Black Cat Jiujitsu

2011-01-25T09:12:00.000-08:00

Roller Coasters, Drugs and Sex Toys

2011-01-22T05:47:00.000-08:00

Hello again! Yes, its been a while, and YES, I know I said that not too long ago!

Life has been 'interesting'. And I use the word 'interesting' in the same way a seatbeat-less roller coaster ride while tripping balls on LSD on a full stomach of very questionable McDonalds may leave you feeling 'interesting'. Thats if you don't drown in a puddle of your own vomit completely naked, save for a sex toy jammed up your rear end and a noose around your neck. Oh no wait - thats CNN's Richard Quest!

Fine fine, I know thats not everyone's definition of 'interesting', and many of you may question my ability to use the English language, but sometimes you have to get scared, hurt and a bit busted up, because the alternative is life on the bumper karts! And that is just a bit too safe, and 'uninteresting'.

Again, I can feel your virtual eyebrows being raised, so let me elaborate. Sometimes, when you're hurtling along the roller coaster of life clinging on with white knuckled fingers, you fail to just look around and enjoy the view. And fine, an adrenaline pumping ride on a rickety roller coaster might not be the best comparison to life, but thats why I'm not a professional writer (oh wait, I am...damn). The point I was TRYING to make before you scoffed at your laptop screen at the readability of this rapidly de-evolving post, was that sometimes you're going to get hurt, but it beats not risking anything and missing out on the thrills life has to offer! Thoroughly confused now? Excellent, let's move onto jiujitsu before you all delete me from your blog rolls!

Last month, after some hard training, Alliance Bahrain travelled to the UAE to fight at the renowned ADCC in the Abu Dhabi Asian Supercup. It was my first competition at blue belt level, and after more than a year off the competition mats, it was well needed! Stepping on the mats, that familiar feeling of 'calm before the storm' overcame me, and I rehearsed for the last time my game plan.

And then my brain decided that it wanted to have some sort of adrenaline-induced rave. Long story short, the same feelings that you get on that very first competition came rushing back. It had been too long. The mat-rust was BAD! I wasnt overtly dissapointed though, as I won my first three fights in the under 76kg gi class, and won two fights in the blue belt absolute. Yes, at the time I was angry with myself, as it had seemed that all that hard training was for nothing, but, as it goes with competitions, I eventually saw it for what it was: a good effort for my first blue belt competition. Looking back, I'm not 100% happy with how it went, but I know what I need to work on and I am sure the next one will go better.

Post competition, I decided to do a bit of travelling and explored a little bit of the UAE before jetting off to Italy for the holidays and some snow boarding fun! Its been a good month since any serious training took place, but no biggie. I feel amped to get back to training, hit the gym and get my diet back on track. The fridge is stocked, the gis are washed and the mats are calling. Now its just up to me to get on with it!

Oh, and my laptop is about as useless as a blind guide dog, so there will be no spell checking tonight! Till next time!

OS

Leverage and the Fate Gods

2010-08-25T02:54:00.001-07:00

Now, occasionally, through the fog of sweat, adrenaline, ripped-out-leg-hair, eye pokes, testicle shots and gi burn, I will actually learn something on the mats! Every now and then, I will have one of those enlightening moments where you understand something fundamental about a certain aspect of jiujitsu, whether its part of your game, why you can never pull off that x guard sweep or why you keep getting those nasty red, circular rash spots when you don’t shower after training (duh!). I was lucky enough to have one of these moments during class this evening, and thankfully it wasn’t about staph or ring worm!

We recently covered a deep half guard sweep combination which I used to use a lot as a white belt. Over the past few months I have been trying to work as much De La Riva as possible, as I feel it very comfortable in this position and it fills an important gap in my game plan. However, while my De La Riva game is coming along nicely, I have found myself struggling in what I used to count as my strong guard, namely the deep half guard.

This led me to take a step back and assess the situation. Several nights spent tossing and turning, with uncomfortable dreams involving Ricardo De La Riva, Jeff Glover and Raphael Mendes (yes, insert gay joke here – very funny), I realized that I would need to revisit some of my old techniques to bring them up to par.

With some wise words of wisdom from Fabio Gurgel resounding in my head, I decided to focus on working on my closed guard. When Fabio came out to Alliance Bahrain, he discussed the importance of taking advantage of the opportunities of the closed guard before moving to your favourite open guard. Now, many of us at that time were really working on our open guard games, whether it was De La Riva, Spider guard, or Ali Seena’s particular brand of guard torture, and were always quick to jump straight to these positions when sparring.

Well, it seems this post has gone on quite the tangent! Anyway, back to my main point for the evening; leverage. Continuing on my plan to work on techniques which used to work well for me but have slipped to the wayside, one technique we recently went over was the deep half guard. Back in the UK, this used to be my go-to position, and I used to relentlessly fight for the deep half guard, much to the dismay of my sparring partners who had had enough of me kneeing them in the balls during my sweep attempts. So for the past week I have been attempting to work my closed guard game, and if things don’t go to plan and my guard is threatened, I will go to the deep half guard instead of the De La Riva. As usual, the more you use a particular position the better you will get at it, I have been having a rising success rate with one particular deep half guard sweep. And this evening, an opportunity presented itself to utilize this move! So off I went - fight for the under hook on one side, shoot the other arm under your opponent, move hips to opposite side, sneak in a quick ball buster, etc. But as I attempted the sweep, my opponent resisted and put all their weight on one arm, the other being stuck between us. As I was hanging there with my head upside down and various thoughts on the hygiene clenliness of my opponents groin guard (who wears these things for BJJ anyway?) running through my head, I had my enlightening moment!

In crystal clear clarity, I realized that my opponent’s weight was distributed between his one leg and his one straight arm. With my foot mere inches from his cursed arm, I simply gave his arm a little kick, and he toppled like an obese red neck trucker after 50 beers and a spare ribs eating competition! And in that moment, I truly understood the ins and outs of this particular sweep I was using. Once I understood this, it was easy to predict where an opponent might be able resist and stop my sweeps, therefore providing me an opportunity to think of a counter strategy.

Now I know this is quite a simple lesson, but there is more here than meets the eye. I feel every now and again the Fate Gods will give you that little push which is the beginning of a BJJ growth spurt. Everyone knows training isn’t linear, and many of us will go through plateaus before experiencing a sudden improvement in our game. And I think this might just have been one of those moments!

OS!

Finding Happiness

2010-04-26T22:45:00.000-07:00

Well it has been a while! I am in the process of getting this blog going again and will hopefully be posting regularly. While this topic has nothing to do with BJJ, it has been at the center of my musings of late and I feel by writing my thoughts down it will help me solidify my own impressions and maybe also help a few others who may find themselves in a similar predicament.

Even when I chose my degree subject, it was due to a lack of any other interests and a lack of assertiveness on my part. While I enjoyed certain aspects of Business Management such as Marketing and Economics, it is not something I am terribly passionate about. Now, this was all good and well while still at university where if you study for a couple hours a day you can achieve quite an impressive result when compared to the input! I was quite proud of my ability to work for 2-3 hours a day and obtain the same grades as my friends, whose nail biting, hair pulling antics caused them much stress as they signed their every waking hour away to the dreaded library. So during this period of my life, I didn’t really mind reading, learning and studying the various aspects of Business Management as it was fun to gain new insights and understandings. It also meant I had alot of free time to focus on my training and really develop my jiujitsu.

Now let’s fast forward to when I had actually finished university and had a few months of having fun enjoying the UK summer behind me. Once again I let the forces that be choose my path for me instead of taking hold of my own destiny and implementing a strategy that would take me to where I wanted to be. I decided to 'get a job' as it seemed the right thing to do, and besides, everyone else was trying to find jobs! So off I went like a good little Muppet and sent out my CVs with accompanying cover letters to all the worth while organizations I could think of. Luckily, one of them actually hired me and before I knew it I had entered the corporate world and the controversial rat race. Now, was this the path I really wanted for myself? Sitting behind a desk looking at a computer screen for 8+ hours a day?

I can argue and say that yes, you are signing away the majority of your day to doing something that is not particularly interesting, but you are getting some nice shiny gold coins out of it. And don’t forget about the benefits - health, dental, etc. Oh and they even threw in a transport allowance! How kind, how kind. But ever since I started working, I have felt myself being dragged (with much kicking and screaming on my part, much to my family and friends annoyances) in a direction I am not completely content with. Is this what I want to do with the rest of my life? Do I want to be like everyone else, doing something they don’t mind, or in many cases outright hate, just to put some money in the bank? There must be other kinds of work or industries which are capable of igniting my passion and allow me to be the black sheep of the hoard and actually enjoy what I do for a living?

My indecisiveness in choosing my degree and when looking for a job led me down the 'it seemed the right thing to do' path. However, if I was to really question myself and think if this was the direction I wanted to go in, the answer would be an astonishing no! Now I can’t say what that illuminating path would be if I was given the opportunity to pursue my very own yellow brick road, but the last six months have taught me that this particular one isn't going to take me where I want to go.

My research into this slightly soul exploring topic led me to see individuals on both extremes of the equation. There are those who have thrown fortune to the wind and cut up their evil bank cards, burnt their identity documents, sold all their earthly possessions and said 'fuck it' as they walked off towards the sunset with a home made Br'er rabbit style back pack swinging from their shoulder. While a very romantic idea, I am not too sure as to the success rate of this concept. I mean its all good and well if you plan on becoming a Buddist monk, Yogic adept, mountain hermit or desert nomad (although you will need some greenbacks to maintain your nice Range Rover for this last career path). However, you are much more likely to end up crazy, alone and as bear food, like the unfortunate Timothy Treadwell, if you decide on taking this slightly be-crazed approach to living your life.

Then on the other extreme, we have those who feel the need to store every single one of their copper pennies in their mattress and guard their reserves with an Ebenezer Scrooge like consistency (yes Scrooge does have a first name). The mere suggestion of spending some of their savings will result in a moon directed howl as the individual in question bursts out of their clothing in a dramatic explosion of newly developed animalistic hair and sinewy muscle, their angry retort muffled by those long fangs and a toxic cloud of rotting bad breath.

Obviously these examples lie on the outer edges of our bell shaped curve of normalcy, with the majority of us falling somewhere in between Timothy 'bear food' Treadwell and Ebenezer Scrooge's antics. However, it really is up to us to decide which qualities from these two role models we wish to emulate, and finding a balance which you are happy with will contribute to your ability to live a happy life.

After attempting to invoke the mystical Inca spirits and several failed animal sacrifices at the height of the spring solace, it became apparent that the only way I was going to figure this out was by doing some hard thinking. Trying to predict your path by peering into a magicians divination bowl, seeking solace in tarot cards or taking part in a mystical rain dance will not get you very far. It took me much hair pulling, incoherent babbling and a long period of frustration before I began to see the light at the end of the tunnel. Don’t get me wrong, I only have a vague outline of what I need to do to keep myself on the tightrope that is happiness, but at least I know that it is up to me to decide what I do with my life.

