I'm still alive :)

Yes yes, I know I have been lazy regarding updating the blog lately, but don't worry, I have not been lazy with my training ;-) I have some new posts in mind that I plan on writing down here soon, also with some new video clips. I need to get me a new videocamera so I can actually make them though, but I'll figure something out.

Training is going really good, I have doubled the hours I teach every week and it is as always cool to see people in the gym get better. I also get some good hours of sparring every month to keep the rhythm going and I have started to plan my weeks a little better so I am sure I have time for weight lifting and sparring in between all the teaching. I am still doing some web- and graphical design on the side, but it is hard to find time for, so sometime in 2008 I hope to be working solely on trainingrelated things.

If you take a look at my 1000 flighthours project, you might notice that I am closing in on the 900 mark. That took a while, but it is cool to get there, and it will be a good time to evaluate my training and progress a little. I plan on shooting a new sparring video when I get there.

I recently launched a new amateur MMA and Muay Thai turnament held in my gym called CSA Fight Night. I make it to give the beginners and upcoming talents a chance to get some fight experience before they take the big step and fight in a bigger show. The first one was a big success and the second one is already gonna be February 1st. Check out the video from the first one: (notice the handsome referee!!)



My biggest project is the Adrenaline show, which will return April 12th. I'll post some more about that as the event and fightcard starts to evolve.

BJJ intro old video

Just stumbled over this old clip on Google Video, that I produced about 3-4 years ago. It was made from the footage we shot for an "Introduction to BJJ" DVD we wanted to make for our students. The DVD was unfortunately never produced (lazy!), but this clip is still online. Pretty fun to watch, so much has happened in so few years :)

Some pictures from Studio X

I stumbled over kying418's thread on the NHB Gear Forum with photos from the Studio X training and found some pictures from the night I visited the gym. See if you can spot me!! :D

Time to go home!

(I wrote this before I left for the airport tuesday evening, but didn't have the chance to post it untill now)

Last week here in New York has been super cool. My ankle has been really fucked up, but I have just kept training with it and thought I would take care of it when I get home. Right now I am waiting to go to the airport, and it really really hurts. But it has been worth it :)

Before we came to New York, we had the chance to go by a big tournament in Los Angeles. Here our friend Joe from Texas (who we met in Rigans gym) was fighting, as well as Andreh. It was interesting to see the tournament, but as always, there was just a loooot of waiting.

After we have come to New York, I have trained a few times in the Ronin gym, which has been really good. Yesterday was my last chance to get some good training, and I sure did. First I was in Ronin for a few hours, where Ryan Hall was visiting. Extremely talented grappler, and no wonder with all the energy and enthusiasm he puts into Jiu Jitsu. Very impressed, especially knowing he only trained for 3 years.

In the evening, I went to Marcelo's school to take a class. Marcelo himself was teaching, and it was a great experience to train with someone I respect so much for his skills in the sport. The people there were super nice and I was even recognized by a few because of this blog :D Unfortunately, I didn't get the chance to roll with Marcelo himself before the class was over, but just watching him spar was equally impressive. I will without a doubt come back to that gym next time I am in New York.

30 minutes till I am heading to the airport, so time to finish this off. It has been such a cool trip and I have gotten a lot of inspiration to take home to the gym. Not so much techniques, but more seeing how other people train, structure their class, have different styles of rolling etc.

Now it is time to go home, rest my foot, get some good danish food and start lifting weights again. I think I have lost some weight on this trip so I better get it back on again. When I get home it will be winter for many, many months, so nothing to do but switch off the brain, train and lift weights while waiting for summer to come :)

I would like to thank everyone I have met on this trip for making the experience even better. Christian Montes and Adam Blake the real Bruce Lees of New York City, Erik the maybe smallest male grappler in the world, Kerry who let us make a mess of her apartment for 3 weeks, Rigan Machado for all his help, the crazy people at Surf City Hostel, KimuraJoe and the Texas Crew, Andreh Anderson and Rey Diogo for their hospitality, Ryan Hall for kicking my ass, Marcelo Garcia for impressing me again this time IRL, everyone in the gyms I have visited, my best friend Søren and his girlfriend Kristin, Martin Kampmann for showing us Vegas nightlife, Christoffer "The Yeti" who I have travelled with and of course all the others I have forgotten right now.


