I was browsing through my blog the other day, and it struck me, that it has been a loooong time since I consistently posted instructional videos here. When I was a blue belt, I was a real Ari Bolden (with better technique), eager to put as much material online as possible. All of these old videos and photo series are still to be found in the archive of this blog.
Jiu Jitsu is truly "boxes within boxes". The more I train, the less I feel I know. Whenever I think I know about a technique, position or transition, I quickly find out, that there are ten new layers of details in that particular subject, that I haven't explored yet. This humbling experience have probably influenced me a lot in writing this blog, since I haven't felt like "teaching" anything here for a while.
But with that said, I think it is time to put some new videos online here, so I have filmed a handful of instructionals, which will be posted here one at a time, as I finish editing each of them.
First one I edited yesterday, was about the "Deep Butterfly Halfguard". I am sorry for the "deep halfguard" ripoff, but I haven't found a better name yet. Basically, it is a "low" variation of x-guard, that I have experimented with for at least a year and a half now. I haven't seen much instructional video on this position, so I decided to do one myself.
Hope you enjoy it, comments are always appreciated!
One thing I forgot to mention in the video, which I think is quite important, is that when I do the calfcruncher submission, I want to triangle my legs to stabilize my knee. Unfortunately, I popped my own knee doing this submission once, and triangling the legs would probably have helped me there. I just forgot it in the video :)
Next instructionals coming up are:
- The art of learning the art of slowrolling
- Wrestling sweeps from seated guard
- Fireman's carry takedown
- The loopchoke
Don't go anywhere, I'll be right back after the break ;)
Monday, January 10, 2011
Sunday, January 9, 2011
Old competition footage
I was looking through my harddrive for a specific training video the other day, and ended up watching old competition videos instead. I thought it was pretty fun to watch, so I got the idea of editing it all together into one video and put it online, so I will always have it here on the blog in case I lose the files, harddrive dies etc.
Most of the videos are from 2002-2003 but a few of them are from 2001. At this time, there were no competitions in Denmark, and we were very excited about the thought of competing, so we had to make our own. A few of these videos are from competitions we held in our own gym. We even made some in-house "MMA" tournaments (inspired by the early UFC of course), wearing helmets and allowing knees, elbows and headbutts. They were held by gentleman rules, so if we ended in a situation, where we thought the fight would have been over if it was full power and no helmets, we would stop there.
Later on, I started the "Openmat" tournaments, which where more organized with several danish gyms participating. I remember that at the first Openmat tournament I organized and competed in, I had no idea on how to do a triangle or what sidecontrol was. I just remembered seeing it in a book or video somewhere, so I tried it out (with no luck, needless to say). Quite fun to see today, so many years later, I wish I had recorded more of my matches back then.
The video is quite long, over an hour, and I don't expect anyone to watch all of it really, this is mostly for my own amusement. If you do watch it however, you might even find a match against a young Martin Kampmann there somewhere :)
Most of the videos are from 2002-2003 but a few of them are from 2001. At this time, there were no competitions in Denmark, and we were very excited about the thought of competing, so we had to make our own. A few of these videos are from competitions we held in our own gym. We even made some in-house "MMA" tournaments (inspired by the early UFC of course), wearing helmets and allowing knees, elbows and headbutts. They were held by gentleman rules, so if we ended in a situation, where we thought the fight would have been over if it was full power and no helmets, we would stop there.
Later on, I started the "Openmat" tournaments, which where more organized with several danish gyms participating. I remember that at the first Openmat tournament I organized and competed in, I had no idea on how to do a triangle or what sidecontrol was. I just remembered seeing it in a book or video somewhere, so I tried it out (with no luck, needless to say). Quite fun to see today, so many years later, I wish I had recorded more of my matches back then.
The video is quite long, over an hour, and I don't expect anyone to watch all of it really, this is mostly for my own amusement. If you do watch it however, you might even find a match against a young Martin Kampmann there somewhere :)
Saturday, January 1, 2011
Happy new year :)
Yet another new years evening, where I try to take some photos of the fireworks outside my window. Unfortunately, there is some construction work going on at the moment, so there is a big scaffold blocking the view from the bedroom window. But think I got some ok shots anyway.
