19 April 2023
It’s a pleasant sunny afternoon. I could be enjoying a coffee in the spring sunshine. I could be strolling through the park listening to a gentile podcast hosted by irrelevant former politicos or comedians quizzing someone on a fantasy three course meal. I could be bingeing *insert whichever Netflix series was in fashion at this point*.
Instead I’m on a blue padded mat, rolling on the ground with a middle-aged Scottish man who is attempting to use my own collar to choke me until I lose consciousness, or give up. And I’m trying to do the same in turn. The truly odd thing is that this outcome was the consequence of around 8 years of consideration. This was very much something I’d chosen to do. So how did I come to spending my afternoon in this atypical way?
This pastime is called Brazilian Jiu Jitsu (BJJ). BJJ for the uninitiated is a martial art centred on grappling and submitting opponents – I’ll spare you the history lesson, but if you’re interested here’s a good one.
As someone in their thirties, you become used to seeing your peers take up a plethora of strange pastimes. I’ve been witness to friends take up a dizzying array of hobbies including: postal pottery classes, miniature wargaming, and amateur podcasting (and to be fair that podcast on pottery for miniature wargaming is banging). But I will admit that choosing a hobby where you arrive at an agreed place to wrestle around with other men trying to choke them is somewhat odd even for the 30 something hobby crisis (well, unless you’re on Grindr).
As 30-something hobby crisis go, I’ll admit some of my motivations to take it up are somewhat cliché:
- I enjoy the UFC so I was introduced to the discipline through watching the sport and it looked decent.
- At one stage I listened to a lot of podcasters who spoke about BJJ as the best martial art convincingly.
- I wanted to learn something new in my thirties.
- Cool pyjama-style outfits.
The less cliché motivations:
- Over the course of my life, I somehow tend to get punched a lot in the face (cue unsurprised reactions from some reading).
- I was somewhat bored with training for training’s sake and to look alright shirtless.
- If I ever have children, I want them to have at least a half decent case in ‘my dad would beat your dad up’ playground debates.
- I wanted to do a martial art – but didn’t want to do one where I got hit in the head. I did karate as a kid, dabbled in boxing in my twenties, so felt I’d tried the striking thing. Also I’ve had enough brain damage for my liking (see above).
During the intro class, I’m already feeling fairly good about my new weird 30-something hobby – it’s technical, it’s physically difficult, and it’s surprisingly mentally taxing. It’s like trying to do a complex logic puzzle, except the logic puzzle is fighting back. I enjoy the aesthetics of it all – the belts, the ceremony, the structure, the hierarchy, the crowd – but more on those another time.
I sign up fully to the gym and here I am at the age of 33 embarking on a martial art. Now I just have to figure out how to explain to my nearest and dearest why I’ve chosen to spend three nights a week wrestling with men at a venue somewhat suspiciously close to the gay quarter.
Over the next few weeks expect to see further ‘diaries’ pulled together from journal entries I made at the time reflecting on my journey into the sport across 2023.
Gin Lane 