I'm just asking this to see if my experiences are out of the norm or if this is normal, which I hope not.
I had a really crappy start at BJJ. The first club I trained at had just a couple blue belts and the occasional purples who visited. The blue belts split and had their own private sessions with a friend of them who is a black belt. They had their classes at like 1-2pm (they were a bunch of unemployed guys in their early 20s). One invited me because I seemed like a cool guy. The regular trainer, a brown belt, albeit a good guy, showed to be extremely lazy, and would let most of the regulars train for free. The problem was that almost all members had absolutely no interest in developing themselves but would go there to stroke their whitebelt ego. Eventually I tapped them out and they quit training (which they did once a month or so). Some I literally beat the shit out of.
What did I get out of this? A crappy left ear cauliflower but not right ear. Why? because when noobs try guillotines they have no technique and wont let go of the head, and every time you escape - theyre almost always right handed too - you get a proper mangling of your ear. I didnt care back then but I don't like the appearance of it, and the problem is I suck as a grappler so I am kind of ashamed. I quit this gym because they basically never had anything to offer. Even when I wanted to compete at a newbie tournament, nobody would come with me as a coach, due to laziness. The tourney I applied for said I can't go alone. Very sad shit but at least I had a bunch of fun nights. If I didn't train mostly for free I'd demand a refund because the asshole head coach didn't teach techniques.
In this first gym, the trainer often didn't show up. The mat was located in a gym of a youth center that was never used by youth, and to attract young people there they rented the mat for free to the bjj club. Side note, this was in a ghetto hood, poorest areas of Sweden, approx 99% immigrant population. An asshole kiddo frequented the club and ruined the environment. So I faked I'd armbar him from mount and did a bicep slicer and held for as long as I could, as hard as I could. He screamed in pain and it caused a long moment of silence. Then someone told me thats not bjj dude, thats illegal. LOL.
The second gym had this high profile european gold medalist bjj guy. I went there and during the first week everything seemed golden. The week after those people were gone and the old regular whitebelt class group came back - full of assholes who lied about how long they had trained. I said I trained for 1 year a long time ago. They said they trained for 6months to a year themselves. Then the trainer told me half the guys had trained for over 2 years, one of them being in the whitebelt classes for almost 4 years. These guys were worse assholes and would do anything to make it so that techniques werent taught. The problem was that the first week the place seemed like a solid place and I bought a package of private lessons to speed up my learning. I didn't care if it cost extra, I just wanted to learn the RIGHT way of doing basic submissions.
Fights broke out during class. I told the trainer fix this shit or bad things will happen, and he might end up going to court for not doing anything. I told the head coach I would testify against him for being neglecting. Well the fights werent bad, mostly yelling. One guy wanted to act all tough against me and luckily I had done some sambo with Nikolay Malmqvist at my old muay thai club. He went full blast on me while we rolled and tried a crapload of ugly things, even eye poking. I got to open guard, me standing, and as the whitebelt he was he had no idea of leg locks, I thought I'll end this quickly and make him stop. The only leg lock I could remember though was this uncommon one that resembles this:
View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_s6kUJefYEA
except Nikolay showed it from open guard standing. Really simple and only works on noobs. I put my left foot around his right ankle, sat down on his knee, grabbed his foot and pulled upwards and to the right, and of course you let go a while after they tap. He yells then a moment later tries to act scary and threatens me. I slam him down, insta-mount, left hand on his jaw, and give him a proper right. Felt sorry for him but the chaotic environment in the club told me I have to beat someones ass sooner or later. He got a bit phased out and lied on the mat for a while, lying on his back, arms covering head. He then apologized. No trainer ever told me anything about this... I expected to get kicked out.
Long story short the head coach thought it would be unwise to show me too much because I was giving a lot of people in his whitebelt class a hard time. He even unpaired me from a good guy who was on my level - we shared everything we knew. He (the head coach) told me were progressing too fast. The second last private lesson I told him if he does that one more time I want a refund. He gave in and made that lesson a 1.5h instead of 1h class. Utter moron. I did the last class and then told him he is the biggest moron I have seen as a trainer, and he should be lucky he doesn't have lawsuits against him.
I even tried some classes in other gyms but never found fair players. All in all it seemed BJJ clubs in this city were full of nerds who were bullied, train for years and spend their days beating noobs, thinking they would be the shit in the street. Unfortunately I found that purely BJJ was absolute shit for self defense. I did 2-3 months of muay thai in high school and that was worth more than 1 year of BJJ/SW for fighting.
This was very unlike my muay thai club. I can take my mom to those classes, everyone will adapt when they spar with her, if she decides to spar. In the advanced group sometimes we went so hard on bodyshots and legkicks that I'd have bruises lasting 3+ weeks. That club has had several national champs in kickboxing. Head coach is a russian who won amateur kickboxing gold in the 80s or 90s.
A guy I know told me it's pretty inefficient to go to BJJ classes. The best is to have a close friend who is willing to teach you. You only need a mat and several hours per day of rolling. No need to roll till you get exhausted, just do everything technically correct and repeat until you no longer think of what to do but end up having all limbs placed correctly etc. I promised myself when I quit this last bjj club, in 2012, that either I find a friend like this, or never in my life spend time with such imbeciles as in BJJ clubs. Sorry if this offends anyone here
But is this a reality, or is it just extremely slow to learn BJJ until you have friends who are good at it?
