Dreams come true for some

I am always curious to hear stories of how ju-jitsu affects people’s daily lives. Club regular Marco told me the story of how ju-jitsu cured him of a recurring nightmare. Each night he would dream of encountering a foe, everytime he tried to speak, nothing came out, and everytime he tried to punch the enemy, all he could muster was a slow and limp wrist. Dream analysts out there might ponder what this all means, but one night, perhaps down to a series of vigorous training sessions, Marco’s nightmare recurred but this time, his voice was loud and clear. He shouted with full force ‘’NO! I KNOW JU-JITSU” and proceeded to punch his assailant with full force. It seemed to be a pivotal moment since it appears that after that night, the dream never came back and Marco was cured. Needless to say, all this nocturnal shouting and punching did wake up the wife.

byMeerkatsu

in

February 24, 2005

Dreams come true for some

I am always curious to hear stories of how ju-jitsu affects people’s daily lives. Club regular Marco told me the story of how ju-jitsu cure...

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Hotdogs

Some more on the story about that ‘geezer’ chap at the Royce Gracie seminar. Turns out that Royce was standing in line at a hotdog stand (so much for the Gracie diet) on the way to the seminar and the guy next to him recognised him. Unable to get away Royce explained that yes it was him and he was on his way to conduct the seminar. The geezer chap asked if he too could join, so Royce, without wanting to say outright NO but at least sound him out, replied that he would need a gi. The geezer chap was rather keen and begged to be allowed to join so Royce said, well I guess I have a spare gi in the car – so the geezer bought it for £90. Then Royce said that it was a closed door seminar and he would have to purchase a ticket too - £60. The Geezer did so without blinking an eye. Now I know that Royce wasn’t joking when, after one of the many outbursts from the guy, he joked that he should have left him behind on the motorway!
Anyway, it’s an amusing story that really only makes sense if you were there at the time. The Geezer was annoying but essentially harmless, just a fan of NHB.

The Meerkat was stunned and shocked to yet again be promoted another rank by Eddie. Two-stripes on the old white belt is not to be sniffed at and means that everyone else in the club will be gunning to take my scalp. But I’m pretty pleased that my commitment to put in some serious mat time has panned out. There is talk amongst us of entering the Gracie European Tournament in April. Gulp! Now we’ll see who’s worthy of a stripe.

byMeerkatsu

in

February 21, 2005

Hotdogs

Some more on the story about that ‘geezer’ chap at the Royce Gracie seminar. Turns out that Royce was standing in line at a hotdog stand (so...

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Meeting a legend

Last night Royce Gracie came down to take the mat and it was a great seminar. What amazed me most was two things. Firstly, for a man who makes his living by smashing huge opponents to pieces, he is remarkably devoid of any ego or pretension. Just a normal bloke who is mad about martial arts like the rest of us. He was happy to chat, offer advise and correct our awful technique.
The second thing I really admired was that the techniques he showed us were incredibly simple. They progressed and built up into a nice sequence covering attacks, defences, counters and counters to counters. They could be used in sport BJJ, no rules NHB or self defence. In all the techniques, Royce demonstrated some clever use of the body to lever, fake or manoeuvre the opponent to your advantage. It was priceless stuff but again, nothing here a complete beginner (and there were quite a few non-BJJ students last night) could not perform themselves.

It was also a surreal evening. One chap brought his young son along so there was Royce, a fighting legend explaining the secrets of his mastery, and some little toddler is running around playing Ninja turtles completely oblivious to everything going around. There was also an odd chap that no-one seemed to know. I can only describe him as being a bit of a ‘geezer’ – mixed with a smattering Tourettes - very loud and boisterous. Royce showed great humour by handling his outbursts eloquently. At one point the man took great offence to another in the crowd who appeared to mock him and there was much eyeballing and chest puffing. I don’t know, all this excess testosterone, the calmest man on the mat seemed to be Royce himself!

Anyway, I think I’ve improved a few things thanks to Royce and can take away a couple of nice techniques to add to my slim armoury. I also shamelessly queued up for autographs, photos and branded merchandise like some little kid at a movie premier.
There is talk of getting younger brother, and grappling sensation Royler Gracie down soon – another must-see seminar if that ever happens.

This is one damned happy Meerkat right now.

byMeerkatsu

in

February 15, 2005

Meeting a legend

Last night Royce Gracie came down to take the mat and it was a great seminar. What amazed me most was two things. Firstly, for a man who mak...

