729 Flighthours video

Alright, so I finally made a new sparring video for my flighthours project. Since I started, I have been sparring for a total of 271 hours. This time I have made sure, that the video contains both gi, no-gi and MMA sparring. I have had a tendency to put mostly no-gi video up for some reason.

I am sitting and looking back at older videos in the project, and I realize, that my game really hasn't changed that much strategically since I started over two years ago. I have heard many times, that purple belt is where you define your game and from there it is all finetuning and adjusting the rest of the way. I think that is true, since I basically do many of the same techniques that I did back then. I do however see, that my game has become much more tight and smooth and it is obvious, that my timing and setups has really improved. Especially my wrestling and takedowns has taken a big leap forward. I guess that is an area, where timing and explosiveness is also a much bigger factor than technical knowledge, compared to ground grappling where the techniques often can be performed slower and with fewer movements at a time.

Another thing that is very satisfying is, that when I look back at all my little lists of what techniques I have been working on implementing or improving over the last two years, all of them are now solid parts of my A-game. So making a decision to improve in certain areas, have definitely worked for me, and I have managed to succesfully incorporate new techniques and improve holes in my game with this method.

I have put some MMA sparring in the video this time too. I train a good amount of MMA with the guys every week, since we have some who are competing on a regular basis. As you might see on the video, my striking is not very impressive. I don't really have a lot of interest in striking training compared to grappling, but I wanna do it anyways for two main reasons:

1. I want to be the best possible sparring partner for our guys who are competing in and training MMA.
2. Grappling is my passion, and I wanna be as good at it as possible in all areas: Gi, no-gi, MMA and self defense (the latter of least interest). Trying to wrestle people who want to hit me in the face is a great way to push myself to make my grappling work in a very stressed environment. Especially comitting to takedowns is an area, that is really improving from practicing it with striking involved.

Ok so nuff' said, here is the video. It is pretty long (over an hour), and I don't expect you to watch it all, but maybe you can cath a detail or two that you can try and incorporate in your own game. If you have any questions or would like explanations on anything I do, feel free to leave a comment and I'll get back to you :)


My list of things I am currently working on in sparring is:

• Escaping sidecontrol
• Sweeping by positioning opponents point of gravity over my own hip (X-guard, etc.)
• Takedowns, takedowns, takedowns (especially fireman's carry)
• Holding high mount and finishing with crosschoke
• Pressurepassing guard

Escaping sidecontrol is probably THE biggest hole in my game at this time. I was talking to my friend Kári about it yesterday and he has a somewhat similar problem. I think it is a product of having good guard defense, combined with being in the top level of the group of guys I train with on a regular basis. I think maybe around 80% of my sparring time consists of attacking. When I am on bottom, it is mostly in the guard and people I train with normally rarely pass it. So no wonder my sidecontrol escapes sucks :D This was really obvious to me in Estonia and London where a few high level guys put me in a lot of trouble when passing my guard and closing me down in sidecontrol.

In order to improve them, I have set myself a goal to let people pass my guard in sparring at least 5 times every class, then try and escape sidecontrol. I'll see how that goes and then maybe raise the number later. I'll do it for three months, then evaluate if my sidecontrol escape game has improved.

(For some reason, my mount escapes are really good, don't ask me why?)

I have been thinking a lot about understanding how sweeps work on a conceptual level, and is really working hard on moving my opponents point of gravity above my own, which has fundamentally changed and improved the way I sweep from guard.

Fireman's carry takedown has completely taken over my thoughts for the last two months or so. It's like having a song in my brain I can't get rid of - I constantly think of the movement of that technique. What a fucking nerd I am LOL

When I was in Estonia, one of the instructors had some great details on the crosschoke from mount. I am going for it all the time in sparring, and the rate of success for my mountchokes has gone up A LOT with these details. Will keep trying it until I can choke anyone from mount, just like Roger LOL

Martin Aedma's Estonian Guardpasses From Hell

As mentioned in an earlier post, one guy from Estonia had a very cool way to pass the guard, which completely shut down my own game. Normally I think I can defend my guard pretty well, but against this pressure I was totally lost.

Thanks to Martin for letting me shoot this video, which is exposing all his secrets!! :D

Back from London

Just came back to Denmark after spending 6 days in London, training in Roger Gracie Academy and Team Carlson Gracie. Got to train every day, some days both afternoon and evening. It was good to get some flighthours in with some people I am not used to roll with.

(Team Carlson Gracie)

I still wanna continue my project of looking around Europe for different places to train. Estonia was really awesome, the level there was quite high for most guys and the mentality and approach to train was as close to my own gyms as it gets. Breaking down techniques into concepts, using modern and proven teaching systems and understand how people learn and acquire physical skills are essential teaching skills in my opinion. The gyms in London had a more "traditional" approach to teaching methods and training, which does not really appeal to me in the long run (show technique, drill 5-10 minutes, then spar). Sparring was tough though, and that was mostly what I came for anyways :)

(Roger Gracie Academy)

Now I am back in CSA and the summer vacation is soon over for most people, so I am really looking forward to some super hard training over the coming period. We have some guys fighting MMA and I am looking to take my kids class to about 4-5 tournaments before the year is over. For the adults, we will pick one or two big tournaments to focus on so we can make sure everyone has the same goal in training. Last time, we had about 30 competitiors at the Nordic Open BJJ tournament and it was a great experience.

