Onna Bugeisha, the Female Martial Artist

Gentle like cotton, sharp as a sword Being a martial artist that happens to be female, I have always marveled at the stories of historical warriors that happened to be female, such as the Onna-Bugeisha (女武芸者) or Female Martial Artists in Japan. As a little girl I wore princess dresses but was concealing at least a few plastic or wooden weapons such as katanas and daggers (I mean, you never know what or who you meet during...

Do you really need endless drills to improve your technique?

I’ve heard, over the years, many coaches and students talk about muscle memory and the benefits of endless repetitions. And I must say I don’t usually agree with them, and not only because I hate endless drilling and think this takes away much of the beauty and pleasure in jiu-jitsu. I should quote a French sport scientist here, Pierre Parlebas, who makes a very important distinction, between psychomotricity and sociomotricity. Brazilian jiu-jitsu is, thus, a sport with sociomotricity, meaning your bodily...

Care about getting your purple belt

There is a lot of talk going on about belt promotions in Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, which results in a whole range of potential discussion topics. In what follows, I will try to stick to one of the essentials, the time between promotions and, if you stick to it, the time it takes you to reach black belt. There is a lot of pride in the BJJ community when it comes to the effort involved in getting your black belt. While there are...

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