This is also my first test of editing photos and posting them to this blog from my iPad. Something I will have to do a lot when I am on the road in a few months :)
This is also my first test of editing photos and posting them to this blog from my iPad. Something I will have to do a lot when I am on the road in a few months :)
Friday, December 31, 2010
Recommended reading: Martin Aedma's blog
Martin Aedma from Estonia just started blogging and I recommend anyone to bookmark his blog and check it out. He's got a solid understanding of the underlying concepts of grappling, and has helped me tremendously in my own game. He has a video on my blog about his guard passing, that I shot in the summer of 2009.
Check it out on martinaedma.bjj.ee!
Check it out on martinaedma.bjj.ee!
Thursday, December 30, 2010
2010 season recap
Looking back at 2010, I think it was a really good year for me. The biggest thing, of course, being that I have spend another year away from a 9-17 desk job and instead lived the life I want. That, I appreciate every day, and keeping this going is the most important thing to me.
From a sports perspective, I got my brown belt a year ago now from Robson Barbosa, who I find to be a very inspirational, charismatic and enthusiastic athlete. In many ways, it was a very big motivator for me. Like most other people training BJJ, I wanna tell myself, that I don't care too much about what color belt I have around my waist, but if we really didn't care, why don't we just train without belts. Getting the brown belt is an accomplishment, I have been proud of. It is a symbol of the unbelievable amount of hard work, that has been put into learning the art of BJJ, both from myself and my training partners. Also, it became a big motivational factor for me, because it reminded me, that I can one day reach black belt. And for that, I want to become as good as I possible can. I know there is always someone (or a lot!) out there, who are MUCH better than me any day, but what is important to me, is to do my best to preserve the integrity of the belt system. We've all seen the 6-year old Karate black belts and I know how easy black belt is to get in many arts. I think that BJJ is one of the few martial arts left, where the belt actually represents a level of real life practical skills, knowledge and experience, and I want to honor that. So getting my brown belt has definitely pushed me to become better at what I do, for myself, the art and for those, who chose me to pass it on to them.
The result of this mindset has been, that for the last year, I feel like my game has evolved a lot. I decided to do some competition again, which of is a good way to stay sharp and push my development and focus. Unfortunately, I managed to get two knee injuries in competitions this year. It was my first knee injuries of my career, so was pretty nervous for it. Luckily, I just needed to rest for some time and it healed up fine. No operation needed, but of course, I am much more nervous for it to happen again now :-/
The injuries kept me away from a handful of competitions, I had planned to enter, but I ended up doing five competitions this year, which I am very satisfied with. In total, I had 9 wins, 2 losses and 2 draw, which was actually a bit better than I had expected when I decided to start competing again. My first goal was to get one submission in no-gi and to score two points against a brown or black belt in gi. I exceeded that pretty well, so I think I'll have to put my expectations higher for next season ;)
Besides the injuries, competing again has been a good and valuable experience for me. I was pretty concerned wether I was capable of even winning a match at all, and wether I could transfer my game in the gym to a competition. Apparently, winning was definitely possible, and I was kind of surprised how well I handled adrenaline and how well my game transfered. I think this comes a lot from my basic lack of interest in winning, which takes away a lot of the pressure from me.
More importantly, I have gained a lot of first-hand experience from competition, that I can pass on to my students. Cutting weight, handling the nerves, warmup routines etc. is something I have not had a lot of experience with in my typical role as a sideline coach.
However, when all comes to all, the medals are counted, technical and tactical improvements are in the notebook and so on, what matters the most about the competition project is, that I have had some really great experiences, travelling around Europe with my friends, having a good time, laughing, going out, eating good food, strolling around foreign cities and backing each other up in both wins and loses. The memories and experiences you get from the social and adventurous aspect of competitions is worth 1000 times more, than winning any medal. I think some people tend to forget this and focus too much on the result itself.
