It started when I subbed for Hilary's Sunday school class. To get the kids' attention, we had told them about my martial arts background (and maybe exaggerated it a bit). And last night, I taught the ward's youth some jujitsu.
A little about the ward: The members are (please excuse these sweeping generalizations) essentially white people who moved to DC to work for the government or to attend grad school, and black people who have lived and worked in DC for generations. The youth are all inner-city black kids, except for one permanent white girl and a couple of seasonal Senate pages from Utah and Idaho.
Everyone showed up late, with all of the youth leaders driving around town picking up the kids. It was a little bit of a chore getting everyone involved and interested. And Mike, the 6'5" 225 lb. husband of Young Women leader Taryn, helped out a lot with keeping kids involved and being my practice dummy.
Through the evening, I taught everyone an escape from the mount, an armbar from guard or mount, and the figure-four armbar from side-mount. Eventually all of the young men were very actively participating, crowding around for a better view of the action, and excitedly using the moves against their partners. Only one of the young women got into the brawl, but the others had a good time overreacting to the carnage.
Later, the youth leaders told me that they had never seen the youth so interested in any activity. I think I'd like to do it again. Pictures will be posted soon.
