Teaching An Old Dog New Tricks
Yes, I’m an old dog. At least relatively speaking, I am old. I recently turned 53. Now, where my mama and others around her age are concerned, I’m still young. Where high school-aged kids are concerned, I’m ancient and on the precipice of death–if they know what a precipice is.
A Fresh Start
As far as mixed martial arts and Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu go, I would say I am probably very old to be starting. Thirty-plus years ago, I did Isshin-Ryu, an Okinawan form of karate. It was one of the best things I did, because I was a hot-headed teen at the time and it taught me some important lessons.
Just over two years ago, my best friend of more than 30 years died suddenly. His widow was alone and felt like she needed to take a self-defense class, so I did Krav Maga with some BJJ mixed in for a while, then Covid came and screwed up everything. (Oddly, she died about 16 months after he did).
Earlier this year, I did what I have wanted to do for years. I enrolled in a straight-up Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu school.
The Instructor
When I moved back to Alabama in 2006, I worked with a guy who was big into mixed martial arts and Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu. He told me about a friend of his who was fighting in the area and training with him. That person turned out to be Brandon McCaghren. He was the first person in the Southeast to get a black belt under Eddie bravo in 10th Planet.
I’m not trying to sell anything for Brandon, but here are a couple links I quickly found regarding him.
https://bjjfanatics.com/blogs/fighters/brandon-mccaghren
https://bmac.mykajabi.com/
You can also find him on facebook.
Brandon is an amazing instructor. Whenever I watch him roll with people, all I can think about is water moving smoothly over rocks.
New tricks
I decided to undertake writing this to document my progress and as a guide for others who may think it’s too late to start learning BJJ (or anything else).
My goal is to put down the tidbits and platters of wisdom I pick up. We’ll see if I can break through this challenge or if it breaks me.
