2013 Pan Ams

So I had intended to do a run up to this years Pan Am games up here to keep everyone up to date who's far away.  Obviously that did not occur since the event occurred last week.  What can I say, next time.  However, I can say that the experience is one that everyone who is serious about BJJ should undertake at least once in a career.

I normally compete in regional events at middle weight.  For an event this size, I cut back to light weight.  That's right, I dropped from my post-Holiday scale tipping 184.5 to 165.5 in full gi the day of the event for my Senior 1 Brown Belt match.

This was NOT a good time.  However, a friend of mine put me onto the Dolce Diet which he had used to cut for a MMA fight.

http://thedolcediet.com/

This turned out to work really well.  I don't know that the whole program works long term, but I followed his three week weight cut specific program the last run up and it worked great.

The IBJJF runs a pretty fantastic tournament pretty much any time.  For one of their majors they out do themselves.  Not to mention, where else do you go that you randomly bump into the likes of Royce Gracie in the food court before watching Andre Galvao win matches live.  Pretty awesome stuff.

If you're unfamiliar with the organization (some of my karate friends might not be I suppose)  here's the info:

http://www.ibjjf.org/

They truly are the premier BJJ organization out there for competition.  The rules might be a bit convoluted (I think they are even more so after taking a ref course out there) but they keep their athletes safe and run pretty much on time. Which if you've ever been to a NAGA for hours on end you'll appreciate.

As to my match, well, I lost in the prelims.  That said, everyone in my division, myself included had a good history of making the podium at regional level events.  My match was against a guy who'd medaled at the Pans at Brown last year AND placed in the last two World events.  Add that to the four stripes he was sporting on his belt and one can assume he's been at brown a while.  I made the jump last November.  All of that considered, I was happy that I wrestled him well.  I went out to win as opposed to wrestling not to lose.  There's a difference and I ended up on the right side of the equation despite the loss. 

I can live with that. 

Here's the bout:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WZVBGYaFaCM

You'll see where I lose connection and he capitalized.  Let me put this out here right now:  he was an excellent competitor and better than me. 

Now, I can start to look forward to the next outing.  NAGA is up in April (very maybe) and hopefully the IBJJF comes back to Chicago in the fall.  I'm looking to try to get some more tournies in at brown.  I won't be cutting serious weight again until the IBJJF though. 

Thanks to everyone who gave me a hand getting ready.  We'll do it again next time!

11172012 Roy Harris Seminar

As promised, and quite frankly, well ahead of schedule, here is the video notes that Steve-o and I did the day after the Roy Harris seminar.  Any mistakes are all on us and nothing else.  The seminar and the techniques and training process that Roy gave us were amazing. 

First up, and for me the most important part of the seminar, is the section of moving through the controlling positions for maintaining the ability to work leg locks.  This has always been an issue for me:

Next up, the actual submissions that Roy went over.  Again, a great look at a tool that gets under utilized by just about everyone, myself included.  Probably more than most.

Roy's point at the end was certainly not lost on me.  That leg attacks get labeled as dangerous a lot.  Everything we do is dangerous.  It's about how its trained.  He suggests that the injuries associated with training leg locks are usually the result of the defender's actions.  And to minimize that if you're caught, no rolling in an effort to escape.  It's the rolling, when an ankle is trapped, that rips our knees.

I also like how we drilled the tactics.  After reviewing the techniques, we began stringing them together free form to build a conditioned response with them, moving across all the control positions as needed and applying the submissions as they presented.  We've been working thru the positions since the seminar and it's really helpful in learning a new set of skills. 

For those there, I hope this is helpful in review.   For those that weren't I hope it give you a heads up on some of Roy's thoughts on leg attacks.

Brown Belt Promotion

For those that don't know, Saturday was a big day for the academy I train at, Triton MMA in Woodstock.  Not only were we luckily enough to host Roy Harris, one of the "Dirty Dozen", the first Americans to earn their BJJ black belts, for a leg lock seminar but Coach Mike Budnik promoted me to the rank of Brown Belt. 

It was an amazing day and I'm still processing the moment and what it means.  I don't think the reality of it has sunk in just yet.  Not only did I receive this huge honor, but one of my oldest and best friends was around for the seminar as well and got to be present.  Thanks for being there, Steve-o.

Not only that, but several of my old teammates were present from Ohana as well along with all the coppers of different stripes I get the privilege to train and work with all the time.

And later, one of our fighters, Dan Hart won his XFO bout at the Sears Center.  Great day for the team!  Now it's on to trying to live up to the rank.  Thanks everyone for helping me get here.  I have video notes from the seminar itself.  If you've never been to one of Mr. Harris' seminars you should MAKE time to train with him.  His take on leg locks was absolutely brilliant.  I'll get those up at some point later this week.  Till then.

10/27/12 Chicago S7

Okay,  so I've been slacking.  Luckily, it's because I've been training.  For those who didn't realize, those down south are the obvious ones but let's face it- the organization did a lousy job of promoting its event, last weekend was the first S7 submission grappling event in Illinois. 

