Friday, November 19, 2010
Swedish Open highlight video
Just another highlight video I put together from our trip to Swedish Open last weekend. Hope you enjoy it :)
Wednesday, November 17, 2010
600 flighthours sparring video
It's been over a year since I last posted a sparring video for my 1000 Flighthours project that I started about three and a half years back. I still keep track of all my sparring hours, hoping to one day reach number 1000 for the project. For now I have reached the first 400 and I think my game have moved a lightyear from when I started. At the moment I train five days a week and I can really feel how I am improving. I wanna be as well prepared as possible for my training trip around the world in only three months from now.
As always, I have a list of what I am currently working on in sparring:
The deep butterfly halfguard is a game I have been working on for ages trying to develop and fine tune. I have taught it in my gym and both me and my training partners have used it successfully in sparring and competition enough now, that I think I am ready to make an instructional on it. No idea when it will be ready as always though ;)
Another thing I am working on on the side is trying to stucture the art of teaching people how to slowroll properly. We have all seen these really good black belts slowroll so nice and smooth, but how do people actually learn to do it. I have had a lot of succes teaching it in my class and it is not something I have ever seen anyone teach before, so I think it could make a pretty good instructional video here on the blog.
As always, I have a list of what I am currently working on in sparring:
- Deep butterfly halfguard
- Pressure passing the guard
- Wrestling as guard sweeps (another Martin Aedma inspiration)
- Loop choke from halfguard bottom (a la Oliver Geddes)
- Understanding gi chokes from the back
The deep butterfly halfguard is a game I have been working on for ages trying to develop and fine tune. I have taught it in my gym and both me and my training partners have used it successfully in sparring and competition enough now, that I think I am ready to make an instructional on it. No idea when it will be ready as always though ;)
Another thing I am working on on the side is trying to stucture the art of teaching people how to slowroll properly. We have all seen these really good black belts slowroll so nice and smooth, but how do people actually learn to do it. I have had a lot of succes teaching it in my class and it is not something I have ever seen anyone teach before, so I think it could make a pretty good instructional video here on the blog.
Tuesday, November 16, 2010
Swedish Open champion!
...after only one match in my weight division ;)
As the title says, I took gold at this weekends Swedish Open tournament, which is the biggest in northern Europe with 600+ competitors. Of those 600, only two were in brown belt -82.3 kilos, so I only had one match. That suited me really well, because I was very nervous about my knee since it popped last time I competed, and it is still very sore when I train.
We went about 40 people from my gym to the competition and before I stepped on the mat myself, I was coaching our 22 kids, who did great and won a shitload of medals as usual. I was pretty tired at the end of the day when it was my turn. Knew nothing about my opponent, which I think is a good thing, because then all I know is that anything can happen and there is no pressure to perform in a certain way against him. He could be really good or really bad, I have no idea, so I just go there and try to execute my own game no matter what his plan is.
The match itself was pretty straight forward and it went better than what I would expect. I pulled guard right away even though I love to wrestle for the takedown, but I wanted to take care of my knee. Got the sweep, passed the guard a few times, mounted and finished with the crosschoke (Thanks again, Martin ;)).
I had a strange experience with this competition, as I found myself to be completely emotionless before, during and after the match. There was absolutely zero sense of nervousness or adrenaline when I was about to step on the mat, and during the match I felt nothing really. Only a lot of thoughts about tactics and focus on listening to my corner, who did a great job of keeping me informed with valuable information and suggestions. Even after I won, I didn't really care at all, no happiness or feeling of satisfaction. I've felt like this many times before but not as much as this time.
It just enforces my feeling that competition for me is nothing but a tool to gather experience. It does nothing to me towards satisfying my ego or similar. I wish it was different and I could be a fierce gladiator-style competitor like those many athletes I look up to in sports (including some of my own training partners), but I accept that I am not. I did, however, feel a great deal of happiness for my kids team, who was cheering for me during the match and obviously was happy that I won. If nothing else, I will compete to be a role model and inspiration for those I train with.
As the title says, I took gold at this weekends Swedish Open tournament, which is the biggest in northern Europe with 600+ competitors. Of those 600, only two were in brown belt -82.3 kilos, so I only had one match. That suited me really well, because I was very nervous about my knee since it popped last time I competed, and it is still very sore when I train.
We went about 40 people from my gym to the competition and before I stepped on the mat myself, I was coaching our 22 kids, who did great and won a shitload of medals as usual. I was pretty tired at the end of the day when it was my turn. Knew nothing about my opponent, which I think is a good thing, because then all I know is that anything can happen and there is no pressure to perform in a certain way against him. He could be really good or really bad, I have no idea, so I just go there and try to execute my own game no matter what his plan is.
The match itself was pretty straight forward and it went better than what I would expect. I pulled guard right away even though I love to wrestle for the takedown, but I wanted to take care of my knee. Got the sweep, passed the guard a few times, mounted and finished with the crosschoke (Thanks again, Martin ;)).
I had a strange experience with this competition, as I found myself to be completely emotionless before, during and after the match. There was absolutely zero sense of nervousness or adrenaline when I was about to step on the mat, and during the match I felt nothing really. Only a lot of thoughts about tactics and focus on listening to my corner, who did a great job of keeping me informed with valuable information and suggestions. Even after I won, I didn't really care at all, no happiness or feeling of satisfaction. I've felt like this many times before but not as much as this time.
It just enforces my feeling that competition for me is nothing but a tool to gather experience. It does nothing to me towards satisfying my ego or similar. I wish it was different and I could be a fierce gladiator-style competitor like those many athletes I look up to in sports (including some of my own training partners), but I accept that I am not. I did, however, feel a great deal of happiness for my kids team, who was cheering for me during the match and obviously was happy that I won. If nothing else, I will compete to be a role model and inspiration for those I train with.
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