On Wednesday January 14, 2009, I visited Gold’s Gym to watch the Judo and Brazilian Jiu Jitsu class. The session that I visited was in the 6-9 year old division and classes were held on Monday and Wednesday from 3:30 to 4:30. While there, I met with my P.E. teacher. My teacher explained to me what the students did in the class as well as some of the exercises and stretches.


The class began with some jogging and high knees to get the students loosened up. After the students had loosened up, they began stretching. The students did many, many stretches and all were held for 10 seconds. Anthony was the adult leading the stretches as well as counting them off. The stretches were vigorous and lasted fifteen to twenty minutes. My teacher said, “Just the warm up and stretching alone gives you a great work out.”
After the students were fully stretched and warmed up, they began working on their new move, the triangle hold. Hank and Anthony were in the center of the mat performing the move while the students were watching. As they were performing the move, they were explaining how and what to do to get the opponent into a triangle hold. While performing the move, Anthony talked about how the students needed to be a good partner to one another to mimic what would happen in the real situation.


Anthony and Hank finished the demonstration of their new move and partnered up the students. The students were partnered up into groups of two to practice the triangle hold. There were four adults helping to coach the students including My P.E. teacher. The students continued doing this for quite some time switching off who was on guard every few minutes.


The students then switched to another activity staying with the same partner. They were doing timed two minute skirmishes. After the two minutes were up, the students switched partners. The students repeated the process a total of three times. After the third skirmish was over, they began doing push ups and up downs. The adults then began putting away the large mats. The class was ended by the students shaking hands and bowing to each other. I enjoyed watching the class and will consider joining the older group.