Birthday Fundraiser – 65 Minutes for 65 Years

Posted on by Andrew Nerlich

My sixty-fifth birthday happened to fall on a Sunday, December 8, in 2019. That’s a Jiu Jitsu training day for me.

I had some vague ideas about rolling (wrestling) for sixty-five minutes straight as a birthday challenge, but without any real plan or motivation. Will I? Won’t I? Will anyone care? Do I really care?

Then I saw a Facebook post where some people in Melbourne were running a jiu jitsu “Rollathon” to raise funds for disabled athletes on that same day.

https://shoutforgood.com/events/rollathon?fbclid=IwAR3p24zcozqC6MtG95b-h-ojYH4iK74TSvYtiB91HLjeaNkf6EgwE9rjVsM

As well, one of my fellow black belts at Langes MMA, Andre Powell, is legally blind and had his own fundraiser going to travel to Sweden to teach BJJ to other visually impaired grapplers.

https://www.gofundme.com/f/travel-to-sweden-to-train-and-teach-blind-bjj?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=p_cf%2Bshare-flow&fbclid=IwAR0_4uPqFkdq5paMH32-Xu3wgxKM0OXpHY-3WmWwcJVFZZn-b0lE5zAgNV8

I had the thought that maybe I and my fellow Jiu Jitsu students could run our own mini rollathon on the day to raise money for these two causes.

I’d roll for sixty-five minutes straight, changing partners, other could roll as much or as little as they liked.

I started off which was what I though was an ambitious goal of $650. I got there in less than a couple of days. I ended up raising $2681.

All the details, photos and results are on my Facebook page. Suffice to say it was one of the most enjoyable things I have ever done.

https://www.facebook.com/donate/415001342743983/

A few photos and videos here:

Successful use of Priit Mikhelson’s Hawking posture for defence and escaping the choke at the start. Pretty happy with this. Illegal move further in
Channeling my inner sloth with Matt Klein. Could have got his back after that back shoulder roll if I had been more attack dog and less sweetness and light
Karen attacks with the triangle while I am distracted by an informal interview with the cameraman. Nice and technical, K
A nice picture of my training buds at the end, after which ….
… I was viciously attacked
Priit Mikhelson Hawking defence again with Taka, who made a special trip to attend. She is holding the baseball to avoid further damage to her injured hand
With the gorgeous Taka, Frances, Karen, Marelle … and Zach was also in the picture
Kung Fu surfing
After speech. Lack of eye contact indicates dishonesty. Really I was feeling quite emotional and didn’t want to lose it.

A fundraiser is a great thing to do, and Facebook make it pretty simple. The fact that I was collecting the money and then passing it on to two charities meant they hit me with a surcharge, whereas if it had gone straight to a single charity that wouldn’t have happened. Both GoFundMe and ShoutForGood asked for an additional donation on top of what your recipient gets to cover their costs as well. I paid these, my donors didn’t. Just be aware if you want to do something similar.

But it was great. Really great.