Not two seconds after I finally said, I wasn't doing it, one of the girls ran up and said, "Your up!"  ...  I got instantly pumped, handed my phone to Allie and ran to ring one.

The girl jumped guard and ended up wrapping my head up with my gi and grinding her forearm into my nose.  It hurt like a mother... and then I heard a crack.  It scared me (and hurt) so bad I almost tapped.  But my fear turned to insta rage, and I didn't.  To escape the face crush, I had to break her grip which tightened the grip on my face temporarily... but like I said, I had the insta rage, so I stuck it out.... then there was a second crack... and then a third....  I'm pretty sure I cursed under my breath, and I finally got my nose out of the way... only to leave her crushing my eye socket.  Though once I got my nose out of the way the rest was a little easier.

Once I got my face out, I was able to get her guard broken, leg pined and was 90% of the way out.... just in short of time being called.  If I had another 10 seconds I could have passed and secured side control for points, but alas...  no points were scored and she won because I had to work out of the 'choke' she had.

The thing that bothers me about it is that never once was she even remotely close to choking me.  It was just forearm to face the entire time.  I wouldn't begrudge her if she had the choke, and was trying to finish it, or didn't realize she had my face... but she knew it was my face, and she never had the choke or anything close to my neck.  To me, that is not Jiu-jitsu... Your opinion my differ, and that is fine.... I'm just stating mine.  I feel like when people have to rely on things like that, it means they don't have technique.  Or maybe, they would rather do that because it is easier route to victory.

I could have done something similar in my division, but I didn't.  I would rather lose a match then win by something underhanded or questionable.  More than gold, I want Fabio to be proud of me.  I want to have a good time, I want my competitors to have a good time.  Yes, I want to win, but I want to be able to look my competitors in the eye when I am done and be proud of myself.  If I break a nose for no good reason... that is nothing I would be proud of.  I think it is different if you have a submission locked in and someone is refusing to tap... and I am sure some people might think that is what happened to me... I should have tapped to the forearm in my face... but again, this is just my opinion, and even clear headed right now I feel like I made the right choice.  I didn't want to reward her for what I feel was poor grappling etiquette and bad technique... Am I in pain?  Yes.  Do I think she will remember?  Maybe not.  But if people continue to refuse to let her win that way, maybe she will stop doing it, and rely more on her actual Jiu-jitsu...which she did have; she wasn't without skill.

However, I realize the driving force behind competition is winning, and a lot of people are more than happy to do whatever it takes to get that done... and that is okay.  I just don't think its something to be proud of or something I personally am willing to do.  (I want to live in a world where we slide down rainbows and eat fluffy clouds and sunshine for breakfast too...) Or maybe I am just not cut out for the competition circuit.  It is what it is... however, I will continue to compete.. and maybe one day my Jiu-jitsu will be good enough to over come the brute force some people bring to the table.

Another match I saw a person grind their knee into the neck of the person they were grappling.  It was basically knee on belly, but replace the belly with neck. While the fight was going on, the person who had the knee in their neck... their coach was trying to keep them calm and walk them through the match.  He was saying things like, "They are getting tired.. You've got this!"  or "It is just brute force!  Use your technique!"  He was clearly just trying to encourage his student, trying to keep them focused and get them through the match.  At one point they had to move back to center, and when they got up, the person who was grinding their knee into the other persons neck, got up and started talking trash to the other persons coach.  Finally when everything was said and done, the knee grinder won.  No points were scored, but they were awarded the win for their aggression.  When they had their hand raised, they cursed at the other coach, ripped off their gi top and jumped up and down around the ring, beating their chest and screaming obscenities.  Honestly, it was the most poor display of sportsmanship that I have ever seen at a competition.

Meanwhile the other matches for blue belt absolute were going on, and I was talking to a lot of the other girls fighting... I met a girl from Sweden.  She came alone, and made a vacation out of it.  She was a really awesome lady, and I really enjoyed talking to her.  We also exchanged information.

Turns out the girl from Sweden was in the finals with the face crusher, and another dirty grappler.  So I warned her of the other girls tactics.  She thanked me, and ended up facing off against face crusher for gold, and won.  I pleased me to no end, a nice girl with good technique won the day.

So, in the end I came home with a bronze medal a broken nose, two new friends.... and a clear picture of how I want to compete, and what I want to be known for.  (You know if I am ever known for anything... lol)  And truly, a sense of who I want to be and how I want to repesent when I compete.


This competitions also had a lot of firsts for me.

My first competition as a blue belt.
My first IBJJF competition.
My first competition I went into without an existing injury.
The first time I got injured in a competition.
The first time I cried at a competition.  (Twice no less.  What a baby!  lol)
The first time I did absolute.
The first time I lost all of my matches.... however, no points were scored on me.  ... I mean aside from that one submission.  =)

Best night, ever.

Okay, maybe not ever... but definitely one of the best.

It was one of the most fun nights I've ever had at Fabio Novaes BJJ!

I got thrown about 40 times and got utterly destroyed by everyone I grappled, but it was all in good fun, and in spite of the ass beatings and throws, I've never felt more like part of the team.

And yes... I am competing in the Open still... as a blue belt.

