The only thing I remember from my first competition is the referee saying, “Combate” (fight) and everything in my mind freezing – with everything I’d learned trapped within that ice. Nearly every competition since then has featured a struggle with that nervousness-induced ice. It wasn’t until I started to […]
The sisterhood. The brotherhood. Our mat family. Any way you put it, jiu jitsu is all about community. Sure, we talk about armbars and triangles and that sick takedown that our professor taught us last week. But when you ask your average jiu jitsu athlete what keeps her coming […]
We all want our training partners to feel comfortable and safe entering our gyms: I am writing this essay under that assumption. I have been a BJJ practitioner of 7 years. I also manage my gym so I am often considering the culture of our gym and crew, how […]
With the rollercoaster that is 2020, it is easy to forget that June is LGBTQ (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer) Pride month. During this time, we reflect on LGBTQ history and celebrate the progress we have made. Pride takes place in June and honors the Stonewall Uprising of 1969. […]
The women’s movement in Jiu Jitsu has grown tremendously. We’ve gone from having “a women’s division” to having close to the same divisions as men when it comes to belt, weight and age. There are more and more women’s organizations offering open mats, seminars and camps. More and more academies […]
When I started jiu jitsu, I saw women’s cross training as a way to get better at competition (our bodies have a different center of gravity than guys, other women are less likely to “take it easy” on another woman, someone in the same weight class, etc). I didn’t go […]
Coming up the ranks we all have a few black belts that stick out in our mind that we dream of becoming like. But when that day comes that a black belt is tied around your waist you are faced with the reality that you are now among the ranks […]
