Bodybuilder Thaabiet Domingo walked into his first jiu-jitsu class with all the confidence in the world. He was built like a tank and paired up with a short 16-year-old girl – this was going to be a cake walk, he figured. ‘She put me to sleep in a couple of seconds,’ he says. ‘I woke up with about five or six people crowded around me, slapping me awake. At that point I realised, if this were to happen on the street, I wouldn’t be able to defend myself. After that, I quit the weights and threw myself into jiu-jitsu.’
That was eight years ago. Today, Thaabiet is referred to as ‘Coach’ on the mat – a term of respect for this highly skilled purple belt. He runs his own jiu-jitsu academy, Resilience Jiu-Jitsu, with Amjad Tiseker – who’s also known as ‘Coach’.
Some form of the martial art originated in Japan and eventually made its way to Brazil. ‘In Buddhism it’s illegal to use weapons, so about 2 500 years ago Buddhist monks developed a martial art centred on animal movements to defend themselves against looters,’ explains Thaabiet. This even influenced the samurai. It eventually spread throughout Asia and evolved into practices such as judo.
This story is from the Volume 35 edition of Lose It!.
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This story is from the Volume 35 edition of Lose It!.
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