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.

Back from around-the-world BJJ trip :)

I am back in Denmark after a 140 days around-the-world trip to train BJJ. If you follow this blog, you have most likely checked out www.BJJglobetrotter.com already, but if you haven't, there is a lot of stuff to read up on :)

It was an amazing experience to go around the world and meet so many people through BJJ. I am full of energy and inspiration, and is really excited to train with my friends here at home.

Coming home also means, that I will resume writing this blog again. I have, of course, a lot of stuff with me home in the backpack, that I will be working to implement in my game over the next months and years.

Good to be back on ShogunHQ, check back soon for updates!

Leaving for around-the-world BJJ trip tomorrow

In case you haven't noticed the banner to the right, I am leaving tomorrow for a four and a half month trip all the way around the globe to train, teach and compete in BJJ.

I probably won't be posting very much here while I am gone, but you can follow my journey on my website: www.BJJglobetrotter.com

"Team Sandbaggers" and the 2011 Europeans

Last summer, I gathered a group of guys from my gym and set the goal, that we should get a medal at the next European Open in Portugal. We are a relatively small gym and has never taken a medal at that tournament before, so it was a pretty big challenge for us. Several of the guys were already very close to blue belt level, so I named us "Team Sandbaggers", because there was no way I was going to promote them before the end of the project, well knowing that they would be competing against other sandbaggers from all over Europe when they got to Portugal.

It was six months of hard training, gameplanning and a lot of competitions to gather experience. For the last four months before the Portugal trip, we did physical workouts together after BJJ class, pushing each other to our limits and beyond. We traveled many weekends to competitions and there was training in the gym almost every day.

Now, the goal of a medal at the Europeans was reached as we got three of them. But that is not really what this post is about. Results and medals are nice, but the real core of a project like this, is to me the human aspect. The way BJJ has an effect to change peoples lives in a very positive way.

The experienced guys on the team have already naturally taken on a "BJJ lifestyle", but for the less experienced white belts, an intense period of focus like this had a fascinating effect. All coming from very different backgrounds, it was really exciting for me to see them evolve into the same direction of living a life with focus on staying healthy, getting in shape, backing each other up, working towards a common goal and consuming their minds with thoughts about Jiu Jitsu. All these are factors that inevitably leads to a massive increase in skill on the mat, but that again is not the important thing to me.

Obviously, these guys all got really, really good during the project, and their level could clearly match what they were up against at the Europeans. All their loses were close and on a good day, I believe they all could have taken the gold. At the Europeans, you need a VERY good day to go all the way though, and we all knew that. But putting the increase in skill aside, these guys have really changed from the day they stepped into the gym and I met them for the first time.

The 53 year old father to a boy in my junior class, who rediscovered his interest in training after many years of judo when he was younger, and ended up becoming the European Champion.

The party guys, who were smoking daily and going out almost every weekend, but decided to stop both and completely turned around the direction their bodies were going health wise.

The guy with basically no body mechanic skills, who never quit, kept competing, lost 35 kilos and eventually became really good.

The successful real estate agent who sometimes dressed up as a Jiu Jitsu athlete, but - in my eyes - became a Jiu Jitsu athlete who sometimes dresses up as a successful real estate agent.

The young guy who was one of the first on my junior team and, despite all the interesting social things happening at that stage of life, still finds time for Jiu Jitsu and is now training with the adults, where he is technically superior than and a big inspiration for his much older training partners.

The guy who lost 40 kilos, got in killer shape and can now hit a kimura on anything with a pulse.

The electrician who couldn't get a job because of the financial crisis, ended up devoting all his time to Jiu Jitsu, won a ton of matches and who I have chosen to teach all I know about coaching kids.

The foreigner who just moved here and doesn't speak the language, but through BJJ has successfully integrated himself socially in the gym and is inspiring everyone with his training and competition work ethics.

THIS is what I think is the true art of Brazilian Jiu Jitsu. A vehicle for transforming peoples lives and creating fantastic friendships and experiences. The blue belt symbolizes the first big step of this change, and it was a no-brainer for me to promote all the white belts after the Europeans. They are no longer the beginners, but now have a new role in the gym, where they will help and inspire our next generation of athletes. I have no doubt in my mind that they will do the job fantastically.

Besides the (now former) whitebelts, a handful of experienced guys were also on the team, and it has been really cool to see them take their skills to the next level. They are a big inspiration for everyone in the gym and without their help and support as trainingpartners and coaches, we wouldn't have made it this far together.

