Last night after several years my gi sitting in storage I put it back on. It felt weird putting on the white belt again, I was switching up disciplines and I felt a mixture of fear and excitement because I had no idea what I was doing. Originally, I was going to go with a friend of mine, who is well connected within the group, but at the last minute he couldn't make it so I decided to go anyway and see how the gym was to fresh faces.
First off the owners noticed me right away and went out of their way to acknowledge and welcome me. The session I attended was less structured than any martial arts class I had ever been to. I walked into a room with near wall to wall mats covered with people grappling. I wasn't even sure when the class actually started. One of the older purple belts noticed my confused looks and offered to "roll" with me and he started to show me some basics. My martial arts background is strictly stand up arts so this was very foreign to me and I felt way out of my element, but he was very patient and I was very grateful.
Soon the instructor called a halt and began talking about a specific technique, unfortunately for me he used a lot of terms that I was not familiar with, but he did clearly demonstrate the moves then asked us to pair up and practice. This time I ended up with a different purple belt. Again, he was super nice, but he obviously had no idea what the instructor was trying to communicate and was having difficulty with the technique. After a while the instructor clarified the technique to the class and bid us to practice again. Still my partner did not seem to grasp the concept and I felt this would have been a good time for a more experienced person to roam the room looking to correct poor technique. Then suddenly, to me it seemed anyway, that the class was breaking up again and going back to “freestyle”. Several people left while the rest broke up into pairs for grappling.
At this point the instructor came back to me to speak for a few minutes and ask how I felt. He explained that his style of training, for this class, was less formal but he felt was more organic, and enjoyable. He also mentioned he had a more formal class on other nights if that was to my liking. He was very friendly and I was very grateful he took the time to speak to me.
This is where things got a bit awkward, to me it seemed that most of the student had preferred training partners, and me both not knowing anybody and not wearing glasses so everyone resembled an up close Monet, found it a little harder to pair up. It became obvious that if I wanted to train I would have to initiate with another person. I approached white belt who seemed to be waiting, he agreed and was significantly more skilled than my last partner. We “rolled” for a bit while he gave me some pointers until an alarm went off and people broke up to other partners. This time I approached a young white belt that was sitting alone and we practiced a bit. After a bit, everyone lined up, the instructor talked for a bit then we all shook hands and class was over.
The bottle line: I had a good time. I suspect that as I get to know the people in the class better I will have a better time. The instructor was humble and friendly and in no way reminded me of Sensei John Kreese. No one was rude to me in anyway or treated me as a lesser person due to my rank and obvious confusion. I haven’t decided how I feel about the structure of the class yet.
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