How did your first BJJ training session go? Well, for Kevin James, it nearly ended with him grabbing a training partner by the throat out of pure panic.
The actor and comedian, now a BJJ blue belt, opened up about his rocky introduction to Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu during an appearance on The Joe Rogan Experience.
What he described wasn’t a smooth first step into the sport, but something closer to a full panic attack disguised as a grappling class.
James recalled that during one of his earliest sessions at Beverly Hills Jiu-Jitsu, a training partner pinned him chest to chest, burying his face against the gi and cutting off airflow:
I remember my one, probably the first class, a guy grabbed me and held me just against his chest and my face was in his gi, in his chest. I couldn’t breathe.
I didn’t know what to do so I reached up and I was like grabbing his throat, which you’re not supposed to do, but I was panicking.
Even while trying to maintain composure in front of the rest of the class, James admitted the fear in the moment was very real:
I was gone. I was like, oh, I didn’t know. I just played it off, but I was gone. I was going to tap from a chest (compression).
Rogan pointed out that this kind of reaction is far more common than people assume:
People do that in black belt tournaments, a smother choke. Like, people smother tap people.
Big guys would get on top of people and tuck them in between their pecs.
That comparison resonated with James:
I feel like I’m drowning. It’s scary.
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