For putting in all this hard work, and choosing to follow me on this journey, I want to thank each and every one of these guys. When I got back home from the Portugal trip, I got this strange feeling in my stomach. Like an addict, who doesn't get his drug, I knew that the last trip for Team Sandbaggers was over, and I already missed the feeling of being on the road with the guys. Now I am going on the road alone for a while, but we have many good experiences ahead of us and I can't wait to get back home and continue from where we left off.

And for anyone who wants to join in, there is always room for one more :)

The Icelandic Guillotine

I don't know anyone who has hit guillotines in sparring and competition as many times as my icelandic friend, Kári. I have trained with him for many years now, and I've seen (and felt!!!) him do this move with an extremely high succesrate countless times, but for some reason, I haven't thought of implementing it in my own game until recently.

A few months ago, it struck me, that I have grappled for over ten years, and guillotines are still not a part of my game. In fact, I don't recall a single time I've went for that submission for years. So looking at Kàri ripping through competitions, it was clear to me that I had to learn what he was doing and I needed such a basic and simple submission as the guillotine to be an integrate part of my game. So since that day, I have been working hard on figuring out all the details, and already it is becoming one of my favorite submissions. I think that my loop choke period has helped a lot, since the mechanics are very similar to the guillotine and also just getting into the mindset of looking for the neck all the time is an important part of this.

I asked Kári to make a video on how he is doing it and he agreed reveal all his secrets on my blog. I told him that he needed a catchy name for the move, otherwise it would never be a real Internet success like all the other guillotines out there, so we decided to call it The Icelandic Guillotine. I would love to be in a gym somewhere in the world one day and overhear a conversation where someone casually says something like "personally I like the Icelandic variation of the guillotine better" LOL



This was the last instructional I planned to post before I leave on my BJJ globetrotter trip on Monday. I hope to do some more during the trip if I fall over some cool moves along the way :)

Loop choke instructional

The next instructional is on the loop choke. As I mention in the video, I have been heavily inspired by Oli Geddes to work on this choke. I highly recommend checking out his blog on www.thejiujitsugame.com and also searching on youtube for his instructionals on this technique.



Next video will be on the guillotine choke :)

European Open 2011 in Lisbon, Portugal

Got home from Portugal sunday evening and it was a really cool trip. The goal for our team was to get one medal, and we ended up with three, so I am very satisfied. It has been a lot of training and preparations, and it was nice to see that it paid off, and our small team could get some medals at one of the big tournaments out there. I am very proud of all the guys from my team who fought their heart out at this competition, but will write another post on that project later on, they deserve their own ;)

I competed saturday in the brown belt middleweight division. I didn't know my opponent, but a quick youtube search revealed, that I probably shouldn't try to stand up with him, as he had a highlight video with a fascinating amount of judo throws :D I would just follow my plan of pulling guard right away and try to get a sweep or submission from there.

Going into the match, I didn't feel a bit nervous. In some way, I think that I had put all my thoughts and energy into preparing and helping the guys on the team to get ready and try to win a medal, that my own part in this tournament didn't feel as important. Saturday morning when it was my turn to step on the mat, I felt like the project was already over, and I had already succeeded in reaching the goal we set. I knew my division was very tough with a lot of good opponents, but I decided to go in there and do my best.

I was a little late with timing the warmup, since they started my match right on time. The previous two days, there had been some delays, so I wasn't in a hurry with the warmup, which I should have been :) Stretched and warmed up the joints, but didn't have time to get the pulse up and break a sweat, so I would have to do that during the match.

When we started, I went for the guard right away. I have been working a lot on setting up the loop choke, guillotine and getting under my opponent to go for x-guard or deep butterfly halfguard sweeps. Right in the beginning, I actually had a pretty good attempt at the loop choke, but he got out of it despite making some choking sounds. Would have been nice to finish it already there. From there on, he was very aware of his neck, and it was too hard to set him up for the choke. My second plan of getting under him to sweep also failed, since he was constantly staying tight to my legs and keeping very solid grips on my pants. I had to spend most of my time on defending his grips and guardpass attempts, which left little options for me to work my offense.

