First Time in the Open Class

As I’ve said before, MidAmerica started an intro BJJ class this year, and that’s where I’ve been going since August 6th. After having gone to the intro class for about 3 weeks I decided after I changed out of my gi, I’d sit and watch some of the open class to see what it was all about.  

I was still at the point where I was leaving the intro class soaked and exhausted. After I changed and grabbed some water, I was sitting in one of the chairs lining the wall watching them run laps.  All the sudden I heard a voice

“Want to join us? We need one more.”

“I’m just watching. I’m not sure I have any energy left.”

“The hard part is done. You can throw on your gi and come in, if you want.”

I sat there for a minute thinking about how tired I was, but for some reason I replied “Let me go change.” I sent a text to my wife saying “Staying for second class” and went to change. In about 2 minutes I was on the mat. They had finished their laps and the rest of their normal warmups. They were doing their submission drills (10 armbars from guard, 10 from mount and 10 triangles.)

I got paired up with Scott, one of the intro teachers.  Once we got done with our submissions we circled up and Kyle (the phantom voice from earlier) asked us if we had any sweeps we wanted to work on. I didn’t really know what a sweep was, so I think I just kind of chuckled when he pointed at me and asked me if I had any.

We ended up working on a scissor sweep, flower sweep and maybe one more. Each sweep would wind up with Scott doing one rep to each side then walking me through the sweep and letting me get about 5-6 reps in before we circled back up and learned another one. 

After a very quick hour, class was done. I again changed out of my gi and realized I was even more tired & more soaked than before.  I sat in my car for a minute or two before driving off. When I got home I shuffled from room to room, too tired to actually walk.  It was the best exhaustion feeling I’ve ever had.

About two weeks after that day I started going to both classes, and with a couple exceptions, I’ve done both classes every Monday & Wednesday since September.