Posted on September 27, 2008 - by Jim Hughes

Gracie Jiu-Jitsu saved my life

So you probably want some story about how I was held up at knife point in a dark alley at night, disarmed my attacker and made him cry “Uncle!” using only my unarmed agility and deadly know-how. Fortunately that hasn’t yet become a necessity.

But Jiu-Jitsu, Jim, and Royce really did save my life. No lie.

I was a freshman in college with a 4.0 GPA. And I was bored out of my mind. A friend convinced me to try Vietnamese kickboxing. Not for wimps, right? I worked my way up in rank for a little less than a year until the instructor returned to Vietnam. I moved on to Japanese Jujutsu, as it was available in the same place on the same nights (A recommended way to choose a club? Maybe not.). I diligently memorized Japanese words, repeated the same moves over and over against ever-agreeable empty air, performed a great number of pushups for sub-standard throws, and generally wondered where I was going.

I met some guys in the jujutsu club interested in “submission grappling” and started working out “on the side” on body positioning, submissions, and doing lots and lots of bodyweight squats just in case those guys from the Lion’s Den ever traveled around Connecticut looking for talent. At some point, I was asked to leave the Japanese Jujutsu club. Apparently, submission grappling and jujutsu are not compatible.

My fellow grapplers and I heard that Royce Gracie was going to put on a seminar in Hartford CT. Somehow, between the four of us, we reserved three spaces. Somehow, I wasn’t the odd one out and found myself in the tiniest second-story mat room I had ever seen. I had dreamed for nights about the way Royce would levitate into the room, deliver an oration on his ass-kicking ways, choke out the big guys, scrutinize my attempts, and float away back to the octagon.

Then a skinny guy in a mismatched gi strolled in and said, “Hey, guys, look at this.” About an hour later, he threatened to kill me, and gave me a blue belt after I laughed at him.

I drove 45 minutes from UConn to Hartford three days a week. Then, Dustin and I (with significant help from Jim and Royce) reinvented our “Mixed Martial Arts Club” at UConn as Royce Gracie Jiu-Jitsu. I was doing Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu 5 days a week. I had bruises all over my body all the time. But that body looked awesome. I had such a huge supply of endorphins cruising through my blood that I consistently felt great. I had direction, purpose and a connection to something real.

This connection was that thing that was missing for the first two years of my college career. I was living in my life. I wasn’t connected with it. I hadn’t made it all a part of me. Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, the real-ness of it, the practice, the method, the live-ness allowed me to have a connection with myself – my brain, my body, my being. Jiu-jitsu also allowed me to foster connections with the people around me – sweaty, gi-wearing brothers who fight you daily, but would go significantly out of their way to help you out.

Royce Gracie Brzailian Jiu-jitsu is the most real thing I have ever done in my life. I live in Texas now, and do Royce Gracie Jiu-Jitsu there, and it is still real. Jim and Royce’s club is the real deal. The people are real, genuine, and honest, with real jobs and real lives. The act of jiu-jitsu is real. No anxiety of memorizing numbers in a foreign language: Just positions building a solid base on which to secure movements towards submissions; real movement for real situations. Movement built on the anatomy of the human body to be used against the anatomy of someone else’s human body. And not in theory. In practice every day, you try it out, movement after movement connected to a real, live, sweaty person who is trying out his moves against your real, live, sweaty body.

You might remember that I mentioned that jiu-jitsu saved my life.

I thought I had it, and from all outward appearances I had it: the successful college career on a scholarship, friends, a job. But somehow I felt like I was missing something.

Jiu-jitsu didn’t connect me only with jiu-jitsu. It connected me with the people around me, with my school work, with my own thoughts. It increased my concentration, moved my blood –made me think. It made me feel real. Watch out: feeling real is an addiction. It followed me home from college, and then all the way to Texas. The connection to Jim and Royce in Hartford is so strong it may bring me back to that very club despite my ridiculous case of wanderlust. Not just any martial art, not just any jiu-jitsu, not just any Gracie Jiu-Jitsu school: Royce and Jim have the market cornered on Real. Go get connected.

Did I mention that I’m a 130 pound girl?

Don’t let that scare you off. Royce Gracie Jiu-Jitsu can do this for you. It was that “it” I had been looking for all my life. Don’t go through the motions for another minute. Go get connected.

-Katie Boiteau