Boxing Battle of Badness

I've often thought it would be awesomely badass to be good a martial arts. In fact, I was once a master student of the ancient Japanese art of Shudokan (and by "master student," I mean I was enrolled for six weeks when I was nine, and made it to the uber respected ranking of white belt).

Despite such mastery of martial arts, the video below is not one I would study for technique. This was about three years ago during a college visit to San Diego. Neither Aaron nor I have any idea what we're doing, but as is evident, my cat like reflexes and big-time punches propelled me to a knockout victory!

And speaking of combat, during my last year of college, I happened to have a lot of free time, so I enrolled in a "combatives" class. The curriculum included moves from Olympic wrestling, Judo, Karate and Jiujitsu. The class was particularly interesting because there were like five guys and twenty-five girls. The first day of class, the instructor said, "You'd better get comfortable with touching people and sweating on each other...and don't get used to only matching up with your gender!" Lets just say that rolling around on the wrestling mats with sweaty girls was a...unique...experience :)

Part of the class involved everyone learning a technique or move, and teaching the class. I happened to choose some basic Jiujitsu ground positions known as the "mount" and the "guard". So when my day came, I expertly taught the class how and when to perform these maneuvers.

Somehow though, the instructor got it in his mind that I was a "student of Jiujitsu" and a "submissions expert" (his words exactly). I remember the first day we were going over various choke holds, he was demoing and turned to me in front of the class and said, "Arun, how's my form? Do you hold your elbow up this high when you do the hold?"

Me thinking: "How the hell should I know? I learned like three punches and kicks when I was NINE!"

Me talking: "Yea your form looks okay. Maybe pull your arm down a bit (luckily I've watched some UFC... I have a tendency to "stir the pot" :)

Then he had me walk around, and help out the class. When I got home, I realized that we were going to be doing a lot of Jiujitsu holds coming up, so I went online and studied the techniques just so I wouldn't disappoint my newfound, yet undeserved praise! For the rest of the quarter, he continued to seek my assistance, and I just didn't have the heart to tell him his faith in me is unfounded. Now, in my defense, I did spend ample time researching these moves at home because I didn't want my "expert teaching" to be inaccurate. This way, I wasn't a complete fraud.

On the last day of class, during the instructor's parting words, he dished out some Thank you's.

"Where's Arun, my submission holds expert? Let's give him a round of applause!"
**applause**
Me: "Actually, you know, I don't really know much."

He pretended not to hear, wrapped up his oration, and dismissed the class. As I was leaving he called to me, "Arun, hold on!"

Uh oh.

"You were my submissions guy, weren't you?"
Me: "Well...yeah I guess"
Him: "Well don't be sooo modest and let me publically give you the praise you desserve! You were awesome!"

Me thinking: Well...I suppose I AM pretty awesome.
Me talking: "Thanks!"

So despite the awesomely bad display boxing in the video above, EVILDOERS BEWARE! I am a "Jiujitsu submission holds" EXPERT!!!

Hey, maybe now that I have "Jiujitsu submission holds instructor" on my resume, I'll open a Dojo!