What’s worse than ending up in Closed Guard? Yup… Ending up in Closed Guard of a 6.8 NBA athlete.
Which just might have been the case for someone entering into a recent Denver Nuggets BJJ class!
The NBA team was spotted training Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu in an unknown facility.
One of their stars, Serbian national Nikola Jokić, was nowhere to be seen – but it appears that a number of other players tested themselves!
The video below shows Denver Nuggets players drilling Hip Escapes, technical standups, some guard passing, and takedowns as well…
And, most important of all, having lots of fun!
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This isn’t the first time that a team from a professional sports league took on BJJ as an add-on activity.
Plus, there have been plenty of cases of individual athletes – even coaches – who took on Jiu-Jitsu as something that will help them improve their conditioning.
For instance, Boston Celtics’ head coach Joe Mazzulla trains regularly.
Mazzulla’s BJJ coach, Alex Costa, spoke with The Atlantic and explained the benefits of Jiu-Jitsu for dealing with challenging situations:
Once you get in a chokehold, your mind goes cuckoo.
The general idea is that once you get in a position, a submission (with a threat) on your body, you’re going to have to make very rapid decisions.
The first thing we teach students is how to stay focused and control the panic that would be, like, very close to happening essentially under a real stressful, life-threatening situation.Basically, what we do here is maintain the balance and make sure that we keep (your mind firing) to find technical solutions for your case.
