At Taus Gym, I supervise grappling workouts and try to get participants in FIT classes in 45
minutes to the point where they are tired but satisfied (and not broken) and preferably the
next time just a little harder and heavier . At FIT, the ‘tools of choice’ are kettlebells and
I hereby follow the hardstyle method (vs. kettlebell sport aka girevoy) as defined by the
StrongFirst group led by Pavel Tsatsouline proclaimed: ‘consistently technical
training correctly at high (but appropriate) intensity with sufficient recovery guarantees
’result'.

The above was not on my mind when I started training (what feels like recently) with Taus
Gym; the run-up went pretty much as follows:

Like many, I started Judo very young, more because my parents took me there than
that I sought it out. Yet it eventually clicked so well that later, as a teenager, I wanted more and also
(Japanese) started practising Jiu-Jitsu (*cough cough* obviously nothing to do with the Ninja/ karate films
from the 80s like American Ninja... ).

Immediately after high school, I wanted to join the Army, and ended up in the
11th Air Mobile Brigade; the red berets. Eventually the sandhunting did get a bit boring and
because I had reasonable affinity with the electronics and computers used by the Army (something
with one eye and blind), I decided to end this career after seven years and pursue full-time Technical
To study computer science.

After my studies, I was introduced to Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu. Because during that period (in
Netherlands at least) BJJ was still very small and actually formed one little world with the MMA scene
(Mixed Martial Arts) I also came into contact with that.

Meanwhile, there was also some work to be done, but after several years of being a software developer
having played the office life began to bore me a bit and I started looking for something
more dynamic and found this with the Police in the position of digital forensics specialist at the Regional
Investigation.

I also said goodbye to this world after a few years to work as a lecturer in HBO Software
Engineering to start teaching, which I enjoy doing to this day.

During my years in the police, my time on the ‘mat’ was very minimal but when the pace of life became somewhat
had become more regular, I still wanted to pick up ‘something in martial arts/ self-defence’ again:
Krav-Maga came into view, only my impression was not very positive: it looked (from a distance) a lot like the
traditional Japanese Jiu-Jitsu (not BJJ!) which I ended up having little use for once someone went against
work.

But since there was a school called Taus Gym around the corner from me, I decided to check it out/
participated. My opinion of Krav-Maga (at least, as it is given at Taus Gym) turned
167.4 degrees.

Meanwhile, Riaz saw that there was interest in the sport of grappling within Taus Gym and since I was off
and occasionally showed some little things, he asked if I was interested in setting this up. This opportunity I
seized upon and since then we have been training hard with a (growing) group and visiting
and to national grappling competitions as team Taus Gym.

 

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