50/50 Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu

The women’s locker room at the Sport and Health© in Ballston Common Mall (Arlington, VA) this Sunday afternoon was as crowded as after work on a Monday evening. But instead of pulling running shoes out of their gym bags, these women pulled out Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu gis!

Fifty/50 BJJ (Ryan Hall and Jen Flannery) were honored to host this go round of the East Coast BJJ Women’s Open Mat Series, and we are extremely grateful to our friends at Ouano International and Cat Fight Gear for donating female specific BJJ apparel to raffle off to the 22 ladies in attendance! These women represented schools from around the DC area, New Jersey, Richmond, Virginia Beach, and as far away as Canada: Bartman Jiu-Jitsu, BJJ Revolution, Fifty/50 BJJ, Fightworks, Gustavo Machado, the Krav Maga DC Training Center, Mecca MMA, New Jersey Martial Arts (Team Balance), and ladies from multiple Yamasaki Academy locations.

Women from white belt to brown belt, 110-150lbs, all shapes, all sizes, and all levels enjoyed this opportunity to train together in an open, non-competitive environment…a first for some of them!

This series began in the summer of 2007 as collaboration between then Lloyd Irvin student (now Fifty/50 BJJ Assistant Instructor), Jen Flannery, and Crazy 88 BJJ’s Julius Park…and the idea took off. Since that first exciting open mat, BJJ Revolution, Fightworks, and New Jersey Martial Arts have each hosted a session, usually bringing together 20-30 women in search of a chance to train with other ladies of myriad sizes and skill levels that so few are afforded at their home academies.

These ladies rolled, drilled, talked, tied and re-tied ponytails, tried on each other’s gis, went out for dinner, and followed it up (of course) with some quick shopping. For the first time it was the LADIES intimidating the men who were walking in the door for the co-ed open mat following the women’s training session, lol!

Best smelling group of sweaty glistening BJJ individuals I’ve ever come across! ☺

p.s. Stay tuned for information on the next East Coast BJJ Women’s Open Mat to be held at BJJ Revolution in Richmond, VA sometime this summer!

Jen Flannery
Women’s Instructor
Fifty/50 Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu
www.Fifty50BJJ.com

Original Article posted at Ouano International – News

Tags: bjj, grappling, jen flannery, ladies, open mat, ryan hall, women.
This entry was posted on Sunday, April 26th, 2009 at 6:00 pm and is filed under General. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.