Besides my own competition experiences this season, I have had some great experiences with my kids team, which is still one of my dearest projects. Their results speak for themselves, but what I really value, is having the opportunities to take these kids away from the computers for a few hours a week and teaching them the importance of exercise and living a healthy lifestyle. The training they do now will provide them with the physical foundation they will be needing for the rest of their lives. Ofcourse, they still like to eat candy and they are also starting to get a natural interest in the wonders of alcohol, but I see how they still have that awareness of staying healthy in the back of their minds. If I can help plant that seed in just one young person, let alone 25 or 30 of them, then I think I have really helped to make a difference in their lives in the long term. Anyone taking a look at these kids will see that they are in extremely good shape, already at the age of 14-15 years. Strength wise, they already match or outmatch most grown ups who comes in my intro class, and I think that is a very good thing for them.
Besides all the focus on competition, there has been a very healthy growth in my BJJ classes in general. Not everyone have interest in competing and that needs to be fully respected as well. There are many people, who just enjoys learning the art of BJJ and I think that is an equally good and healthy - and for some people, better - way to train. These people have been a great inspiration and help for myself and my training partners, with their nerdy enthusiasm about the technical aspects and details of the sport. Great sparring- and training partners, that I value much to have the opportunities to work with.
This year has also been a year of planning. In february, when I visited my girlfriend in Australia, where she was traveling around on her own for eight months, I got the idea of doing a round the world trip to train BJJ. The BJJ community is so strong around the world, so why not use this to visit as many of these great people as possible? I have travelled many times to train, but always just to one or two places at a time. I figured I could do one big trip and visit a lot of places instead, so it ended up with project "BJJ Globetrotter". I have prepared for this trip for over ten months now, doing physical preparations for three months and now there is only 52 days till I leave for the first stop, which will be Montpellier in Southern France. I am very excited about this project, and can't wait till I sit on the first flight.
Next thing you'll hear from me will probably be my instructional video on how to learn how to slowroll. I plan on shooting this in a week or so :)
Happy New Year!
From a sports perspective, I got my brown belt a year ago now from Robson Barbosa, who I find to be a very inspirational, charismatic and enthusiastic athlete. In many ways, it was a very big motivator for me. Like most other people training BJJ, I wanna tell myself, that I don't care too much about what color belt I have around my waist, but if we really didn't care, why don't we just train without belts. Getting the brown belt is an accomplishment, I have been proud of. It is a symbol of the unbelievable amount of hard work, that has been put into learning the art of BJJ, both from myself and my training partners. Also, it became a big motivational factor for me, because it reminded me, that I can one day reach black belt. And for that, I want to become as good as I possible can. I know there is always someone (or a lot!) out there, who are MUCH better than me any day, but what is important to me, is to do my best to preserve the integrity of the belt system. We've all seen the 6-year old Karate black belts and I know how easy black belt is to get in many arts. I think that BJJ is one of the few martial arts left, where the belt actually represents a level of real life practical skills, knowledge and experience, and I want to honor that. So getting my brown belt has definitely pushed me to become better at what I do, for myself, the art and for those, who chose me to pass it on to them.
The result of this mindset has been, that for the last year, I feel like my game has evolved a lot. I decided to do some competition again, which of is a good way to stay sharp and push my development and focus. Unfortunately, I managed to get two knee injuries in competitions this year. It was my first knee injuries of my career, so was pretty nervous for it. Luckily, I just needed to rest for some time and it healed up fine. No operation needed, but of course, I am much more nervous for it to happen again now :-/
The injuries kept me away from a handful of competitions, I had planned to enter, but I ended up doing five competitions this year, which I am very satisfied with. In total, I had 9 wins, 2 losses and 2 draw, which was actually a bit better than I had expected when I decided to start competing again. My first goal was to get one submission in no-gi and to score two points against a brown or black belt in gi. I exceeded that pretty well, so I think I'll have to put my expectations higher for next season ;)
Besides the injuries, competing again has been a good and valuable experience for me. I was pretty concerned wether I was capable of even winning a match at all, and wether I could transfer my game in the gym to a competition. Apparently, winning was definitely possible, and I was kind of surprised how well I handled adrenaline and how well my game transfered. I think this comes a lot from my basic lack of interest in winning, which takes away a lot of the pressure from me.
