Bits and Bobs

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.

Bristol Open fight 2

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.

Snow!

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!

30.01.09

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....