Back to reality

After a giddy past couple of weeks what with SENI and Royler and also Gordon Liu, it was time to get back down to normality in Meerkat’s martial arts world, so its back to BJJ and JJ training as usual. And my next project is to try and produce a competition team to enter this year’s Jikishin National Tournament in October.
About ten years ago, when I first entered the tournament (and won a silver in sparring!), it was quite a big event in the ju-jitsu world. Now it probably seems less big when you compare it to SENI or the many MMA events up and down the UK. But in our world (trad JJ), it is still seen as the big one to aim for. A medal placing here brings the respect of your ju-jitsu peers and is getting tougher and tougher each year as more and more competitors train in other MA to hone their fight skills.
Obviously for me, ground-fighting division is the one I want to aim for and it is encouraging that a troupe of my JJ club buddies are similarly keen. Could 'Team Imperial' win a ground-fighting medal for the first time ever?
Let us also not forget the other divisions of stand-up sparring and random attacks, where we usually do quite well.

In reminiscing over past times, I recall our good friend Chris Allen, who moved out of town and hasn’t trained with us for a long time. But I remember him because years ago, he came up to me and enthused about this new form of ju-jitsu from Brazil where most of the action was on the ground. We laughed. How could Brazilians know about jujitsu? And surely our devastating array of wrist locks and hip throws meant we didn’t need to learn ground work? Then he showed us a few moves. One was a triangle choke and the other a scissor sweep. We stopped laughing and wowed at the dynamics of these 'new' (sic) techniques. Chris since went on to devote all his training to BJJ – spending time in Brazil – and we were left wondering how we could learn this cool new stuff. Now, everyone is at it. It’s like an arms race at times. If we don’t learn BJJ to supp our trad training, you sure as hell know the dojo down the road is.I wonder where Chris is now?