john machado announced in class last night that starting in Nov he will have class 5 nights week, with tues/thurs being dedicated to no gi only... I am really psyched.
That's awesome ... it can be hard for me to get out of work early enough to make class, so having more days a week is terrific. Plus I've wanted to try out no gi stuff, it seems more my style. Totally cool!
Yeah man, no gi is where its at. Well, I shouldn't say that, I've never trained gi jiu jitsu before so I wouldn't really know. I really like no gi jiu jitsu though. Our class is pretty good, we always roll no gi with body strikes allowed. A lot of people in class will add light head strikes as well.
We've finally got an official no-gi lesson. For ages, I'd only get to roll no-gi if there was someone else there as well during free training. The problem is, barely anyone ever seemed to want to for some reason. Same goes with MMA.
Yeah we use mma gloves for the striking. We throw elbows too but certainly not full strength and they are usually thrown at the legs and such. For example, if I am in some guys gaurd I will throw a shot to the head then an elbow strike to his thigh or something like that. The shots definately hurt but I mean we are all training at a club so we certainly don't try to hurt the guy or knock him out. Some guys roll with 10oz boxing gloves as well and use hard strikes to work on ground and pound. It's pretty good because you get a really good feel for positioning and where you can effectively throw punches from.
Glad to hear that your instructor/school is moving away, somewhat, from the anachronism of the gi, and getting more reality-based by training no-gi. It is a big change, and a good one. Good luck.
