I had a chance to attend a no-gi and gi class at High Ground BJJ while I was in the area for the holidays. For a bit of background, I am a white belt with about 6 months of training (5 days a week) at my home gym.
I had a great experience during both of the classes I attended. The no-gi class was very small, with only 2 other students and the instructor (it was Black Friday, so other students were probably busy buying new TVs and stuff). The small class was awesome for getting one-on-one instruction from the coach, Dave. It was a pretty standard class structure with warm ups, then drilling, and finally rolling. The warm up was light, and we moved immediately into drilling a north-south choke. I really liked the style of the drills because we slowly worked through the motion to properly get into the position, and then establishing the choke. We moved on to proper defense options for the same choke, and we had a chance to work among ourselves while the coach oversaw and provided feedback.
During the gi class, we warmed up with some positional sparring from guard, and then moved on to a lapel choke and an arm in guillotine choke for drilling. The coach for this class, Patrick, provided a detailed walk through of each portion of the techniques, and was quick to give pointers during drilling. The class had a solid attendance of white through brown belts, and each person I worked with provided great live feedback as we trained.
Everyone I encountered during my visits were very friendly, and put to rest any anxiety I had about training outside of my home gym. I thought the teachers did a fantastic job of explaining the proper techniques, the concepts behind them, and providing input as we drilled. Since this was my first real experience away from my home gym, I was nervous about rolling with unfamiliar people, but I quickly became comfortable with the other students because no one was trying to crank submissions, and everyone was very careful about safety.
I am already planning to stop back here when I am in town again. If you are from the area, and you are looking for a way to get in shape, and/or learn real self-defense, then you should absolutely visit High Ground to see if it is a good fit for you!
A big thank you to Tom for allowing me to visit his gym, and keep up with my training while away from home! read more