Jiu Jitsu Promotions

    Tonight, Tuesday the 16th of September 2008, Team Jorge Gurgel had a jiu jitsu belt promotion ceremony. With a packed house of jiu jitsu students, Jorge Gurgel promoted six students in the belt ranking. All students who were promoted were proud of the accomplishment but also in pain as they left the gym, more on that later.
   
    Matt Dunlap, Taylor Ruscin and Justin Edwards were all promoted from the rank of white belt to blue belt. All three men are Team Jorge Gurgel MMA fighters and have worked hard for the promotion. Dan Doerner and John Meyer were promoted from purple belt to brown belt. Doerner is the hardest working member of Team JG’s jiu jitsu program and what he lacks in size he makes up for with technique and strength. Meyer is a relentless athlete who overwhelms his opponents with pure strength and explosiveness.
   
    In the night’s main event, Team JG stand out Dustin Hazelett was promoted from brown belt to black belt. Hazelett does not overpower his opponents with strength but with his flexibility, long limbs and outstanding technique is feared by all from grappling competitions to the UFC for his submissions. Hazelett has been training jiu jitsu under Gurgel for 5 years and 10 months. He started training jiu jitsu his junior year of high school and at the tender age of 22 he received his black belt tonight. Watch out world, he will only get better with age. Big things are on the horizon for Hazelett and those of us who train with him know what he is capable of doing in the UFC.    
   
    Now, for that pain I mentioned earlier. So you think you want to be promoted in jiu jitsu in our gym. Since I was promoted tonight I can tell you that it is a very proud accomplishment and that hard work does pay off but I can also tell you that the gauntlet is nothing nice. Here at JG the students who are promoted have to walk the gauntlet. For those of you who do not know what the gauntlet is I will explain. All members of the school who take jiu jitsu line up in two lines and the promoted student walks through. During this walk every student hits you in the back on your bare skin as hard as they possibly can with their belts. You must walk, not run, all the way to the end where the black belts lay into you and then turn around and walk back. Tonight we had a huge class to witness Hazelett receive his black belt and they all got to hit us as hard as they could, twice. Fortunately for Hazelett, he did not have to walk the gauntlet because once you reach black belt you are immune from such punishment. For those of us who have not attained the rank of black belt it was a painful experience. I consider myself to be a fairly tough individual. I am a combat veteran serving in Iraq. I played college football. I have broken just about every major bone in my body and have torn the labrum and rotator cuff in my shoulder twice. Walking the gauntlet is a whole new type of pain. It is something that only those of us who have experienced will ever truly understand. So come on out to JG for tons of fun and the truly unique experience of walking the gauntlet.
  
 Congratulations go out to all students who were promoted tonight.

MDUNLAP