BJJ Seminar at Gohar Gul’s academy in KHI

The first Brazilian Jiu Jitsu seminar ever in Pakistan was held on December 15th at the Body Impact club in Gulshan Iqbal, Karachi. Martial Arts Master Gohar Gul uses the premises a few times a week to teach Muay Thai classes. The seminar started at 7 and ended around 8:45 and covered the basics of Brazilian Jiu Jitsu including its philosophy and techniques. The first thing that was explained to all those who attended was the dominance of Brazilian Jiu Jitsu in the first few UFC events. The reason for this dominance was explained as being due to the fact that back in 1993 no one ever considered grappling to be an important aspect of fighting. In the end what happened was that strikers who had trained only striking for years were clueless as to what to do once the fight fell to the floor. After this early history was explained to the class then a brief summary of how Brazilian Jiu Jitsu can serve as a great tool for self defense using the idea that any one that tries to start a confrontation on the street who is an unskilled fighter is going 99.99% of the time try and pummel you with his fists. No matter what level of fighter, if you are a black belt or a multiple champion there is always a chance of getting hit with a lucky punch. Often the best strategy is to take the fight to the ground and avoid the chance of being knocked out since there is no such thing as a lucky submission.

Then came the technique portion of the class which I started by explaining the positional hierarchy that exists in Jiu Jitsu going from the best position to be in (having back mount) to the worst position to be in (being back mounted). Once everyone got some idea of the positions of Jiu Jitsu, it was then explained how to get out of the common pins. How to escape from side control, how to escape from mount using one or two techniques for each position. I finished this part of the seminar by showing you to sweep your opponent from the guard.

The second part of the seminar dealt with being in the top position. First was how to control your opponent while in the mount, than in side control and finally how to pass your opponents guard. This finished the second part of the seminar.

The last part of the technique portion of the seminar dealt with what most people find the most interesting part of Jiu Jitsu – submissions. It was at this point that other individuals not even attending the seminar began to form an increasingly bigger and bigger circle around us and a crowd that had gathered around the door had to be told to come inside and sit down. Some of the more common submissions that occur in MMA competition were shown.

The seminar ended with some questions and answers most of which involved explaining what MMA was. The confusion usually dealt with people had to get away from the “style” mentality and understand that any style and any competitor could enter MMA competition but that it was heavily advised to be well rounded to ensure success. Everyone was also told about Fite Selektor recruitment and 3 individuals expressed their interest and a list of all applicants will be posted in a weeks time.

Throughout the seminar instructor Gohar Gul played a very active role and after each technique was shown to the class he would grab a partner and try it out a few times over to ensure he understood the fundamentals behind it. Hopefully, with a few more sessions a BJJ class can be arranged in KHI under the instruction of Gohar.

Overall, the seminar was a great success and MMA Pakistan looks forward to having similar seminars in Lahore.

Pictures will be posted within approximately 24 hours.

Comments

comments