I’ve never done any types of martial arts before, so I thought I’d learn some self-defense skills. Plus it might come in handy during my trip. Who knows?
In the last two months I have been training Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu with Pablo Papovitch’s camp here in FL; I do mostly BJJ with gi and a few wrestling and no-gi classes to round out the skills. Friday nights, there’s also MMA training, but usually I just go in to roll with the guys and leave when MMA starts. I feel pretty comfortable rolling with other white belts in the class now and do decently against them, but I haven’t trained much in stand up fights.
Tonight one of the guys from the gym, Johnny aka “El Pollo Loco”, is training for his upcoming amateur MMA fight in two weeks. Of course being the nice guy I am, I decided to get in there and rumble. I put on some head gear and baby gloves and got in on the rotation of guys who will each spar one minute with him, only boxing and take downs, no BJJ. He had already gone through a couple guys before me, so I figure he’d be at least a little bit tired by now. So when I got in, I was going slow. I mean really slow. First of all, I don’t know how to box so I was just throwing jabs, hoping he would just back up. Boy, was I wrong. Within a few seconds, I was looking at the wall and didn’t even see what hit me.
If you have never taken a punch in the face, I highly recommend it because first of all, you will forget any problems you might have had or have because at that moment you are only thinking about “what the hell just hit me and where are his hands so I don’t eat another one”. Second of all, you’ll know how much it sucks and next time remember to keep your hands up.
So the punishment ensues. In the back of my head, I was dreaming about the quick footwork of Ali and how to dance like a butterfly and sting like a … and then “BAMM” my hands were down again; I ate another couple, stepped back and remembered to put up my hands again.
Long story short, I wouldn’t last very long against an amateur MMA fighter, especially one nicknamed “El Pollo Loco”, unless I get myself some standup skills. Time is pretty short before I start my trip, so I am just gonna have to stay out of bar brawls on my trip.