I had a really crappy start at BJJ. The first club I trained at had just a couple blue belts and the occasional purples who visited. The blue belts split and had their own private sessions with a friend of them who is a black belt. They had their classes at like 1-2pm (they were a bunch of unemployed guys in their early 20s). One invited me because I seemed like a cool guy. The regular trainer, a brown belt, albeit a good guy, showed to be extremely lazy, and would let most of the regulars train for free. The problem was that almost all members had absolutely no interest in developing themselves but would go there to stroke their whitebelt ego. Eventually I tapped them out and they quit training (which they did once a month or so). Some I literally beat the shit out of.
What did I get out of this? A crappy left ear cauliflower but not right ear. Why? because when noobs try guillotines they have no technique and wont let go of the head, and every time you escape - theyre almost always right handed too - you get a proper mangling of your ear. I didnt care back then but I don't like the appearance of it, and the problem is I suck as a grappler so I am kind of ashamed. I quit this gym because they basically never had anything to offer. Even when I wanted to compete at a newbie tournament, nobody would come with me as a coach, due to laziness. The tourney I applied for said I can't go alone. Very sad shit but at least I had a bunch of fun nights. If I didn't train mostly for free I'd demand a refund because the asshole head coach didn't teach techniques.
In this first gym, the trainer often didn't show up. The mat was located in a gym of a youth center that was never used by youth, and to attract young people there they rented the mat for free to the bjj club. Side note, this was in a ghetto hood, poorest areas of Sweden, approx 99% immigrant population. An asshole kiddo frequented the club and ruined the environment. So I faked I'd armbar him from mount and did a bicep slicer and held for as long as I could, as hard as I could. He screamed in pain and it caused a long moment of silence. Then someone told me thats not bjj dude, thats illegal. LOL.
The second gym had this high profile european gold medalist bjj guy. I went there and during the first week everything seemed golden. The week after those people were gone and the old regular whitebelt class group came back - full of assholes who lied about how long they had trained. I said I trained for 1 year a long time ago. They said they trained for 6months to a year themselves. Then the trainer told me half the guys had trained for over 2 years, one of them being in the whitebelt classes for almost 4 years. These guys were worse assholes and would do anything to make it so that techniques werent taught. The problem was that the first week the place seemed like a solid place and I bought a package of private lessons to speed up my learning. I didn't care if it cost extra, I just wanted to learn the RIGHT way of doing basic submissions.
Fights broke out during class. I told the trainer fix this shit or bad things will happen, and he might end up going to court for not doing anything. I told the head coach I would testify against him for being neglecting. Well the fights werent bad, mostly yelling. One guy wanted to act all tough against me and luckily I had done some sambo with Nikolay Malmqvist at my old muay thai club. He went full blast on me while we rolled and tried a crapload of ugly things, even eye poking. I got to open guard, me standing, and as the whitebelt he was he had no idea of leg locks, I thought I'll end this quickly and make him stop. The only leg lock I could remember though was this uncommon one that resembles this:
View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_s6kUJefYEA
except Nikolay showed it from open guard standing. Really simple and only works on noobs. I put my left foot around his right ankle, sat down on his knee, grabbed his foot and pulled upwards and to the right, and of course you let go a while after they tap. He yells then a moment later tries to act scary and threatens me. I slam him down, insta-mount, left hand on his jaw, and give him a proper right. Felt sorry for him but the chaotic environment in the club told me I have to beat someones ass sooner or later. He got a bit phased out and lied on the mat for a while, lying on his back, arms covering head. He then apologized. No trainer ever told me anything about this... I expected to get kicked out.
Long story short the head coach thought it would be unwise to show me too much because I was giving a lot of people in his whitebelt class a hard time. He even unpaired me from a good guy who was on my level - we shared everything we knew. He (the head coach) told me were progressing too fast. The second last private lesson I told him if he does that one more time I want a refund. He gave in and made that lesson a 1.5h instead of 1h class. Utter moron. I did the last class and then told him he is the biggest moron I have seen as a trainer, and he should be lucky he doesn't have lawsuits against him.
I even tried some classes in other gyms but never found fair players. All in all it seemed BJJ clubs in this city were full of nerds who were bullied, train for years and spend their days beating noobs, thinking they would be the shit in the street. Unfortunately I found that purely BJJ was absolute shit for self defense. I did 2-3 months of muay thai in high school and that was worth more than 1 year of BJJ/SW for fighting.
This was very unlike my muay thai club. I can take my mom to those classes, everyone will adapt when they spar with her, if she decides to spar. In the advanced group sometimes we went so hard on bodyshots and legkicks that I'd have bruises lasting 3+ weeks. That club has had several national champs in kickboxing. Head coach is a russian who won amateur kickboxing gold in the 80s or 90s.
A guy I know told me it's pretty inefficient to go to BJJ classes. The best is to have a close friend who is willing to teach you. You only need a mat and several hours per day of rolling. No need to roll till you get exhausted, just do everything technically correct and repeat until you no longer think of what to do but end up having all limbs placed correctly etc. I promised myself when I quit this last bjj club, in 2012, that either I find a friend like this, or never in my life spend time with such imbeciles as in BJJ clubs. Sorry if this offends anyone here
But is this a reality, or is it just extremely slow to learn BJJ until you have friends who are good at it?
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