"I do not run my club as a business. It is a competition team."
Hikikomi,
You're no criminal in my book if your school is solely competition based (not that I'd think you were a criminal either way).
m.g
I agree with everything you say, except:
"[BJJ] isn't an academic pursuit."
I know it doesn't involve pencils and a scantron, but bjj is very academic. If it isn't, then why can a chubby, unathletic, 150 pound black belt wipe the floor with me without trying when I outweigh him by 30 pound and am in great shape?
And you seem to contradict yourself. You say warm ups are important because "If your body isn't able or well conditioned to do Bjj than you really can't do it," but only "5 - 10 minutes of movements which directly relate to the activity" are necessary for warm ups. Define "able bodied" and "well conditioned." By my definition, you can't become either of these with "5 - 10 minutes of movements which directly relate to the activity."
"In my school, we usually address the stand-up skills as the warm up for our Brazilian Jiu Jitsu class. Why do star-jumps when you can weave and throw some uppercuts, leg kicks, etc?"
If your body isn't well condition and able then you really can't do bjj BUT you don't have to do alot of extra-ordinary and excessive things to condition the body. And since my underlining point was that you have to WARMUP and PREPARE your body in a way that best suits the activity your doing, 5 -10 minutes of activity that is directly related to the activity your doing is sufficient.
Well condition and able body are quite simple to define. First off being chubby and unathletic really doesn't have much to do with being "able bodied" and "well conditioned".
Able bodied means just that "able". Most people who participate in Bjj are "able bodied", that is, they can do the movements and techniques. An example of someone who is not "able bodied" would be someone who has a neuromuscular disorder or some diabilitating disorder/disease where movement is hard or impossible. How can you do something that requires movement if you can't move? Able bodied simply means being able to MOVE your body without strain.
Well condition is just that "condition". It is a basic level of fitness. It doesn't mean the "highest degree" of fitness, it doesn't mean "optimal" level of fitness. It means the fundamental level where you can engage in an activity without dying of exhaustion after the first few moments.
Also just because a black belt happens to be chubby and unathletic wipes you butt doesn't make Bjj an academic pursuit. Look the same thing can and does happens in a physical activities like basketball. I've played basketball against individuals who weren't in the best of physical shape (in comparsion to me, in other words I was in better shape than they were) and who weren't the best athletes (I was a better athlete than they) but who STILL manage to make me look bad on the court. It was because they had SKILL as well as experience. But it didn't take a whole lot of "thinking" for them to get the job done.
Your example didn't in anyway make Bjj an academic pursuit all it did was prove, just like my example with basketball, you don't have to be at the highest level of physical condition nor athleticism to be able to perform or do Bjj. It proved more than anything that bjj is a SKILLED physical activity, just like basketball, and that SKILL is every bit as important as the other components.
People who don't understand that bjj is closer to other physical activity and is NOT a academic pursuit and should approach it like other physical activities and not like rocket science they will certainly progress faster and more naturally in it.
As much as Bjj may have somethings in common with academic pursuits it WILL NEVER be one. I will never compare Bjj to any of the academic subjects I've studied in college. There is no comparison. I will (and do) compare Bjj to other physical activities I've participated in. Plain and simple Bjj is a PHYSICAL ACTIVITY not an academic one.