Southern Oregon Lotus Jiu Jitsu

I've trained at a Wing Chun school and a Krav Maga school in El paso, TX. I visited a few schools in Medford and this one is my favorite of all. Instructors are the real deal, yet so humble. I feel learning the art is the focus, not being macho or losing weight lol

I first visited the lotus club after having been burned by an experience at another Medford Jiujitsu place. That other place was a very hostile and unwelcoming environment and I would recommend against going there. Their introductory period revolved around hitting me in the neck repeatedly to demonstrate its "standing blackout potential". The lotus club however is the real deal. I'd previously trained for a little while in BJJ at my college and this program taught more techniques and gave us much more time to practice and roll, sparring for those new to BJJ. You can verify that the instructor was certified as a black belt by the people he lists on his website. On my first day that I was there I had the chance to work with David and despite how much higher is skill level is he didn't use that against me. What I mean by that is he didn't try to just submit me the instant we started to roll but instead only worked on maintaining his position as I tried to build mine. Even though he was bigger and stronger than I was he didn't try and use that to his advantage he only worked on his position and I struggled to try and get into position. At the end of that session he told me I did a good job of trying to protect my neck and arms and was overall very encouraging. That just seems to be the type of environment of the lotus club. You can grapple with people who are much better than you but then tend to encourage and even give tips as you go. The nicest part is that there are adult classes every week day so you can pick which days will be the best fit for your schedule and then pick a plan based around that. While the school does seem to be more focused on the competitive circuit of BJJ, the owner, Pete, is more than happy to work with you on your self defense techniques when you ask about them. I asked him about those techniques after I was at a party where fights were breaking out and we spent roughly an hour on defending against punches that Saturday. My friend who I invited to come out also had a good time. They worked with him a bit differently since he'd never done any grappling before. Instead of showing him a technique and then moving to grappling they worked with him on how to defend against being choked while standing and basics of falling to avoid injury. They didn't require that he roll with anyone since he was completely new and that's a good thing since it would be easy for someone more experienced to just shut down and frustrate someone who has never grappled before. He told me afterwards that it had been different than he had expected but that it was enjoyable his only problem was that he didn't have enough allowance to start attending regularly. I had a good time training there this past summer and really managed to improve in the short time I was there. I went from losing every sparring session with the regulars to not losing any the last day I was there. When I am back in town for a longer period of time I will make sure to come back and continue training. That's the best recommendation I can give. My only hope is that this time I'll be able to come by more often.