Things were a whole lot different back when Dean Lister started training Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu.
For example – you could slam people without an issue!
Lister shared how it used to be, in an interview with BJJEE:
Back then, it was „tougher“ in general. Each time has its good and bad things…
But, back then, you never knew who you were fighting.Another thing is that I had to drive all over the country in order to train with quality.
I know that, even today, there are some people who also travel to train… But, back then, you absolutely HAD to do so.When I first started, people could do neck cranks. You could slam people.
More things broke than today. I am not saying this is good – as a matter of fact, it is not.
There have been other things, Dean Lister emphasizes, that were (in a way) better than they are today:
There might have been a generally higher degree of respect between fighters and athletes.
People didn’t jump from team to team (sometimes they did, but that was rare).
But because of this, most grapplers trained in one style only as well.One other thing was that back in my day, the youth didn’t complain as much as the young people do today.
Although, I am sure that my parent’s generation complained even less about it.
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