Sparred a Japanese Jujitsu guy last night
Today me and a friend are gonna have a friendly sparring match. It all started last week when we were sparring and it was one of the best matches we've ever had together. It was a tie; we've never tied. Hell, I've never had any sparring match where I think I've tied. Case in point: it was great. So, I was talking to a friend of mine that does JJJ since part of my problem the last time was that while I am comfortable on the ground and know atleast basic submissions, my positioning was horrible. My grapling is mixed and comes directly from watching too much UFC, and my JKD training; so not much, but enough to get by. My buddy that takes JJJ does it from a basement school that seems to have probably less than 6 (there were only 3 guys last night, only two of which had ranks) students total, so off the bat it's not the same atmosphere as most schools. The teacher was very cool. He was very respectful of me and my art and he mentioned numerous weaknesses he saw in me and at each step he reminded me that he wasn't trying to pick on me or say that my art is bad or inferior. I kept calling him sir until he told me to just call him by his first name like everyone else.
Him and I started off with some very basic sparring, nothing real heavy, just getting a feel. Needless to say I got beat of course because the guy has more experience, more technique, and more power. He showed me how if it were a real fight he'd pick apart at me based upon my stance. My most common fighting stance is a slightly modified version of the 4/6 stance. He explained how he may take out my lead leg with a kick that can basically be described as the swiftness and direction of a Kali kick, but with the power of a Muay Thai kick. He could easily blow out someone's knee with it if need be. We sparred a couple of times and at first when I was more or less forced to adopt a JJJ stance due to his suggestions, I didn't like it a lot and it sort of confused me. I'm a traditional CMA guy and so I want to have my stance and all the little other stuff I do. But it occured to me later that night that the stance I was using is simply an adaptation against a JJJ fighter. It doesn't mean that my stance is crap, or that I would not survive a different battle, but that's how I'd need to keep my stance around someone like him.
It was a great learning experience and he was very nice in that basically he made the entire class into teaching me proper position, weak points for me, and setting someone up or taking them out. He and I went at it a number of times and it was a great learning experience. I really like the kick he showed me; infact I like all of them he showed me as I more or less use them now just not with the same technique. When I would go to the ground, most of the time he was able to execute a technique right away, but sometimes I knew he was setting it up so I'd move as soon I could to displace it. When caught in a jam, I'd rely on small joint locks like squeesing the thumb inward to try to get him to let go, or I'd attempt to dig what little bit of my hand I could move into his S.C.M. (the muscle on the side of the neck that assists in moving it side to side), and one time I was trying to dig my elbow into his diaphram. He showed me how he would keep a simple ammount of controll so that I would just wear myself out.
I really liked what I saw, and I plan on going back to see him here and there as a student. I've always been and always will be a CMA guy, that's where my passion is. However I see this as a great learning experience to reform an area that almost never gets touched upon. The guy teaching was very respectful to me the entire time and always made sure that I didn't get hurt too bad. Like I said, I tried calling him sir out of respect but he told me to just call him by his first name. I thanked him for taking his classtime to go over things with me and for being so open minded to spar with me and for being respectful towards me and my art.
I am currious though how someone experience in San Shou would go into a fight like this. Have any other CMA practitioners had experience against JJJ or similar arts?
