Sign in here yo. Who here trains? Be it Jiu-Jitsu, Judo, Catch Wrestling, Sambo, Sumo, or whatever sweaty-man-on-sweaty-man (or woman) style you participate in.
I've been doing bjj for a while, not formally though. Just watching a lot of videos and rolling with friends. When I save up enough money I'm going to start taking lessons at Rigan Machado's academy, the dude has such a crazy resume, multiple time bjj world champ, runner up at sambo world championships. His record is 365-2, both losses to his cousin Rickson Gracie.
thats whats up man but you got to get in the gym. If you are interested enough to be learning what you can from videos you should absolutely start formal training. Sounds like you have a good gym in your area so i wouldnt pass up on the opportunity Gyms are typically expensive though. usually between $125-$200 a month. I took a second part time job delivering pizzas like 1 or 2 times a week and that pays for my training.
Ya man I'm only getting around 15hrs/week at my job and that's just enough to cover car payments, insurance, gas and a little entertainment expenses. It's so damn hard to get a job in socal right now. If I was getting 20-25hrs/week I would've started training a long time ago but what can ya do...
Plan on starting BJJ in the next few weeks, cant fucking wait. From what i hear there's a pretty reputable gym around here that does BJJ, Muay Thai, and MMA classes and they seem pretty legit. The dude who runs it apparently has trained/trained with Mauricio and Murilo Rua (he trained Shogun for the lyoto fight), Kenny Florian, Stephen Bonnar and Spencer Fisher. Hes a bb in BJJ under Roberto Maia and a purple mongkol in Muay Thai under Mark Dellagrotte. Plus the dude who directs the MMA course also competes in Brazil, i guess he submitted a 4x BJJ champion in 32 seconds.
I know some weight lifters might knock me for this, but you don't need those expensive gym memberships to begin your training. If you can't afford using that equipment, start with bodyweight exercises. Regardless to what anyone else says, they do work just as well as weights when done right. If you don't believe me, lets take the military for example. Do you see them pumping heavy iron all of the time? No. This is the most affordable way to get in shape. Then when you have extra money, you can get in the gym. This will allow you to save the money for what actually counts, the classes.
Lifting weights does not give you any real functional strength you are correct. What it does get you good at is lifting weights. That's it. The only real str and conditioning exercises I do are kettlebells and ropes swimming/rolling for cardio. the rest are just normal bjj work outs
idk if any of you watch TUF but heres a vid of that crazy guillotine that Cody keeps tapping dudes with [ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_J_pbJjGVS4&feature=player_embedded]YouTube - Modified Guillotine Choke[/ame]