Learning Discipline Through Jiu Jitsu

Learning Discipline Through Jiu Jitsu

Twice every week, fifteen to twenty students make their way to the wrestling room inside the Hart building to participate in the BYU-I Jiu Jitsu club, instructed by student Dave Ramos.

Brazilian Jiu Jitsu, which is the form students learn in the campus club, is a composite of martial arts such as classical Japanese Jiu Jitsu and Judo and has become a prevalent form of the martial art today.

“This semester, what I’m trying to do is build a good foundation of basics,” Ramos says, adding that while in past semesters teaching more complicated moves has proved ineffective in giving the students a base knowledge, currently a great focus is put on “controlling position and setting up moves.”

Ramos tells the students that the real dominating technique in Jiu Jitsu is leverage instead of power.  

The student must focus more on the actual maneuver rather than muscling through it.

He continues by saying that many athletes, citing wrestlers as a specific example, go into Jiu Jitsu thinking that they can muscle their way through it, and while many of the techniques are the same, the point to Jiu Jitsu is that “the small guy can beat the big guy.”

According to www.shenwu.com, this fighting style is designed to give the weaker of the fighters “an effective method of defending against a larger and stronger attacker.”

Much of Jiu Jitsu consists of ground-fighting and “grappling,” and the ground position, or being held under the attacker, is often the desired position in eventually putting the other fighter into submission.

He goes on to say that a key component to learning the martial art of Jiu Jitsu or really any martial art is that one disciplines oneself to become a good student, and one simply has to go in and commit to learning.

Students attend to learn something new and useful, as well as for the basic knowledge of the martial art.

“It was kind of like a personal dream (for me) to learn it,” says BYU-I student Cameron Akana, who has been attending the club for a little more than a month.

Ramos, a BYU-I junior majoring in elementary education, has been practicing Jiu Jitsu for just under three years and has been instructing here at school for a little over a year. 

The club, which is held in Hart 101, meets on Wednesdays from 7:00 p.m. to 9:00 p.m. and Saturdays from 11:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m.