New drill for warm up: triangle and arm bar (nogi style inspired by Jose techniques from last week. I think we will keep that those drills for 1 month. Igor demonstrated a Ko Soto Gari which will be the throw of the month. Then we did guard pass concept. As usual, Serge explained his preference to breaking the guard standing. Lot of students seems to prefer to use knee slice to complete the guard pass Training concluded with lot of rolling. We usually finish at 8 pm on Tuesday after 1 hour of rolling. Thursday was similar (we roll for 45 minutes) Not bad from a small class of 10 people. We have a new member from Canada (Paul) Tuesday is Gi and Thursday is NOGI Next week topic is my favorite: Guard Sweep I will you with a rant from Wilson See you on the mats.

Please check out this new website. You can register for a free trial. The way Dan split the techniques is unique and amazing. I am so impressed that the club will get a registration later on. Meanwhile, enjoy. https://www.jiujitsu.net/ You ca

MMA core is hosting the seminar.  Get in quick due to limited tickets.  Nov 30 & 1 Dec. 

I hope everyone had a relaxing labour weekend. I think we will have new drills. We have been doing snap down, arm drag and single leg for warm up for over a month. I want to start drilling the topic of last week which was triangle and arm bar instead for warm up. The topic of the week is guard pass. It will be a very interesting Thursday because we will cover nogi guard pass. I will also ask Igor to add to the class, he has some nice transitions and principles when he passes the guard compare to my slow pace. It will be great to have him add to the class. Otherwise, just the usual gi training on Tuesday when we finish at 8 pm. My finger is still broken so I am not sure rolling I can do this week. Also, I need the name of the competitors for Sat 7 Nov so I can plan my weekends. It seems that there is not much interest in this nogi comp. I am not too sure why. Is it because it is too close from the last comp which was the National Gis? Or are people not too k

Congratulations to Henri Burns. Representing Tahiti.  Maruru. 

Double elimination which guarantees you 2 matches at least.  Also a master division. Last competition for the year available in Auckland by nz grappler. 

Drills for warm up: head snap down, arm drag, single leg. Topic was triangle and arm bar. We taught the techniques in Gi (Tuesday) and Nogi (Thusday) On Thursday, Jose demonstrated his way of setting up his triangle and arm bar subs. It is part of the plan to get our seniors students to demonstrate their techniques. It is time to add personal touch of individual members and a good opportunity for them to start teaching. We had a few new people coming to try out our classes. Next week will be guard pass. See you on the mats. Have a great long week end.

Come down for a free class. We are located in Epsom. BJJ classes are Tuesday and Thursday from 6 pm to 7.30 pm. Beginners welcome. Our fees are $20 per week (on A/P). It also includes free access to 4 classes of Judo and BJJ open mats on Saturday. http://www.aucklandbjj.com/p/training-details-whenwhere.html Where:  6 Woodhall Road, Epsom, AUCKLAND, NZ.

As you know by now, we like to follow a training program based on position and actions to ensure that we cover our curriculum with effectiveness and efficiency. This is the last cycle for the rest of 2015 year. We would have covered each topic 4 times this year. Hence, the mount topic was taught 4 times/4 weeks this year etc.. As usual, there is the traditional graduation held at Professor Douglas Santos Team HQ on the first weekend of December. The graduation starts at 10 am sharp and please be on time. You need to wear a white gi and a DS Team back patch. Actually I need to sort out some back patches (screen prints as they are cheaper). Then in the afternoon, we are being invited to a judo competition held by the University Auckland Judo Club. It is also Sensei Rick Littlewood birthday: BBQ and beers from 2 pm. While it is Judo rules, Rick said he will allow old school rules (leg grabs, more time on newaza). I already recruited Joas Alberton as he is always keen f

Great news.  Kit is getting his big break as an actor in this 17 millions Euro movie.  Congrats. 