With my a-game failing, I worked some spiderguard instead. I swept him once with a tripod sweep, but he had a good grip on my pants and scrambled back up, so only gave me an advantage. Later, I had another sweep attempt, that got him out balanced, and I was over him right away to just push him onto his back for the sweep. Lots of wrestling drills for top position helped there for sure.

When I got on top and was ahead on points, my corner shouted to me, that I had three minutes left. I thought I should just stall for a while, but the referees were really quick at giving warnings in other matches I had watched, so I decided to try to open the guard and work from there to make the time go. I have gotten very confident in standing up to open the guard lately, but when I did it this time, I made a small mistake (that I am never going to make again ;)) about my standing posture, which allowed him to drop off and go for a takedown. My balance and sprawl felt pretty good, but again, his grip on my pants was just too strong and eventually he got me down. I scrambled to get up, but couldn't get his grip off and also, we went out the mat and had to restart, which ruined my momentum and last chance to scramble up. Next time. I think I'll be a little more patient inside the closed guard if I am ahead on points.

When he was in my guard again, I could feel that my grip was getting more tired and his didn't seem to do the same. Eventually, he passed my guard to sidecontrol and held on really tight. I managed to escape back to guard and knew my only chance was to submit him, so I tried to go for the neck but it wasn't working and time ran out leaving me defeated by 2-5.

As mentioned, I had no nerves what so ever going into the match. Maybe it is not a good thing, I don't know? I was only a little worried about, how my cardio and strength would do for an eight minutes match, which is pretty long. I have never competed that long before and with the gi, there is even more pressure on the grip strength. Luckily it went pretty well, considering that he felt way stronger than me. I weighed in two kilos under the limit without cutting, so there is a good chance that he walks around a fair bit bigger than me. I was pleased to find out, that I could go for the entire eight minutes with a lasting cardio and grip strength, though. Ofcourse, I was tired in the end, but at least, now I know that I can do it. All those workouts over the last four months really paid off in this match :) You can watch the match here:


Losing didn't bother me at all. I was happy that I could hold my own in the brown belt division at such a big, high level event, and it was an honor to be allowed to compete with the top guys. I know that generating results in competition is a long process, so I am at all not worried about losing along the way. I think my technical level and understanding of the game is good enough to compete at this level, but I need some more experience and with all the weight I have lost, I should maybe consider -76 kilos instead of -82, where some guys are a lot bigger than me now.

Going to the Europeans was all in all a good experience, that I learned a lot from, and of course, we had a very good time in Lisbon both before, during and after the tournament.

I'll be back next year to try my luck again! :)

POSITIVES:

• Guard defense worked fine
• Executed a sweep and a half
• Cardio and strength lasted eight minutes
• No nervousness at any time
• Sidecontrol escape succeeded (old problem, seems improved now?)

NEGATIVES:

• Made a posture mistake when standing up in guard
• Cardio and strength could be even better

The art of learning the art of slowrolling

I think we've all read these threads on the BJJ forums, where someone posts something like:

"I was tired/injured so I asked my sparring partner to go light, but after ten seconds he went really hard, so I just had to bring it to him to teach him a lesson so he'll go light next time"

This is a classic situation from BJJ training, that many people will experience and get frustrated by. If you tell your training partner to go light, why doesn't he? There are many answers to how to deal with this, but the typical one of turning up your own intensity to "teach him a lesson", is definitely not the way to go in my opinion.

My take on this is, that learning to go light or to "slowroll" is NOT something that you can just tell someone to do. It must be taught and drilled in class, in order for people to actually acquire the skill. It is as if people expect everyone to be able to do this with no training. In my eyes it is no different than asking beginner at first class to do some coordination drill and then get frustrated that he can't coordinate his body to do it, even though you have never given him the chance to learn and practice it. And even worse, "teach him a lesson" in sparring afterwards, then go post about your frustration on the internet forums ;)

In reply to all these posts around the forums, I have made this video on how I teach people to slowroll and go light in sparring. I've been working on this "system" for quite some time, and I think I finally got it right. I have never seen anyone actually teach this before, so I think this might be one of my most relevant instructionals in a long time. It is probably most interesting for people who run a class and would like to be able to teach this skill, but anyone who wants to take out some time to do these drills on their own with a partner, can learn how to slowroll. I do, however, think that going through this as a group/team, is the optimal way to get most out of it.

Ok, no more talking, there's enough of that in the video. It's 37 minutes long, so make sure you have enough time and patience to listen to me, when you decide to press play ;) Enjoy!



