Our head coach Eric taught on Jul 3. He was a detective with the Redwood City
Police and opened the gym when he was a purple belt in jiu-jitsu. There were
also kickboxing, Jeet Kune Do, and Kali classes taught by coaches Glover and
King. With the popularity of the UFC, more students enrolled to learn jiu-jitsu
and the gym stopped offering the other martial arts two years ago. Eric himself
moved down to Dallas and opened his second Jean Jacques Machado dojo. Each time
he comes back to visit, the place is packed.
Eric stressed again the importance of defense and escape, vital for a small guy
like me. He said he only began to focus on attack when he was a purple belt. The
skill of the day was the good old shrimping out of mount but unlike the elbow
escape into halfguard, you connect your elbow and knee and get a hook and you
can use it to sweep or take the back, etc.
He started calling me 'the great wall of China' when I was a shy white belt and
explained to people that my defense was so good. The little pressure it had on
me has worn off and I felt only kindness and gratitude.
I rolled with the Japanese featherweight Abe, the wrestler David, doc Chris, the
kids' coach Sonny, the blackbelt Jon, and then with Sam, who was slightly bigger
and much more skilled than I was.
Trapped at the turtle bottom, suddenly I heard Eric's voice "Use your body! Use
your body!" It switched on a lightbulb in my head and I bumped Sam off my back
and got away from his hooks. Then I looked around and saw the coach shouting
more instructions at Will who was trying to defend his arm attack :-)