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Handbags at dawn

The Meerkat was involved in an embarrasingly immature tête - à - tête at BJJ class the other day. I was sparring with another novice and locked him up in a nice spider type guard. He got frustrated at this and starting dropping his knee into my ribs. The first time he did this I thought it was maybe an accident and gave him the benefit of the doubt, but he saw the gap and proceeded to do this a total of four times! Now forgive me for stating the bleeding obvious but the rules are quite clear on this...NO STRIKES ALLOWED IN BJJ.
I was so infuriated at his bullying tactics that I screamed abuse and four letter words quite unbecoming of a gentleman. He simply laughed when he saw how much I had lost my rag and even blamed me for not telling him first time. By now I was infuriated and swept him to the ground and rolled him around quite forcefully looking for a killer armlock to teach him a lesson. Luckily he tucked up pretty good. Sitting on a semi-mount position I was still mad but the next thing I knew, he turned his body around to face me and elbowed me in the face. He claimed it was an accident - yeah right - but I was by now a crazy ball of fury so I elbowed him back in the face. I knew that was wrong the moment it happened but I just completely saw red.
I stopped afterwards and took a moment to myself to calm down. He was still smirking with a 'you didn't even touch me' look and when I explained that what he did was bang out of order, he simply shrugged his shoulders and pleaded ignorance of the rules - come on, you don't start BJJ and not know that strikes are disallowed???
Anyway, after I calmed myself down, I apologised for losing my temper and he said he wouldn't do it again, but that it was hard for him to ignore his years of martial arts training (doesn't seem to be a problem for me). Hmmm, I'll wait and see. Luckily for both of us, our little incident was in the far corner of the mat as I don't think Eddie would take too kindly to our moment of disharmony.

The year of the Rooster, which is my birth sign, has certainly started off with a bang. It seems I've been acting recently more like a young fighting cockeral than the ropey old broiler chicken I normally am. There's too much testosterone in the all male grappling club. A cold shower and some soothing TLC from the Mrs I reckon will calm me down.

On Monday - a date with the mighty Royce Gracie - one seminar I cannot wait for.

byMeerkatsu

in

February 12, 2005

Handbags at dawn

The Meerkat was involved in an embarrasingly immature tête - à - tête at BJJ class the other day. I was sparring with another novice and loc...

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Real life ain't like the dojo

I was given a sad but true reminder yesterday that the real world is not as friendly as the dojo world.
Mrs Meerkat was assaulted on the high street by some loser who decided it was a good idea to smack her on the behind as hard as he could. So hard in fact that people on the street turned to see what that sound was. Mrs M was so incensed she hurled abuse at the scumbag as he walked away. On hearing her scream at him he turned around and tried to physically menace her by walking right up to her eye ball to eye ball. More abuse and some forceful shoving away by Mrs M and he soon realised that she wasn't going to be intimidated, so off he minced, returning the abusive language.
The damned irony was that I was sitting in the car just around the corner, waiting to pick her up at our usual meeting spot, when all of this happened. I had no clue until she ran to the car, eyes welling up with anger and frustration. I'm afriad that the normally cool Meerkat saw red and we spent the best part of the evening trying to hunt down this saddo on the street. Already planning what almighty vengeance I was going to inflict on him.
Luckily for everyone, he couldn't be found and we headed home.

On reflection, I am not sure what my reaction would be if we caught him, other than a very violent and painful beating...clearly over the top and worthy of criminal punishment. I now realise that such as reaction would be wrong, but I saw first hand that adrenaline and emotions can override logic...sometimes.

byMeerkatsu

in

January 29, 2005

Real life ain't like the dojo

I was given a sad but true reminder yesterday that the real world is not as friendly as the dojo world. Mrs Meerkat was assaulted on the hi...

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Worldwide wham bam.

It never ceases to amaze that I still encounter new martial arts I
have never heard of before. Today, I read in the Metro newspaper
an article about Kixa – an ancient art from Indonesia. They state
that kixa is not a martial art, but a philosophy and lifestyle plan that
eschews violence or confrontation. And yet the classes consist of
punches, kicks, gradings etc much like any other martial art. Their
website continues the mythic description in more detail but suffice
to say it sounds all very new to me.
Last year I came across the little heard of styles of systema (Russia)
and Viet Vo Dao (Vietnam). I guess in our growing metropolitan
community of people, the formerly ancient and little known arts are
getting a wider audience. This is a good thing since one can always
learn something from another art. Crikey when I was a pup it was
either judo, karate or kung fu and that was it. Nowadays, every
country is rightly claiming a heritage in martial arts, even in good
old Blighty – classes in medieval fighting have been re-branded and
offered as English martial arts – where you can learn to use
weapons such as broadsword, cudgel, battle axe and quarter-staff as
well as unarmed fighting, medieval style.
The breadth of martial arts available to Joe Public is truly
astonishing. In many ways, the variety on offer reflects the different
needs and desires of the people who attend. And that’s a good
thing.

byMeerkatsu

in

January 26, 2005

Worldwide wham bam.