6 Deuce clothing

2009-11-15T22:17:00.000-08:00

Check out this interview with MMA clothing company Six Deuce. Not your usual 'in your face I beat people up’ kind of prints, but much more subtle and, in my opinion, wearable. I first came across this brand when we were in Thailand training at Tiger Muay Thai around 16 months ago and it was nice to see a Mixed Martial Arts T shirt that didn’t have ‘blood stains’ or barbed wire on it. Not that there is anyting wrong with barbed wire, but sometimes it would be nice to wear something that doesn’t scream Affliction! Here is a recent interview below:

Not only was Craig over at Six Deuce nice enough to give us losers a bunch of free t-shirts, he also let me ask him a bunch of asinine questions. This is one of my favorite interviews yet so be sure and give it a look.

Craig, give us some info on Six Deuce Gear and what it is all about.

Six Deuce … a movement without boundaries. A lifestyle without restrictions. An attitude that defines combat.

Just kidding! We hate the quasi-mysterious company descriptions as much as you do. We’re a t-shirt company that sells MMA t-shirts disguised as non-MMA t-shirts. I’ve been around the sport since UFC 2, my high school days. I went to college at Iowa State University, graduated from the graphic design program, and did nothing with the degree for a few years, like most starving artists.

I’ve been a member of the UG (mixedmartialarts.com) for a long time too, and that’s where the company got started. KTFO (remember them?) had some shirts that were really basic when they first came on the scene, so I messed around with their logo on my lunch break and posted it on the UG. Some people liked it, and a few other companies contacted me to do design work for them. After a couple of months I decided to venture out on my own, with no business experience and not much start-up money. I saw an opportunity in the market for more “subtle” shirt designs, because the market had a lot of intense, EXTREME!, and over the top MMA shirts. Not very many hid the fact that you not only had a pitbull, tribal tattoos, and killed people in the cage, but you wore it on your shirt as well! I tried to tone it down a bit.

You have our new shirts set to come out the end of this month, you want to tell us about them?

Fedor Sweater Logo Tee: Obviously Fedor has been a HUGE influence in some of my designs. It has been an absolute joy to watch his career become what it is today. I’ve never seen a better role model…he embodies so many positive characteristics, both in the ring/cage and out. Combat Sambo is one of our favorite martial arts, and I hope that if people like our Sambo shirts, it might introduce more people to the sport. Plus, if Fedor’s sweater is truly lucky, maybe it’s power is found in the color combination of the stripes?

Tiger Muay Thai Tee: These guys are great and awesome to work with. Tiger Muay Thai is one of the best Muay Thai training camps in the world, and head Tiger MMA trainer Ray Elbe has always been a great friend to our company. We’re putting a high quality Tiger MT shirt on the market for fans and former trainees of the camp. If you’re looking for an amazing training experience with all the amenities, look no further. Check them out at http://www.tigermuaythai.com.

Sambo Crest Tee: Our 3rd and most recent Sambo t-shirt. Igor Karaev, (@TSGIGOR) an individual who is very close to Fedor and his group has
been very helpful with all of our new Russian-themed shirts. The translated text reads (top line) “Sixty Two” and (bottom line) “Samozashchita Bez Oruzhiya”, of which SAMBO is an acronym, and means “Self Defense without a weapon”.

Russian Wolf Tee: The phrase (in Russian) on the shirts is: “Volkov boyat’sa – v les ne khodit’” which means, “Don’t go into the woods if you’re afraid of the wolves”. The phrase is perfect for our sport and works in so many ways.

Just Bleed Tee: The shirt is a tribute to the “Just Bleed” guy, a legend in his own right. During an earlier UFC, he summed up the testosterone (and alcohol) fueled fighting rage of every young male in one brief moment on camera. Just Bleed guy, we salute you!

Six Deuce does a lot of shirts that only the hardcore MMA fans will get, why is that?

It’s not intentional! I’d like for our company to be more mainstream, so I could go to the club and make it rain 100 dollar bills. Sigh…I guess I’m doing something wrong. Seriously though, we have the loyalty of a lot of the hardcore fans of the sport, and that’s very important to me. You can wear a lot of our stuff and the general public won’t know it’s an MMA shirt, but people who actively follow the sport will appreciate it.

Do you think Fedor will like your new Sweater Sambo shirt?

hope so, I really do. I’m going to send him one so that if he ever ruins his lucky sweater in the dryer, we’ve got him covered.

What else would you like to say to FightTrends readers?

FRAT! Thanks for taking the time to read our interview, and watch for our new shirts to be released the day after Thanksgiving!

Thanks to Six Deuce for the interview and giveaway. Let us know who you would like to see us interview and we will do our best to get it done. Be sure and give Six Deuce a follow on Twitter. Also, don’t forget to check out the new Six Deuce T-Shirts that will be available the day after Thanksgiving.

De La Riva Sweep 5

2009-11-15T04:37:00.000-08:00

1: Boca decides to try and pass the guard by cross-sliding his right knee over De La Riva’s right leg

2: De la Riva places his hooking foot on the ground, grabs his other leg by the knee to support his leg and pivots the foot under Boca’s far thigh.

3: He kicks his right leg up and lifts his hips to raise Boca’s leg…

4: … and now switches legs, placing his left foot under Boca’s thigh, grabbing the leg and sleeve, and sweeps Boca to his right

5: He follows Boca and gains cross side.

De La Riva Sweep 4

2009-11-15T04:24:00.000-08:00

1: Boca attempts to escape De la Riva’s guard by standing up

2: De la Riva counters by sitting up using his hooking leg and …

3: …traps Boca’s right arm and leg.

4: He places his left hand on the ground and sit up into Boca causing him to fall backwards.

5: He now comes to the top, clears the guard and achieves cross side position.

De La Riva Sweep 3

2009-11-15T04:18:00.000-08:00

1: Boca is back in de la Riva’s open guard.

2: Boca removes de la Riva’s hook by pointing his knee to the outside.

3: De La Riva reacts by swinging his other leg over Boca’s arm and hooking his foot under Boca’s thigh.

4: De la Riva places his other foot on the ground and shifts his hip away from Boca and kicks his hook straight up to sweep him.

5: De la Riva pulls his sweeping leg free and comes to the top position

De La Riva Sweep 2

2009-11-15T04:12:00.000-08:00

Part two in the sweep series continues below;

1: De la Riva starts the sweep by controlling Boca’s sleeves and inserting his hook behind Boca’s knee.

2: He proceeds by shifting his hip away from the hooking leg and switching his right hand from the sleeve to the lapel

3: He starts the sweep by pulling Boca towards him…

4: …and then rolling him to his left, immediately working to pass Boca’s guard.

Alternate Finish, Photo 1: if Boca resists by backing out, de la Riva will place his left hand behind him on the ground and sit up…

Alternate Finish, Photo 2: …sweeping Boca backwards, passing his legs as before

De La Riva Sweep 1

2009-11-15T03:34:00.000-08:00

I have decided I want to continue to work on my deep half guard, as if I can get it to a competitive level in a school where deep half guard is the speciality, then it will be pretty hard to beat against people who have only come across it a couple times. So thats what I 'should' do. But I am going to do what I want to do and also work on the de la riva! These two positions seem to go hand in hand quite well and I think I should be able to drill them together quite nicely. Here are a few cool sweeps I found courtisy of www.grapplearts.com:

TECHNIQUE 1: BASIC DE LA RIVA SWEEP

1: De la Riva has Boca in the open guard with both feet on his hips controlling both his sleeves with his hands.

2: De la Riva shifts his hips over to one side to hook his foot behind Boca’s knee on the inside of the thigh.

3: He places his other foot on Boca’s knee and grabs his far sleeve with both hands…

4: …straightens his hooking leg, pushes on Boca’s knee with the other foot and pulls on his sleeve to get the sweep.

5: De la Riva swims under Boca’s armpit with his far arm and switches his hip to disengage his legs…

6: …and slides his hip out to gain cross side

Update

2009-11-12T03:36:00.000-08:00

Serious blog neglect going on over the past few weeks! Hopefully that will change starting today. Life has been pretty hectic since I left the UK and arrived in sunny Bahrain!

Life has changed quite a bit over the last few months. I got a job doing public relations for the Bahrain International Circuit, hosts of the Bahrain Formula One Grand Prix, which is turning out to be quite enjoyable. It’s a fast paced and hectic atmosphere but I seem to work well under pressure and with deadlines so its all good. The down side is that by the time I finish work at 5pm (8am start), I am usually pretty tired and it is quite an effort to complete the 20 minute drive to pick up Rach and 15 minute drive to the academy, straight from work. But I am slowly getting back to training 5+ times a week! The first two weeks was very frustrating as I wanted to continue with my old training schedule but just couldn’t hack it. But over the last week or two, things have got a lot better as I have found a new routine and tried to make my day as accommodating as possible for evening training. This means making sure I get to sleep by 11pm at the absolute latest, as otherwise by the time 5pm rolls around I only have energy to fall asleep! I also try to keep a bunch of healthy snacks at my desk – stuff like nuts, fruit, alpine bars, etc (hopefully will be adding protein shakes to this once I get paid). One thing that was really letting me down in the first couple weeks was my liquid intake, or lack of. Sitting at a desk all day seems to convince my brain that I don’t need to hydrate! So lots of tea and water through out the day also helps me feel good to go come training time. This week things have come together a bit more and training has been a bit better, and I think next week it will be pretty much back to normal.

Training at RMAC is going pretty good! Brazilian black belt Rodrigo Mangabeira is teaching the class at the moment so I am picking up some great moves. In terms of personal development I have not been focusing on anything in particular for the last month, but due to a majority of the guys pulling guard, I have found my top and passing game is coming along quite nicely. This I should probably save for another post, but I am feeling a bit lost in terms of game plans at the moment. I mean, I still know what I am doing, but I don’t seem to be pushing my game plan on my opponents, and am instead responding to their game. I think this is probably due to life being so hectic and not having time to think up my own little plan for class – before working, I would always have time to know exactly what I wanted to practice during sparring.

Logically, since my take downs are not great, I should focus my game on sweeping from bottom and then implement my new found passing skills to eventually transition to North/ South, where I feel very comfortable. So for the next few weeks I will be focusing on sweeps. Great that’s decided then. But sweeps from what position? Half guard? Closed guard? Open guard? Decisions, decisions….

Io Sto Con Forme!

2009-10-15T13:02:00.000-07:00

A bit of blog neglect over the past few weeks! Things have been busy around here with lots going on, both in jiujitsu and in normal life. I finally got a job, which will mean a slight change to my training routine. I am a bit relieved to actually start working as the last few weeks have been without any sort of regular routine and it will be nice to have a bit of a structured day again. It does mean I won't be able to take advantage of the newly introduced morning BJJ classes, but at least I will be able to afford some new gis and rash guards! It also means daily life is going to get a bit hectic with work starting at 8am and finishing at 5pm and then training from 7-9pm. And repeat. 5 days a week.

Training is going good at the moment! The academy recently became an affiliate of the Alliance Team and therefore will get regular black belts coming over, including yearly seminars from Fabio Gurgel! Also, ANOTHER black belt will be arriving around mid November because of this affiliation, bringing the total black belt count per BJJ class to three! Currently, the new flavour brought to the class by Rodrigo Mangabeira has been great, with some great moves being demonstrated. We have been working on a combination of closed guard and guarda arangia sweeps/ submissions. Training time has also changed and has increased from 90 minutes to two hours!

