SWEAT IN THE CITY — With a lot of intimate grabbing, leg-locking and some occasional face-sitting, it’s the sexy martial art that looks ripped from the pages of the Kama Sutra.
That’s about all I knew of Brazilian jiu-jitsu before attending a trial class at Chomp Café, which holds various classes, exhibitions, parties and the like its large, upstairs room.
At the women-only session instructor Tony Hemsley of Hook’s Jiu-Jitsu said it’s especially good as self-defense for women because the focus is on skill, not strength. So women trained properly can potentially fight off much larger attackers. I liked the sound of that.
We went through a short warm-up which involved crawling around on our hands and feet like an animal. This is harder than it sounds, but it’s also one of my favorite warm-ups because it’s much more fun than jumping jacks. It’s also something you don’t get to do too often, probably because you would look crazy.
He showed us how to keep our attacker at bay if we end up in a vulnerable position on the floor – a position little-covered by most self-defense courses according to Tony – and how to quickly get up and away from that position. Most of the moves were nonviolent and defensive, only using force when necessary because, as Tony explained, once you initiate violence, you must be “200 percent committed” as it will likely escalate the situation.
He also showed us how to break a wrist-grip. The other women in the class picked this up really quickly, but I apparently used more strength than technique. The result being I couldn’t break free of Tony’s grip. I think it also might have been because Tony is a 6-foot-plus mountain of muscle, and I am not. Therefore I ended up with slightly bruised wrists. Luckily the technique is pretty easy to pick up, and when I let go of my ego a bit and stopped trying to out-muscle him, I managed to break free.
So far, so non-Kama Sutra-esque. Then came the floor-grappling. Thankfully, the group was all female, so when we had to straddle our partners on the floor and “choke” them while they raised their hips up and rolled us over, things didn’t escalate to “awkward.” Actually after some nervous giggling, it felt a very useful thing to learn. I’ve taken several different kinds of self-defense classes but I don’t think I’ve ever taken one that felt as relevant to real life as this one did. The chances of a real-life boxing encounter seem remote, but an attacker knocking you to the floor and trying to restrain you? That seems more feasible.
Interested in finding out for yourself? Regular Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu classes will continue at Chomp starting next year.
Chomp Cafe
Soi Lamphu Sam Sen Soi 1
084-098-8633
Photo: Matthias Kabel