More importantly, I have gained a lot of first-hand experience from competition, that I can pass on to my students. Cutting weight, handling the nerves, warmup routines etc. is something I have not had a lot of experience with in my typical role as a sideline coach.
However, when all comes to all, the medals are counted, technical and tactical improvements are in the notebook and so on, what matters the most about the competition project is, that I have had some really great experiences, travelling around Europe with my friends, having a good time, laughing, going out, eating good food, strolling around foreign cities and backing each other up in both wins and loses. The memories and experiences you get from the social and adventurous aspect of competitions is worth 1000 times more, than winning any medal. I think some people tend to forget this and focus too much on the result itself.
Besides my own competition experiences this season, I have had some great experiences with my kids team, which is still one of my dearest projects. Their results speak for themselves, but what I really value, is having the opportunities to take these kids away from the computers for a few hours a week and teaching them the importance of exercise and living a healthy lifestyle. The training they do now will provide them with the physical foundation they will be needing for the rest of their lives. Ofcourse, they still like to eat candy and they are also starting to get a natural interest in the wonders of alcohol, but I see how they still have that awareness of staying healthy in the back of their minds. If I can help plant that seed in just one young person, let alone 25 or 30 of them, then I think I have really helped to make a difference in their lives in the long term. Anyone taking a look at these kids will see that they are in extremely good shape, already at the age of 14-15 years. Strength wise, they already match or outmatch most grown ups who comes in my intro class, and I think that is a very good thing for them.
Besides all the focus on competition, there has been a very healthy growth in my BJJ classes in general. Not everyone have interest in competing and that needs to be fully respected as well. There are many people, who just enjoys learning the art of BJJ and I think that is an equally good and healthy - and for some people, better - way to train. These people have been a great inspiration and help for myself and my training partners, with their nerdy enthusiasm about the technical aspects and details of the sport. Great sparring- and training partners, that I value much to have the opportunities to work with.
This year has also been a year of planning. In february, when I visited my girlfriend in Australia, where she was traveling around on her own for eight months, I got the idea of doing a round the world trip to train BJJ. The BJJ community is so strong around the world, so why not use this to visit as many of these great people as possible? I have travelled many times to train, but always just to one or two places at a time. I figured I could do one big trip and visit a lot of places instead, so it ended up with project "BJJ Globetrotter". I have prepared for this trip for over ten months now, doing physical preparations for three months and now there is only 52 days till I leave for the first stop, which will be Montpellier in Southern France. I am very excited about this project, and can't wait till I sit on the first flight.
Next thing you'll hear from me will probably be my instructional video on how to learn how to slowroll. I plan on shooting this in a week or so :)
Happy New Year!
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.
Sunday, September 26, 2010
Big win for kids team
Been a busy time lately, as I am working hard daily on the official opening of our new project CSA CrossFit. I think it is going to be a great succes and it is exciting to try and create something completely new.
Also been to a few tournaments. Not competing myself, as my knee is still not feeling too good from popping at the last one. Right now I am just focusing on getting in as good shape as possible for my globetrotter trip in less than 6 months.
Yesterday, we went to the final tournament of "Skåneserien" this year, which is a sort of grappling league for kids here. With only one point to the second place, we took the trophy for the best team of the season. A very big result for the guys, and something that I am pretty proud of to be honest :)
Enjoy yet another video I made of these cool boys:
Also been to a few tournaments. Not competing myself, as my knee is still not feeling too good from popping at the last one. Right now I am just focusing on getting in as good shape as possible for my globetrotter trip in less than 6 months.
Yesterday, we went to the final tournament of "Skåneserien" this year, which is a sort of grappling league for kids here. With only one point to the second place, we took the trophy for the best team of the season. A very big result for the guys, and something that I am pretty proud of to be honest :)
Enjoy yet another video I made of these cool boys:
Friday, September 3, 2010
Sunday, August 29, 2010
Went 3-1-1 in competition today.
