Second lesson and pain.

So Thursday came around again and I'd stopped aching by about Tuesday so I was ready for my second Jiu Jitsu class. I made the quick trip down the M5 to junction 22, Burnham, to King Alfred's Sport Centre nice and early to help get the mats out. Ian's assistant instructor, Gary, was also there nice and early and we were having a good chat and a laugh. Gary asked me whether I'd ached on the weekend after my first session to which (for reasons I will never work out) I lied and said I'd ached a bit on the Friday but was fine all weekend. That one little white lie was possibly the stupidest lie I've ever told as not only did Gary not believe me but he decided that the sessions warm up and pre lesson drills would be extra special, just for me.

There were many laps of the mats, sprints, press ups, sit ups, squats, two man back to back stand ups, break falls and the lessons novelty drill, which was first shrimping up and down the mats, then shoot drills up and down the mats and finally Jacare style crawling up and down. After all this my unfit 15 stone fat turd of a body was well and truly knackered. I was literally sweating out of every pore in my body. I could barely open my eyes for the sweat pouring down my forehead, stinging my eyes.

Taking a looooonngggg drink of water while everyone paired off, I was left to pair off with a fairly short, italian looking dude whose name I cannot remember. Now I had not seen him the week before and from the reaction Ian gave him when he'd come in the guy was not a regular but he was a former student at the club. He was not wearing a gi or anything so I was unsure of how much training he'd had (not that a gi would've been much of a tell tale sign anyway) so I asked him straight out how much he'd done. He said he used to come a year before for a few months but never got a gi or a belt or anything. We did the first few training exercises, me with a total lack of skill which gave him to confidence to try and "show me" how. Then we did some ground work which he also "helped" me with. By the end of our technique training I had in no uncertain terms proved to him that I was as clueless about ground techniques as nearly anyone he was like to meet, where as he had done his best to attempt to prove to me that he was a long lost Gracie, with knowledge that I would probably never obtain.

So when I got up to get a drink before the rolling I figured he would do as everyone I had rolled against the previous week had done and just lightly roll against me whilst trying to actually teach me some stuff. How wrong could I be? Not this little dude. No. He proceeded to use every single technique in his arsenal to tap me out issuing a master class in pain like I have never received since that day. He was cranking on some armbars, squeezing my head off with a particularly tight rear naked (I didn't even know what that was at the time), nearly choking me unconcious with an arm triangle and his pièce de résistance, an americana cranked on so hard my shoulder nearly popped out. 6 times he tapped me out in 3 minutes, all the while saying things like "I'm just seeing how much I can remember" and "see if this works as I remember it" and "oh sorry I'm just trying to get the technique right".

In my previous post I said that I'd never ached more than after my first JJ lesson but that isn't entirely true. It was after my second lesson with Gary's monster warm up and the little idiots Americana cranking demonstration that I truly ached like never before. I could barely move come Saturday morning and come Sunday I was trying to remove four shrub stumps from my garden in total agony. I still to this day feel weary about the shoulder that the little prick nearly popped out on that session. I related the story to Gary the next week and he said he'd have a word with the guy but we never saw him again. And all the pain still didn't put me off.

To be continued.