The first day, we went to a yoga class and the teacher can be perfectly summed up with the word douche. Never have I had such an arrogant, unhelpful teacher and especially in a yoga class. Normally, teachers are patient and help you gain confidence by encouraging you. This guy was the opposite...and he was a dick right from the start.
Before the class started, we started talking and I warned him (all in Portuguese, of course) that my Portuguese isn't perfect so that if he asked me to do something during the class and I didn't do it, he would know that it was because I hadn't understood the directions. His response: "You're in Brazil. You need to learn Portuguese." He said it as if I'd just said I hated the language or something. "Right." I told him, "That's why I'm in this country. I'm learning Portuguese but I'm not perfect because it takes time." Idiot.
He then proceeded to speak English to me the entire class. ?!?! I didn't want him to since I'm trying to learn Portuguese but he seemed to be enjoying it a lot and never let up. I am not even shitting you when I say that, at one point, he came over to where I was doing a balancing posture and sat down beside me, leaning on the floor with one arm. No joke, this is what I heard: "I, uh, compose music in English. Yeah, I have a jazz band and I play x and y instruments (I forget) and this guy over here (pointing) plays the flute in my band." He kept talking for a while and I smiled politely and said things like "wow" and "cool" that you say to a little kid telling you something about their new toy.
This conversation, mind you, took place during a little break he took from walking around the room and being a complete douche to everyone else in the room as well. He walked around with his chest puffed out and his hands clasped behind his back like a military officer and dished out rude comments about people's non-perfect yoga. At one point he asked Cris if she would rather be at home sleeping and he snorted out a pretentious little chuckle every time someone wobbled a little or fell out of a posture.
Disclaimer for anyone who hasn't done yoga: He is literally the only teacher (person, for that matter) I've ever encountered in yoga who is like this. All the other people I've ever done yoga with were amazing. Just don't take a class with this particular guy and you should be good to go.
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I'll never forget the first time Nico and I did jiu jitsu because I had no idea what is was actually about before we started. I'd just decided that I wanted to train in some sort of martial arts fighting sport because they look like fun. Well, for those of you who are in the same boat as I was, I'll explain.
We threw a mattress in the middle of the room and Nico told me to lock our door (remember, we shared a room in a house where a 5-person family and 14 other dudes who trained at his gym lived). He said that if someone walked in that it would look bad. I told him that it'd look worse if we were in there with the door locked and to quit being dramatic and start teaching me jiu jitsu. "Fine," he said, and he laid down on his back on the mattress and said "come on." I stood there looking at him before I hesitantly started to crouch down and he impatiently grabbed my body with his two legs wrapped around my torso and pulled me down.
Yes, ladies and gentlemen, that is the normal position for jiu jitsu. Maybe you guys already knew this but I didn't. One of the goals is to get the opponent into this position so that you can control their entire body with just your legs. "Well damn!" I said, "Yeah, hang on...let me lock the door." It really would've looked bad had someone walked in.
So anyway, Cris and I went to a jiu jitsu lesson at this same gym and it was the opposite of what our yoga experience had been. No one at the yoga class had talked to us and the teacher had been a dick but, at the jiu jitsu class, no one was a pompous ass--literally everyone there was super nice to us.
It started with a warm-up which I liked because we did a lot of Insanity-type exercises. Then, for the main training, Cris and I went with two of the most advanced guys in the class so they could start to teach us some basics and the rest of the class learned other, more complicated moves on the other side of the room.
We basically spent the entire class in that main position I mentioned above. We had to control the other person with our legs, do one of the two maneuvers that we learned that night, flip the person over us and onto the floor and then land on top of them, sitting up. To them, it's just a sport, but to me it seemed like a mix of wrestling and some other stuff that I won't get into...which reminds me, these guys had incredible bodies and beautiful faces. Awkward. There was about to be a lot of nervous giggling on my part but they were all really professional and encouraging so they made it easy to learn.
I was picking up the moves and having way too much fun flipping these dudes onto the floor (like when I used to have such a blast boxing with Nico...I don't know why I enjoy these "violent" sports so much). The class ended with people partnering up and wrestling (I don't know if that's the right terminology for this particular sport...I'm still new) for a timed period. BOY is that a good workout! And it's freaking fun. It reminds me of back in the day when Brendan and I used to fight to the death over the tv remote and whatnot. Yes...good times.
The teacher and everyone in the class were really welcoming and told us to come back. ALSO, get this: the teacher dances. Wth?! He knows the dancing places that play kizomba around here where we live so, as soon as all the holiday festivities are over, it's ON.
I normally wouldn't pay money for a gym but I'm thinking about it now that I've taken one jiu jitsu class. There is literally no better country to learn in if I'm going to practice this sport so I feel like I should be taking advantage of my situation. YAY FOR NEW SPORTS!! :D
Cris and I have one free day left at this gym so I'll update again after!
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