Brazilian Jiu Jitsuu!

Still working on our Kyoto trip blog, but in the meantime, just thought I'd give a quick update on life here! So...about a month ago, our school had a staff dinner. That means that everyone who works at the school, meets at a location chosen by the event planner, and has a dinner. Traditionally, staff dinners here are notorious among NET's (Native English Teachers) as dinners where they are either isolated and ignored for a couple hours, or forced to drink countless shots of Soju and sing Karaoke. And when I say forced to drink, I mean that literally. Like, if the VP or Principal offers you a drink, you can't refuse! Otherwise, you will disrespect them in front of the whole school, and that's just not cool. Forget getting any favors done if you do that. Although there is a way out! You have to take the drink, but you can turn your head away, and either take a sip or pretend to take a sip. Either way, that will give the indication that you are not a drinking type of person, and then whoever offered you that drink, will pick up on that and hopefully refrain from giving you any more! Anyways, aside from that little side note, my staff dinners are fine. I've never been made to sing Karaoke (although Jenn has...hehe), and I usually sit with my co-teachers, who do speak English with me. But yes, to the point. I mentioned that I was interested in learning a martial art. My co-teacher speaks to the PE teacher, who also happens to be the guy that plans these staff dinners, and before you know it, I'm being offered to get taken to his Brazilian Jiu Jitsuu gym! A little history between me and the PE teacher...we're good. Like, we don't speak much, but he can carry a conversation in English, and I just like the dude. He's a nice guy, and is always friendly to me. So...I said yes!


One week later, him and I ride over to his gym, about a 5 minute ride from the school. It's not his gym, it's the gym that he trains at. Anyways, I found out that he is pretty badass at Jiu-Jitsuu, and has actually been training for a while. Long story short, I joined.


The first day of class was...pretty awesome yet confusing at the same time. I had no idea what I was doing, no idea what Jiu-Jitsuu was, but overall, it was great. The best part? It got me tired. Like...way tired. Like, lacrosse practice in college tired. I haven't had such a good cardio workout since...well, college! So I'm definitely going to keep trying this sport out. It's really confusing, because its all in Korean, but the people at the gym are really nice, and always help me out. There is also another English speaking dude, but he comes in more sporadically than I do. Whenever he does come though, I get a lot of help from him as well. And a little background info on Jiu Jitsuu (from what I've experienced):
- It's very technical
- It's almost completely ground-based
- You get your guy to the ground, and then practice joint locks, chokeholds, etc.
- It looks a lot like wrestling.
- It is pretty demanding physically.
- And lastly...it's extremely DIFFICULT. It's been 3 weeks and I feel like I've made barely any progress.


That's it! Talk to you all later! Back to work :(