Bit of a dramatic week at RMAC, with an aggressive blue belt going too hard on a new white belt and dislocating his elbow with a triangle/ arm bar lock. It is a shame as this person was just starting out and very keen on his training, which will now be delayed by a minimum of at least a few months! I think higher belts have a responsibility to help new students out and not just use them as 'fresh meat'. I personally don't see any benefit to me when if I was to go hard with a new person. And it is usually the case, with higher belts providing tips and insight to those with less ability. I had my own little scare this week too when I got arm-barred but couldn't tap and heard my elbow make a very scary 'tearing' noise. Maybe my own jiujitsu karma was out of whack. Whatever. Thankfully, after a few days of not being able to straighten it or completely bend it, I have been able to train on it and it wasn't too bad. I think I probably hyper extended it quite badly and, with a bit of rest, it will be ok in a week or two. Need to watch out for those arm bars!

Bahrain BJJ

2009-09-30T05:31:00.001-07:00

For anyone looking to start or continue training Brazilian Jiujitsu while in Bahrain, they should check out Reza's Martial Arts Center. The school teaches Brazilian Jiujitsu, Thai Boxing, Mixed Martial Arts, Capoeira and has its own gym facilities. Classes are taught by Reza Monfaradi, a BJJ black belt under Roy Harris of the Joe Moreira lineage, and have regular guest black belt instructors coming over from Brazil to add a different flavour to the class. The Thai Boxing is taught by a professional Thai fighter brought over from Thailand and is a very good class too. Capoeria, starting in October, will be taught by a Brazilian, again coming over from Brazil.

The Brazilian Jiujitsu class is at the core of the academy program. The class has a good variety of students with many purple and blue belts regularly attending. Training is aimed at increasing all areas of BJJ, from fitness and technique to live sparring. The school attends as many tournaments as it can, venturing as far as the USA and Thailand to compete. With Abu Dhabi so close by, the BJJ Asian Super Cup and the Professional Cup are also attended every year. Starting in October, Rodrigo Mangabeira, black belt from Nova Geracao team in Brazil, will be co-instructing the class along with Reza Monfaradi.

Brazilian Jiujitsu classes run everyday apart from Fridays, and are from 7 to 830pm. However, starting in mid October, there will be 2-3 BJJ classes everyday! While the class is BJJ, there are variation classes throughout the week:

Sundays and Wednesdays are no gi BJJ

Mondays are 'circuit training' and involve king of the hill style rolling

Thursdays are similar to open mat but vary from 5 minutes, 10 minutes and unlimited time rounds

This and That

2009-09-27T14:57:00.000-07:00

This week we are working deep half guard sweeps and have learned some very interesting and unique twists that Reza has personally added on to several moves. Competition training has now begun in preparation for the Asian Super Cup and involves much more cardio and strength exercises. Classes are getting tough! It seems the usual setup is 30 minutes fitness training, 30 minutes technique and then 30 minutes sparring. Thursday are similar to open mat in that after a warm up we roll for 1 hour - either no time limit or the usual 5 minute time periods. Mondays are 'circuit days' which usually involve some sort of 'king of the hill' style rolling for 1 hour. This week it was sweeps and guard submissions while the other person had to pass the guard. Sundays and Wednesdays are no gi. After only doing gi for almost a year, its a very nice change of pace to switch things up a little bit and try out those arm triangles again!

Also, I have a feeling that regular rolling with a particular, almost 16 years old, green belt will really up my game in the next few months! Ali got a bronze medal at the previous World Jiujitsu Cup in the blue belt division and has a very impressive game (but we won't tell him that as he is already too cocky for his own good :).

In other news, Reza is bringing over a Brazilian BJJ black belt to add a bit of a different flavour to the class! How cool is that? Two black belts teaching in one class? Yes thats right! So that will be very fun and interesting. Who knows, we might even learn some protuguese! His name is Rodrigo Afonso Alves, nickname 'Mangabeira'. He fights out of the New Generation team or 'Nova Geracao' ... see my portugues is improving already!

24.09.09

2009-09-24T14:59:00.000-07:00

Seems that life is very busy at the moment! Still getting settled in Bahrain as well as trying to see what my job options are. Also I am running around saying hi to all the family and trying to spend time with everyone. Did I mention I do Brazilian Jiujitsu too? :) Seriously, its a bit hectic right now but hopefully I will find my groove soon.

If I wrote this entry right after training it would have been a bit miserable, but seeing as I went out and ate 30+ pieces of sushi afterwards, I am in a substantially better mood. Every now and again I can expect to have an off day, but when you do actually have an off day it sucks. Nothing went particularly wrong today but I didn't feel as energetic as usual and could not implement my game as much as I wanted to. When my current game plan doesn't work, I start to question what direction I need to take it in to make it better. I think I need to remember the whole reason I started using half guard: sweeping people. It seems that I am spending a large percentage of the roll on bottom trying to go for submissions, instead of focusing on the sweep and then imposing my top game. Its not a huge change, but I feel this may be the direction I need to get my game moving again. Reza said that he will be going over some deep half guard sweeps, which will be good to refresh my memory and learn some cool new ones, as well as some tricks to make it all easier! A few hours ago I felt quite crap about tonights session, but even while writing this I can't wait for the next session to try going straight for sweeps again.

The level of BJJ is very high at Reza's, but I think this will only push my game further as for it to work against some of the guys who train here, it will have to be good!

Congratulations to Isaac Perez from BTT Slough who won gold at the blue belt pluma weight at the Europeans! Also well done to everyone else from Slough as I know you guys brought alot of medals back.Well done guys! Here is the video of the final:

Jits in Bahrain

2009-09-20T13:31:00.000-07:00

First post from sunny Bahrain! I have been here for 4 days now and am still settling in but its nice to see all my family, friends and old training partners again. However, I can't help myself from wondering what the guys in Eastbourne are drilling or what technique is 'move of the day' at the moment. I keep finding myself thinking about what move I might be able to pull off, only to realise I now traing at a completely different school and need to adapt my game to exploit the weakneses in a whole new group of people. That being said, after having a few training sessions I don't think I will be making any big unplanned changes to my game. What worked before still seems to work now and if anything I seem to be much clearer on which submissions I am aiming for when we spar. Usually I will take the first few minutes of the roll to mess around or try a new move out before going to my bread and butter, but now I know exactly what I want to do before the time starts. I am not sure what changed - it might be training with strangers, or having a new belt, but something definitely happened thats upped my game!

Ramadan has just finished in Bahrain and it is now the Eid holidays for three days, which unfortunately means no training. However, on a positive note, starting Wednesday training will be aimed at competing at the Asian Super Cup tournament in around three months. This entails much more conditioning, sparring and competition specific training which will hopefully allow me to work on my weaknesses. Right now I feel I need to work on several areas, including improving my knee on belly and top half guard game. But this shouldn't be a problem as training is 6 days a week! For the short term future I will not be working just yet as I need to see what jobs are available and which are best suited for me, but this means more time to train.

Speaking of complimentary training, me and Rach bought a large swiss ball today to work on core strength, balance and flexability. They have several of these at Reza's academy and the other night I worked up a sweat trying to balance on one of the balls of around 30 minutes. Hopefully it will look something like this in a few short weeks:

and not like this...

Blue Belt!

2009-09-13T15:41:00.000-07:00

This week was the first BJJ grading for BTT Eastbourne! Ze Marcello came down from Milton Keynes to oversee things and present new belts to the deserving. Oh and also hip toss the crap out of everyone...

Its been a full year since the class started and it has grown so much! It has gone from 5-6 of us in a class to regularly having over 20 people on the mats. At the grading there was barely enough space to warm up with over 30 people showing up! We all ran around for a bit and then went over some really great half guard passes and submissions from on top. Definitely going to try and incorporate some of these moves into my game! After around 45 minutes of technique we all paired up and sparred for another hour, but because there were so many of us, we would roll one round and sit out a few to give everyone a chance at some mat time. Ze rolled with all the guys who were up for their blue belts and was doing all sorts of crazy stuff! I couldn't help grinning as he helicopter arm bared me into next week haha! At the end Ze spoke about how jiujitsu goes beyond training and being on the mat. He reminded everyone that jiujitsu was about creating a family of friends and being there for each other, not about who can tap who. Eventually he called out each person up for their blue belt, presented them with their new belt and certificate, and then proceeded to hip toss them! Thankfully T's back is injured and he couldn't hip toss all of us as hard as I know he wanted to, but I am sure he will make up for it when he is better. In the spirit of what Ze spoke about, a bunch of us decided to go out in the evening for some celbritory drinks, which swiftly devolved from intellectual conversation to drunken jiujitsu in a great display of debauchery at its best!

It a weird feeling getting my blue belt. I guess its been my goal for the past year and so much time has gone towards achieving it, now that I actually have it, I don't know what to do with myself anymore! Guess am just going to have to keep on plodding along and train even harder! Congratulations to all the guys who got stripes, with a special mention to Pete, Ruben, Ian, Adam, Rach, Sophie and Oli who all got their blue belts. Its going to be interesting to actually have a few ranks in the class now haha! So whats next? I don't know really ...

Hold on, whats that? Can't you see it? All the way in the distance, right on the horizon? That smudge of colour that you can just make out if you screw up your eyes and squint hard enough? Well I'll be...looks like a purple belt to me! :P

Funny Jits

2009-09-13T08:14:00.000-07:00

Last Week Training In Eastbourne

2009-09-08T04:18:00.000-07:00

Only one week left till I get on a plane and fly to Bahrain! Its a bitter sweet moment as I am looking forward to seeing all my family and being at home again, but at the same time I am going to miss all the guys from BTT Eastbourne. It has been a kick ass year in terms of Brazilian Jiu Jitsu and I have learnt so much, and made many friends! We have gone from that very first class at Canton Martial Arts where there were just 4-6 people, to having regularly over 20 people on the mats and it has been great to be part of all of it. Seeing these guys day after day on the mats has made many of them much more than training partners and I feel I have found some very good friends over the past year. While I won't be around as, I know I will always have a team to train with whenever I find myself in the UK. Thanks guys you know who you are!

Personally, I feel I have gone from knowing a few moves and not really understanding the rules of BJJ, to having my own solid game plan and a good understanding of what this whole world is about. I have had a good taste of competition and am beginning to really enjoy both the mental as well as the physical side of jiujitsu.

Luckily, I will be able to continue training once I get to Bahrain, under Joe Moriera lineage black belt Reza Monfaradi. This is another amazing team with a very high level of jijitsu, and I can't wait to spend another year training with more top tier guys!

Tatami Gi Review

2009-09-06T08:33:00.000-07:00

I Ordered a BBJ Competition gi from Tatami fightwear in black A2. The website says it is made from a single piece of gold weave competition standard material. Was pleasantly surprised how quick it got here - just two days! Initial impressions? This thing is huge! The trousers fit pretty good and were a bit on the baggy side but that was to be expected, but the jacket was crazy big! The sleeves were a bit long and the skirt of the jacket was longer than any of my other gis. However I didn't despair as I knew I could shrink it down to size (probably what the company expects its customers to do :P).

