Berimbolo

Humans of Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu: Aaron Broverman

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(Photo courtesy Aaron Broverman)

One of the great things about Brazilian jiu-jitsu is that it’s allowed me to meet all types of amazing people. Humans of Brazilian jiu-jitsu is an opportunity to talk to and about a few of them.

Aaron Broverman is a journalist, podcaster and comic book nerd from Surrey, B.C. He’s also a BJJ purple belt who trains at Toronto BJJ, a Jiu-Jitsu for Life affiliate in Toronto’s Bloorcourt neighbourhood. He started training BJJ in February 2012. He has lived in Toronto for 13 years, and has lived with spastic diplegia cerebral palsy since birth.

On adaptive jiu-jitsu

All Brazilian jiu-jitsu is adaptive jiu-jitsu. Hélio Gracie adapted traditional jiu-jitsu because he was a small, frail guy who was always breaking his legs. True adaptive jiu-jitsu, though, is two people with disabilities facing off against each other. There aren’t many of us, but we do exist. The nature of my disability is that I can’t do every move, but the thing about jiu-jitsu is you don’t have to know everything. You don’t have to be able to Berimbolo effectively or De La Riva effectively to beat someone. I can beat someone just as well using the simpler moves.

On the difference between fighting able-bodied people and other fighters with disabilities

When you’re a person with a disability fighting an able-bodied person, you basically know what they’re going to do. They’re going to pull guard, they’re going to try to pass in a certain way from a certain position. What’s really scary is when I fight another person with a disability, because I don’t know what they know. I don’t know how they’ve adapted. Let’s say I’m facing a dude who is a paraplegic. So his upper body is fine, but his lower body is just his legs flopping around. I don’t know he’s going to do. I don’t know what his weapons are.

On able-bodied people ‘taking it easy’ on him

I love it when able-bodied people give me the benefit of the doubt. When they think I’m not going to be able to do things at a regular speed and they’re like ‘Oh I’ll do him a favour.’ That’s awesome. If you want to take me lightly, feel free. I’ll take that opening and I’ll win. And I don’t care if you ‘let me win.’ The result is the same and all that means is you defeated yourself. You still lost. Whatever narrative you have to have in your head, because you feel weird about rolling with a dude with a disability, I don’t care. Cool, I don’t have to work as hard. I’ll just have more energy for my next match. Because most of the time you’ll never know if someone ‘gave it to you’ or if you’ve earned it. So, in order that I don’t drive myself nuts thinking about it, I’ve decided it doesn’t matter. That’s their issue. It’s not my issue. I’m just gonna roll the way I roll.

(Quotes have been condensed and edited for clarity.)

You can follow Aaron on Twitter at @Broverman. You can read his writing here. You should definitely listen to his podcast, Speech Bubble, which you can download here.

Training Diary: Ain’t No Party Like an Ultra Heavy Party (‘Cause an Ultra Heavy Party Only Stops Occasionally to Catch its Breath)

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That is neither me nor Luis. That’s BJJ pro Otavio Nalati, an inspiration to big BJJ players everywhere. (YouTube Screenshot)

Every time I get the chance to train with another big guy — someone who competes at ultra heavyweight and, like me, has a bit of a gut on them — I get a little giddy. It’s just great to work with someone who paints with the same palate as I do. I don’t have to feel self-conscious about my bulk, or my inability to pull of certain moves. (Berimbolo classes are every big jiujiteiros nightmare.)

It’s also nice to see how I stack up against the sort of guy I will be eventually be competing against. Am I too dependant on using my strength and size to smash smaller opponents, or is my technique good enough that I can hold my own against another big guy? If my fellow ultra heavy is a higher belt, so much the better. Sure, they’re going to grind me into a fine powder, but they’re also going to show me a few cool pressure-based big man BJJ tricks along the way.

On Monday night, I had one of these glorious experiences. My partner was a purple belt named Luis, who has a crushing side control and a relentlessly positive attitude.

(For the uninitiated, side control day is pretty much every big BJJ player’s favourite day.)

We had a blast. We cheered each other on, tried to give each other tips through a language barrier, and when it was time to actually test what we’d learned against each other, we really went for it. I didn’t question whether or not I was just using my size rather than my technique. And for sure, Luis got the better of me, but I held my own better than I expected to.

Here’s the emotional honesty bit; I had a concussion a few months ago and have kind of struggled to get back into training. BJJ is hard and it’s supposed to be. It’s a hobby that’s not always going to be fun. Sometimes it’s going to be frustrating. Sometimes it’s going to make you question what you’re doing with your life. It’s always going to push you, physically and emotionally, further than you thought you could go. But then there are days where everything makes sense, where the techniques start to click, and you just feel tremendous joy. Those days are the payoff that make the other, harder days worthwhile. I hadn’t had one of those good days in a long time. In the month-and-change since I’d been back, everything had been hard. Everything had been pushing a rock up a hill. This was compounded by the fact that I was promoted to blue belt while I was out, which means that when I came back, I was coming back to new, harder classes that would have gone over my head even when I was healthy.

I needed a good day to remind me why I do this. So thanks Luis.