Jiu Jitsu means Gentle Art in English Arte Suave means Gentle Art in Portuguese. Arte Suave is also used to define a lifestyle of the Jiu Jitsu practitioners. It can vary from attending classes to a Jiu Jitsu Academy to completely submerge yourself into the martial art: train full time and quit studying or working all together. In a way, BJJ is the hipster of the martial arts. Arte Suave is also a great documentary on some of the best of our martial art. Enjoy!

Tuesday was Gi training and Thursday will be NOGI training for the rest of the year. We study back escape and submissions from back position. On Thursday, we concentrated on nogi takedowns such as snap down, guillotine, arm drag and single leg takedown.

Prof. Douglas Santos training at Gracie Humaita Las Vegas to prepare for the IBJJF world cup Masters with Coral belt Pedro Sauer.

 Congratulation to Dave Johnson (Dave is second from the right). Well done. 

I just completed the last session out of 12 with Alan Roberts. at  http://www.hellerwork.net.nz/ The reason for the need for treatment why I had chronic back pain since I was a purple belt. The result is extraordinary and I suggest anyone to give it try. My back pain is gone but also I can fell massive improvement on overall fitness. I was diagnosed with uneven hips by my gp doctor but no physio could fix it. My feet are straight. I have a bunion on my left foot and duck walked since I was a child. The duck walk meant my hips were not freed and my spine was locked. Now I am walking straight and properly (no longer on my heels). It means my hips and spine are free which released lot of the back problems. The interesting part was that the first 4 sessions did not focus on my back issues but solved it indirectly. It covered the feet, legs, pelvis, shoulders and the cage. The reason is that Structural Integration works on the whole body and fix the causes of the problem

Next competition is NOGI and is on Saturday 07 November. From Thursday 24 September, we will start training NOGI every Thursday. Tuesday will remain a GI class (so bring your gi every tuesday). What to wear for Nogi? Rash guard and nogi shorts. No shorts with zipper or pockets. Shorts must be long. Do not bring your stubbies or rugby shorts. You cannot train topless. Please note that we do change anything when it comes to NOGI training. Same rules and etiquette as per BJJ rules. Nothing changes. If you go to open mats at Douglas Santos Academy on Saturday, you HAVE to bring your gi.

2 gold medals, 2 silver medal and 1 bronze medal with 9 competitors. Everyone had fun and the most important part is that no one got injured. Next competition is 7 November 2015 – No-Gi Regionals for Adults & Kids (Auckland) Well Done. If you want to train BJJ at our club, please come down for a free class. All level welcome. Everyone had fun and the most important part is that no one got injured. Next competition is 7 November 2015 – No-Gi Regionals for Adults & Kids (Auckland) Well Done.

Drill for warm up Breaking the closed guard standing to knee slice guard pass. Technical stand-up from closed guard Single leg takedown Position of the week was the mount. We also did situational rolling and normal rolling. We have 9 competitors for the National competition. Come down on Saturday to support them. Next week topic will be the back.

Just couple of quick stats from the list of competitors at the 2015 BJJ Nationals GI held at Waitakere Trust Stadium by New Zealand Grappler to show that BJJ as a competition sport is growing. Kids Division: 177 competitors Adults: 232 competitors Masters: 38 competitors Total: 447 competitors Age range from 5 to 53 years old Weight 148 kg to 18 kg White belts: 207 Blue belts: 92 Purple belts: 26 Brown belt: 13 Black belts: 5 56 Teams are represented.

So I (Stu) am in Japan for 2 months and am training at the Kodokan. Training at the Kodokan is available everyday but the people there can vary from day to day as so many people like to drop in. On Tuesday I was lucky enough to do Ne-waza and Tachi-waza with  Caludio Calasans . He is both a Judo and BJJ black belt and smashed me both on the ground and standing up. He is over in Japan to do a series of seminars and is a very nice and humble guy. He didn't even seem to mind that much when I didn't know who he was. Needless to say I was embarrassed to find out he is both the current IBJJF U82kg Champion and the Winner of the 2015 ADCC Absolute category!!!! I guess I really need to start paying more attention to my sport :-(

Mount and competition training. See you on the mats. 