Went to another Grappling League competition today and had five matches. Same rules as last time - either you win/lose by submission or it's a draw.
Preparations for this competition was not impressive. I have gotten a lot of good sparring lately, but 90% of it has been with the gi. I was however tempted by the chance to get five matches on one day and gain some experience.
I needed to cut a little weight for this tournament. The weightclasses was -88 and -77 kg and since I was walking around at 80-81, I decided to cut down to -77 for the "experts" division. It went really well during the week, until I made homemade sushi friday and had way too much. Ended up at 79.2 friday evening, so it was pretty tough getting through saturday with minimum food and liquid intake. The night between saturday and sunday, I was sleeping with some extra clothes on to sweat out the last bit. I weighed in at 76.7 kg, pretty tired and dehydrated, but I felt ok a few hours later when I was about to step on the mat. Next time, I definitely need to cut the weight over a little longer period than only 6 days and also not eat sushi two days before :D
Alright, let's get to the matches. I had five, so I will only do a brief description for each of them, as I am pretty tired right now :)
***
First match was - as I expected - the toughest one of the day. My opponent, Kevin, is very skilled and strong, and I knew he would not be easy to handle. It was one of those matches, where none of us would really like to engage too much and even though I of course hoped for a submission, my best guess was that this one would go to a draw, which it did. I had a few attempts at my armdrag single leg, but SOMEONE must have read my blog, because he stepped out of it perfectly every time. He swept me once from standing closed guard, which I don't worry too much about since I almost always scramble up from there, but as I posted my left arm behind me, my elbow injury from february popped up again. Hurt through the rest of the matches, but didn't want it to stop me at that point. Last seconds, I attemt pulling guard again and gets the deep butterfly half to one-legged x-guard, but didn't manage to do anything from there.
Second match was against my old friend from the local grappling community, Torben. I had no idea what to expect, so I just went with the flow. We started out by doing some Chi Sao (not caught on tape unfortunately), then I pulled guard and got the deep butterfly half. For some reason, I decided AGAIN to go to my heelhook setup? I can still use this position to sweep, but I really need to condition myself just to sweep directly from deep butterfly half instead of setting up a heelhook I cannot do anyways. I was trying for a straight footlock but with no luck. Scramble back up, Torben jumps guard, I keep posture to prevent from sweeping (thanks, Martin Aedma), which leads right into a guardpass. From here I went with the good ol' sidecontrol series, setting up the armbar to taking the back. I got the choke in by trapping one arm with my leg and the other by wristcontrol.
Third match was against a team mate and long time training parther, so I just goof around a bit here :) Win by armbar from sidecontrol series again.
Fourth match was my loss of the day. I think it went pretty well and I felt confident and in control even though he had a very active DLR and 50/50 guard. I did before the match decide not to fall into the footlock-for-footlock game because he looked like he was good at it, so it is a very interesting question to me, why I did it anyways :D At one point I go for a straight ankle lock that feels really tight. His foot started making weird sounds so I thought he would tap for sure but he didn't. In the moment, he caught my foot for a toehold and I started rolling to get out. He had a very tight grip, but I didn't really feel like he would get the submission. Could be adrenaline or the heat of the moment, I don't know. Anyways, while rolling a bit, suddently I hear my bad knee make a really a REALLY nasty pop sound, and I tap right away. I think it might still be a little weak from when I injured it in competition earlier in the year. Anyways, I made a mistake and he did a very good job at setting up that sub, all props to him. Didn't bother me to lose, but I really don't hope it is going to be as bad as last time with my knee, where I couldn't roll for months :,(
I put some ice on my knee and made a stupid decision to take the last match. I know, I know :D Just wanted to go nice and easy. I pulled guard, got the deep butterfly half and went for the heelhook position again instead of just sweeping. Don't know why I do it really, maybe it is just a reflex. Can't get the straight ankle lock there anyways. Scrambled back up, got the takedown and passed the guard a few times (he did some weeeeird rubberguard thing move when I was in sidecontrol :D). Ended up getting the armbar straight from the guardpass.
