Passing butterfly- and scissorguard with "double-jump"

Here is one of my A-game guardpassing moves, that I use whenever I end up in butterfly- og scissorguard. The idea is to clear the opponents hooks by kicking out while jumping over the guard.


Another way I get into the scissorguard position, which I forgot to tell on the video, is if I try to kneeslide pass and my opponent blocks my hip with his top shin. From there, I adjust my weight a bit go straight into the scissor pass. Hope it makes sense so you can try that out too.

This video was shot in Tiger Muay Thai and MMA gym in Phuket, Thailand. Thanks to Carlos and Andreas for the help :)

Tiger Muay Thai & MMA in Phuket

After Samui, I flew on to the larger and more developed island Phuket on the west side of Thailand. The hotel I stayed in had tree Muay Thai camps within a few hundred meters, so there was a tough competition on that market there :)

The biggest one was by far the Tiger Muay Thai & MMA camp. It is basically a tourist gym, as I didn't really see any thai people train there other than the coaches. The place itself is HUGE, probably the biggest gym I have ever been in. In a jungle-style area complete with palmtrees and probably lots of animals that could kill you by a blink of an eye, the enourmous camp is placed outdoors with a simple tin roof build over it. About four or five boxing rings, weigh lifting area, matted areas, full size cage, heavybag areas and more are sorrounded by little bungalows, where you can stay at a resonable price (though still a little more expensive than some of the places just down the road). Even tough the facilites were a little worn down, they are absolutely amazing, and it seems like a really good place to train if you want to do nothing but that.


I would estimate that about 100-200 people were training at the same time, every time I was there. Pretty impressive. Lots of thai trainers working pads with people and I spotted quite a few very very skilled athletes there, so I guess there is good sparring as well.

Besides the Muay Thai (which is obviously the main business of the place), they seen pretty serious about building up MMA and BJJ there as well. Ray Elbe is the inhouse instructor, and they are continously improving the facilities for MMA and grappling training there. About 20-30 people were on the mat for each class that was running every morning at 9am and evening at 6pm.


Since they unfortunately were in between instructors for the period I was there (Ray Elbe was back in the states and they were waiting for the Avalan brothers to arrive next week), I was invited to teach some morning grappling classes. I thought that would be a good reason for me to push myself to not sleep too late on my vacation, so I taught the 9-11am classes three days in a row. All the classes were well attended (about 20-25 people) and it was a good mix of mostly beginners with some good blue- and purple belts in between. Over the three classes, I went over some holding topgame, topgame attacks and basic ankle sweeps from bottom guard. It was really cool to train outdoors in the exotic setting, and the heat was not too bad in the morning.

As always, when I walk into a gym anywhere in the world, I meet some cool people that I get along with really well. I would like to thank Andreas Hesselbäck (who has been living in Thailand and training in Tiger for a year and a half now and writing a really cool blog about it) for inviting me to the gym and also to Carlos for helping me out with an instructional video I shot there (will be online shortly).



I was supposed to come back to the gym and train again later during my trip, but I ended up traveling around too much and never made it in time. I really wanted to have had the chance to train with the new instructors coming in, but i guess it will be another time. Tiger was a really cool place and I would definitely recommend anyone interested in Muay Thai and/or MMA to go there. MMA and grappling seems to be gaining territory in Thailand and I can only imagine it will be pretty big there within the next 5-10 years. Perhaps I should move there to open a gym? :D

Training at SuperPro Samui in Thailand

So, first report from my Thailand trip :) Internet access has been pretty limited up until now, so not been able to post much here.

I just spend a week in amazing Koh Samui, Thailand, and had the pleasure of stopping by the SuperPro Samui gym on the island for some training.

The gym is (naturally) mainly a Muay Thai gym, but they have adapted MMA and Submission Wrestling into their program for those interested. Most people coming here, are obviously there to learn Muay Thai, so the MMA classes are quite small.

The gym is located aruond five minutes on motorbike from the biggest tourist beach on the island (Chaweng). Walking to the beach would probably be pretty long from there, but there is a pool if you really want to swim. The place is one big building with rooms for rent at typical thai prices (=rediculous cheap) and includes free training every day.


The facilities were pretty nice although I found the gym itself pretty small and cramped. It is basically a small weight lifting area, two rings and a cage. Then there is a very small matted area with about 6-8 heavybags. Much smaller than I am used to in my own (luxury ;)) gym back home.

The MMA/grappling class is done in the cage, so there is limited space. But it is ok for 3-4 couples max to spar at the same time.

The trainer when I was there, was a big guy from Armenia. Seriously, this guy was BIG. With an obvious judo background, biceps the size of my thighs and a passionate love for 100% muscle-style headlocks of all types, it was quite a bitch to roll with him :D Being in complete vacation shape, I was not really in the mood for power vs. power rolls, but we had some good rolls and I was more sore than ever before in my life the day after the training from being folded, cranked and crushed in every imaginable way for two hours.

The training itself was mostly sparring. About 10-15 minutes of technical (=headlock) training and then some rolls. The guys training there (about 5 that day) was really, really nice and I had some great chats with them about training and traveling.

Technical level was quite low, but ofcourse, I guess only few people come to Thailand to learn anything but Muay Thai, so I was not surprised. I had some good, nice rolls with the guys and it was great to do some physical training on my vacation.


I also ran into a really cool guy from Germany, David Marcina, who fought my friend Thomas La Cour a few years back, when I was in the corner. At first I didn't recognized him but suddently it came to me. He told me he has had more than 30 fights now so that was very impressive. Great sparring with him, he had a solid base in the grappling and had improved lots since I saw him fight in Denmark.

All in all it was cool to visit the gym, even if it was only for one day. Samui is a fantastic place and I would recommend anyone thinking of going to do it. Muay Thai training looked really good, there were some very good guys there. Unfortunately, my hip injuty prevents me from joining in (plus the fact that I am too lazy for that crazy training LOL).

Today, I just flew on to Phuket, and in five minutes I will walk to Tiger Muay Thai gym. They asked if I can teach some of their grappling classes and I will gladly do that. Looking forward to meet the guys there and get some good training out of it :)

Off to Thailand

Sunday, I am going to Thailand for about three weeks. I have found some MMA gyms down there, where I will try and do some training, so expect some travel reports here in the blog.

Meanwhile, enjoy the winter!! :)