Triple attack series by Christian Montes

I think most people who train in sports like BJJ find certain training partners along the way, who they "click" really well with both in training and socially. One of mine is Christian Montes, whom I met in his New York gym, Ronin Athletics, back in 2004 when it was very small with less than five guys on the mat. It was immediately obvious, that we had a very similar approach to BJJ training, and whenever I train with him, I always get a ton of little details to take home and implement in my own game. Although I only go visit for few days every year, I consider Christian one of my very best friends and I feel that our almost parallel careers and development of technical level within BJJ, provides us with some unique sparring that is really worth a lot to me, both on the mat and business wise.


Since my first visit to New York, I have been coming back every year to train and hang out with my friends in the small gym, that has now grown to a full size, full time place in the center of Manhattan. I know there are many world class instructors just around the corner, and I always plan on going there for training as well, but every time I end up just hanging out with all the guys at Ronin. Training there reminds me so much of training at home in my own gym. The vibe and people are very similar and I really enjoy it, which is always the number one reason for me to train. NEXT time though, I will go visit Renzo and the other gyms... maybe ;-)


What that said, here is a short clip I had Christian Montes do for this blog. His offensive game from cross sides top is pretty similar to mine, but I think he has quite a few cool details that are worth checking out. Enjoy the video and stop by Ronin if you are in NYC! :)

Shogun's Sidecontrol Series

Ok so here is a short video on my primary offensive game from the sidecontrol position. It is very simple, and there is not really anything revolutionizing in it. Just thought it would be good to outline it in a video and flowchart, mostly for my own sake, but if anyone out there can get anything out of it, then that would be cool too :)


Hope you enjoy it! As always, comments, ideas, questions, suggestions etc. are more than welcome :)

Armdrag single video

Ok so here is one of the tutorial videos I shot while I was in New York. The armdrag single is my number one takedown and one I have been working a lot on for a long time. I have pulled it off countless times and many people have asked me to do a tutorial on it, so here we go.

Really it is a pretty simple move, the key is all in the little details, which I have tried to explain as good as possible in the video. I also added some - more or less successful - examples from sparring and competition in the end. Speed and explosiveness is needed for this move, just like most other wrestling, but with some practice I think anyone can pull it off.

I hope you like the video, feel free to leave a comment so I know that someone is actually watching it :) Thanks to Gunni Nelson for the help as dummy!


More video tutorials to come soon!

Training in Ronin Athletics - with video :)

So, originally it was my plan to go to New York for nine days and spend all my time on training. When I was in Mexico and only had a few days left, I checked the weather report for New York and made a quick decision to go to Cuba and Jamaica instead. Missed the president election in NY and lot of the training, but the experiences of the extended travel was definitely worth it.

When I got to New York, I really wanted to do some training, since I hadn't done anything but drink and relax for three weeks. Unfortunately, most of the guys were at the NAGA tournament that weekend, so it only ended up being a little training thursday evening and a very good session on sunday.


I heard that brown belt Gunnar Nelson from Iceland - who just fought and won in my last Adrenaline show - was in town for the NAGA tournament (in which he won gold no-gi and silver gi btw), so I called him up and invited him for some training. Despite I - as the only one - had a TERRIBLE hangover, and was seriously out of shape from following the Cancun Conditioning program for a long time, we had a really cool training with lots of nice details shared between us.

As always, training in Ronin feels like coming home, and this time was no exception. I wish I can have some more time there next time I am in town, which - statistically - will happen inevitably around fall next year :)


I shot some video of the training, which you can find here underneath in an uncut version. Also, we shot some tutorial videos, that I will put only within the next week or so. Good stuff worth waiting for!

Hope you enjoy the videos and maybe catch a detail or two from them :)