I had no idea I would be until about a week ago... hence my insanity, self doubt, and general terror.

However, I'm over it..  I'm going to go, do the best that I can do, and that will just have to be enough.  =)

If I lose, I lose.

If I win.

All the better for me!

One funny thing happened though...  After my first grapple, my belt came off.. and I stood there looking for it for a good five or six seconds before I realized... I couldn't find it, because I was looking for a white belt.  =)

... I also feel it necessary to say... I under no circumstances feel like I should be wearing a blue belt... However, I am over joyed that Fabio thinks I should be.

"Martial arts competitor foils attempted carjacking"

Earlier I posted a link to an article about my friend Josh stopping a car jacker in his tracks.  The story made it to the 5 o'clock news tonight.

Check it out!

Martial arts competitor foils attempted carjacking

Do Jiu-Jitsu. Become a super hero.

True Story.


One of the guys I train with went from average guy to real life super hero this weekend.  Though, really the super hero was there all along, he just had a situation arise that required the super hero to make an appearance.

His name is Josh, but we call him Delilah.  Long story short... He made his son cut off all of his hair, leading up to a loss at a competition.

Anyhow, this weekend he stumbled across a car jacking in action.... and took action.  He rushed the would be car jacker, choked him out, and held him there until the police arrived.

It made the local paper.  You can check out the full story here:

Lakeland Man Witnesses Carjacking, Nabs Suspect

Jiu-Jitsu Hair for Women.

Let me first say that I have naturally wavy thick highly unmanageable hair.  It is nether straight nor curly, and it takes a great deal of effort to make it look half decent.  So I have always been a pony tail kind of girl.

And now, the evolution of my hair though BJJ.

When I started BJJ my hair looked like this:

Pardon the horrificness of my hair, and general failure of this picture.   I had a hard time finding a picture of my hair down from way back then.


The long hair lasted a month tops.  It got trapped under knees and elbows.  It got pulled out while people were choking me.  It even got caught under my own back, trapping my head up ward and neck exposed.  I have no idea how Allie manages her epic amounts of long blonde beautiful hair while she grapples.

Note how her long hair is actually nice to look at versus my former rats nest.


Out of frustration, I chopped off about 18 inches of hair and wore it like this for a while.

Shorter pony tail... much more easily managed.

This length was more manageable, but still tended to get trapped under knees and elbows.  It still gave me the weird comfort of long hair, so I wanted to keep it.  I had a fat face paranoia.  Until I started BJJ I carried some of my pregnancy weight, and I felt like my face was huge and if my hair was long, I could wear it down when I was having an extra fat face day.  ..Yes, fat face day.. It's a thing, I swear.

Then when I cut down to light weight, in a last ditch effort to drop any extra weight I could shed I cut about 6 more inches off... to this:  (Ps. six inches of hair doesn't even register on the scale.)

At this length it was still long enough to put into a pony tail, and my pony tail was so short it didn't get trapped or pulled out nearly as much.  Huzzah!

I was finally over my fat face paranoia, but scared of cutting my hair shorter.   On top of that, it didn't seem necessary.  It didn't get in my way anymore, and since I had two feet less hair than I did a year before the manageability seemed through the roof.

Then came the list, and on the list, I added, "Cut my hair really short."

So I did.

To this:

This length was too short for a pony tail, but short enough to not actually get in my way while I grappled when I wore it down.  Plus, I REALLY loved it this length.

That last picture is my ideal hair length.  For life, and for grappling.  

And finally having gotten over using my hair for comfort, I did this:

Huzzah!

Yesterday, I got my hair cut again, as I mentioned, and it went horribly.  The first attempt at cutting it went all wrong, and I had to have a second cut.  Resulting in much shorter hair than I planned. 

I like the bangs.

The back is where I was less pleased... 

I will say it is totally growing on me though.  =D


Yesterday afternoon I grappled with my new short hair, and it was UHH-MAZING!  It didn't get in my face, didn't get trapped under things... and best of all it is sooo cool!  As in, temperature.  I am half tempted to cut it even shorter now for even more ease and coolness while grappling! 

So in my own opinion, the shorter the hair, the easier it is to manage while grappling.  Obviously though, long haired grapplers exist, and their long locks seem not to hinder them.  But having hand both really long, and really short hair, I will say as far as grappling goes... the shorter the better, at least for me.

So ladies with the long flowing locks.... How do you manage to keep it out of your way when you grapple?  I was never able to discover the secret. 

Other girls who have hair and grapple and have combined those two things in to their blogs from time to time are, Georgette and Megan.

Editing in my most current hair cut:

It is actually a bit of a Mohawk with bangs, cut to wear down instead of up.

 I LOVE it for grappling!  It keeps my head cool, doesn't get in my way at all, and I can still dress it up.

I totally and completely love it.  Keather Bennet of the Mellennia Spa cut it for me.  She is extraordinarily talented and her spa is beautiful.  If you live in the central Florida area I would highly recommend checking her out. 

The Millennia Spa

3046 Cypress Gardens Road

Winter Haven, Florida

(863) 268-8282
The Mellennia Spa

Tell her Stephanie sent you.  =)