I started off by soaking it in a cold bath of water for a couple hours to get rid of any extra dye. Some people suggested adding some white vinegar to the bath water to help set the colour but, as usual, I didn't have any on hand. I am not sure if this works or not but it can't hurt to try. After the bath the gi went on a 90 minute cotton wash at 40 degrees Celsius. I was tempted to put it on a higher temperature but figured I still needed to dry it over a couple hot cycles in the dryer and didn't want to risk over shrinking it. Once this was done I stuck the gi into the dryer, checking it every 10 minutes to see how it the size was. The trousers needed around 15 minutes before they fit well, while the jacket needed 25 minutes. Was very relieved when I realised that it was going to fit me and not be way too big as I initially thought.

After the gi had been washed and tumble dried to fit, I tried it back on. The sleeves fit quite well, reaching just short of my wrists when my arms were outstretched. The shoulder area was a bit big when compared to my Koral or Feral gis, but fit much better than before I shrunk it. The one thing I don't like about the Tatami gi is that the skirt of the jacket is very long! I didn't risk shrinking the gi anymore as the sleeves would have been too short, but I would have liked to get the bottom part of the jacket shorter. I left the gi slightly on a the big side just in case it will shrink anymore after a few more washes.

The gi has some nice patches running down the front of the jacket and across the shoulder area. Also there is a nice Brazilian flag patch located on the back of the jacket. On the rear of the skirt area of the jacket there is another Tatami fightwear patch. I think that with a 'competitor' patch and a club patch, the back of this gi will look pimped!

Overall, this is a nice gi at a very low price. It seems to be made of a high quality material and looks pretty slick. However, I think anyone shorter than 175cm and A2 would find it very long in the jacket/ skirt length. The shoulder area was quite large on me, even after shrinking, It seems to be made for taller, mesomorph type bodies. Apart from this, a very good gi!

Rach is going to do her own Tatami fightwear gi review very soon so keep an eye on her blog to read a bit more about this brand:

www.catfacebjj.blogspot.com

Normal World Fridays

2009-09-04T14:14:00.001-07:00

Last two days have been no jits days. Usually I manage to get an informal session in with some of the guys down at Canton where we meet up without an instructor, drill a few moves and then roll for however long. But this week it didn't happen so I have deprived of training for 48 hours! This led to me doing a bunch of random bits and bobs which needed doing. Since me and Rach are moving back to Bahrain in less than two weeks, I spent most of the time sorting out my clothes, paintings, cooking books and all my other things so I can decide what I want to take with me immediately, what to ship and what to leave behind or give away.

Also my new Tatami gi arrived yesterday so managed to it down to size. It looks pretty slick with some nice patches on it and the material feels pretty good, but thats a post for another day! I was a bit skeptical about getting a black gi as I always felt that a black gi should be reserved for higher belts, but since both schools I train at are allowing them I figured what the hell!

Another thing on the cards is a one day trip to Amsterdam to sort out some family business (and possibly indulge in some perfectly legal substance abuse!). Booked my tickets on EasyJet and I'll be heading out this Thursday. Unfortunately I will need to spend a night sleeping at Gatwick Airport as my flight leaves early in the morning and the trains won;t get me there on time.

On a less positive note, Thursday is the designated day where I can break from my usual diet and go out to a restaurant with Rach and eat whatever I want, but all this extra imposed time off led to me eating more than my fair share this week via an Indian takeaway, several pastries, a huge chocolate chip cookie and not too long ago a crazy big plate of fish and chips! I'm not sure why but on the days I don't train I crave junk food much more than the days I am training. Oh well, will need to fit in a few extra runs or gym sessions this week and all should be good!

To continue with the complete random direction this post is taking, I have started watching two TV series which are really great. These are 'True Blood' and 'Burn Notice' ... highly recommended for non juijitsu days! Anyway, the intro clip for True Blood is freakin awesome! Its weird, religious, sick, time distorting, vampire goodness. Oh, and the sound track is sweet! Check it out:

Deep Half Guard Sweeps

2009-09-03T01:17:00.000-07:00

Over the last few competitions I was really struggling to connect my top game to my bottom game. While I was scoring points and getting submissions on top, if I ended up on bottom in guard I was finding it hard to end up back on top. I started looking at different solutions and various positions to initiate sweeps so I could have a 'complete' plan. After trying a few different things, Tolly let me borrow his Marcelo Garcia X guard book. What a cool book! Loads of cool moves in there and a nice biography on Garcia. Some nice pictures too. However, after trying out a few of the moves, I quickly realised that for me to develop any sort of X guard game, I first needed to refine and improve my guard game (which is exactly what Marcelo Garcia reccomends in his book). And that got me thinking about delving into half guard...

However, practicing 'half guard' would seem to be a very, very broad statement. Within 'the half guard' there is deep half guard, quarter half guard, Z guard, butterfly half guard and a bunch of other ones I am sure I havn't come across yet! After messing around with a few of the different positions, I decided to dedicate a couple months to the deep half guard. Check out these cool sweeps :)

These sweeps have been great fun and I feel they have made me really comfortable in half guard. There seems to be so much to do from this position! Anyway I just wanted to post these videos, more for myself so I can find them easier than anything else.

Tatami Gi Review coming up!

2009-09-01T08:57:00.000-07:00

Since me and Rach are heading back to Bahrain in a couple weeks as we both have finished our university courses here in the UK, we both agreed we needed to go back with a good stock of gis, as they are hard to come across in the Middle East! Seeing as I have been pretty much broke for the past month, my selection was limited to UK based companies (due to lower shipping costs and shorter mailing time) and heavily influenced by price range. The best deal that I could find was between the Tatami fightwear competition gi and the Feral fightear gi. I briefly considered a Faixa Rua gi, but as far as I am aware they don't do them in black! And seeing as I have a Feral gi already, I decided to go for the Tatami one. I wasn't a huge fan of the white trim on the sleeves of their forte BJJ gi series, but this was of little concern as I decided to go with their Competition BJJ gi series, which is all black. Rach ordered one as well so hopefully there will be two new reviews floating around the web in the next couple of days! Check this space for updates!

Where to find BJJ Gis in the UK

2009-08-27T09:30:00.000-07:00

I keep having this dilemma of browsing for new gis online and finding some really kick ass ones, only to find out that the shipping is almost the same price as the gi! However, there are a bunch of online retailers based in the UK or Europe who sell top quality kimonos. Since I am planning to buy a few more gis in the near future, I thought I'd put up what I find and, where possible, give a quick review of the gi in question :)

Feral Gis
This is an ebay based company that sells single weave gis for just 45 pounds, with shipping included! I have had my Feral gi for a couple months now and am very happy with it. They are NOT preshrunk, so I highly recommend buying a size up. I originally bought an A2 size and this turned out to be a bit on the small side, even though my A2 Koral gi fits perfectly. I am definitely going to get another Feral gi as they are a great design, good quality and amazing price, but this time an A3. Also, the customer service is excellent with Mr Feral answering emails almost straight away. A few posts down is a more in depth review of my feral gi if anyone wants to read anymore on them. To find them just plug Feral GI into the ebay search and they will come up!

Koral Lightweight Gis
My first gi was a Koral double weave which has been great! I've worn it to all my competitions and for many months it was my only gi so its had its fair share of being worn, yet it still holds up great. The MKM series and double weave all sell for between 105-140 pounds, which is a bit steep for me these days, but for those interested in getting a very good gi and have money to spare I would definitely recommend them. The new Koral lightweight gis also look pretty slick and come in at 80 pounds. I managed to try this gi on at the last competition and was very happy with how it fit and looked! both the MKM double weave series and the lightweight series can be found at www.grabandpull.co.uk If you want a seriously flash Koral gi (e.g.: camo, red, urban, etc) www.mmafightwear.com sells them for around 150 quid.

Faixa Rua Classico Gis
I am not too familiar with these gis, but I have heard good things about them! At 60 pounds a pop, they are a great price. I'm not going to say too much on these, as Meerkatsu has an insane review for this gi. Enough said. Here is the link:

http://meerkat69.blogspot.com/2009/07/geek-gi-review-faixa-rua-classico.html

If you like these gis you can get them at www.faixarua.net

Big Dog Fightwear Gis
This is a brand new company based in the UK with some hot stuff. Since they are based out of Eastbourne, alot of the BJJ, MMA and Muay Thai schools in the local area have been getting alot of exposure to their products. They have a huge range of great stuff, from hoodies and T shirts to BJJ gis and MMA gloves. At least 5-6 of the guys at BTT Eastbourne have bought some of these and the gis look gooooood! The black gi is especially nice and has some nice patches in the form of Brazilian and UK flags, and a cool company logo. I don't own one of these gis so can't give an in depth review and they havn't been around long enough to see how the gis stand the test of time, but they definitely look promising! At just under 80 pounds its another great bargain for someone looking for a high quality gi that looks good and is a reasonable price! Check out there stuff at www.bigdogzfightwear.bigcartel.com

Blitz Lutador BJJ Gi
Personally, I am not a fan of these gis. This was the only gi available at our club when BJJ first started so alot of the guys have them. The patches seem to come off and the fit seems to be a bit baggy on most guys. Priced at just over 60 pounds, there are plenty of other gis which are higher quality and look better for less money. Here is the link http://www.blitzsport.com/Products/Adult-Jujitsu-Suits_2

Manto BJJ Gi
I like these! No one I know owns one, but I have tried them on at the British Open competition as they had a stand there. Fit was nice and snug with no wizard sleeves or baggy armpits! The design looks nice and the logo kick ass! I have a Manto BJJ T shirt which I think is great and if the gi is anything like that then this will be a quality gi. http://www.fightshop.com/GIS-Category-156.html

Lucky Gis
Do I need to say more? Probably the coolest gis ever made! Excellent design with loads of cool bits. Amazing print on the inside of the gi, ace of spaces on the wrist, 'get off my back' printed on the rear of the jacket and other cool bits and bobs. Some subtle but sweet colour schemes such as black with red and a brand new blue one too! However, priced at 200 pounds these gis will leave a huge hole in your financial pocket. If anyone wants to get me a Christmas present, you need go no further :) find them at www.mmafightwear.net/gis

Tatami Fightwear Gis
Again, priced at 45 pounds you can't ask for more. Simple, clean designs with a nice trim on sleeves and the bottom of the jacket. Plus, you can buy a kick ass red gi for 50 pounds! You also get a free gi bag with any gi purchase. I can comment on quality or fit as I don't own one, but these are definitely tempting me if I don't go for another Feral. Find them at www.tatamifightwear.com

Edit - red gis do not look good

Black Eagle Gis
Not a huge fan of these. They seem to fade loads from the original colour and the patches are not that great. Then again, it may be that the only ones I have come across are old and have been used for ages! If they want to send me a free gi to review I would be happy to :) www.black-eagle.co.uk

Eastbourne BJJ

2009-08-15T15:56:00.000-07:00

Just thought I'd do a quick post on where are the places to train Brazilian jiujitsu in Eastbourne. There seems to be alot of new people coming to class these days so it might help a few more find their way to the various schools. As far as I am aware, everyone in Eastbourne trains under T, currently a purple belt under Ze Marcello of Brazilian Top Team.

