The black belt was patient with me as I unknowingly hurt him again and again. I was a white belt, a grown man who didn’t have control of his limbs despite many years of controlling this vessel on Earth. I towered over the black belt and was much younger, but that didn’t matter, especially not in the realm of Jujitsu. In terms of technique and knowledge, the black belt was an efficient streamlined fighter plane, and I was a drunk baby chick.
Convention to me is where you put theory into practice. You might nail down Ogoshis in your dojo from the standing position and feel like a rockstar…feel you can throw anybody. Go to Convention and feel your eyes get wide as they ask you to do Ogoshis from walking. Convention is a great place to test your skills with different body types, because not every human is your dojo mate Jerry unfortunately.
We bow to each other on the mat and through doing exercises and competition, we learn about each other and about ourselves. To gain a further understanding about our own skill level, it’s very helpful to venture out to conventions and learn.
It is a challenge, no doubt. I don’t even like going to grocery stores, so you can imagine how a hotel conference room of 10,000 jujitsu maniacs can make me anxious. Standing across from professors who have been doing this longer than you’ve been alive, and you may feel inadequate. But we’re all on the same journey, no matter how long we’ve been practicing. And to others this may look insane, placing our wellbeing of our bodies in the hands of strangers as they aim to drive our heads into the mat or snap our elbows. But that’s not correct, as nobody is really a stranger in our jujitsu community. We’re all family, even if we’ve never met, and we’re all learning together. This drunk baby chick always progresses when it goes to Convention.
-Shane McKinley