New Years Resolutions

[Tarissa]

Hi All,
I look back on my resolutions from last year and did pretty well. Grew my hair much longer, no more acrylic nails, blah, blah blah. Most importantly I gained confidence. At the request of an old boyfriend I started training in Brazilian Jiu Jitsu in January. I am now a 2 stripe blue belt and moving up the belt ranks. BJJ (not BJ) is a martial art that puts you in control if you are on the ground with a larger person that is trying to take advantage "unless it is concentual :) ". With attacks that occur against some of our community I believe it is necessary to be able to disable any aggressor and protect ourselves. BJJ gives us girls that ability regardless of the size of our attacker. I am now able to control much larger guys that are unfamiliar with this art. Search youtube and you will see smaller women controlling large guys and forcing them to submit or suffer. I just wanted to share this as a possible resolution for the New Year since we are all vulnerable and can take control of our safety and lives.
Happy New Year,
Tarissa

[JohnnyWalkerBlackLabel]

congrats to you mama

[whatislove]

We all need to have options for keeping ourselves and loved ones safe! Congrats.

[kalina]

Hi All,
I look back on my resolutions from last year and did pretty well. Grew my hair much longer, no more acrylic nails, blah, blah blah. Most importantly I gained confidence. At the request of an old boyfriend I started training in Brazilian Jiu Jitsu in January. I am now a 2 stripe blue belt and moving up the belt ranks. BJJ (not BJ) is a martial art that puts you in control if you are on the ground with a larger person that is trying to take advantage "unless it is concentual :) ". With attacks that occur against some of our community I believe it is necessary to be able to disable any aggressor and protect ourselves. BJJ gives us girls that ability regardless of the size of our attacker. I am now able to control much larger guys that are unfamiliar with this art. Search youtube and you will see smaller women controlling large guys and forcing them to submit or suffer. I just wanted to share this as a possible resolution for the New Year since we are all vulnerable and can take control of our safety and lives.
Happy New Year,
Tarissa

I love some of the moves in BJJ because they look so theatrical, but I'm actually opposed to barefoot training because the places where we'll likely meet up with negative confrontation we'll all be wearing shoes! (This comment applies to all barefoot training martial arts.... one of the reasons I never took aikido.)

I studied at Alan Lee's Kung Fu-Wu Su Temple in NYC for six months and we all wore boxing shoes. However, all the frigid moves like horse stance really bugged me. I certainly didn't want callouses all over my body like some of the students had and the idea of bulking up my body with muscle repulsed me.

All these martial arts have their good and bad points. I hope BJJ works out for you. It's certainly a lot more visual of an art than something with a horse stance.

[Tarissa]

Sorry about the double post here. Thanks for the encouragement Johnny, what and Kalina. As a side note I have not become bulked up whatsoever from jiu jitsu. On the contrary I have firmed up and my legs and butt have never been so shapely. As far as wearing shoes in a real situation, flats would be similar to barefoot and if I happened to be weaqring heels, I would make good use of the heel. I'd hate to ruin a cute pair of shoes though j/k. Again, I threw this out there so all of our sisters think about some form of self-defense.
Ciao