Introduction

One year ago a new place opened in the basement of the building I live. I peeped in to see what is happening down there. I saw 4 girls warming up in white martial art clothes and the master told me I can stay and watch if I wish. I watched. They started on the floor, warming up the ankles, the knees, the hips, they did some cool rolling on the soft tatami, they did sit ups, push ups, and neck strengthening exercises. Than the master showed a movement on one of the girls: how to take a body sitting on your ass, grabbing the other body in the right places and throw it on the floor. They repeated several times. He showed 3 different versions. Than he showed how to get to a favourable position to block the other body's movement range, than find positions that hurts the other person. He showed from one position 3 different ways to finish up the fight. These were short choreographies performed on an other body. Than they had a free fight. At the end of the class I asked what is this form of martial art? It was Brazilian Jiu Jitsu.

A short note on what is BJJ: Brazilian Jiu Jitsu is a martial art technique that focuses on ground fighting. BJJ promotes the concept that a smaller, weaker person can successfully defend against a bigger, stronger assailant by using proper technique, leverage, and most notably, taking the fight to the ground, and then applying joint-locks and chokes to defeat the other person. Since its inception in 1882, its parent art of Judo was separated from older systems of Japanese Jiu Jitsu by an important difference that was passed on to Brazilian Jiu Jitsu: it is not solely a martial art, it is also a sport; a method for promoting physical fitness and building character in young people; and, ultimately, a way (Do) of life.

While I was watching the class I thought of my previous education. I love contact improvisation. BJJ technique as I saw it in the first class is the opposite of the fluid weight exchange of contact improvisation. Because it was giving weight but so much that the other person can not move, grabbing so strong that the other person can not move and take the other body into positions were it can not move. And that was interesting to me. I immediately could see I need a high level of anatomical knowledge to play this chess game: instead of having little figures, you have 5 limbs of your own and 5 limbs of the other person plus some facts you need to take into consideration when you play: the difference of weight and the different sizes and proportions of the human body.

At that time I had a serious condition with my right knee. I had "soft cartilage" syndrome. I couldn't run, I couldn't jump, I couldn't bike. Even warrior pose in yoga was hurting. So I took a chance with floor martial art technique. No weight on the knees but lots of sweating. So I thought lets do it!

My personal journey with BJJ during the past year

I took the classes as an experiment. A research to see what does it do to my body, to my dance technique and to my emotional state.

The first few classes were a hell. I had to learn to use my muscles to hold the other body as strong as I could. My body was not prepared. I had brand new realisations about my weak points. Weak fingers: I could not grab firmly, weak arms: I could not take the other's arm where I wanted them to be in order to start any trick, weak grab with the legs: I could not hold the other body between my legs. My weakest point were my knees. I clearly remember the class when I couldn't hold my guard (guard is the position when my legs are hooking the other person's upper-body in between the legs), I had pain in my knees from a movement that was a ordinary grip. I felt something in my knee was not aligned properly to work correctly from my pubic-bone till my toes. So I did one of my magic exercises (I explain them in an other idoc), my knee gave the sound, the cartilage inside just moved to the right place and than the hold was stronger. The first and fastest inner body experience was the realisation of the real state of my strength.

An other aspect that connected my consciousness of my own body with my true strength were the injuries. While my muscles and ligaments were weak I experienced tiny injuries. Injuries that came from 3 aspects: weakness of a muscle or ligament, not being fast enough to prevent it during the fight and the most important one was my own judgement how much my muscles, ligaments and joints can endure. Since the game is about hurting the other person to give up the fight I didn't know how soon I need to give up. Believe me! After a few mistakes the body learns to negotiate while fighting: Can it take more? If it takes more how long the healing process will be and if it is worth to take it on. My body learned after a couple of months that it will not take on an injury that hurts the next day. Now I have a clear sense of good pain and bad pain in my body and now I know if it heals within 24 hours, 48 hours or 72 hours. Maybe previous injuries that healed after 6 weeks also helped for this sense of judgement to be accurate.

I realised quite early that my strength in BJJ will be my flexibility. It made my opponent doubt her/his knowledge of anatomy, it was more difficult to do joint locks in me. I loved the new way of stretching. The locks are great stretching exercises for the locked person.

