I have honestly never been more welcomed at a gym as I was, at Brentwood Jiu Jitsu. Located right outside of Nashville Tennessee, this particular gym is Part of the Luiz Palhares Jiu Jitsu Association. Although I had no intention of training when I actually went out to Nashville, I was pretty bummed about missing class in Memphis. With my trusty iPhone , I searched for the closest gym and decided to give it a go. I called up the guys in Brentwood and asked if they had class that evening( hoping it was no-gi because luckily I was wearing basketball shorts and a t-shirt I could at least pull that off) . Oh Joy, Gi class at 7, they told me to come on in and they would take care of everything.
Warmly welcomed by Jeremy Akin , resident Black Belt and Brown Belt Kris Dove, they found me the smallest gi they had(I had never worn anything made by Ouano but I am hooked, after wearing that one) and I jumped into class. After the fundamentals class was advanced,so everyone was warmed up . After a few stretches we went to work. He went down the line asking which we would rather drill, De La Riva or Spider. Spider guard for the win! Two cool sweeps and 1 variation into a sweet triangle later, we had lots of time to roll!
First roll was with an awesome blue belt, Nord who actually took home the gold at the Pan Ams this year, and was a great drilling partner as well. We had a great roll, he didn’t use all of his man strength and let me work my technique without completely squishing me. I rolled with quite a few other talented blues, then finally had the chance to roll with Jeremy. I remember at one point trying to work the new spider guard technique , but other than that I was completely dominated, and it WAS AWESOME. An hour or so later, with my gi soaked it was time to call it a night. We had the chance to chat after class, realizing we’ve competed at some of the same tournaments, and knew some of the same folks. I thanked them for their hospitality and promised to be back as soon as possible. I left with an awesome new patch, still buzzing with excitement all while realizing I’m one lucky girl to have this sport and my growing BJJ family.
Thank you Brentwood JiuJitsu!