When I was sixteen, after a night of "Quarters" with some friends in the beach town where I spent my school vacations, I found myself near the dunes with a pretty girl I'd been pining for all summer. After bearing with my fumbling for a half hour or so, she took control of the situation and pushed me to my back, smiling as she closed in.

For better or worse, Facebook has made millions of private squabbles public. Years ago when we had an issue with someone we could vent to a few close friends and forgot about it, or we could confront the problem directly and deal with it. Now it seems the preferred method of dealing with difficult issues is to take thinly veiled shots at your adversaries on your Facebook wall. This is how I first heard the term “Creonte”.

A lot of Brazilian jiu-jitsu’s explosive growth over the last 20 years can be attributed to Royce Gracie’s wins in the first few Ultimate Fighting Championships. Years ago, when I was a blue belt, I remember watching matches in the UFC and getting really frustrated, thinking to myself, ‘That guy’s right open, just arm-bar him!” Now that I’ve competed in MMA matches myself, I realize that the sport is very, very different from jiu-jitsu.

When I say I posture I mean the body language and presence of your opponent, and his affect on your game.  In other words you’re about to spar with a tatted up, 4% body fat,  mean looking dude and your body and mind are going into overdrive.

What exactly is the Jiu-Jitsu lifestyle?

Is BJJ a Martial Art?

It seems like a silly question at first. BJJ is a fighting system, and other martial arts are fighting systems. BJJ can trace its roots to Japan where many of these ‘traditional martial arts’ come from. So why wouldn’t Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu be considered a martial art?

In a previous life, I taught computer aided design and manufacturing to high school students at a career and technical education school. Career and technical education, or CTE is the new and improved way to say vocational education. Historically, vocational eduction is thought of as training for a job like welder or plumber. A lot has changed recently in the world of CTE. Today there are a multitude of careers available to CTE students, and they can take courses and vocational training in hospitality, nursing, or graphic design.

Imagine you decided one day that you wanted to learn how to build a house, so you answered an ad in the paper that was looking for home builders, no experience needed. When you showed up on the jobsite, an architect puts you in front of a house lot, gives you some lumber and nails, and gives you a quick peek at a set of plans that you don’t know how to read. Then he turns you loose with a bunch of power tools and says he’ll see you next week.

BJJ Lifestyle and Opinion - Smelly Gis - Rick Rants

In this episode Rick discusses his feelings on stinky gis...