Pinoy BJJ Group Meet II

The 18th of March marked the day when our small group met formally for the second time since we founded it. This time, I hosted it and we held it at the BJJ School in Battersea (Battersea Youth Centre), where I train.

The usual suspects turned up - Jon, Dio, Jodi, Bong and myself. I managed to coax my regular training mate, Keith, and our old training partner, Elliott - both members of the Chili Brotherhood (wassup spice-loving homies), to come and join our little group to boost our numbers. We tried inviting some of the higher belts we knew from BJJ School and other schools but I guess they were busy...you, know, Mum's day and all that...

Anyways, I believe that the meet was successful, despite the fact that the pinoys themselves were late - a first-hand experience of the term "Filipino time" that both Keith and Elliott unfortunately learned. Did you know that in the Philippines, common custom is when you hold a party or anything that involves visitors, you actually tell them a 2-hour advanced start time as they hardly arrive on time - or shall we say, they would arrive just in time for the real start. This is one of the embarrassing traits that we try to erase to show respect to our colleagues. In all honesty, I was at the Clapham Junction train station 40 minutes early but train delays and closure of the nearest station exit caused some problems for the rest of the group. Enough of the excuses.

We did several rounds of rolling with different partners and I like to believe that I have shown some improvement since the last time we met. As always, both Jon and Dio were very supportive of us lower belts and both Bong and Elliott showed us a thing or two of their favourite moves. Good luck to Elliott as he prepares for competition in June. I hope he does not go against one of the BJJ School guys - I wouldn't know who to cheer for!

I hope that we can schedule another meet around summer and hoping that our numbers will increase. Sometimes I think that the higher belts are not too keen on coming to the open mat as they might think that there isn't much to gain rolling with lower belts. I really hope that this is not the case - the one of the main reasons we founded the group is to use it as a venue to know other Filipinos practicing the art and use it to share our collective knowledge with others in a fun and supportive environment. That is why we greatly appreciate the participation of both Keith and Elliott, as despite not belonging to the group in the strictest sense, their willingness to show support and share their time and skill with us embodies the true spirit of why the group was founded in the first place.

Now, if only you guys would try our adobo, kare-kare, and dinuguan...