Every day is an opportunity to challenge yourself! Jiu-Jitsu is a great challenge for yourself; not just physically and mentally, but also for your self discipline. It’s okay if you’re not the best one on the mat, or if you get submitted once a minute. If you come on time, give it your all while you are there, and train at a realistic consistency you will improve! That is a challenge worth taking!
Purple belt promotion for Kenny.
Kenny has been doing jiujitsu for over two decades. In EDH he has been the person that practices perseverance, patience, and has always sought to understand jiujitsu as a art and expression of himself. He trains with the intent to help himself as well as his training partner improve. Kenny takes the challenges he is given as motivation to progress, improve, and better realize his weakness.
In his journey, he has trained at several different academies depending on his place of work and living, always loyal to his coaches and we are happy to have him in El Dorado Hills. He embraces the journey as an opportunity to better understand himself. Through this, his awareness for others in work, family, and life are exceptional. We appreciate the sense of dedication and commitment he brings to the mat.
El Dorado Hills Brazilian Jiu Jitsu was in attendance for another great public demonstration of jiujitsu at the CSU Sacramento Japan Day event.
This is one of the biggest student organized events on campus featuring the Japan Club and activities related to Japanese language and culture.
The BJJ demo showed the many different aspects of jiujitsu, athleticism, art, performance, choreography, technique, discipline, leverage, and more. Each performance was choreographed by the students with little to no input from a coach. The students were challenged to take on the performance to showcase their knowledge of jiujitsu and at the same time help others understand what it means to do jiujitsu. Some emphasized the self defense aspect of the art while other emphasized the sport and exciting movements to captivate the audience. It was also an opportunity to talk about the migration of jiujitsu from Japan, Brazil, and now all over the world. A fitting demonstration sponsored by the department of world languages and literatures at CSU Sacramento.
Congrats Sam! PeeWee jiujitsu class gray white belt promotion:
Sam brings focus to the peewee class where things can get kinda crazy at times. His leadership is in his ability to focus, concentrate, and show others how to train. Even in a class with four year olds with are brand new to the art of jiujitsu, Sam’s actions speak for the coaches. When Sam speaks every body listens.
Sam started jiujitsu with the invitation from his friend, and you will find them challenging each other, laughing, learning, and growing into the mat as a martial artist. Friendship on the mat is an incredible experience. Your friend becomes a person you want to beat, a person who will encourage you, and someone you will respect more each and every day you train.
Gray Black Belt Promotion at EDH BJJ
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Abigail has been training for almost four years in El Dorado Hills Jiu Jitsu.
She was one of the first girls to start training and has been leading the way for the young women who train at our school. More importantly, Abigail is determined, courageous, & intelligent. She doesn’t backdown from challenges and when she is met by adversity, she perseveres with the help of her family, teammates, and coaches.
Abigail is aware of her surroundings, a skill that is considered extremely important in self defense.  For example, the other day, she noticed someone from the younger class needing some coaching. She didn’t hesitate to step in and quickly help the pair of students. It was exactly what a good coach would have done.
Blue belt promotion 🛡柔🥋柔🛡
Congrats to Dave on his blue belt promotion! Dave has embraced the jiujitsu lifestyle and taken a full approach to living strong in diet, training, and life on and off the mat.
Dave has challenged himself on the mat with tournaments, asking questions, video study and is also working on a community service drive, collecting supplies for the Sacramento Children’s Home.
In the last few months Dave has really dove deep to better understanding different positions by asking questions and studying in small group sessions. We are excited to see Dave move up to new challenges as a blue belt on the mat and serve his community in his works off the mat! Congrats!
On February 25th we took a small team down to compete at the San Francisco Open. The event was held at the historic Kezar pavilion. Driving into the city on clear Sunday morning, I felt a mixed sense of nervousness for the competition and nostalgia from living there over two decades ago.