It's a new promotion put on by Herb Dean and a couple other of the UFC affiliated refs. The rules are slightly different than your standard IBJJF clone systems and they place a high premium on advancement to submission, awarding primary points for submission efforts.

I like the idea, and in practice I like the system.  However, it will take some tweaking and ref education to make perfect. I hope it gets the chance.  It was a very strong showing for Triton and personally, a pretty great day for me.  Gold in my division and gold in the absolute. 

Thanks coach, and everyone else.  Here's the footage of the weekend:

 And bout 2:

First absolute match:

And the absolute finals:

All in all an absolutely amazing day.  Thanks to everyone who had a hand in getting my game where it is.  And thanks to my coach, Mike, who kept me on track the whole day, despite having his own divisions to take care of.  Here's Mike with the most beautiful arm bar I've ever seen:

Well, that's it for now.  See you soon. 

07/21 Visit Home

I'm just back off a long weekend at the family homestead.  This, as always, gave me an excellent opportunity to work out with those members of the Bujin clan, and its extended family, from southern Illinois.  For those that were there, below is the video from the exercise.  I had some trouble from time to time with playback.  Hopefully, this is a hardware issued with my player on this end.

For those from up north who weren't there, have fun noticing how rusty my stand up is.  Enjoy:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vM0Y8EgGhWM

In this, you'll also hear Clay try to figure out the camera and my recommendations for the Walking Dead.  Go figure.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SsPf2LjhGWY

Clay and I.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=haCkv3VLY-Y

If I'm not mistaken, Clay actually references this little effort to keep us all in touch in this bit.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iXR7FLvVp6k

Tim, my first coach, and I working.  Yes, I felt as rusty and timid as I look while working stand up.  It's a risk of spending a bulk (like all recently) of one's time working BJJ.

Great training day guys.  Had a blast.  Enjoy the vids. I hope they're useful.

On Switching Schools

So, people in martial arts change change schools for a variety of reasons and come and go for different things and with different attitudes about their experiences at a given academy.  By the time you've been doing this since young adulthood or late adolescence you've said hello and goodbye to many training partners and facilities for several reasons.  I've been very lucky in my time to have said good bye to very few on unfriendly circumstances.

Conversely, I've had to deal with new training environments in different arts enough that it's well past being an event that causes nerves for me.  If anything, it's an exciting opportunity to take a different step.   However, it does not make it easier to leave a group of training partners full time.

This week, I said goodbye once again.  This time it was a much harder event than it has been in a long time.  Last night was, in all likelihood, my final night on the mat at Ohana Martial Arts as one of the students there.  For those that don't know, I travel about 45 in one way to attend BJJ classes with Chris at Ohana.  It has been time well spent.  Chris is an amazing instructor and the group of individuals that train there are equally as incredible.

However, for about a year Triton MMA has been open in my very own little town of Woodstock and it boasts an excellent BJJ program.  The owner, Mike, is equally amazing at what he does and since I've got to know him I've found him to be an excellent individual as well.  I count he and his senior students as friends.

So, for some time, I have struggled with the fact that I've had access to a great program that offers what I love to do 5 minutes from my house while I've been driving 45 minutes to a great program to which I have much loyalty.  Finally, I have come to the only decision that I could really make.  I've taken off the Nova Uniao flag and elected to switch schools.  After speaking with both coaches, it seemed to be the option that made the most sense across the most domains.  

Chris and the guys at Ohana, you are the best.  I will miss training with you all on a routine basis.  To the guys at Triton, I am thrilled and excited to be part of your academy and thank you for the warm welcome and acceptance.  It is an amazing new step in my journey that's been on going for so long I can't picture my life without it. 

For everyone else, I truly hope that you have such difficult decisions to make when it comes to electing where to train.  It is a major blessing to have such legit academies around me and I do realize how lucky that makes me.

On the upside, along this path I have collected training partners that run the gambit of organizations, arts, and affiliations and  to those who've I've become attached I still manage to get time with them here or there every now and again.  I have no reason, or desire, for it to be otherwise this time. 

05/14/2012 Roy Harris Private

On the 14th, I got the amazing opportunity to take a semi-private with Roy Harris while he was in the area conducting JKD training for one of his affiliates.  Luckily, he was also scheduling privates in BJJ with his off-time.  The hour that we spent working with him was just beyond words.

First up, let my just say that Roy is a stand up guy and great individual to hang out with, regardless of his many martial accomplishments.  Can't say enough about that.

Next up, he took on the topic that we had requested, his pressure game from top, and really broke down lots of great material for us.  More than just a collection of techniques, he really shared the background information and the "why" of the movements rather than just the tactics themselves.

It was a great reminder, to me, about the greatest thing in jiu jitsu.  You can take a position that you've used for years, in this case we worked out of side mount quite a bit, and suddenly realize that you don't know it nearly as well as you thought you did.  Then, you tack on his total relaxation during each of the movements and total eschewing of strength to make them work and you've pretty much summed up everything that is awesome about jiu jitsu.  All in an hour of superb instruction.

Money and time well spent.  Some post training shots: