The Beauty and Poetry of Brazilian Jiu Jitsu

I am an English teacher.  What I teach my students to do is analyze works of literature, so I am constantly reading and looking for a deeper meaning.  It is only natural that I translate several things in my life into that context.

Last night while I was training, I saw poetry in the technique.

Poetry is just a different way to interpret life.  I like to write poetry because it's so free.  It can be whatever you want it to be.  Some poetry has rules, is exact.  That's not the kind of poetry I write.  Brazilian jiu jitsu has boundaries, but my coaches are always telling me to make it mine.  Last night, I saw beauty within the boundaries.

Beauty, because a non-athletic lady of over thirty can find it and fall in love with it.  Beauty, because it exists within a greater community.  Beauty, because it takes its practitioners beyond given limits: physically, emotionally, mentally, and spiritually.

I saw poetry in the movements last night.  There was something so seamless and fluid, it was as if I couldn't tell where one movement ended and the next began.  I loved watching the twists and turns that lead the body into its next maneuver.  I loved watching the balance of the opponent defending himself against an attempt at submission.  I loved seeing the smiles, the handshakes, the hugs at the end of each roll.  We are not enemies - we are a family, pushing one another to be his or her best.  That is poetry, no matter how you look at it.

There is a story behind martial arts, behind Brazilian jiu jitsu.  When I teach poetry to my students, I tell them that each poem is a story.  I do it this way:  I read the poem by Robert Frost, "Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening" and have them simply listen.  At that point, it often seems flat and boring to the students.  Next, I read it from a storybook, translated with pictures.  It is then that they see and understand the story of poetry.  It makes sense.

Brazilian jiu-jitsu is like that, like a story, only written more eloquently in form than boxy paragraphs and prose.  If it seems that I am romanticizing the sport, well, that's certainly my privelage.  You see, that's the best thing about art and poetry - a good artist and poet leaves interpretation up to the individual, trusting them, with no right or wrong in mind.