Win Win

A couple of couple of months ago, we added a new twist to our Jiu-Jitsu class...Judo. To be fair, we've always had Judo throws in our curriculum, and my senior student, Ray, is a Judo black belt, so it's not like Judo is a new thing. The new thing is that I invited the head Judo instructor at Sho-Rei-Shobu-Kan, to come in every Thursday to teach us Judo. It's really a win-win for everyone. We get great, dedicated Judo instruction time. He gets a sizeable group of energetic, athletic students who want to learn. There is also an added bonus.

The interesting thing about this is sort of a long story. When I first started training in Jiu-Jitsu, the small class consisted of a ragtag group of aspiring MMA fighters, a pretty rough and tumble group of guys. To the rest of the dojo members, these Jiu-Jitsu fighters looked pretty intimidating I'm sure. The class time was at an odd time, so as not to interfere with the already well established class times of the other disciplines. There wasn't much, if any, interaction with the other dojo members. They literally left a lot of blood and sweat on the mat. All in all, they were the red headed step-children of the dojo. Although unintentional on their part, they left a long lasting impression on a lot of folks. Even long after those days, I'm still working to change that perception.

For many at the dojo, they look out on the mat at our Jiu-Jitsu class and see what appears to be a bunch of sweaty jocks. We wear mismatched colored gi's. We have two no-gi classes. When the bulk of the other dojo members start to filter in for the other classes, the formal instruction part of our class is over and we're well into our open mat time. So basically, people are forming opinions about the Jiu-Jitsu class based on the different things they see from afar.

A few years ago, one of our students commented, "I'll be honest, when I started here, I was a little nervous. I thought, oh man, there's a ton of guys that might be attracted to this. They might be here just to beat me up and take my lunch money."

Over the years, our class has grown. We've been able to take part in various joint seminars with the other disciplines. We've hosted our own Jiu-Jitsu seminars and tournaments. We've had numerous students from other disciplines gravitate to Jiu-Jitsu. It's been a long, slow process, but we've been able to change the perception of the Jiu-Jitsu class for the better.

Some of our biggest critics have been won over once they started training in Jiu-Jitsu, got to know me and the students, and actually saw first hand what a great group of people we have.

So, now we come back full circle to the bonus of all of this. the Judo sensei is not shy by any means with his opinions, and has expressed his opinions about our class over the years. I think he may have been the last hold out, holding on to those perceptions from ten years ago. At times it seemed like we could do no right. No matter how hard we worked to fit in, there was always something...we didn't use the Japanese words for the techniques, our students didn't take part in the dojo picnic or garage sale, we would show up at a Judo tournament and try to win with Jiu-Jitsu.

I like to think that we're winning him over, one class at a time. Rather than being at odds with someone, I think it's better to meet on common ground.