God is a Grappler

This is a guest post by Kyle Nelepovitz

 

Readers of the Bible already know that grappling plays an important part in the relationship between God and man. In Genesis 32:22-32 we learn of the holy grappling match between Jacob and God. For the sake of the unwashed we will go over the events that happened that day.

Jacob was God’s unwitting opponent in this match. Jacob was an underdog to be sure, but he did have an impressive lineage. He was the grandson of Abraham, who was the grandfather of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. If you don’t know those, you should check them out. They turned out to be very popular after this match.

Before the fight, Jacob was on a journey and in the process of trying to get his family and possessions across a river. The ferry he was using could only take so much at a time. Much like the riddle of the fox, the grain and the duck there was a system to getting across this river. The family went first, while Jacob stayed with his stuff. Then Jacob sent his possessions over. Night fell in the process and Jacob was left all by himself.

This is where the fight begins. From somewhere in the darkness, a man came, and started wrestling with Jacob. Jacob, though surprised at this impromptu roll, was able to hold his own. They vied for position and fought for grips. The man from the darkness was strong, but Jacob was strong too. It was an even match. No points were scored, and no submissions were caught. They grappled furiously through the night.

Daybreak came and, in a moment of distraction for Jacob, the man from the darkness broke Jacob’s hip from its socket. Jacob was in tremendous pain, but he did not tap. The man from the darkness, confounded by Jacob’s strength, and tolerance for pain, verbally tapped and told Jacob to let him go. Jacob, in a show of questionable sportsmanship, declined, but he did give the man an out.

Jacob told the man that he would let him go if he blessed Jacob. An unusual request to be sure, but a clear way for the man from the darkness to get out of this match.
This request was not only unusual, but it was about to lead to an epic win for both Jacob and all of western religion. That guy from the darkness, the man who grappled all through the night with Jacob was no man at all, it was freaking God himself. The blessing was given.

God dusted himself off and asked Jacob what his name was. When Jacob answered, God said, “no way man, your new name is Israel”, which basically translates as, God Fighter. Jacob was stoked with his new name, but wanted to know who this weirdo leg locker from the dark, that just apparently changed his name, and broke his goddamn hip was. God, in a socially awkward moment, just asked Jacob why he wanted to know, and then poofed out of existence.

If you’re a fan of the Bible you already know how things go from here. Israel goes on to become the patriarch of the Israelites. He carries the blessing of god into the land of Israel and continues his epic adventure. His children continue this legacy, until a few years later when his granddaughter, Mary, ends up giving birth to the Son of God himself. There’s a lot more to the story, but what matters is that none of it would have happened if Jacob would have tapped.

There are multiple translations of this event and I have summarized it to the best of my knowledge. We’re talking about a fight from over 3,000 years ago so accuracy of the fight details can be difficult to know. There are still disputes on whether Rickson is really 400-0 and he’s still alive today. While the details may be argued there are some lessons that are indisputable regardless of translation.

The first thing we can determine is that God is in fact a grappler, and not a striker. He is on our side and we are his chosen people. The other thing we find out about God is that his grappling is surprisingly weak. There is no mention of Jacob training at all before this match, yet God couldn’t submit him. A skilled black belt would probably take 10 seconds to tap Jacob today.

The other thing we clearly see is that God is willing to attack the lower body. He has a leg lock game, and it is effective. The fact that God jumped Jacob at night does sort of paint him in a less that honorable light, so we may still debate whether it is, in fact, a cheap move or not. What we can be sure of is he is a leg locker. Lastly we learn that tapping is for wimps. If you want to do something great in this world then you’re going to have to man up and let your joints break.

For us grapplers, it is a warm comfort to know that we are the righteous. We are the hopeful who pray that, when we step onto those Holy Mats at the pearly gates, our Jits will be good enough to tap God. Though Jacob was able to beat him, we haven’t seen God’s ground game in thousands of years. What he’s been focusing on is a mystery. God isn’t going to bring that same weak ass stuff he did last time. He’s going to bring us something new. We must whole heartedly train in this life, for the grappling match in the next.

We have faith that we can do as Jacob did. We pray for the strikers of the world who have not heard the good news. We train as if we are going to fight God himself, on the ground. We mourn for those poor souls who have never been on the mats at all. We train, we pray, and we spread the gospel; God is a grappler and he will freaking break your legs if you’re not ready.

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from Jiu-Jitsu Brotherhood – Grappling & Brazilian Jiu Jitsu Videos and Techniques
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Nicolas
August 19, 2018 at 02:09PM

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