Hey guys, So, the last BJJ club meeting was today, and we selected officers for next year. As part of this, I am now the Team Captain for the UM BJJ/Submission Wrestling Club! I'm now responsible for finding tournaments and arranging carpools to get to them. You probably don't know this, but I crave approval from my seniors. I feel really honored to be given an officer position in my club. I finally feel like an "insider"!
Congrats, man! When you're looking into tournaments, make sure to check some out in OH. There's one coming up May 19 actually in Newark hosted by the guys at my club. I'm actually working on getting a student club going here at OSU We don't even have one at the moment, I'm a bit ashamed.
Excellent! Hey, if you do get an OSU club going, let's invite each other over for in-house tournaments! Screw the UM/OSU football rivalry. The UM/OSU BJJ rivalry will overshadow it by far. BTW, what club do you belong to?
The BJJ invitations sounds like a great idea, I just hope that I actually get this paperwork through. I also see a strong rivalry resulting I train at Jorge Gurgel's local place (also a JKD/Muay Thai gym). How active's your club? Is the instructor from a local club or a student/faculty member?
Our club is pretty active. We generally have more people towards the beginning of the year than towards the end (as the weak are weeded out ). We have two instructors: Rodriquez Nunez (purple belt) teaches the gi class, and Sean Bansfield (black belt), teaches the no-gi class. We also have a purple belt by the name of Jason May who sometimes helps out. Sean also has a private club in Ann Arbor. It's a student club, so the students, not the instructors, are in charge of running it. If you want to organize a rumble at some point in the future.... I guess I'm the guy to talk to now . I wish you the best with your OSU club. Now you have someone to look forward to challenging if you can get one together! I saw the flier for the May tournament, BTW, and I'll try to go if I can get a ride to it (I have neither a car nor a driver's license, you see).
Get a ride! Would be cool to see ya there (what weight class, btw?) My biggest concern with this club is getting local purple belts+ to come in to instruct. I have a few blue belts that can handle it to begin with but that's hardly sufficient for the long run - how do you arrange things with your instructors? *inquisition* Tell me moooorreee...
I'm not really sure how the instructors are related to the club. I think we get money from MSA (the group that funds UM student organizations), and use that to pay our coaches. I might try emailing someone and asking exactly how it's all arranged. Are you a blue belt or a white belt? Because if you're a blue, you could probably handle coaching yourself for a while until you can get a purple belt involved. And I will do my best to get a ride to the May tournament. Like I said, one of my coaches has a private club, and I'm thinking I might do that over the summer.... I'm sure they have a few people who do tournaments.
Remember to advertise alot. My university BJJ club doesn't do that very much and as a result we usually whittle down in numbers pretty quick to the 8-10 regulars or so by mid semester. It's great in that the lessons are almost semi privates with our instructor (purple) but unfortunately we don't get to grow as a club and also we roll with all the same people all the time.
The BJJ club has a booth at Festifall (where all the student organizations go to advertise in the Fall) that brings in a fair number of people every year. Also, I might be helping out with some self-defense seminars in the Fall, and I might make mention of the BJJ club while doing those.
I'm a white belt but have several blue belt students lined up that've expressed interest in the club. Just no purples. Enough to get by on for first but I'd be much happier if we could get a purple+... I'm starting to think I might have to talk to the Gracie place in the north of town, heh.
Do you not have purple belts in your school who would be willing to teach? Keep me updated as your club progresses. Once you have people, we can start working out logistics for a competition next year. I'm also going to get in touch with the MSU BJJ club. I think we can definitely get a good rivalry going with them ^_~.
No purple belts from the club I train at have the time or inclination to instruct a student club, sadly. I'll definitely let you know when things get rolling here.
