See you at open mats at Atos Auckland from 10 am on Saturday. Have a good weekend.

Side control. See you on the mats.

Yesterday, a BJJ gear shop asked me permissions to advertise their products on our FB group. I just explained that we are not a professional club and reply to not spam us. It made me think about how the policies of the other FB group so I went to have a look around. To my surprise, I find one group that would NOT let BJJ gear shop promote their gears BUT they let professional BJJ instructor advertise their services/seminars every time they choose to fly in "the flavor of the month BJJ (enter a number) world champion". So the question is simple? Why let one professional promote their business where they surely make a profit of running a seminar but no let the other professional promote their business because it happens to be a GI or a belt product! Is it because someone is flying from overseas? But why not allowing the local instructors advertise their service then! If you want to read more about the seminar scene in NZ http://www.aucklandbjj.com/2016/04/incr

This week, we covered the back position for the last time this year. We also prepared for the inter-club Nogi at Atos Auckland. We organised this event to help prepare competitors for the NOGI Regional in Auckland which is due to be held on Saturday 29 October and organised by NZ grappler. However, I will have to check with NZ grappler as they already organised another NOGI event in Wellington for November and I do not know if they still plan to organise one in Auckland. Saturday event was lot of fun and everyone got to compete at least 2 matches. If there is no more NZ grappler event this year, I am considering organising another GI inter club before graduation. Therefore, it would the last Saturday of November: 26 November. Our graduation date is Tuesday 6 November.

In order to prepare for the NZ grappler Nogi regional, we will run another interclub nogi with City BJJ. It is a great way to test your game plan and for beginners to try competing in a friendly and relax environment. It is Nogi but we still follow IBJJ rules. http://ibjjf.org/rules/ Location: City BJJ also know as Atos Auckland http://citybjj.co.nz/ Date: Saturday 24 September Time: 10 am Cost: Free but we will be taking a voluntary donation for SPCA. At the last event, we ran a double elimination repechage and an open weight category as well. Weight category: we just run a 10 kilos weight categories: under 60, under 70, under 80 etc... Evolve BJJ will also attend this inter club,

Last cycle of our training program for 2016. So it was mount. 4 points in IBJJF rules. We are still taking participants for next Saturday inter club event. It is a great opportunity to test your skills for a first time and try out your game plan if you plan to compete at the NZ grappler event next month.

I just read that a BJJ instructor is making his child teach BJJ to the other children for a special price of $10 per participant. Is that a joke? Does this classify under child labour? What is a difference from that to running a sausage BBQ sale outside the warehouse? Well, to start with Dad does not have to help out with the bbq or teach BJJ. But apparently, it all OK because it a fund raising for an overseas trip which includes a BJJ competition. #yeahright.

Always good vibe and good rolls at Atos

Admiring the new art work during open mats BJJ on last Saturday.

This is the last time we cover this topic for the year. See you on the mats

https://youtu.be/kgI59gQkHX0

"Our referees have attended the most recent IBJJF referees seminar in Oceania. We intend to maintain high quality, fair refereeing during our tournament." For more information https://www.facebook.com/events/1637135373263582/permalink/1651218145188638/

Turtle position does not give you any points as such but it still a great position to learn. While I think it is only a sport position, one cannot ignore it for self defense purpose as well. Also, Serge started on the wrestling take down curriculum as we are doing nogi on Thursday. For Saturday, as usual we can attend Judo class with Ben at the Epsom Dojo from 11 am or BJJ mats as the Atos Auckland from 10 am. Thank for the support. Have a good weekend. Topic for next week is Mount.

Apparently a lot more than just your monthly fees, according to a BJJ business who is hosting 2 seminars within a month: at $150 each, that would be an additional $300 for one month! Seminars are held during normal hours of classes,so what happens to the customers if they refuse to pay an extra $150 for a couple of hours of training which they already paid for as per their paid monthly fee. They do not even get a discount. maybe someone should talk to fair go as it is an obvious scam to squeeze more dollars out of vulnerable customers. That is ridiculous. If someone tried to do the same in a fitness gym, people would sue them. For example: "Hi Sir, you need to pay an extra $150 to attend 2 nights of training this month. If you do not pay, please stay at home instead as we are flying a person to teach customers how to lift weight". Response: "if you need to fly someone else to teach how to lift for and I have to pay more, why am I paying for at the first place

Congratulation to the latest affiliation in Auckland. Atos team is now represented by city BJJ. For more information, please checkout their website. http://citybjj.co.nz/

This week, we did Questions and Answers. I like this topic to conclude our teaching program as it gives us feedback on what we might miss out teaching during the last 11 weeks. So some of the questions were Triangle, defense against Darce choke and how to avoid getting crushed under the side control. Also, on Thursday we started our nogi season which seems to be a bit premature as it was the first day of spring. Bare in mind that is the NZ grappler Regional competition is on 29 October so it made sense to start training nogi for the event. Also to prepare for the regional, we will have an inter club competition at city bjj and Evolve BJJ is also joining as well. The event is on Saturday 24 September. As past event, it is free but there is a voluntary donation for SPCA. Otherwise, this weekend I am accompanying Stu who is competing in Hamilton in the GI submission event, Also, City BJJ is having a graduation this Saturday so no open mats at their place. I recommend you