At the moment, classes run out of Canton Martial Arts (101 Bourne Street) three times a week and last for 90 minutes. Mondays and Wednesdays start at 8.30pm, Saturdays at 1230. There are also Muay Thai and a small MMA class at the same facilities for those interested.

On Saturdays there is an open mat class run out of Sparta MMA Gym (37 Vine Street), another Brazilian Top Team affiliate. The class is usually run by either T, Adam or the highest belt that shows up. It starts at 2.30pm, but sometimes starts a bit later as if the Canton class runs over then it takes a bit of time for people to wonder over to the Sparta Gym. The Sparta Gym also has a daily MMA/ wrestling class (apart from on Sundays) which starts at 8.30pm.

For those looking to train more than the 3-4 sessions currently available, there are a few of us who go up to Slough with T two or three times a week to train with the Brazilian Top Team under Ze Marcello. Usually this is on Tuesdays and Sundays, but can also be on Thursdays sometimes. Its a long drive but the quality and level of BJJ is well worth the travelling!

And thats about it really! Its a bit scattered all over the place but there is somewhere to train almost everyday of the week! On top of this, we regularly get 3-4 people together who want to do some extra rolling and meet up at one of the gyms, organising a time suitable for everyone in advance. Here is a summary:

Monday: 830pm Canton Martial Arts
Tuesday: 640pm (leaving time) BTT Slough
Wednesday: 830pm Canton Martial Arts
Thursday: 640pm (leaving time) BTT Slough
Friday:
Saturday: 1230 Canton Martial Arts, 230pm Sparta Gym
Sunday: 930am (leaving time) BTT Slough

3rd Brighton Grab and Pull

2009-07-29T15:37:00.000-07:00

Crazy times! Last weekend was the 3rd Grab and Pull tournament held at the King Alfred Leisure centre in Hove, right next door to Brighton. The Eastbourne branch of BTT UK, took up a big team for such a small town, with around 12 of us competing across most of the white belt categories. The last tournament saw only 4 of us taking part, so this was a huge improvement and a good reflection on how BJJ is really taking off, especially in Eastbourne!

The venue was set up with 8 huge matted areas and several cameras, which were used for a pay per view on the event - pretty cool hu? As usual, the competition was running a bit late, but once the rooster and feather weights had weighed in, they started the fights quite quickly. One thing I noticed straight away was the level of BJJ was very high, with almost all the competitors demonstrating alot of skill, strength and technical ability. Usually theres quite a few real beginners competing, but not this time!

While I know I should warm up properly, stretch and drill some technique before getting called up, I'v developed a bad habit of doing some half hearted stretches but nothing else before stepping on the mat. I prefer to sit around and watch everyone else fight and just try to relax and chill out. The first fight always seems to be the hardest for me and it takes me some time before I get into the game plan! This first fight was no different - we started and my opponent pulled guard, which I was very happy about :)! I quickly set up my standing guard pass, stood up and passed top side control, before moving to north/south. Then I set up my favourite choke and finished the fight. The next two fights were pretty much the same with my opponents pulling guard and me using the same guard pass and choke to finish the fights! I almost got stuck in a triangle, but thankfully we have been drilling triangle escapes to death and all the hard work paid off! Its strange, but I have only ever used two submissions in competition - the near naked choke and a particular north/south choke.

The semi final fight went a bit differently :P. After a bit of messing around standing up my opponent got a sweet double leg takedown on me. I managed to get a sweep from half guard, but then I got swept and had my half guard passed. Ended up loosing on points. Ah well! The winner of the lightweight whitebelts was some 16 year old Brazilian kid who came and cleaned up with some pretty sick armbars!

Overall it was a great competition! My one complaint was the cancellation of the white belt absolute division because the tournament was running too far behind schedule. It was great to see many of my team mates compete in their first BJJ tournament, as well as other more experienced friends medalling in their categories! Everyone did really well with Pete killing it in the heavyweight division, getting gold, Rach and Sophie cleaning up the women categories with 2 golds, a silver and a bronxe between them, and myself getting a bronze in the light weight!

Feral Gi Review

2009-07-03T12:10:00.000-07:00

Got my Feral Gi today! Its a blue one and an A2. First impression is that it looks ALOT better than it does on the ebay pictures. The shoulder patches are a great black/yellow and look very slick! I tried it on before washing it and it was literally a few centrimeters too big. the trousers are definitely made for slimmer guys and are very fitted, with almost no extra material around the upper leg, leading to a narrow sleeve at the bottom. The jacket has perfect sleeve length for me (I am 5'9/ 177cm and 75kg), with the skirt being on the short side compared to other gis I have seen. To be honest it fit quite perfectly on me - no complaints!

I soaked it in a bath of cold water with a good sprinkling of salt for an hour to help the colour set and let any exccess dye come out (apparently a couple cups of white vinegar sets the colour quite well but I didnt have any). After that I stuck it on a 20 degrees long wash with extra spin cycles to get it semi dry. When I tried it on after, the sleeves had shrunk a very small amount and the trousers were still a good fit. However, I think I am going to have to be careful with this gi as even a semi hot wash or dryer might see it shrink more than I want it to, as right now its perfect!

Overall, this gi seems to be a really good buy. At only 45 pounds (with shipping), it seems to be made of high quality material, good design and an excellent fit for slimmer guys. I had a bad feeling that I was going to end up with a Blitz type of Gi but was plesantly suprised to find it was comparable in feel and fit to my Koral. Give it a few weeks and I will do an update post to see how it is holding up with training and a few more washes to its name! The pictures were taken after it was soaked, washed and air dried.

300 Brazilians!!!

2009-07-01T15:27:00.000-07:00

Todays class was hard! Hard enough to deserve a blog entry anyway. We had a quick warm up, break falls, abs circuit and some stretching before everyone was told to go get their protective gear, water, etc. Then for the next 2 hours we rolled constantly till we got a cumulative 300 rolls! Out of a class of 17 people, that means alot of rolls. We divided up into a lightweight mat (under 65kg), a middleweight (under 85g) and a heavyweight mat (85kg+). As usual, even though I weigh around 74kg, I was told to to go over to the heavyweight mat!

For the first hour, thing were going well and I managed to stay on (winner stays on and no time limit - basically till someone taps or gives up) with 3-4 wins before being beaten and circulating back in to win a few more and eventually get tapped again. However, after 60 minutes we were still at only 80 rolls across all three mats so a two minute time limit was introduced, and then for the last half hour a one minute time limit. While this meant very short rolls, it also meant a maximum of 3 mins between each roll, which was considerably shorter if someone managed a submission in that one minute.

After 2.5 hours we finally got over 300 rolls and held a final on each mat between the two people who managed the most taps throughout the session. I got a good guard choke on, but had my guard broken so I switched to half guard and managed to squeeze out the choke from there! Quite happy that at 74kg I can tap 90kg+ guys! Rach won the lightweights easily, and also got the most taps out of everyone. So all in all, a good training session :)

BJJ British Open 2009 Videos

2009-07-01T11:30:00.000-07:00

There are a few videos around of the British Open and I managed to find a couple of my fights! I had 5 fights on the day and am not too sure of the order of the videos but here are two videos:

This fight was a hard one! I tried passing his guard a couple times but got stuck in half guard. Then my opponent got a nice double leg take down and I knew I had to start doing some serious BJJ if I wanted to win. Still, managed to pull off two take downs or one take down and a guard pass - not sure how they awarded the points as the board at the end said 3-2 to me? Not sure what happened there! :)

The second fight video is quite boring to be honest - I was waiting for him to pull guard but it took a while. I nearly got a take down but I didnt have his trouser leg secured properly and he managed to hop his way across the whole matted area and back again! Ended up going straight to side control, then north-south and finally a choke to finish it.

Hopefully a few more of my fights will come up on www.cagefilm.com as its great seeing what mistakes I made and what I need to work on. One obvious areas is takedowns - I really need to work on this!

BJJ British Open 2009 part 2

2009-06-22T09:30:00.001-07:00

Well thats the biggest tournament of the year done and dusted! The organisers estimated that the event had around 750 competitors all squeezed into one day of crazy brazilian jiujitsu! While I only managed to film Rach's final, Gus Oliveira was there filming most of the fights and will probably put them up on Cage Film later on in the week. Here are some pictures of the day annd I will hopefully get some videos up soon! :)

BJJ British Open 2009

2009-06-21T14:48:00.000-07:00

Yesterday was the biggest competition in the UK, and possibly in Europe, excluding the Europeans. It was a really great tournament with such a high level of jiujitsu! I was quite suprised the distance people travelled to compete, with some competitors coming all the way from the US and many travelling from Europe and all parts of the UK. Brazilian Top Team did very well, claiming silver in the team trophy category and taking quite a few golds and silvers. The guys from the Eastbourne branch of Ze Marcelo won two golds and two silver...there were only 5 of us!

Training for this competition was a little less than some of the other ones I have done this year because I had my final exams and wasnt as focused as I could have been and have been in the past. I checked my weight on the Wednesday (the competition was on Sunday) and was around 4 kg over! This led to some serious sweat sessions and hardly any food over the next couple of days. I was still trying to loose weight on the night before the competition at 1230, even though we had to be up at 3:30am to drive up to Birmingham! I can't tell you much about the drive up there as I was in pretty much a zombie state by this point and ended up sleeping the whole journey up there.

In what is turning out to be a routine for us, we got there way before anyone else - before the place was even open infact! Rocking up at 0730am when the event was supposed to start at 0930am wasn't great, but better early than late eh? After much standing around and clock watching, all the competitors were let in and everyone went off to establish their camps in various corners. While the venue had a huge matted area consisting of 8 mats, the spectator and warm up area were very small and cramped. Basically if you were not fighting, you were stuck standing as there was no room to even sit! Luckily we found a bit of space and used our bags to create a little fortress for ourselves.

I was on quite quickly as the call for lightweight was pretty much as soon as the doors opened! For once I was really calm and relaxed before going on the mats, and had time to stretch as best as I could and run through my game plan a couple times in my head. I was also lucky enough to have Ze Marcello in my corner, which helped out loads! The first two fights were hard and it took me a while to get my head in the game properly, but I managed to get through the first and second round, winning on points. After that I got with the it a bit more and finished the next three matches by north-south choke. Since me and another team mate, Sushi, both made it to the finals, we split the gold between us!

Rach did a great job aswell, despite having 5 stitches in her arm and having a cold, winning Gold in the female lightweight division, adding to her winning streak :). Sophie Cook got silver in the rooster weight female division and Pete got silver in the heavyweight division. Well done guys! Lee Fynch also competed for the first time, doing a great job and representing the team.

