Blue Belt!

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

Where to find BJJ Gis in the UK

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

3rd Brighton Grab and Pull

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!

300 Brazilians!!!

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

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!

ZT Fight Skool BJJ Competition

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

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

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 Competition

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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!

09.02.08

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.

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....