Rener and Ryron have promoted her to blue belt in Gracie Jiu Jitsu. She is the head instructor at Gracie Jiu Jitsu Fort Collins. They are affiliated to Rener and Ryron as they are one of their Certified Training Centers (CTC).  In this picture, she wears a black belt with a red tab and 2 degrees. Apparently, it is a her Karate rank.  Not sure why she would wear it with an official GJJ gi and the Gracie logo in the background. But it seems that they also offer their own Karate classes while running the Gracie Jiu Jitsu Fort Collins. Maybe she forgot to change belt for the picture.

At the last last GI Nationals, the club sponsored all our competitors (including our hybrid students that train with our sister club Auckland University Judo Club). We refunded half the entries and we had 9 competitors. " NZ Grappler’s 2015 NO GI REGIONALS AUCKLAND Tournament will be held Saturday 7th November 2015 at the North Shore Event Centre in North Shore Auckland. Both adults and kids will compete on the same day. Brackets will be run as double elimination, including Masters divisions! Early registration fee is $50 for kids, and $60 for adults. 1st place winners from the BJJ GI NATIONALS will receive $10 discount off this tournament registration if they apply promo code “winner” on their online registration." We like to offer the same opportunity again. The club will refund half the entry fee for the next NZ grappler Regional NOGI competition. It will be a double eliminations with a master division as well. For more details about the competition. http:/

The advantage of having a training program is that you can change when you want to. We cover North South position 4 weeks per year. This week, I decided to stray from this particular topic and choose to introduce a new topic: the kimura trap. While I choose to teach a program based on position and actions. I think the next step is too look at specific technique and how they can apply on different position. The kimura trap is a great way to introduce this new way of looking and teaching grappling. We did the usual triology of the takedown sequence which I introduced about 1 month ago: head snap down, arm drag and single leg takedown. I added a Kimura trap as a counter from a single leg takedow attempt. Then I taught a Kimura guard pass from top half guard pass. Situational rolling from 1/2 guard Couple of rounds of Tachi waza which takedown sparring The training concluded with our usual 1 hour rolling that we do every Tuesday. We did rounds of 7 minutes due to the

This week, I had the pleasure of training at Prof Ruf Yu. He teach BJJ out of a local primary school:  Ecole taimoana primaire  ( twice a week and also out of a Muy Thai school on 2 different nights. I decided to attend the Wednesday BB class. Just turned up at 5.20 pm and followed the students making their way to a classroom in one the building. In the past trip to Tahiti, I always took my gi but never end up training. So this time, I just took a rash guard and shorts just in case I wanted to train. To my surprise, everyone was wearing gis. So Ruf was kind enough to loan me a Gi jacket. After the warm up, Ruf taught a technique to block a punch where you clinch and take you opponent to the ground. He also added 2 variations: a hip throw and an outside leg trip. It is great to see that they teach self defense. I also noticed to Ruf teach a self defense class before BJJ (4.30 to 5.30). I assume it is a curriculum based on BJJ (or more like the Gracie Jiu Jitsu)

On holidays in Tahiti and catching up with my training report which I did not have time to post last week. In BJJ, side control is one of the most controversial position.  You are not allowed to stall from any position apart from mount and back control. Side control seems to be the position where lot of people wants to stall from as it is like a stop over from the guard pass to more dominant positions (mount and back). But somehow, the quick pit stop of 20 seconds becomes the Saint Grall of many practioners as they refuse to move foward after achieving side control. Basically, we need to progress your position within 20 seconds or you risk getting a penaly against you. The first penalty is "free". The second penalty is an advantage for your opponent The third penalty is 2 points for your opponent. The fourth penalty is disqualification. Also another problem with side control is lot of people thinks you get awarded 3 points for the side control. That is i

Please note Tuesday is gi and Thursday is nogi. See you on the mats. 

Recently on Facebook feeds, I noticed a BJJ instructor (who is not a black belt) keep posting on how his black belt instructor always rolls with his students. I suspect he is trolling some local instructors that are competing for the same potential customers.  Now I don't really care. I rolled with my instructor on the mats as often as I could.  I roll with my students. In fact since I am 90kg, I have to roll with the heavier students all the time because they do not have enough sparring partners.  But the irony in that story is that instructor chose an overseas black belt instructor. How often does he get to roll with his own black belt instructor?  Is it not the pot calling the kettle black?