Feature: Jujitsu: Killing Me Softly

E365 -- Jujitsu. Two men rolling around on a mat, grabbing each other. Sounds fun. Let's take a look at a little bit about this, uh...extreme sport.

Jujitsu began, as hundreds of other martial arts did, with a couple guys trying to figure out who got the last piece of pizza. The word literally means, "art or science of softness". Kinda like George Bush saying that 9-11 wasn't planned, calling Jujitsu "soft" seems to be something of a contradiction in terms. I mean, aren't we talking about a sport which involves complex, calculated choke-holds and eye-gouges?

I used to do Jujitsu. For about a year. I'd put on my gi (that white suit, pronounced "gee") and we'd gather on the mat twice a week to butcher each other into submission. I can name four different types of painkiller I was on at the time.

One day, our instructor Giles came to us with that typical, glazed look in his eye. We bowed, and kneeled on the mat for the introductory lesson instruction, and he began relating something that happened yesterday.

"I want you all to know something," he began. "Jujitsu is a defensive skill. We use the opponent's weight against them, and we lure them into error. We neither attack nor engage our opponent unless out of pure necessity. We fight with our heads, not our emotions."

He adjusted his black belt and looked at the ceiling of the sports hall pensively and calmly.

"The reason I'm telling you this, is because I was involved in a road rage incident yesterday."

That's where the story ended. Nobody asked. The lesson began as normal. But you could sense that everyone in the hall was thinking the same thing: I do not want to know what this man did to another yesterday.

Unlike other martial arts such as Wing Chun and Karate, Jujitsu involves ground-based grappling and locks, rather than strikes. Living in crime-infested South Africa gives practitioners of the sport ample opportunity to concoct all sorts of violent fantasies for situations, both past and future, when they may be accosted and have their valuables demanded of them.

My favourite was going back to the time I was mugged at the train station. One thing you can count on is that if attacked by three or four robbers, they consider flight a far better alternative to helping each other out should the plan backfire. They're an isolated breed. In my mind, I would grab one of them take him to ground with an Osoto Gari throw, and break his right arm, perhaps taking a few blows from the others in the process.

From there, it gets messy, but the point of the matter here is: don't be fooled by the press release version of the sport. If Jujitsu is gentle, Madonna's a virgin.

EXTREME INSPIRATION

"If you want a symbolic gesture, don't burn the flag; wash it."

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