It never ceases to amaze that I still encounter new martial arts I have never heard of before. Today, I read in the Metro newspaper an art...

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Earning your stripes

Last night the Meerkat was proud to receive his first stripe from Eddie my BJJ instructor. I had to fight for it and show that I’m not completely terrible. It was a very nice and I must say unexpected reward, and of course I got the obligatory three rounds of belt whipping from my class mates as celebration.

BJJ grades are awarded on an ad-hoc basis by the head coach. No such grading is performed but they are given when the instructor feels the student has reached a certain standard. Higher belts are usually awarded at prestigious events by well known figures.

There are only five belt colours, each with about four stripes to indicate intermediate stages between belts. They are a good way of indicating skill status of the student and a one-stripe white belt rank would be a fair indication of my ability – ie I can usually whip the behind of a novice, but struggle against a two-striper.The thing I like about this system is that it really works. There is no point trying to belt chase – you would easily get found out. How many high grades in other systems have you seen that you thought, blimey, they couldn’t punch their way out of a paper bag! Ok Ok I’m not going there – flaming is not my style – mind you, sharing our BJJ dojo last night was a kids karate class and as I walked past, I got shudders remembering my own junior karate days. It seems just so, needless.

byMeerkatsu

in

January 18, 2005

Earning your stripes

Last night the Meerkat was proud to receive his first stripe from Eddie my BJJ instructor. I had to fight for it and show that I’m not compl...

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Kicking the New Year off with a whimper

2005 has kicked off, not so much with a bang, more a whimper. On the plus side, I was canny enough to ask that all my Xmas pressies be in the form of HMV vouchers and I duly spent the whole lot on cds, games and dvds. The best of which is the Spaced TV series, Burnout 3 for Xbox and Rickson Gracie’s ‘Choke’ DVD – a documentary about his no-rules fight in Japan. Although filmed over a decade ago, it is held up to be a classic for fight fans and a must for every student of martial arts.
On the downside, the club dojo is closed for a month and although I am still training – even managing to drag Mrs Meerkat along to BJJ and JJ sessions, I still feel rather empty without my weekly dose on home turf. In addition to this, my impromptu workplace dojo has now been stuffed full of clapped out old computers so me and Anna have no room to practice lunchtime kata. I did suggest the outside forecourt but somehow, the dodgy stares of passers by might be a tad off-putting.
At work too, I seem to be the de-facto MA consultant of choice since several people have asked me about what MA to do and what it's like. Naturally I always give an unbiased view while at the same time plugging JJ. After much deliberation about which MA to do, one of the new girls at work has chosen Wing Chun over my JJ class - sad, since I think she would be pretty good addition to the team.

byMeerkatsu

in

January 12, 2005

Kicking the New Year off with a whimper

2005 has kicked off, not so much with a bang, more a whimper. On the plus side, I was canny enough to ask that all my Xmas pressies be in th...

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Looking forward to 2005

It’s nearly the end of another year and what an action packed 2004 it’s been in Meerkat world. As it’s my last day in the office and I have nothing to do, I totted up all the hours I spent doing some form of MA this year. It adds up to a staggering 378 hours. That's more than one hour every day! And it doesn't include time spent travelling, work-outs at home or in the gym.
It doesn't quite compare to legendary masters who live in mountains and meditating for years on end, but not bad considering I have day-work and home chores too.
I had several highlights for 2004, including; finding a great new place to train BJJ, competing at the Jikishin Nationals, discovering systema, passing my second dan and enjoying the parties afterwards. But the bits I cherish most are the people I meet along the way. Watching Wayne battle his way to a second round win at groundfighting was inspiring. Eddie coaching me at the same event was tremendous. Having the camaraderie of my training pals during the Nidan examination day was a real support. Basically ending the year on a very big high and looking forward to more Meerkat adventures for 2005.
Cheers everyone!

byMeerkatsu

in

December 17, 2004

Looking forward to 2005

It’s nearly the end of another year and what an action packed 2004 it’s been in Meerkat world. As it’s my last day in the office and I have ...

