Capital Jiu Jitsu Free Trial

Capital Jiu Jitsu
My friend Jamil asked me to go try out a brand new gym opening up in Dulles, VA. Dulles's Capital Jiu Jitsu grand opening was today, it is an expansion of their already established Alexandria location. The facility was pretty barren, they haven't finished installing all the punching (body) bags, mirrors, and equipment yet. However, they did have all the floor padding and all their expert teachers present. After the brief tour of the facility, Jamil and I took the beginners Muy Thai class. There were only 4 of us total, so it was a really good individual experience to learn the basics of Muy Thai.

The Muy Thai Experience

The first thing we did was run for 10 minutes while using a jump rope as our "warm-up" (yea right) cardio. Then we went on to learn the basics of a Muy Thai stance and a basic jab. After that was "established," we combined the two techniques together by learning the one-two punch. This involved generating power from your legs, pivoting on the balls of your back stance foot, and rotating your hand as you shot forward. The teacher had to help me a lot here, it was pretty pathetisad. But anyway, afterwards was basic knee-raise defense and roundhouse kick combinations. These were a lot easier for me with my background in soccer. To finish off the workout, we ended with 10 minutes of calisthenics. It alternated between leg exercises and chest exercises and was really intense. An hour of instruction later, Jamil and I talked to our instructor a lot about general MMA fighting. He is a really nice and humble guy, yet I'd definitely not want to be in a fight with him at a bar. He was huge and you could see his technique and intensity when we were shadowing angling the one two punch with feet pivoting. Long story short, this was a really good experience but it's 120 a month for unlimited classes. With all these other resolutions, I'm not sure what kind of commitment I can make to the gym and how much it will really be worth it.

On another note, Capital Jiu Jitsu also offers lessons in Brazilian Jiu Jitsu. Go figure. Here is an excerpt from their handout I got today:

" Jiu-Jitsu classes cover the battle-tested techniques of the Gracie family. Developed to enable a smaller-weaker practioner to be effective against opponents of all shapes and sizes. Jiu-Jits's throws, reversals, joint locks, chokes, escapes and self-defense techniques rely on loverage, making it one of the most effective martial arts in the world. "

If you didn't read that excerpt, let me give you my summary of Gracie Jiu Jitsu. So basically, if me or any of my thug friends (thug lifeeee *gang symbols*):

Use Brazilian jiu jitsu against this guy:

Any of us would win the fight because we could leverage our body weight to toss him over our shoulders and knock him out with a headlock. Ha, sounds about right... All joking aside, I am really interested in signing up for and learning Jiu Jitsu. It's a tough decision. I'll sleep on it for now, hopefully I'll be able to walk tomorrow morning!