Deborah's Brazilian Jiu Jitsu & Arnis-Eskrima Training

Occasionally I get a kick out of looking at the "Audience" stats for this blog.  Imagine my shock today when I saw 44 page views from Bangladesh.  Really?  Bangladesh?  A person, or some people, are reading this in Bangladesh? I googled "Brazilian Jiu Jitsu Bangladesh," which much to my surprise, produced an article about women slowly scratching a presence into the Bangladesh jiu jitsu world.  Long story short, it is/will be, a long story.  Ladies in the martial arts world in Bangladesh, I salute you. Read on: http://milkblitzstreetbomb.com/bjj/women-bjj-gender-issues-bangladesh/ Deborah Clem

Last night after class, I had dinner at Souplantation before heading to the grocery store.  As I walked through the dining room for  second round of Caesar salad (I love Caesar salad),  I was stopped by a woman who was also having dinner.  "I love your t-shirt!  Do you compete in jiu jitsu?"  I happened to be wearing my Master's tournament t-shirt.  "Yes I do!  Do you?  Do you train?"  She replied an enthusiastic, "Yes!" Turned out, this complete stranger was named Brittany,  trains in Sacramento, but was looking for a place to train in San Diego, because she might be moving here.  I told her I trained with Master Fabio Santos, located literally down the street.  And then, what did I do?  I broke personal protocol because this woman was no stranger.  She was a sister.  She trains.  I wrote my name and phone number on a napkin and gave it to her, and told her to call me the next time she has time to t...

When you walk onto the mat, they are sitting in the corners waiting for an invitation.  Truth, Improvement, and Game.  They arrive early, warm-up, stretch.  They are ready and excited, waiting with baited breath.  The crackling shivers of hope shudder through their skin.  Discomfort tells them, just wait guys, hold up.  We need to wait for her.  Discomfort stands at their respective gates holding keys out to you.  They're polished to such beautiful shine, even the dull fluorescent lights cause a glimmer off the corners of the tiny keys. Will you invite them in today?   Truth is always the most excited.  Truth gets ignored too much, so the times you grab that key and open his gate he just runs at you like a bat out of hell.  Truth smothers you with love and excitement and annoys to no end.  Eventually Truth takes a breath, and though you may have been reluctant to open his gate, Truth can always be relied upon to at least b...

I started this blog years ago because I was scouring the internet for women writing about Brazilian Jiu Jitsu, and the cupboard looked a little bare.  For a few days, I would search through the search engines, looking for just one tiny article by, about, for, women in Brazilian Jiu Jitsu.  The field always came up empty, and it occurred to me, well, time to put up or shut up Deb, why aren't YOU writing about it? Oh, yeah, I could write. So, having stumbled across Blogger a couple of times, I decided to use it as my vehicle for this writing.  THEN I found them!  The women!  The women who write about Brazilian Jiu Jitsu!  I think Valerie Worthington's "Prancing and Sucking" was one of the first, followed by Georgette's Jiu Jitsu blog,  Allie the Clear Belt, Tangled Triangle, Jiu Jiu...there they were and for whatever reason I had not googled correctly, but I had found them and now I was going to settle in to this new micro-community. I wrote this ...

It's been waaaay too long. No drudgerous details about why I have not been writing.  Suffice to say, it's time to write again. A few catch ups: I was promoted to black belt!  A humbling experience.  Um.....looking for earth shattering wisdom to write....not there.....So we'll stay simple.  It's humbling.  You're being recognized as having achieved a certain skill level, but you are also being given a life long task of passing the torch, of developing your own game into a great ballet of refinement and finesse.  It's a beautiful burden.  The heaviest, most fragrant, most colorful, flowers. I am still training Arnis-Eskrima.  Recently I had the opportunity to watch one of my sparring sessions on YouTube, and was very surprised to see that I sucked much less than I thought, and actually, looked like I had a modicum of skill. A few little drama things:  you may remember I had designs on being on the swat team at work.  This has no...