Once I finished my fights I stuffed my face with sausage rolls, sandwhiches, chicken, cereal bars, chocolate and loads of energy drinks! Eventually I began to feel normal again and hlped the other guys with their fights. The rest of the day was a mad rush of running from one corner of the hall to the other, screaming encouragement and causing general mayhem. It was great seeing the black belts and brown belts fight as well as all the purple belts from Ze Marcello's team. Oliver Geddes was also there and didn't disapoint, pulling and winning using his great half guard game, something I am trying to work on myself at the moment.

I am going to do another entry in more detail in a couple days when I have got together all the pictures and videos, but that should be enough for now. Happy Training!

Various Pictures

2009-05-12T15:45:00.001-07:00

ZT Fight Skool BJJ Competition

2009-05-11T05:05:00.000-07:00

Yesterday was the first ever BJJ competition held by Ivam Maciel of ZT fight skool in Brighton! It was a really smoothly run event, with all competitors having their own name tag displayed on a huge white board which were moved around depending who they had to fight next. It was a really good system and made it so much easier to find out what was going on! While the original categories were only above 77kg and below 77kg, so many competitors signed up they had to add categories for under 88kg, under 98kg and over 98kg!

The morning of the Sunday saw a bunch of guys from BTT Eastbourne meeting up and making our way down to Brighton. As usual, I had just enough time to weigh in, stretch for 15 minutes, and then it was time for the light weight division. I had three fights, finishing two of them with a north/ south choke and winning one on points, before coming up against my team mate Adam ( Gym Sparta) who beat me on points! After helping everyone else with their fights and coaching a few of the guys who were competing for the first time it was time for the absolute. This also went well, seeing me beat two guys with the north/ south choke again before loosing to a 130kg judo black belt who went on to win the whole thing! I was happy with how I did on the day considering I haven't had time to train as much as I would have liked, due to having so much work to do for university.

Overall Team BTT Eastbourne took gold (Adam Urbanski), silver (Steve Stone) and bronze (me) in the lightweight, gold in the light heavyweight (Peter Kuapil) as well as silver (Pete again) and bronze (me again) in the absolute. For a small town team we did really well and I think its a great demonstration that Team Eastbourne will definitely be a force to be reckoned with in the near future!

It was a really well organised competition and a really great local tournament to help guys with their first competition jitters. The British BJJ Open is coming up in June so its going to be time to step up the training again! Hopefully I will be done with unviersity in the next week or so and then I can focus on BJJ 100% again!

Ze Marcello seminar Eastbourne

2009-04-29T04:07:00.000-07:00

Last week we had a very informative seminar by Ze Marcello, who came down from the Slough Academy to teach at the Canton gym. I am used to seeing around a maximum of 20 people on the mats at Canton, so having 32 participants running around and doing breakfalls was quite shocking, but fun.

During the seminar Ze went over the half guard game, focusing specifically on sweeps. I think we went over around 3 sweeps, each with an additional counter move in case the opponent blocked the original one. Unfortunately I only managed to record the last two, but these are more than enough to keep me busy for a while! Its nice to have a bit more half guard in my arsenal as half guard is usually just a transition position for me. We rolled for around 45 minutes at the end of the seminar and I was lucky enough to go with a black belt from Barcelona who came along with Ze. Here are some photos from the day:

ZT fight skool competition

2009-04-25T11:24:00.000-07:00

New competition coming up on the 10th of May! Its going to be held at the ZT fight skool in Brighton by Ivam Maciel and should be another great tournament - check out the ZT website for more information. I think the entry is limited to Ivam's students and his student's students but I am not too sure.

Brighton Grab and Pull videos 2

2009-04-06T09:09:00.000-07:00

Few more videos. One is the end of my thrid fight and the other is an incomplete video of one of the absolute fights.

Brighton Grab and Pull videos

2009-04-06T09:05:00.000-07:00

While I had 10 fights between my weight devision and the absolute devision, we only managed to film a few of them. The first few minutes of most of the fights are a bit boring - feel free to skip ahead! Here are a couple below:

Brighton Grab and Pull Competition

2009-04-06T08:48:00.000-07:00

Last weekend was the Brighton Grab and Pull competition! It was a great tournament which was run very smoothly and on time. Although there was only 10 of us from Brazilian Top Team competing, we walked away with 5 gold medals, 2 silver and 3 bronze out of a total of around 250 competitiors! Well done guys! I was much less nervous than the last competition and had a good game plan to work with. I made it to the finals of the light weight devision (5 fights) and then unfortunately lost by referee decision... there had been no points or advantages scored. I was pissed off, but i guess it could have gone either way, although I would have liked the fight to have gone into extra time. In the absolute devision there were some big guys, but I managed to make it to the finals after another 5 rounds. However, as it was me and another member of BTT in the finals (team members dont fight each other at our club)we drew and both got gold.

Rach won the girls devision, continuing her winning streak from the Bristol Open! Well done Rach! It was great day and was the ultimate reward for all the training between now and the last competition. I am off to Bharain for a two week holiday, where I should get a few training sessions in at Team Reza's academy. However, right now all I am interested in is eating lots of good food and relaxing for a few days. Videos and pics to follow

A Quick Update

2009-03-29T16:42:00.000-07:00

I have been very busy with university work this week with several deadlines coming up and havn't had time to check the blog out. So I was pleasantly suprised to see there is a (very) modest amount of traffic on the site! Yay! It should be getting much more interesting on here in the next couple weeks as I have a competition coming up next week and then a trip back to Bahrain where I'll get to train with the guys at Team Reza. Bring on the hardcore training! This is just a quick update to tell everyone to keep reading as there is going to be loads on here very, very soon! Here are some pics of Rach finishing her Bristol Open final fight with an ezekiel choke, right as her opponent was tapping. Well done Rach!

Cardio for Jiujitsu

2009-03-19T15:12:00.000-07:00

Alot of people seem to gas when we roll during class. Like really gas. Like hyperventilating gas. They start by going all red around 3 minutes into the round. Then a vein begins to throb in their forehead as they start foaming at the mouth and their eyes bulge like fish. Yes. Just like fish.

Is it unfair that we judge people who don't train as hard or as often as we do? I don't think it is...

Anyway, as the Brighton BJJ competition is approaching in a few weeks, we decided to start two extra classes a week focusing just on cardio for BJJ. Some of the guys have MMA fights soon, while some of us have BJJ tournaments and others just want to improve their game. So now we have BJJ classes 3 times a week with 2 additional cardio classes. And this is only at Canton Gym! There is also the saturday Sparta Gym class, the sunday BTT slough class and the ZT fight school BJJ class on the other days! Alot of training do to, alot of classes to attend, alot of stuff to think about.

Today was the first cardio class. My girlfriend is in her last year of a sport and exercise science degree so she put together a class to improve both aerobic and anaerobic cardio applied to BJJ. We started off with half an hour of constant drills such as frog jumps, prayer jumped, seated leg jumps, bear crawls, crab walks, high knees, butt kickers, breakfalls, front roles, back roles, kart wheels, take down shuffles and a bunch of other stuff. It was a constant tempo which slowly got everyone sweating like crazy and breathing hard at the end. Then we did some stretching to bring everyone's heart rate down before doing some anaerobic drills. These were 3 intense circuits, 6 minutes a circuit with explosive exercises like sprawls, burpies, running man, knee to chest jumps, etc. The class was rounded off by doing 50 frog jump/ take downs. It probably doesn't sound like much in writing but it worked very well and it felt me with a feeling of anticipation. If everyone keeps this up there won't be anymore red faces, throbbing veins, foaming mouths or bulging fish eyes...

Training at BTT Slough

2009-03-15T13:06:00.000-07:00

This Sunday me, Rach and Tolly drove up to Slough to train with Ze Marcello at one of his BTT schools. Unfortunately he wasnt there (he is quite busy, always doing seminars and travelling) so there was only around 10 people training. We try and go up to London to train once or twice a week as the level is very high and there are many more people to roll with. Not only that but there are at least 4-5 purple belts in every class as well as a good amount of blue belts! I always enjoy going up there to train as its so nice to be able to roll with different people with different gameplans. We left a little late, but the drive up there went smoothly with no traffic and it was a nice day with the sun out. We arrived there quite late, only having time to jump in for the sparring, which had just started.

Sparring with the Slough crowd is always great as I feel I push myself that little bit harder to get the tap. When we roll back in Eastbourne I always am trying to get a certain position, submission or try to acheive a pre arranged target. I think if you just constantly roll just to win your not taking advantage of what 'sparing time' is really about. For me, I like to decide before training an aspect of my game which I want to work and when its time to roll, work that position or submission as much as I can. But when we train in Slough, its all about the tap! Slough is like a mini tournament for me where I can test myself against new people and see where I stand and if what I have been practicing is working or not. I always try and roll with the blue or purple belts to see if my game works - if it works on a bluebelt then its probably going to work on a white belt! Anyway, today was a successful training session as I managed to tap 2 blue belts with my baseball bat choke from side (I must have been grinning from ear to ear as they jumped into side control!) and then got another blue belt with a north/ south choke. Not a bad day at all! I could have got quite a few more taps (I had around 7 rolls) with the baseball bat choke but a few got away by getting knee on belly and pushing away. Regardless its definitely a move that works and something I am going to keep working on!

The Ultimate Fighter series 9

2009-03-12T10:37:00.000-07:00

The new 'The Ultimate Fighter' series (9) is going to air on 1st april and pits UK and USA teams against each other for the first time! This season is particularily exciting for me as last summer I went to train in Thailand at the Tiger Muay Thai camp, in Phuket. They had a really good MMA class run by Ray Elbe, which was my first serious dip into the waters of grappling. It was a great experience and I learnt alot in that short month.

Reading the Asia BJJ blog I saw that Ray Elbe will be part of the USA team for TUF 9! Its going to be really cool watching the program now that someone I have met and trained under is going to be on it!

On a separate note, today was quite a chilled day. I got to sleep a bit later than usual this morning before heading to university for a few hours. We are going to an indian restaurant for dinner tonight to meet up with some friends and get some good chow. Starting tomorrow I am going to keep an eye on my weight at start bringing it back down to under 74kg for the Brighton competition.

Bits and Bobs

2009-03-11T15:05:00.000-07:00

I decided to change the name of my blog to something a bit more original so that later on, when this blog is hopefully more successful, I won't need to worry about the name being a reference to a local gym. It is still early days so no harm done!

So whats been going on with training? Well Monday was a good BJJ session where we started going over knee on belly and a few chokes from this position. Ever since the Bristol competition I keep feeling a pull on the outer side of my abs. Knee on belly really seemed to irritate this and made it really uncomfortable. The thing is I have the Brighto Open competition in 3 weeks and I can't afford to take a week off to let it heal. I am hoping that I'll be ok till the competition and then I can recover when its all done and dusted. On Tuesday me and some of the guys got together to help Tolly train for his MMA fight in April and did some no gi grappling as well as worked takedowns. No gi is so refreshing after wearing a gi all the time! We had a good session but I need to try and work on some no gi submissions and sweeps when I get the chance. On Wednesday we continued with the knee on belly position, adding another choke and an armbar which all worked really well.

