I love Jiujitsu. I have been training almost 4 years and usually make 5-6 classes per week. I choose BJJ over many activities that I should be doing. I left my family at the Hotel once on a family vacation to Hong Kong to go to a Clark Gracie Seminar. I have rescheduled business meetings so I would not have to miss class. I always try to schedule my flights at times so I can train either before I leave or after I land. I am a glutton for punishment. I was at a hard core no gi place on Thanksgiving morning and got shredded by the locals where my parents live as it seems all the beasts are the guys who want to train on Thanksgiving in that part of the woods and instead of looking at me as an old guy who just wanted to get in some light rolling and work on some techniques they viewed me as fresh (but old) meat to work on their guillotines and arm-bars. I had no problem with that and when I go back up to visit my parents will most like train with the again. I will be in Dallas for a week during Christmas visiting my daughter and her family and have already contacted the people there about training. I am a training fanatic. I love to train and compete. I got BJJ in the Blood and on the Mind.
That being said, for some reason the Gauntlet really bothers me. I have been through the Gauntlet and while I will say I did feel the pain and had welts for days afterwards it is not the pain part of the Gauntlet that bothers me. It is the frenzy the you see with people who really just want to be able to hit people as hard as they can with their belts. I mean you can see how much they enjoy this. I just can't bring myself to hit someone who is defenseless as hard as I can. I can't rationalize it in my brain.
I am an older guy went to High School in the 70's and hazing was a real thing. It really bothered me back then and after I went through the Freshman Hazing that I did I never felt like hazing other kids. I just never saw the point. For some it seemed like a right of passage of sorts. They had been hazed (some were very brutal and not done with Spirit of Sportsmanship or belonging to the group but done with malice) and because they were High School kids doing it they had no idea if or how bad they might hurt someone. High School kids have not been known to make the best decisions. When I became an Upper Class men I would never attend the hazing ceremonies. I am not a pacifist by any means. I always enjoyed a good fight when the need arose and never backed down from a scuffle. I hunted and killed many animals and felt no remorse. I was raised in Wyoming where it was a way of life. I was not a big kid growing up and always wrestled in the lower weight classes but I belonged and had friends who were bigger guys so I did not really get picked on. There was a boy from Church who was a little bit smaller then me. He broke his arm playing Dodge Ball and he seemed to really get harassed at School by many of the bigger kids. In the 70's Bullying was not seen the same was it is today. It was almost accepted and was hard to avoid if you were a smaller kid or maybe had some feature that caused you to be different. No one wanted to be different so people tried to avoid being seen with those kids so they would not be seen as less then cool. I think it is different now days.
I guess I just don't understand what the Gauntlet achieves. You get a bunch of Grown men and a few ladies together and then publicly whip a few people because there BJJ skills merit them getting promoted to a new belt level so you whip them? I do think that people do not hit with malice but many are really trying to leave their mark (welt). I understand traditions. I think they are great. I just don't understand why beating someone would be a tradition you would want to keep.
I know most schools have done away with the Gauntlet. Not sure why the Gauntlet bothers me so much. I know I am not expressing it well. I mean the guys who got promoted rolled with everyone in the class for 2 minutes before the gauntlet that was more then an hour worth or rolls and I had absolutely no problem with that and rolled with them as well as an old man can but the gauntlet just seemed to be over the top to me.