I was the first one from our team to compete, and I was pretty nervous. It was my first tournament at Black Belt and my first match was against a former training partner of mine. I was happy to pull guard cleanly and have to opportunity to play my game. As I was pummeling for grips he pressed my guard and kept me on my back. I was getting passed and I bridged and came on top… well sort of. He locked a triangle and did my best to defend it and he was able to secure a nice wrist-lock. It was a hard first lesson at Black Belt, but you have to start somewhere.
After my match, I walked down Height Street and placed this experience in the context of my life. Even when you lose, there is a special place in your past as a person that put it all out there.
The tournament was a great learning opportunity for everyone. There were people competing for the first time in their jiu jitsu journey, and others for the first time in 2018, after the holidays. One of our students Brad made his competition debut at the IBJJF SF Open this weekend and he documented his experience on his blog on linkedin. “How competing in a combat sport taught me more about how to improve myself and help others do the same.” Give his article a read and let him know what you think!
Tournament Results:
Blue Belt:
White Belt:
by Coach Aaron
Photography By Aiza Tengan
Last month we had the honor of hosting a seminar at the academy for Van Robertson. It was a really neat experience as the attendees were mixed with adults and child practitioners.
Van taught variations of the Bull Fighter (also known as the Toreando) pass, with a very reactive and systematic approach. The passes primarily dealt with the guard player maintaining both grips on the sleeves of the guard passer. Using both sets of grips (on the guard player’s pants and their grips on the passer) she anchored their guard and switched grips on the legs in a specific manner that killed their ability to make space. There was more to it than that, but that’s what I took away from it in essence, besides the specific techniques that she taught.
The seminar was a donation based event where all the money made was donated to a non-profit brazilian jiu jitsu program in Oakland called Guardian. Guardian Jiu Jitsu is a martial arts program that funds children to train under the age of 18 with donations from their adult members and community events. We were able to raise just about $400 for the event.
If you have the opportunity to train with or learn from Van in the future we highly recommend taking advantage of the opportunity. She is detailed, thoughtful, and engages with learners in a fun and active way.
Van now lives and trains in Auckland, New Zealand, but we are lucky that her parents live here and that she comes and visits when she is in the area!
Coach Aaron
On the last weekend of January, Tanner Ford and Eliot Kelly made their presence felt on the stage of Fight to Win Pro 60 in Reno, Nevada. This was an exciting night for the two competitors where over $30,000 were paid to the many competitors of the night. Tanner made his Submission only debut on the fight to win card and won via heel hook. He had a dominant performance and was able to execute to precision what he had been training. We are excited to see him again on the stage!
Eliot wasn’t as successful as Tanner in his match. Eliot lost a unanimous referee decision. Needless to say he made an effort to put on a show of takedowns and hand fighting looking to gain advantage starting from the feet.
We are excited to have been a part of another Fight to Win pro card in the Nevada area! This was an exciting opportunity to compete and perform on a professional stage in the art of submission grappling. We look forward to seeing these competitors in action again on the fight to win stage!
Jarrod is the first generation with our new white belt curriculum to move up in belts. This has been a long process that has been in effect for a little over a year and a half. It’s been very beneficial in giving the beginners a sense of direction and task oriented learning opportunities in addition to the lessons they experience through their rolling and situational drilling.
Jarrod brings an analytical game to the mat to train and understand the technique and concepts behind martial arts efficiency.  Coming from a background in pharmacology, he is very scientific in his approach to analyzing and understanding his game. His enthusiasm to improve and challenge himself exists in him going to competitions, training at 6am, 11am and the evening classes, and in thee process of him getting comfortable on the mat he has gotten his family involved in training! 
In December Jarrod led a community sock drive, collecting over a thousand pairs of socks for the homeless. He brought an awareness for a need that the community might overlook. We appreciate his attention to detail in noticing where different needs exist in our community and finding ways to fill them!
We appreciate Jarrod’s enthusiasm to train and improve. It is contagious as he mentors the newer students on the mat, encouraging them to challenge themselves. Congrats Jarrod!
