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03/22/2014: "And the newest martial art is..."

... drumroll, please...

Lifeguarding!

Seriously.

Don't believe it? Today the wife/mother of a father and daughter who recently joined the dojo came to watch them in class, which she enjoyed. Talking with her, and noting that jujitsu doesn't require a lot of strength because it's based in large part on body mechanics, she related the following:

Some years ago, she was in a hospital setting, and a very large (300 lb) patient came at her. She was around 130 lbs at the time. She reacted without thinking, spinning his momentum and turning him into a hold. She had learned those mechanics from her lifeguard training, which had embedded them deeply enough that she didn't need to think, only to react.

As we've noted before, there are only so many ways to slice the salami of body mechanics. Whether you learned it in a dojo or elsewhere, redirecting momentum to turn and off balance someone and restrain them works because... well... it's simply physics! Training it to reflex is what we strive for.

Lifeguarding as a martial art. Seriously.