***
What did I learn from this experience:
- Do NOT make 150 pieces of sushi two days before weighin in - I obviously cannot control myself in a situation like that.
- Do NOT f*cking go for anything else than the sweeps in the deep butterfly half, unless heelhooks are allowed. Really gotta work on this in sparring. Due to my knee injury, I haven't been able to work any deep butterfly half for the last five months, but I should still be clever enough to do it right in competition. Back to the lab!
- Do NOT engage in footlock-for-footlock battles when I have decided beforehand not to do it.
- I owned the coolest pair of grappling shorts of all the contestants today.
Next day update: I ended up placing first in my division, but my knee is really fucked.
Wednesday, August 25, 2010
Gi chokes reference video
This summer, I have gotten a renewed interested in gi chokes. For many years, I have basically ignored them because I wanted my game to work just as well in no-gi, but at the moment, I am in a period, where I am finding the details of gi training very fascinating.
Gi chokes is one area, where you will find literally thousands of techniques and variations for finishing the opponent. I have boiled my own game down to what I can make work really well in sparring under full resistance. I hope to try it out more in competition in the future, but for now I have only tested them in that arena through my kids team, who have been doing extremely well with gi chokes last season. I recommend scrolling through my archives and checking out some of the videos with them.
Anyways, I shot a quick little video with a reference of which gi chokes I use in my game at the moment. Maybe you can catch a detail or two you can use yourself. In that case, I am always glad to hear about it :)
Enjoy!
Gi chokes is one area, where you will find literally thousands of techniques and variations for finishing the opponent. I have boiled my own game down to what I can make work really well in sparring under full resistance. I hope to try it out more in competition in the future, but for now I have only tested them in that arena through my kids team, who have been doing extremely well with gi chokes last season. I recommend scrolling through my archives and checking out some of the videos with them.
Anyways, I shot a quick little video with a reference of which gi chokes I use in my game at the moment. Maybe you can catch a detail or two you can use yourself. In that case, I am always glad to hear about it :)
Enjoy!
Tuesday, August 17, 2010
Around the world BJJ training trip
I got this idea to travel all the way around the globe to teach, train and compete in BJJ. I was trying to find just one good reason not to do it, but I failed epicly, so departure February 2011 it is!
Check out my blog for the project at:
www.BJJglobetrotter.com
Check out my blog for the project at:
www.BJJglobetrotter.com
Sunday, August 15, 2010
Congratulations, Martin!
Now black belt both in BJJ and in weird food combinations.
If you haven't yet - be sure to check out Martin's Guardpass From Hell video here on the blog!
If you haven't yet - be sure to check out Martin's Guardpass From Hell video here on the blog!
Friday, August 6, 2010
Training camp in Estonia
I know that some people who read the title of this post will already start laughing at me there, so I'll be quick to admit, that I didn't get much training done at this years training camp in Estonia ;)
Like last year, we went to Estonia to attend the training camp set up by the guys over there. The training there is really good and there are some very, very good instructors to train with. Also, Estonia also surprised us by being a really cool place to spend some time, so we were very excited to go there again. Last year, we went four people and this year fifteen uf os went, so we must have spoken well about it back home ;)
Long story short, my knee and elbow injuries got pretty bad after the first few days of training (and walking back and forth to the beach!) and that combined with amazing weather and a perfect beach just ended up taking my focus away from training. It didn't bother me too much, since this training trip also was a vacation AWAY from training for me (training = job + life at home) and what really mattered to me was to have a great time there and to see my estonian friends again.
Anyways, I did get a few really good little details out of the training. Martin Aedma, who at last camp got me thinking about pressure passing and mount chokes for a full year, had some good stuff about using wrestling to sweep from guard. That was easily enough material for me to go home and work on for the next year :)
But anyways, thanks to the guys in Estonia for putting on a great camp, we had an awesome time there!
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