In today's sparring session I decided that I was going to try and get all the submissions I like to use from guard, north/ south and mount. For guard these are: triangle, arm triangle and the new baseball bat choke. North/ south: Tolly's choke, baseball bat choke, Mount: arm triangle, ezekiel choke and settig up a transition back to guard with a triangle submission. As you can see I like triangles, arm triangles and that new baseball bat choke alot! Anyway, today we only had one round of rolling and I was paired with a beginner. Even though I only had five minutes I managed to get all my guard submissions and north/ south positions before he complained his neck was sore and we had to stop with 2 minutes to go! Oh well, on Saturday there will be two classes and a larger variety of opponents so I will continue to try and get all my submissions in one rolling session.

I think its a good way to work my submissions and I won't only focus on one position too much. These days I am feeling a bit drained and more sore than usual, probably due to having to wake up really early everyday, having alot of university work due very soon and the endless training. Having this pulled ab isnt helping things either. Luckily tomorrow is my break day so it will let me recover a bit.

On a separate note I found a good picture of me getting my three stripes on my white belt over Christmas and thought I'd put it up! Note the huge judo gi.

Baseball Bat Choke

2009-03-08T16:32:00.000-07:00

On Saturday I had a long, long training day! It started off in the morning with 1.5 hours at Canton Martial Arts. It was a good open mat session where we got to start from standing, giving me a good opportunity to work some takedowns. I got a nice north/ south choke a couple times (new move that my instructor showed me and I am trying out so no one saw it coming!)and got a triangle from transitioning from mount. After this me and rach went home and got some food. I decided to go to the next calss my instructor was teaching at a different gym. We went through a guard position which is the starting point of many submissions. One hand loops over the opponents are and holds onto their gi, keeping them very close to you. From here we worked a three finger choke, lapel choke, armbar and sweep. We then rolled for half hour and I got my north/ south choke again and another triangle, before I had to roll with my instructor and got my ass handed to me! Once the class finished everyone paid and left but Tolly asked me to hang around, along with one of his blue belts and a guy with loads of wrestling background. His two of the guys have up coming MMA fights, we rolled no gi for another 45 mins. Its great rolling with these guys as the level is so much higher and I learn so much more when I am tapping compared to submitting people. By the time I stumbled back home I was completely toast and ended up taking a nice bubble bath, making some good white chocolate cookies, and watching TV with Rach.

Anyway, I drifted a bit. In fact I havnt drifted as I havnt even said what I originally wanted to rant on about yet! In the last rolling session of the day, I got caught with a baseball bat choke a couple times before catching on to what was actually going on. When I got home I googled the move and found out you can do it by allowing your opponent to get side control! How cool is that?! Anyway, long story short, I got all excited and watched all the videos I could find and have decided I am going to try and work this move as much as I can in the coming weeks. It seems to come on super quick and catches people by suprise. I tried it out on Rach a few times an was suprised on how good it was! So tomorrow at class I am just going to try and catch everyone with the basebal bat choke, whether from standing, guard or half guard. Heres a video:

Ronaldo 'Jacare' Souza

2009-03-08T16:25:00.000-07:00

Well now that my blogging skills are evolving and I can upload videos there are a few things I want to share! I recently came across a highlight video of ronaldo 'jacare' souza and thought 'WOW' this guy can kick some serious ass! Now when ever I roll I judge everyone, including myself, on how 'jacare' they are. I googled him a few times but I couldn't find anymore info on him apart from some other videos.

Bristol Open fight 2

2009-03-08T14:30:00.000-07:00

This was my second fight - I am fighting in the white gi. The first match was really boring anyway with me scoring points for the takedown and then not much else happened.

Bristol Open

2009-03-05T03:11:00.000-08:00

Well the Bristol Open came and went and what an experience! We left at 4am in the morning to get there for 9am. After briefly stopping at the petrol station we all relaxed and settled down for the long journey, only for the car to stall not even ten minutes later! Apparently one of the guys put petrol instead of diesel in the car! A full tank too! We ended up having to push the car into the next car park, get a taxi back to someones house and then use a different car. Eventually we made it to Bristol. We knew we were in the right place because where else would you see a bunch of people walking around in kimonos at 9am in the morning on a saturday?!

First thing that struck me was the amount of people there! There must have been over 400 people milling around and waiting to start. We wondered round for a bit, said hello to the organiser (Pedro Bessa) and eventually found the rest of the Brazilian Top Team Ze Marcello. They had four mats set out for the day and lots of space for everyone else to watch and relax until their fight came up. Suprisingly, they called light weight white belts quite quickly and before I knew it I was on the scale and being told to warm up. I dont think I'v ever been so nervous before! My first match I got the takedown, and then proceeded to forget almost everything I'v learn't over the past 7 months! The match stayed in his guard the whole time, went to half guard for a bit and then back to guard. I eventually won on points. My second fight went much better. I pulled guard , secured a nice arm triangle, swept to mount, took back and got a RNC just as time was called. Luckily my girlfriend filmed this match so I'll upload it later on today along with some pictures of the day. My third fight started off with having a takedown scored against me, a pass and then mount. Not the best start! I managed to get my own sweep, pass and then like a complete idiot I got mount. But instead of holding it for 3 seconds I went straight for an armbar (which I didnt get) and missed out on the points. Eventually I tapped from an ezekiel choke - not my proudest moment haha.

Anyway, as a first competition I was really happy with the way things went. I got my feet wet, won a few fights and had a blast watching everyone else fight. My girlfriend won her weight class and then the absolute, walking away with two chunky gold medals! Well done Rach! It was great to feel part of the BTT team and have some big names in my corner such as Ze Marcello. Thanks to everyone who was screaming at me and telling me what to do especially Tolly, Ze, Rach, Dave, Rory and Chin!

Next month there is another competition (smaller than the bristol open) in Brighton which is half an hour away! Starting saturday I need to work on takedowns and developing my game plan to work a bit better in competitions!

Bristol Open Winter Leg 2009

2009-03-03T15:04:00.000-08:00

20.02.09

2009-02-20T07:56:00.000-08:00

Its been a week or two since my last update! There is a bad stomach virus going around which I caught over the weekend so that was my Saturday training out of the window. I havnt been sick like that for a while! Couldn't hold any food or water down and was continously throwing up. Eventually also got a bad fever. Thankfully Rach was around to take care of me...must suck to be sick by yourself! I even went to the hospital but, the UK health system being what it is, they reccomended an anti sickness medicine I could have bought without a prescription! Well I am much better now and training is back on track. Slowly I am managing to tap a few blue belts and only get tapped by the purple belts now. Must mean I am improving slightly!

Life is very hectic at the moment. University is very busy with many deadlines and assignments to do. I'm not very motivated to do any of it but its the last push before I finish so might as well put in the effort and get a decent mark. When I finish university I want to travel a bit before doing my masters, maybe a nice long training holiday to Brazil? :) That would be a nice holiday indeed!

The Bristol Open is in one week now. I still need to loose two kilos! I'm running in the morning on an empty stomach and doing light weight circuits. Also only having carbs with breakfast. This week I should be training everyday. That combined with my restricted calories and extra exercise should shed some extra weight. One week left then its crunch time!

09.02.08

2009-02-09T11:57:00.000-08:00

Right lets recap on what I'v been up to these last few days. Saturday was a busy training day as usual. In the morning class we helped one of the guys get ready for his MMA fight. There were only 4-5 of us so we split up in groups, with some people doing a round of stand up with Ian trying to take them down as they punched him, and some of us did no gi grappling right after the stand up round. I was in the no gi grappling group. It was fun to roll no gi as its nice to be free of all the grips and collars of the gi for once. Feel so much more fluid and free with no gi! Anyway the sparring went well even though I didnt get a submission - Ian weighs in at 95kg so out weighs me by a good 20kg. In the afternoon session we went over the bramber (I thin kthats how you spell it) choke from half guaard and then from side control. This slotted into my game very well as now I have a move to use when someone tries to pull half guard! Got to roll with some newbies who were going all out (as usual with newbies) and got a good string of submissions off. Agin it was no gi as they didnt have gis yet. Also had a roll with Rach where she got me in a really good triangle from spider guard but I managed to hold it till time was called.

Sunday I went down to Sparta gym to help Tolly out with a private. He is training Rob for an MMA fight aswell and needed someone for him to spar with as his knee is a bit messed up at the moment. We did stand up with takedowns in MMA gloves before working on escaping side control. I felt I could hold my own again a considerably bigger opponent. Always good! However after the session I went home and started to feel a bit under the weather. Had a nice hot bath and did some revision for an exam I had on Monday.

The exam went well but I cant shake the feeling I am getting sick. I had a nap when I got back from my exam and woke up feeling hot and cold, headache, usual fever symptoms. Also all my body feels very achey and tired. I decided to skip training tonight and just eat as much food as I can in the hopes I will stop getting properly sick. Tomorrow I have another exam, helping Tolly with a private lesson and then we should be going to London to train with Ze Marcello from BTT UK! Lets hope I feel better by then. Time for some more chicken legs.

05.02.09

2009-02-05T09:44:00.000-08:00

Today I was supposed to go help Tolly with a private but his girlfriend wasnt feeling well so he cancelled. Nevermind! Went down to the gym anyway and had a good upper body workout taken from the 'body for life' website. Its a nice simple workout plan and the training before breakfast will help me loose a bit of weight. The workout has one exercise per muscle group with a superset at the end e.g: incline bench press x 12, 10, 8, 6, 12 (last set of 12 supersetted with dumbell flyes x 12). Heres what I did today:

incline bench press: x 12, 10, 8, 6, 12

(supersetted with)

dumbell flyes: x 12

upright barbell rows: x 12, 10, 8, 6, 12

(supersetted with)

front raises: x 12

barbell rows: x 12, 10, 8 ,6, 12

(supersetted with)

close grip pull ups: x 12

overhead dumbel extensions: x 12, 10, 8, 6, 12

(supersetted with)

french press: x 12

preacher curls: x 12, 10, 8, 6, 12

(supersetted with)

dumbell curls: x 12

I checked my weight and it was at 77.8kg after eating one meal. Could i get down to 76kg in gi? That would be good! I would have to be around 74kg to get into the lightweight category. Thats 20 days exactly to loose almost four kgs. I'm going to try and get down there anyway and see where I am on the 20th and then I'll choose my category.

Apart from this I didnt do much else today. Just going to make some food and chill out and watch some TV with my girlfriend. I am thinking about going down to Brighton tomorrow to a different BJJ school and see how I compare. Theres no training tomorrow so I wont be missing out on anythingand it will be good for me to see how I compare with other white belts that I dont usually roll with. We shall see! For anyone looking for more info on the Bristol Open 2009 winter leg here is the website:

http://www.bristolopenbjj.org/

03.02.09

2009-02-03T13:03:00.000-08:00

Well the weather cleared up quite nicely. The news predicted snow storms and blizzards but it turned out to be blue skies and sunshine! Maybe I should become a weather man... My exams got cancelled because of the snow so they will probably be rescheduled for next week some time. Good thing too cause I could use some more revision time!