The third "AHA" moment was the realisation of the true size of my body. Size matters also in contact improvisation, but with BJJ I had a very strong moment of truth. While you fight you compare your size with the other body. If your legs are longer you can keep your opponent away, if it's harder to reach you it is also harder to control you. If your legs are shorter there are other techniques that works for you. I can only feel the real size of my body-parts in comparison to an other body. I felt so high when the feeling of the length of my limbs kicked in.

The next level was very familiar from contact improv. I just didn't know how to call the experience. It is called "skin-vision". The master often told us while fighting, to always touch the opponent with as much skin as possible to feel where are her/his limbs, because if I miss this information it can be fatal. So instead of the eyes we use the skin to see.

After one year of practicing I still have difficulty making myself heavy. I worked for years to learn how to make myself light. And when I found a couple of techniques to make myself as feather on top of an other person, now I am struggling to unlearn it, to make my body heavy on top of an other person. I am approaching the difficulty with the same method. Learning techniques to push an other body to the floor. My 57 kilos are not much weight. So this is the most difficult for my body. Anatomical knowledge comes again to aid me. certain angles of my hip on the ribs of the other person can feel heavier than other angles. But this is just one example and I need to learn many more. 

Later on I learned the choreographies (techniques they call it) and each class the short choreographies enriched with more and more details and after a while it becomes automatic. The trigger to execute the movement sequence is the position of the other body. My master told me once: -My girlfriend told me that one night I took her leg and did an ankle twist on her during my sleep. She called my name, she said stop, but I didn’t hear it. Than she tapped out and I let her go with a happy smile on my sleeping face. 

If all the body-parts are in the right position you can move to the next step, but if you miss a tiny detail your opponent will escape. This is how this game becomes addictive. I am hooked! This joke is so accurate: A couple taking dinner in a restaurant. They don’t talk. They go home, while driving home they don’t talk. They are at the bed they don’t talk and don’t cuddle. The girl is going mad inside, she is thinking she must had been boring during the dinner, a pain in the ass in the car and now that they are in the bed he doesn’t love her anymore! Meanwhile the whole evening her boyfriend thinks this: -I don’t understand how I get into the arm-bar every time I roll!- So thinking about what happened during the fight shows a great level of involvement. 

Learning the choreographies / techniques to block body-parts is just the first step. I have to train myself to be fast and anatomically precise. Speed is important to take a dominant position. But once if you are in a dominant position patients is helping. Your dominant position always burns less energy than the escaping techniques of the opponent. So stay cool and continue the right moves with patients and assurance. One round of free fight takes 3-5 minutes. You are using your full power during those minutes, your muscles are burning so fast that you never experienced before. It was the first time I saw my body steaming! The sweat was living my clothes in vapour! Than I looked at the others siting after the fight, their backs and arms and shoulders were steaming too. An unbelievable sight. Speed, force, weight, stretching… and if you are smart you know when to rest while keeping the control. All of these within 5 minutes and after 5 rounds I am literary shaking and I can not speak from the tiredness. This feeling of power and powerlessness is also addictive.

I can say the most important in BJJ is the correct use of a deep functional anatomy knowledge. It changes what you think of your and other bodies, what you feel within and gives you an experience that is so deep, a knowledge so primal, that it can become a self-discovery.

How did BJJ changed my movements in dance forms I had learned before?

I did several experiments stoping a style of dance and than go back to it. It was also because I was injured.

Ballet: BJJ did make me a bit more tight in my inner-thighs, but it made so much stronger that the ballet teacher didn't realise I didn't do ballet for the past 6 years. I thought my arms will fall from keeping the second but I didn’t even feel it.

Yoga: BJJ made my hamstrings shorter, but I have no difficulty staying long in any of the poses. I don't get dizzy anymore in back-bands.

Contact improvisation: I did learn to lift boys! I never imagined I will be able to do such lifts and tricks with heavier bodies. I am also more stable and I use skin-vision more consciously. I do have images in my head when I see a great opportunity to block a body, but I stop the urge to do it.

My own technique: My believe deepened in my magic exercises. I did insert BJJ warm up into my practice. The only difficulty I faced that it took me more time to create esthetic and technical dancy-dancy material. I have to force myself to call back upon shapes, lines, geometrical forms.