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Roll on for the third!

Whoa! What a weekend it’s been. First off, our little gang all successfully passed their second dan gradings. Two years of training was finally over and you could see the relief on everyone’s faces. We all now get to add a second stripe to our belts and walk a little taller today. For some reason I had it in my mind that second dan would be less tough than the first dan. Don’t be fooled. It was tough. By the second mat my gi was soaked in sweat and I was starting to hit the wall – the place where strange anarchic thoughts take over your head and threaten to jeopardise your carefully laid plans. I certainly was not going to give up then so I resolved to hit harder, throw faster and kick stronger – the horrendous bruises on my poor uke are testament to that! She clearly also thought the same and my wreck of a body is barely functioning enough to type this blog.
Lock after throw after choke after kick, the grading wore on and I was hardly able to catch my breathe when it was time for my favourite bit – modules – the bit where I get to show off the Meerkat skills like no other. After a shaky start, I soon got everyone’s attention with my jumping flying (yes Meerkats can fly) knee stamp – a real crowd pleaser and one that got many positive comments later in the day.
Then, it was all over, not with a bang, more with a whimper as my shattered body was then ordered to help clear away the mats. A nice certificate, some photos and lots of beaming faces, we all trundled off home to prepare for the gala dinner and dance in the evening.
It’s nice to know that we all did well. I got a real sense of camaraderie this time because a lot of my fellow training pals were grading at the same time. Quite a few seriously senior senseis complimented me on my techniques and mentioned how close I was to receiving a credited honour in my marks. I’m not fussed, just passing is good enough. At this level, you are not competing with anyone, you do these advanced grades more as a challenge to yourself, rather than any other reason.
There’s more happening this week with the club party and works party and loads more, but right now, my crippled fingers need a rest.

byMeerkatsu

in

December 13, 2004

Roll on for the third!

Whoa! What a weekend it’s been. First off, our little gang all successfully passed their second dan gradings. Two years of training was fina...

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Empty Bottles

It’s really nice every now and again when our club can do something for it’s members other than just teach martial arts. Last night was excellent as we began the session by congratulating David on his purple belt grading and presented to Wayne the 2004 club merit award. With the forthcoming joint clubs Xmas party and the return of a few old faces, it was an excellent evening.
It wasn’t all plain sailing however as one new person confessed to me that she was only here to accompany her mate and didn’t really want to come. In fact she explained in no uncertain terms that she had certain ‘issues’ with ju-jitsu as a martial art. Well, all I can say is I tried my best, but we can’t please all of the people all of the time. I’m reminded of an old Chinese proverb that my dad used to say (really!): the half empty bottle makes more noise when shaken than the full bottle. Using that criteria, I would say I am a shamelessly three quarter empty bottle. But hopefully after this Sunday’s Nidan grading, the bottle will be slightly less empty.

byMeerkatsu

in

December 08, 2004

Empty Bottles

It’s really nice every now and again when our club can do something for it’s members other than just teach martial arts. Last night was exce...

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Double Trouble

The Meerkat's day-world of office humdrum rarely crosses over into the more exciting nocturnal world of martial arts madness, but the other day I had the rare pleasure of being asked to assist in a photo shoot involving 6 year old twins partaking in a mock karate class. I bought uniforms and belts, worked out poses and sketched ideas. The day of the shoot came and while the professionals were busy sorting out the equipment, I also turned into kiddies entertainer and motivator as they were looking a bit bored and probably would have got up to all sorts of mischief. Anyhow, we got them into their little Ninja poses and there was me running on and off set making sure they kept their places, while the stylists was making sure the pins and clips didn't show and the hair&beauty person brushed makeup on everyone. Am happy to report that the shoot went very well and my ideas were transcribed fairly faithfully by the photographer. The only annoying thing was that my final idea - the one where the twins would muck around and fight with each other - didn't really happen on cue, but once everyone's attentions were turned, they would do precisely that! Anyhow, a fun day and of course, the Meerkat is now available for hire for photoshoots and martial arts lessons to juniors.

byMeerkatsu

in

December 02, 2004

Double Trouble

The Meerkat's day-world of office humdrum rarely crosses over into the more exciting nocturnal world of martial arts madness, but the ot...

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