Alapati Afoa from ETK is organising a show for kids to promote martial arts for teenagers. From their FB event: TeenAge is about creating a platform for the Teenagers to express themselves through Music, Dance, and Martial Arts. Display of Music, Dance, Kickboxing, Boxing and Brazilian Jiu-jitsu to demonstrate amazing opportunities available for this age group. Special DJ Act by DJ K Swizz - Son of Dj Reminise.  Also on the decks - DJ Skeez.  Your MC for the day - the intelligent and humorous Jordan Vaha'akolo-Cruickshank. Plus more Entertainment, Food and Spot Prizes. This should make a great start to School Holidays - don't miss it! Adults (bring your ID lol) - $20 Teens (13-17) - $15 Kids (12 and under) - $10 Time is Sat 26 September at 1 pm. Facebook event https://www.facebook.com/events/741350909304214/ Location is ETK 701N Great South Rd, Penrose, Auckland 1061 09-589 4120 http://www.etk.co.nz/ Saturday, September 26 at 1:00pm

As I spend a quiet night blogging away about BJJ, there is a great learning tool you should check out, BJJ Scout, That is a great source of free knowledge, Check it out, https://www.youtube.com/user/BJJSCOUT https://www.facebook.com/bjjscout http://bjjscout.com/

Born as an extension of the sit up guard, the shin to shin is made popular by Michelle Nicolini, I love this guard as it stops the pressure passer and knee slice.

On Saturday 19 September, NZ grappler will be hosting the New Zealand National BJJ competition in Auckland, This is by far the best and biggest competition of the year. If you register before Saturday 12 September, you can save $10. Early price deadline is 11.59 pm Saturday 12th September. Also, this is the first time they are having a master division (over 35 year old). Please note that their registration will close on 16 September 2015 11.59 pm. They always have prizes as well. Thanks to fabulous sponsors like Grays Online, Fuji Mae and Burger Fuel 1 x Xbox one 12 X Marvel super hero starter packk for Xbox1 4 X Ghost Call of Duty Game 200 free vouchers from Burger Fuel Plus some Ts Fuji Mae Gi's and rash guards To register http://strongvon.com/nzgrappler19 Their Facebook page https://www.facebook.com/nzgrappler?fref=ts

Some of the questions were: how to pass the closed guard on your knees, high guard, knee reaping, straight ankle lock, arm bar from the guard, attacks from the mount. Takedown for the next 4 week is single leg takedown. A few people already signed up for the BJJ Nationals competition organised by NZ grapplers. The topic for next week is Mount We will working on competition rules and strategies next week as well.

Every 12 weeks, we run a question and answer topic. Students get to ask something they want to learn. They might miss it during the class, maybe we miss teaching it. It is great way to leave our teaching syllabus and go free range. See you on the mats . 

Our club will subsidize the next competition fees. If you enter the National competition on Sat 19 Sept, the club will refund you half of your entry fee. The fees is NZD 70 so we refund you NZD 35. You can also sign up early and save $10. Please note, there is also a Master division. http://www.aucklandbjj.com/2015/08/early-bird-registration-and-save-10.html

While the grips and the set up are the same, the action of berimbolo is going sweeping the opponent and going inverted. The back from de la riva is different as you do not sweep or go inverted. Technically, you do not receive the sweep points for the back take from DLR. De La Riva talking about progression of the technique and berimbolo

Warm up drills: 1/2 nelson from top side control Inversion to avoid guard pass reversal from turtle Throw of the week Tai Otoshi Fundamentals was turtle and butterfly guard for blue belts. See you the mats.

Scissor sweep and Hip Bump sweep (also known as sit up sweep) are the 2 main basic sweeps that I teach for closed guard. Hip Bump and Kimura submission seems to compliment each other and can be use for nogi as well. While Scissor sweep and cross choke seems to apply mostly to Gi training as it requires lapel and sleeve control. We will teaching guard sweeps on Tuesday 3 and Thursday 5 November. However, I will adding one new sweep for warm up for the rest of the semester.