Today I went down to Adam's gym to help my instructor, Tolly, with a private class he was teaching. The guy who was doing the private is a nice guy who has been training for around 7 weeks now. The thing is he only does privates! It seems he doesnt want to roll with other people cause he doesnt feel ready yet. But Tolly convinced him to have a few rolls with me at the end of their private this week and I think he had several epiphanies. One was that fitness plays a huge part when you actually spar with someone! He was still trying to go all out for the whole round, ending up with him gasing less than 2 minutes into it. Eventually he calmed down a little bit and started using his strength when he needed it and relxing a little bit when he had a dominant position. Another thing that he realised is that he needs to actually roll with people to practice all the moves he is learning. It really opened his eyes to how complex BJJ can really be and how it is more similar to a chess game than a arm wrestling match! Got me thinking too about my gameplan. Hopefully he will start coming to one of the other classes so he can try his skills against a wider variety of people. Tolly asked me to help out on Thursday as well so hopefully that will give him some incentive. I kept my game at around 50% and focused on positioning instead of submissions. He is quite stronger than me so its good for me as it allows me to work on controlled a larger opponent.

After the private session I went home and went to the cinema with my girlfriend to see Underworld... what a kick ass movie! Definitely better than the first two with loads of action and a semi decent plot line. These kind of films always bring up the dilema of whether I would rather be a lycan or vampire. Brute strength and being able to walk in day light or superhuman skills and lots of kinky bondage sex? I cant decide! Definietly in my top twenty best films I reckon. When we got home I was still feeling like some training so I went down to the gym to do a weights session. Did a slight variation of the '300' workout and have to say it was quite effective! also took a few snaps of the gym:

25 pull ups
50 deadlifts with 60kg
50 push ups
50 box jumps
50 leg raises
50 reverse crunches
50 kettle bell clean and press
25 pull ups

Snow!

2009-02-02T01:04:00.000-08:00

I just thought I would express how happy I am! Yesterday and last night saw quite a bit of snow fall in the south east of the UK and because of this none of the trains or buses are working so the University was forced to cancel their exams! Yay! Now I can spend today doing something more productive than sitting in a hall for three hours writing about Pavlov's dogs. I do think its a bit crazy what a bit of snow can do. Other countries that see regular, heavy snow continue as normal and life goes on. But here in the UK not even 5 inches of snow causes all London airports to close, loads of flights cancelled, lots of major motorways closed, trains and buses not working and a host of other problems. So what should I do today? First I want to take a walk down to the seafront and take some pictures of the snowed beaches. I'll put them up once I get them uploaded. But for now I am going to kick back, make some nice wintery comfort food and enjoy the chaos!

01.02.09

2009-02-01T03:59:00.000-08:00

Yesterday's training was a good one! Saturdays are always brutal with 1.5 hours at Canton Gym followed by another 2 hour session at Sparta Gym. Its nice to get so much mat time in one day and really helps me to work on anything I need to improve. We went over guard passes and side control escapes in the first session with some sparring from stand up. In the second session it was a submission combination from guard involving breaking posture and moving to the side of your opponent, almost as if you were taking their back. From here we drilled a kimora, collar choke, sweep and armbar combination, and finally taking the back from the same position. It was a small class with sparring consisting of rolling with a newbie, my girlfriend (more on her later) and my instructor Tolly. Was fun and I got to practice my triangles from guard and a few reverse ones! One move that I picked up over Christmas which I am finding very effective is to pull guard and then go for an armbar. Once the opponent begins stacking you, let them pull out their 'armbared' arm and switch your grip to their other arm which should be inbetween your legs. Move your knee that is closest to their head to the other side of the neck and close the triangle. Move hips to opposite side to finish! I seem to be pulling off a good amount of triangles with this move as people stack you which brings their head nice and low making it very easy to slide your leg over their face and lock in the triangle with suprising speed.

I have a Human Resources exam tomorrow so today I need to get my act together and get a bunch of revision done! It is way too easy to distract myself with training - before I know it I am going through different game plan options of formulating a plan of attack for a particular opponent in one of the BJJ classes! Must Work!!! I will probably break up my revision with a gym session just to get some sort of training done. I am still in two minds over whether to train for strength or mix it all up. One day I will feel like doing some traditional powerlifting routines and others I want to train everything in one workout. Right now I am playing it however I feel it and doing what I want. After the Bristol Open I will try to get my weight back up to around 80kg so I can compete at 82kg. Right now I am at 77kg down from around 85kg and feeling a bit skinny! Never mind, after the competition I can work on getting some size back but right now I need to focus on coming up with an effective strategy.

One last rant! I cant get my beautiful koral gi clean! For the first 6 months of my BJJ training I used a huge, baggy judo gi which made it horribly easy for opponents to use it against me. Now that I have an actual BJJ gi, I appreciate it so much. But one of the gyms I roll at has these mats which tend to make your gi go a grey/black colour on the back, knees and elbow areas. I currently wash my gi on the 'hand wash' setting at 25 degrees but it still comes up with 'patches' of colour on it. These gi is new! Like brand new! Someone help! I might just leave it in a lukewarm bath tub for 3 hours and see if that works. I should have just got a blue gi like Rach did so that the dirt doesn't show up. Anyone else have this' dirt patch' problem?

31.01.09 Training

2009-01-31T09:08:00.000-08:00

Today is the longest training day for me.

31.01.09

2009-01-30T15:25:00.000-08:00

In a few weeks is the Bristol Open. This is quite a popular BJJ competition in the UK and seems to attract alot of top athletes. I was planning on trying to go to the Europeans Novice competition but the weak sterling means it would have cost a bomb, and as a first competition there were others to choose from. I think my game is at a suitable place to begin competing and getting some experience under my belt. I'v done a local no gi tournemament and won the light weight division and came second in the heavy weight (loosing to my current BJJ instructor!). I am in the black rashguard, finishing with a RNC and arm triangle.

So its times to step it up a notch and get serious about doing well. This got me thinking about game plans and how to approach a strategy - no point just showing up and seeing how it goes! Right now my game revolves around pulling guard and trying to get a triangle or trying to get the back. Is this enough? I don't know; I have been told I need to be more aggressive. Work, work, work. Just need to keep working at it. I have a bit over three weeks to work on my game til the Bristol Open. I think its best if I focus on what I am good at and work on my guard - while I am happy being elsewhere, the guard is where I fell strongest. But I do find myself getting stuck there if I cant pull off a submission. Maybe I need to focus on some good sweeps to advance my position if I find myself getting stuck. Work, work, work.

While I didnt have any BJJ training today, I did go to the gym to do some weights. Before, I used to focus on pure strength training and getting as strong as possible. Recently I have been mixing it all up and getting alot my workouts from www.gymjones.com . They provide great workouts involving all aspects of functional strength and compliment BJJ quite well. Todays workout went:

power cleans/ front squats/ power cleans
2 rounds of 5/5/5 reps
2 rounds of 5/5/5 reps
2 rounds of 5/5/5 reps

Kettle Bell press x 1 min
50 burpies
3 rounds

Was short and brutal. Tomorrow is a very busy training day. I have 1.5 hours training at Canton Martial Arts followed by 2 hours at Sparta Gym for Tolly's private class. Will be fun! Till then

30.01.09

2009-01-30T07:28:00.000-08:00

Right now I am in the middle of my first set of exams for my final year in my degree of Business Management and Marketing. But no matter how hard I try to focus on learning about self awareness and self development for my managing people module, I cannot help but be distracted by the constant stream of BJJ thoughts entering my head. It's way too easy to drift over to my laptop and read one of the better BJJ blogs around. Right now Gringa BJJ has got my attention and I can easily spend half an hour reading old posts. I finally gave in to the urge to distract myself from my revision and take a bit of time to feed my addiction so perhaps I will be a bit more productive afterwards!

One thing that I have noticed is that the UK is still quite young in terms of BJJ. There are only a handful of blackbelts in the country, and even fewer British blackbelts. I am quite lucky as my training at the moment has me going to two different schools. One of them is in Eastbourne at Canton Martial Arts and is a fairly new class, only running for around 3-4 months now. We are all white belts apart from the instructor who is a purple belt, Tolly Plested. It is a great learning environment and perfect for the beginners, currently training Monday, Wednesday and Saturday. Twice a week I will head up to London to train under the head of BTT Europe - Ze Marcello, with my instructor as this is his school where he trains at. I think these sessions help me the most as there is a huge range of experience there and we easily have 7-8 rolls in one evening, which helps me to practice everything in my game plan and figure out where I am lacking. It is a huge pain as there drive is 1.5 hours if we are lucky, but is definitely worth it. Its also great motivation being surrounded by so many higher belts and having Ze teaching. On top of this, Saturday afternoon usually entails going to a different gym, again with my instructor Tolly, where he runs a private class for more experienced people. So overall, right now I am getting in a huge amount of training and it has helped my progession speed along at a good pace.

I grew up in the Middle East on an island called Bahrain, where most of my family live at the moment. While Bahrain has only one BJJ school, it is a great facility with a top black belt and many purple belts. Classes are long and hard, with their team travelling many times a year to compete in Abu Dhabi, Jordan and even Thailand! This is where I got my very first BJJ lession last summer, and train there whenever I am back in bahrain. This Christmas, the head instructor Reza awarded me three stripes on my white belt after their grading. This was a great incentive as, because of all my moving around, I end up training with lots of different teams. I only train at Reza's for a few weeks, maybe a month tops, when I visit Bahrain on holidays so it was nice to be acknowledged as part of their team by getting some stripes.

Well thats a bit of information about me and my short BJJ experience so far. I think its time to get back to work and do some revision as exams are getting closer and I am not getting any smarter in terms of Business Management! On a separate note, I am sure everyone is aware of the financial crisis going on at the moment world wide. I came across this quote the other day, which was a scary prediction of the problems we now face in the capitalist world. Just something to ponder on and wonder about...

''Owners of capital will stimulate working class to buy more and more expensive goods, houses and technology, pushing them to take more and more expensive credits, until their debt becomes unbearable.

The unpaid debt wll lead to bankruptcy of banks which will have to be nationalised, and the State will have to take the road that eventually leads to communism. ''

Carl Marx, 1867

Anyone scared? A prediction made in 1867 has pretty much summed up our situation. Indeed, even some of president Obama's recent policies are leaning towards socialism! Hmmm....

Introduction

2009-01-29T16:02:00.000-08:00

The purpose of this blog is to primarily keep track of new BJJ moves and tactics I come across in my training. I will also talk about goings on in my life and general things that I want to mention and talk about. Right now I am in my third year of university in the UK at Brighton. Most of my family live in the middle east and Italy so I tend to travel quite alot and my training takes place under several different schools. So why set up a blog? When I started training, I was happy to learn the moves and try not to get submitted too often. Now that my game has progressed and I am thinking more about my game plan, I find myself easily forgetting moves. Good moves! Moves that I like and work for me! So I'm going to be writing about moves that fit my developing style and any other training ramblings that are going on. It will be very nice to keep this going for a while and be able to look back at my progress! Right now I'v been training BJJ for around 6 months, with a couple extra months prior to that in a bit of grappling and no gi. My current schools are Reza's martial art center in Bahrain and BTT Europe in the UK.