The tournament in L.A.


Ronin Athletics


Teaching the Five Swords in Ronin


The five points of the Five Swords Topgame (now with The Five Katanas)


Impressive Empire State Building


Rolling with Ryan (now with gi patch censuring :D)


Christoffer, Erik, Christian, Adam and me

Training, training, training!

Last few days since we came back from Vegas has been really intense trainingwise.

After a long tuesday night in Vegas, 4 hours of sleep and a 7 hour drive, we went straight to training in Rey Diogo's gym on Venice Boulevard. I had no energi at all, but managed to get some good rolls with people there. I also did some training with Rey, who is a really cool guy. He is often in Sweden, so I will invite him to Copenhagen next time.

Thursday I slept till 1pm, I was completely exhausted. We drove with Rigan to his gym in Hollywood where we had some really good training with a small group of about 8 people. After that we went to a release event with Rigan's brother John Machado. There was a boxing ring outdoors, where different martial arts did demo matches, it was pretty cool. I also met Mario Sperry there, I remember watching his instructionals when I first started training, so that was pretty fun.

Today we have trained two hours in Rigan's gym and about 1 hours in Rey's gym. Really good sparring both places. I had the pleasure of training with Chris Haueter, the guy who basically introduced me to Jiu Jitsu (he doesn't know though :D). It was his instructional tapes that got me started with my training, when me and my friend was watching them 7-8 years ago or so. It was a pleasure to train with him and we had some really good rolls. He is teaching a class monday night that I want to attend before we go back to New York tuesday.

So far, this trip has been really inspiring regarding Jiu Jitsu. I have met so many cool, friendly and skilled people here and it is awesome to get pushed so hard in training every time. Back home I know everyones game, so it is not as big of a challenge to roll, but here I really need to be working hard to succeed with every single technique I try.


The gym in Hollywood


Outdoor Martial Arts event


Getting crushed by the black belt troll of MMA.tv


Chris Haueter in Rigan's gym


Rolling with Chris


The chicks in L.A. are HOT!!! *OMFG*

Xtreme Couture

Arrived in Vegas yesterday and walked around a bit to see the place. When we woke up today, we went to the Xtreme Couture gym to train. I took a grappling class at noon, where we did some standing up from being pinned against the fence. It was fun to do some specific MMA grappling with a cage. The facilities were amazing, definately the best I have seen, and I have visited a lot of gyms around the world throughout the years.

The trainer in the class was Dennis Davis, who has actually fought in a tournament in Denmark, that I was filming for TV. Funny coincidence. He was a cool guy and it was a great class.

We have decided to try and change our ticket back to New York, so we can stay in L.A. for a little longer. There are so many gyms and people I want to visit here, so it would be a shame to leave already tomorrow. We will still have a good week in New York, before we head back to Denmark.

Arrived in Las Vegas

Drove to Las Vegas today and had a chance to practice my Kung Fu in the desert.

Met up with danish UFC fighter Martin Kampmann and took a walk around. He is training in Xtreme Couture, where I am planning to do some grappling tomorrow before we check out the city. I really need to work out after sitting in a car all day :)

I might also check out some other Jiu Jitsu gyms here. My gi is in NYC though, forgot it in the gym there.

Andreh, Venice, Rigan

Today has been a great day. First, we went to Rey Diogo's gym to meet Andreh. As often when you share an interest with someone, you tend to get along really easy, and this was no exception. It was really cool to train a with Andreh, I got some good little details out of rolling with him, that I will take home and work on.

