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.

Bristol Open

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!

05.02.09

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/

01.02.09

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

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