Reasons to Travel and Visit New Schools

Visiting new schools is one of my favorite things to do in Jiu-Jitsu. It is just incredibly exciting and a great chance to learn and improve. I love to roll, and rolling at a new school for the first time is definitely a unique experience. You get to test yourself against an entirely new group of people that are eager to do the same with you. You also get to encounter new styles and techniques, which is something that has exposed many holes in my game over the years and has helped me to evolve and get better. It is really a great experience and I recommend everyone that trains try it at least once in their journey.

I do have a secondary reason for visiting other schools though. I hope to one day be a black belt in Jiu-Jitsu and eventually be able to pass on the knowledge that I have learned on to students of my own. Because of that, whenever I visited a new school I try to observe and ask myself as many questions to myself as I can, in order to learn as much as possible from these experiences. I try to take note of things such as: how are warm-ups run? How does the instructor break down a technique, how much time is devoted to the different parts of the class? Where is the emphasis placed on during rolling? Is the class formal or informal? And ultimately, what is the overall quality of student that is produced as a result of the instruction and class structure. Every school has had their standouts and their rockstars, but I try to see the overall quality of student body as a whole, because I think that reflects much more on the quality of a school.

Just a note on this, when I say quality I don't just mean how good are they at rolling. I believe that there are many different aspects that go into a "good" practitioner, things like who they are a person, ability to teach and things like that. If someone is a mat savage at rolling, but is a crappy person, I would be hard pressed to consider them quality. Jiu-Jitsu and other Martial Arts seems to have a way of filtering out most of the jerks though, and those that stay in it for a long time end up being changed as people through the rigorous training.  I hope to be able to one day have students that are good quality people, to include being technically sound. 

About the Author:

Steven McMahon earned his Kyuki-Do Black Belt in 2011 from Grand Master Kim at Kim's Black Belt Academy and his  BJJ Purple Belt in January 2017 under Professor Charles Nunley. He trains out of Cornerstone BJJ in Fayetteville, NC. He is an active competitor at Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu and Army Combatives tournaments.