Visit from Robson Barbosa today

Robson (who normally teaches in Kaisho, Sweden) dropped by my gym today to teach a little bit. He ended up doing three classes; the juvenile team, a no-gi class and a gi class. It is always cool to have him visit and bring some inspiration to the team and everyone seemed to have a great time.

My shoulder is still not doing too well, so I had to skip most of the class today. I really wanted to roll with him now he was there though, so I sacrificed some of it's recovery for a few rounds both gi and no-gi. Always cool to spar with him as he has gotten a very special style.

I got a few stripes on my belt today too. I guess that means I better hurry up and become as good as I possibly can, before I one day get the black belt ;)

Good and bad start of the competition season

So, the the second season of my competition team project has begun. We are training five days a week and I am working very specifically with each participant on gameplans, weight planning, training and so on. We started the physical training program last week and it is going really well, putting a big team effort into getting in shape for the competitions of the coming fall. Lots of people have joined the team this year, 28 in total at the moment. All the guys from last year are on board and there is a ton of potential in the beginners who signed up for the first time.

Bad thing is, that I injured my shoulder saturday when lifting weights. It hurt a slight bit monday, so I thought I could do a few rounds of rolling. It felt fine until I got cold and today it still hurts really, really bad. I hope it is just a minor thing :-/

Since I couldn't join the workout monday, I had time to film it a little bit instead. I am still not sure about the team name, but "Madness" sounded relevant to the amount of work the guys will have to put in the training this year ;)

And so it begins...

Last year, I ran a six months competition team project in my gym, for those, who wanted to compete in BJJ. Now, that I am back from my trip, I am working hard to begin the second season of the project. Around 40 people have showed interest in joining, so there is a lot of potential for good results and good experiences over the next six months leading up to the 2012 Europeans in Portugal.

This week, we had a head start on our physical training routine for the team, running twice a week and named the Beachbody Workout. It has been really though to start it out again after having done basically no strength and conditioning training for my whole trip, but I can't wait to get back in the same killer shape I was in before I left.

It seems like we will be traveling a lot to competitions around Europe this fall, can't wait to see how this project will grow and what kind of people, friendships and experiences will come out of it. Will be sure to post about it here, of course :)

ShogunHQ version 2.0

As you probably have noticed, I have given this blog a little design makeover. I thought it was about time after having used the same design for over 4.5 years. Still some work to do on the subpages, but hope you like it so far!

Together with the new design, I have an exciting fall lined up. Ok, I admit it will be difficult to make it more exciting than the first half of the year, but I'll do my best, stuffing it with competitions, travels, guests in my gym and interesting training projects :)

Secret BJJ move that cannot be defended

(crosspost from BJJ Globetrotter)

It's been a while since I wrote, that if I got 1000 likes on my FaceBook page, I would post a video of a technique that cannot be defended. I reached the 1000 likes a while back, but the video took a while to get online. It is finally here, and you can enjoy a move, that I still haven't found any defense for.

Me and my friend have actually pulled this off in competition a few times. Depends on the mood of the referee, his nationality and your nationality, but sometimes we have gotten away with it. I don't think it states anywhere in the rules that you cannot do this?



(All credit goes to my good friend Chris Haueter, who demonstrated this move on one of the first VHS instructional tapes I ever saw)

Training with Martin Aedma and putting weight back on

Training here at home is going well. It is nice to train with all my usual training partners again, and I enjoy sharing some of the experiences I have gained on my trip. Next week, I am starting up my competition team project for the 2012 Europeans, something that I really enjoyed doing last year.

Martin Aedma from Estonia is visiting my gym these days, teaching all the BJJ classes for two weeks. You might have seen his ever popular "Estonian guardpasses from hell" or read his blog, but if not, I highly recommend you doing that. Unfortunately, he just got a knee injury, which prevents him from rolling. I had been looking forward to do some sparring with him while he was here, but that will have to wait :-/

I did lose a lot of weight during the last part of my trip, going all the way down to 74 kilos at one point. I am working hard to put it back on, so I can reach a good weight for competing in the middle weight division. It is going pretty well and I hit 79 kilos this morning already. What a difference it makes to have access to a good rythm of food and training facilities.