Black Friday Madness-Redondo Beach

Name: I cannot speak highly enough about how incredible this school is. All of the instructors are extremely skillful and masters of their craft, diligent and meticulous in caring for each and every student of any level, and welcoming and kind! My wife and I joined as complete beginners and have grown to love martial arts, and the students and teachers at Elite!
Item: Elite Training Center
Rating: 5
Author: Andrew Balogh

In Redondo Beach it was raining on Black Friday. A time of the year where traditionally businesses went from losing money “In the Red” to making money “In the Black!” This is referred to the black verses red ink on the old cash registers for all you young folks reading this. Today with online shopping and super stores such as Walmart, there is hysteria created as people begin shopping for the holiday season. I did so in the rain yesterday because my wet suit ripped the day before surfing and I thought, “This is the best time to find a deal!” However, one sad aspect of all this is that it is becoming public knowledge that there is a Black Friday Madness at stores such as Walmart and it has become command place. Each year there are more fights and even deaths reported because of the mad rush to a super sale.

With the use of cellphone video, we are seeing all of the action with people pushing, yelling, grabbing, punching and even using weapons. The smart thing for me to advise is to stay away from such stress and these stores. In the video above, a woman is grabbing a man by the shirt because of a bike for a child. I think of what I would do in such a situation if a woman was grabbing me. If I was in the right and a person grabbed my arm over such a thing as a toy bike, how would a tell this person to let me go? My mother watched the video with me as she is visiting me from the East Coast. She asked what I would do in that situation?

I said, “Mom, people do not grab me like this!” The reasons are many yet everything goes back to Martial Arts training and the way a person feels when they start training jiu-jitsu. A person’s base/balance, tendon strength and physical hand strength improves without even throwing a punch or a kick when training Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu. When I way growing up, I could always tell my new friends if they wrestled because they felt different compared to others that did sports or did not. The wrestlers were strong everywhere. Very strong hands, shoulders, arms and backs I remember clearly. As teenagers we would shake hands and sometimes put our hand on the shoulder in the gesture of, “It is nice to meet you.”

When I started training in Jiu-Jitsu, the jiu-jitsu guys reminded me of the childhood, meeting friends and people that did grappling or wrestled. The jiu-jitsu guys had the feeling of strength and strong base like they were somebody you don’t push around. And the simple fact was doing such a thing: That was/is a difficult task! Thus, we head back to my mother’s comment to me, “What would you do it this situation where the person is grabbing me like in the video?” “Mom, people don’t grab me like that…I am a jiu-jitsu guy!” “Sometimes they see it and when push comes to shove, they will feel it!”

My best,

Prof. Tony Pacenski
2nd Degree Black Belt
BJJ Revolution Team

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Elite Training Center
1628 South Pacific Coast Highway,
Redondo Beach, CA 90277
(310) 543-1600
www.elitetrainingcenter.net
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