Here is a quick reference of the things I go through in the video, in case you want to print it out or something:

BENEFITS
1. Everyone can spar together, regardless of the size or skill difference.
2. Good tool for warming up.
3. You can still spar, if you are injured or tired.
4. Good tool for experimenting.
5. Work on specific situations, without having to fight to get there.
6. Lifts teams level as a whole.
7. Create a training environment with room for everyone.

CHESS DRILL
1. One move each turn
2. Gentleman rules
3. No resistance
4. No time limit

MONKEY DRILL
1. One move each turn
2. Gentleman rules
3. No resistance
4. No time limit
5. Do the LEAST likely move possible
6. If it resembles something you know, do ten pushups

THE FIVE RULES OF SLOWROLLING
1. Always remember the purpose
2. Turn down speed and intensity
3. 50/50
4. Submissions are catch and release
5. Communicate with your partner

I have decided to make a video on the guillotine choke (will be taught by my training partner and Master of the Guillotine, Kári), so the next videos coming up are:

- The loopchoke
- The guillotine choke

Competing at the Europeans in Portugal next week

About six months ago, I gathered a group of guys from my gym, who were interested in going to Portugal for the 2011 IBJJF European Open tournament. We made a six month training and competition plan together with an individual strategical gameplan for each of them. Since then, we have worked on these gameplans in the gym and in several competitions around Europe, throughout the fall of 2010. There has been some wins and losses along the way, and a lot of good experience has been gathered, so I think we are as ready as we can be for the biggest tournament of Europe next week in Portugal.

Only four of the original 14 guys from the project cannot make it next week. Two of them with unfortunate injuries, but all in all, I am very pleased to be able to set a team of ten, well-prepared athletes for the event. I think they will all do really well. Winning medals, I don't know, because the brackets are HUGE and everything can happen, but most importantly, they are as prepared as they can be, and from there, there is nothing more they can do but just perform on the day.

I am signed up in brown belt adult -82.3 kg myself, which is a pretty big group with around 20 guys, I think. I don't feel the smallest bit nervous or anxious about competing in such a big and prestigious event. I think the main reason (besides my usual lack of interest in winning) is, that I probably couldn't be much better prepared than I am right now. I have trained BJJ consistently five days a week for the last 4 months. On top of that, I have been doing our cardio/endurance workout with the whole team twice a week and heavy lifting on saturdays. No injuries have held me back and my game feels great. With all that preparation, I just feel, that there is nothing more I could have done to prepare better, so when the day comes and I step on the mat, the rest is up to the Jiu Jitsu gods :) If I win, then I was am better than him, if I lose, he is better than me. It's that simple. Nothing I can do to change that now.

For the team, I will put everything I have into coaching them as good as possible in their matches. I really want them to get some good experiences in this competition, they have been working so hard for it. I believe they all have a solid chance of taking medals home, like they have done in all the competitions in the fall, so let's see how it goes next week. What I lack in excitement for my own matches, I definitely have for the other guys :)

Besides all that, I am of course looking forward to five days in beautiful Lisbon with all my friends, which - in my world - can top any BJJ medal or title out there :)

Wrestling sweeps from guard

At the training camp in Estonia last summer, Martin Aedma talked about using wrestling to sweep from the guard. More specifically, using Jiu Jitsu to set up wrestling takedowns, in order to take the opponent down and thereby "sweep" him. I have been playing around with this since then, and inspired by Martin's post about the subject on his new blog, I decided to do a small video on which "wrestling sweeps" that works best for me in the guard at the moment.

One detail, I forgot to talk about in the video is, that when I go for the armdrag, I don't always try and pull him forward. Sometimes, I just want him to react by pulling his arm back and posturing up, before I move forward for the double leg. Small detail :)

Enjoy the video!



Next instructionals coming up are:

- The art of learning the art of slowrolling
- The loopchoke

The Fireman's Carry instructional

The next video is on the fireman's carry takedown. As I mention in the video, I have known about this for many years, but it wasn't till a few years back, when I finally got the details right, that actually made it work (Thanks, John Kohls!). My training partners rarely underhook me wrong anymore, but if they do, I make sure to hit this takedown on them ;)

Hope you enjoy the video, comments are always appreciated!



Next instructionals coming up are:

- The art of learning the art of slowrolling
- Wrestling sweeps from seated guard
- The loopchoke