Okay, so it’s possible I have a small addiction. My name is Julia and I’m a BJJ-holic.
I’m going to Ukraine and couldn’t bear to part with my lovely Fenom gi for two weeks. Couldn’t stand the thought of not getting to roll for two weeks. So I decided I was going to do BJJ in Ukraine. (And yes, it’s called “Ukraine,” not “the Ukraine.” It’s a country, not just an expanse of land).
Note it is UKRAINE and not THE Ukraine
Step 1: Googled BJJ+Ukraine came up with this thread, which led me to writing to “Anna-san”, a jiujitsoka in Kyiv. I asked her if there was any BJJ in Zhytomyr, the town I was in, and she gave me some contact information.
Step 2: So I looked up how to say BJJ in Russian (БЖЖ), and I wrote to the contact Anna had given to me in Russian. I used the BJJ page from the Russian Wikipedia site to figure out how to say “white belt” (белая пояса) and “train” (обучаться). I mangled the grammar (mixed my cases!) but was very straight forward.
Step 3: Contacting my friends in Ukraine to clear part of my schedule for training BJJ.
Step 4: Contacting Anna again and getting the info about her Kyiv BJJ club.
So I’ll be training in Ukraine this week! The guy in the town I’ll be in is a Krav Maga instructor who is a white belt in BJJ. He does BJJ as a hobby, and there isn’t anyone higher than him in Zhytomyr, so they have a club, not a class. I figure minimum we’ll be able to drill and practice some moves like passing guard or some of the sweeps I’ve been working on in class.
Anton Farb, Krav Maga instructor, BJJ enthusiast!
My addiction, let me show you it.
Oh, and I’ll be wearing my gi top to the airport, as it’s a heavy item of clothing and want the room in my suitcase for gifts! 🙂 But hey–rollers gotta roll.
Wow get a photo of you at airport wearing your go!
+1 on gi top airport pic! Preferably with reaction shots from fellow passengers and security guards. ;p
Also very cool that you’re going to be training in the Ukraine, even if it’s with another white belt, as opposed to somebody more senior. Much like football, BJJ is becoming something of an international language, albeit on a way, WAY smaller scale. 🙂
Sounds like fun!! 🙂
Safe travels!
Oh I LOVE wearing the gi in the airport… I can’t wait!!!
Fashion bloggers in Ukraine will be scrambling to figure out… what kind of jacket is that? These Americans! Starting new trends and whatnot! 🙂
[…] schools. In short, at my first school there was a miscommunication between me and the instructor and the day before my Ukrainian vacation I left angry. When I came back the instructor told me I wasn’t welcome to train there any […]
[…] a tool for the future. When I went to Ukraine for vacation, I didn’t have any notes. Everything was in my head, and when my drilling partner asked […]
Hi there
I’m a Brazilian second degree black belt and I was keen to go open a school of Bjj in Ukraine , I ve been living in Uk last 12 years and manage to build up the best bjj club in Europe overhere , I’m fed up of this place and need a change , I spend some time in Russia and Poland and I’m thinking to go to Ukraine
Do you know any English speaker bjj person over there ?
Many thanks
Wilson.cretaro9352@hotmail.com
Cheers
OSS 🙂
In a fact, an БДД abbreviation is used as well for Bjj. I ever have an impression it is more popular. Maybe it will change over the years, as using 2 diffrent abbreviations is confusing. The full name is бразильское джиу джитсу so БДД variation is closer to it. However, Russian language usually goes with writing foreign names in cyrilic the way they are pronounced. This approach favours more the БЖЖ variation.
To introduce yourself and your bjj rank, you can say: Меня зовут [insert your name], я (white-белый, blue-синий, purple-пурпурный, sometimes I see фиолетовый used to describe this rank as well, brown-коричневый, black-чёрный) пояс по бразильскому джиу-джитсу.
I hope this will help those people who want to do some jiu jitsu in the former USSR 🙂
Sincerely thank you so much for correcting my article!
If you would like to write an article about BJJ in Poland, I would welcome it! Especially if it was sort of a guide for visiting foreigners interested in training there! Also, if you are interested in translating any of my articles into Russian, I’d be thrilled if you did – you could post them on your site and link back to my original. That would be really amazing. Email me at julia@jiujiubjj.com if you would like to discuss it with more details!!