After training, we went to Venice Beach, where we rented bicycles and drove around a bit. Then we met up with Rigan, who took us to a party in Hollywood and then out for some great Brazilian food. I also got a chance to check out his gym, which looks really cool.

I really want to train more with all of these guys here in L.A., maybe I'll look into flying back to New York a little later, so I get some more days here for training :)

UFC 76 live = AWESOME!

Went to Honda Center in Anaheim today to watch the UFC 76. What an experience! The place was packed, atmosphere amazing and best of all, the fights were awesome. Some of the best, technical grappling I have seen in MMA for a long time, it was pure beauty to watch. Especially Saraiva, Tavares, Sanchez and Fitch put on a beautiful grappling display. Occasionally I heard the "get up and fight like men" classic, but other than that, I enjoyed the fights very much.

Tomorrow, we are driving our Mustang to Venice, where I will meet and train with fellow Jiu Jitsu blogger Andreh. After that I am planning on meeting up with Rigan Machado, who recently taught a seminar in my gym, and hopefully do some training with him as well if I have any energy left :)

I don't wanna fill this blog with vacation photos, but here are two I took today:

Training in Ronin - headed to California

The last two days, I have had some good training in the Ronin gym. Some good sparring and yesterday I taught a class on collar chokes.

Right now, I am sitting in JFK airport, headed to California to see UFC tomorrow night. I will try to find time for some training while there, but we will train for sure in Vegas, where we are staying monday and tuesday.

Arrived in the states

Arrived here in New York last night and just woke up. We are staying at a friends place in Brooklyn, right by the Verrazano bridge.

Have not really been training up to this trip because of my foot, I wanted to be sure that it was ready for training over here. Right now it looks really good, so I can't wait to get started with the training. Gonna meet up with my friend Christian and train in his gym, Ronin, tonight.

I will probably make a seperate travel blog for this trip, but every training related thing that I will be writing about will be posted in this blog. I hope to get a lot of good training and inspiration while here!

Better look up Marcello's gym as well. Leaving for Los Angeles friday, so I probably won't make it to that gym before I get back here in NYC next week (tuesday).

This is a picture I took during my trip over here in 2005.

Kneeslide pass to RNC

This is a pass I use a lot in my game. I was observing a very skilled danish grappler from another gym here in Copenhagen use the standing kneeslide pass in competition with a lot of success, so I decided to look into it and see what I could get out of it for my own game. With a few adjustments to make it fit me, I came up with this really simple and - for me at least - very high percentage passing series, which I ofcourse will share with all of you right away :D

The should work fine both with and without the gi, but I have had most success with it in no-gi. This is because I need to slide my arms in position pretty fast and thight, which can be difficult when wearing a gi.

This has been a perfect example of learning by imitating for me. Hope you can use it too! :)


Credit for inspiration goes to Frede, Brasa ;)

Yet another leftside injury....

I have this strange thing, that I get all my injuries in the left side of my body. I have injured almost every left part of me and almost none of the right ones. Toe, ankle, knee, hip, ribs, shoulder, elbow, fingers, neck.... I even have some cauliflower on my left ear only! :D

The past two weeks, I got another two leftside injuries for the collection. During a takedown setup, I stretched some muscles in my left shoulderblade, and this sunday I sprained my left ancle during a takedown where my foot got caught in a wrong position. The shoulder is fine now, but the ankle needs a few more days of ice and rest, before I can start using it again.

Less rolling = more pullups, so it is all good :)

Armtriangle / Heartattack setup

This is a basic tutorial on how I like to set up the armtriangle/heartattack submission from sidecontrol. For me, the most crucial detail to make this setup work, is how I utilize my entire body to move his arm into place instead of just my head. It is almost like a deadlift motion, which btw is an awesome excersize :)


Next up: Scramblepass to RNC

Double under pass counter

Just a small detail on how I counter the double under pass using the stiffarm escape. Nothing special, just using it a lot so thought I would put it out here :)


More videos coming up soon!