My daughter (bottom) utilizing a head and arm control from the guard at Gracie Bullyproof camp.

I always feel like I should be doing something.  Even when I’m supposed to be on vacation.  But earlier this month I took a full 4 days off from work and moved to Michigan for the sole purpose of putting my 7 year old daughter in Gracie Bullyproof camp for the week.  It’s so important to me that she learn jiu jitsu that I was actually willing to take a full week off from work for pretty much the first time ever in my life.

Jiu Jitsu is such a unique thing.  It’s like physical chess in that there are an endless number of positions and moves. I started training in ‘99 and I’m still learning moves that have never occurred to me before.  And I don’t mean subtle nuanced movements that are variations of what I already knew. I mean entirely new moves that I have to learn from scratch as if I just started training last week. It’s very different from the Yoga I attend on occasions where we do the same 26 postures in the same order every class.  And very different from Karate where  you learn pretty much every technique in the first 2 years and spend the rest of your life perfecting it.

I love the idea of introducing my daughter to a physical art such a young age, knowing that if she chooses, she can remained challenged by.  I am a better person for having learned jiu jitsu. And she will be too.