Jacquez brings his brand of Jiu-Jitsu to Taos
The Jiu-Jitsu and kickboxing gym on Gusdorf Road, formerly Defendu Academy, is under new ownership. Jesse Jacquez, a professor in Jiu Jitsu from Santa Fe, purchased the space about a month ago, renaming the business Jess Jacquez BJJ (Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu), which is also the name of a gym he started in Santa Fe seven years ago.
Classes opened to the public on Monday (April 4).
“If you’re a member at JJBJJTaos, you will also be considered a member at JJBJJ-Santa Fe and can come train in Santa Fe for any of our classes,” Jacquez said, explaining that Santa Fe members can also train in Taos.
Coach Jenna Osuna, a seconddegree brown belt, talked about the benefits of the cross pollination between the two schools.
“You learn from different people. Different professors have different styles. So it’s great, because we have like this cool little fashiony style, and it gives our school a little bit of a leg up to be able to compete against people who don’t have the same style.”
On Saturday (April 9), JJBJJTaos held a grand opening, which included an open mat for an hour followed by a potluck. The crowd was a combination of students invited from Santa Fe and students from Taos that signed up within the first week of the gym’s opening.
According to Jacquez, the turnout for the new school has been positive.
“It’s more than I expected. I didn’t know what to expect when I first came in. But from what I heard ... everyone was really interested to have someone that did this as a profession come in. So I was kind of excited about that, you know, but you never know.”
As for the inspiration to start a branch here in Taos: “So we had several students coming from here
[Taos] actually go to Santa Fe to train because they weren’t able to compete. And so they were training with us, and one of the moms actually mentioned to me they might be looking for someone in Taos.”
There is no signage as of yet for the new gym. The interior is relatively
unchanged from when it was Defendu Academy, a 10,000 arm bar challenge banner still hangs up on the wall from that time. The color scheme is still the same, with blue walls and a white mat. Jacquez distinguishes his school from Defendu by saying JJBJJ-Taos is more focused on competition.
“So we’re a competition school, and they really weren’t. We kind of push the competition,” he said.
You walk into the gym, and the first floor is mostly mat and punching bags, and to the left is a small countertop with posters of previous bouts and upcoming
bouts around it: Fabiana Jorge versus Osuna on Friday (July 9); Jacquez versus Gaffield on Nov. 17 in Denver. There’s already a sign-up sheet almost filled up with names of people wanting to compete in Albuquerque on May 14 for a Round Robin Tournament.
Osuna talked briefly about what happened to her the last time she faced the “Brasileira” Jorge. She got caught in a kimura — a devastating jiu-jitsu lock that isolates the arm away from somebody but is different from the traditional arm bar. In the arm bar the arm is caught in between the grapplers legs, usually the grappler is perpendicular to the person’s upper torso, and from that position the arm can be broken or separated quickly. In the kimura, the grappler positions themselves over a combatants isolated arm. For instance, from a closed guard (beneath the combatant with the legs tight around the combatant’s hips) the grappler grabs the person’s left wrist with his left hand and hooks his right arm around the person’s left arm to create leverage to snap it back.
On Tuesdays, there’s an all women class from 6-7 p.m.
According to their website, JiuJitsu offers realistic self defense situations: “Whether it be to keep your cool in the midst of a fight or to put an attacker to sleep when he is between your legs in an uninviting
position, training and learning basic techniques of Jiu-Jitsu can potentially save your life one day.”
There were nine women present for the class on Tuesday (April 12). Five out of the nine wore blue
belts, the second adult rank within Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu. The other four were beginners wearing white belts.
One of those white belts is owner of the Body Shop, Julia Struck. She attended the open mat on Saturday and had this to say about it on Facebook before her second class on Tuesday (April 12): “On Saturday for open mat she [Osuna] allowed me to put her in a choke hold. I knew she could make me tap out in like 2
seconds (probably 1 lol) but she used her own body as resistance to allow me to feel my own strength. THAT IS EMPOWERMENT. I have never been pushed this way, I was humbled and sweating my a** off. Dropped 2 lbs in my first week.”
In the fitness department, the gym offers cardio kickboxing on Tuesdays and Thursdays. Anyone can attend the first lesson for free and then decide to join on a month-to-month basis or on a contract.