Home from Estonia - off to London

I came back from Estonia a week ago, and it was an awesome trip. Had a lot of good inspiration and training there plus Estonia was a great place in itself. I knew a few of the guys a little on beforehand my (dark, dark) past in the SBG, but most of them I never met before. As always, whenever I walk into a gym somewhere in the world, there always seems to be lots of people that I connect with really well, and ofcourse this was also true for Estonia. Lots of cool people with really high level of skill, I could definitely go there more often for some good training.


I shot an instructional with one of the guys up there on his guardpassing game, which I think was pretty awesome. He applied a ton of pressure to my legs and basically completely shut down my guard. I was helpless, so I had to learn it :D I will put the video online here when I get back home.


In five minutes, I will be out the door to go to the airport and fly to London. I don't know anyone there, but I am staying there for a week and planning on just knocking the door to some gyms there and see how much training I can put in during my stay. Obviously, I wanna go to Rogers academy as well as the Carlson Gracie Team, but we'll see if I find time to check out any other places. Theme of this summer will be BJJ-networking in Europe I guess :D


I'll be sure to write about my experiences in London as well as in Estonia when I get back home in about a week. Untill then, enjoy training :)

Status & going to Estonia

Alright, I know I have not been very good at updating my blog for quite a while now, but as always, I am returning and promise to post some stuff again :)

I had a pretty bad shoulder injury for about 5 months that made it really difficult for me to train, and that always makes me lose a lot of motivation for writing blogposts. Injury time is not a time where I feel very innovative about my game, I just wanna train around the injury and get over with it. But now I am fit again, and training is going really well.

I have filmed a lot of sparring lately, but mostly MMA. I will put some of it online soon together with some rolling gi and maybe no-gi. Even though it is really warm summer weather now, I train BJJ mostly in the gi. I am going to London 21-27 to train in the Roger Gracie and Carlson Gracie gyms which are mostly gi-based so all my gi-training will be good preparation for that. Also, my weightlifting has really come up in gear again, and I am focusing a lot on core- and gripstrength.

Next week, I am going to Estonia to teach and train at the Summer BJJ and MMA Camp in Tartu. I think it is going to be a really cool week with lots of training. I myself is going to teach gi, no-gi and MMA and I am also really looking forward to attend all the other classes and get some inspiration home myself.


If you feel like coming over, check out this link:

http://www.bjj.ee/?page_id=21

For those of you, who don't know Estonia, it is probably one of the most exotic places in Europe. Lots of little islands, beaches, palm trees, etc. Some people call it "the Thailand of Northern Europe".

Review: Roadmap for Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu by Stephan Kesting

Fellow internet-BJJ-nerd Stephan Kesting from Grapplearts.com, asked me if I would do a review of one of his products on my blog. Yes, he did give it to me for free to (hopefully) get advertisement on my blog. but with that said, I have been completely objective in my review of the product, as my opinions ofcourse never can be bought for money (unless you are really rich... are you? seriously? *makes the "call me" hand sign*).

The "Roadmap for Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu package" contains two DVDs, an audio CD, a CD-ROM, a book and a poster.

The DVD and book with the roadmap is the main product. It is a conceptual overview of basic techniques and strategies in each of the common positions of BJJ. The audio CD is really just the book read aloud, I guess that is good if you wanna hear it on the road or something. The CD-ROM contains some videoclips with bonus instructional material from seminars etc. The last thing is the poster, which I think it really nice. It shows "do's and dont's" for basic submissions. I have put it up in my gym and it has many good pointers for the beginners.

What I really like about this video is, that its focus is on FUNDAMENTALS. I have watched tons of instructionals, and 90% of them seem to try and "teach you some new move". My personal approach to getting better in Jiu Jitsu is to understand the fundamentals better and better. Not to learn more and more new moves. That's why the instructionals I get the very most out of are those, that can teach me details about stuff I already know. Like another approach on how to set up armbar from mount, scissor sweep or escape sidecontrol.

I think it is a great video for beginners because it really outlines the strategies and possibilities in every position. Also I would recommend it up to high level blue belts, to get some more details / other approaches to your game.

Check it out on www.beginningbjj.com

"Fight Camp" week 8 (final episode)

This is the final episode of my eight week videoblog project about Philip who we have trained to compete in MMA for the first time. It has been a crazy period of training and a really cool experience. Parts of the video is in danish, but I hope you will enjoy it anyways :)

"Fight Camp" week 7

"Fight Camp" week 6

"FIght Camp" week 5

"Fight Camp" week 4

"Fight Camp" week 3

"Fight Camp" week 2

"Fight Camp" MMA videoblog

I am sorry I have not been posting anything here for a while. I have had some problems with my shoulder for the last four months, but I am slowly getting back on track. Slowly because I keep sparring and training with it, even though I could not lift it over my head for a period :D

We have also been really, really busy with moving our gym to a new location, so I have been working all day every day to get it done. On top of that, training has been crazy, with more classes a week and lots of hours of sparring. I have stepped up the MMA training, so I am bruised, cut and hurting all over my body most of the time. Great feeling :)

Currently, we are working hard on preparing Philip Fortuna, one of our athletes, to get in his first MMA fight. He has been training for six months and here up to the fight, we are doing an 8-week period of really concentrated training and preparation for the fight. We keep a videoblog that we publish every sunday for the eight weeks. Philip is originally from South Africa so he is speaking english in the blog. Almost everybody else is speaking danish, but since the main part is in english, I think most of you should be able to understand it anyways. Don't have good software for subtitles at this moment unfortunately :(

I will post all the videoblogs here, hope you like them!

Video of my BJJ kids (in danish)

For anyone of you out there who might understand danish, here is a short video on my BJJ kids class that was made last week. It is about martial arts training and violent behavior in kids: