Congratulations Igor (Judo green belt) and Matt who were the winners of our informal internal comp so I can give away some souvenirs I got from the Kodokan . We divided the 9 players into a heavy (5 players) and a light (4 players) division. Matt (Judo black belt) who showed up to compete won the heavy division, and Igor (Judo green belt, but at least he has been training with us for a while) won the light division. Here is the heavy division final fight, Luan and Matt. And a minute after this fight we asked Matt to compete in an overall final with Igor. Then training continued with randori and technique till 7:30.

We have been covering this topic recently.     This a great video from Stephan Kesting breaking down the berimbolo.   Then the rest of the videos are more advanced.                           

You can now register online for the biggest BJJ Nogi Competition in Auckland, New Zealand.  Make use of the early bird option and save $10 if you register before  Saturday 26 October 2013. Closing of the registration: Wednesday 30 October 2013 You can now start your diet to aim for your weight category. They will be using IBJJF rules but no advantages rule and also no belt system (just 3 divisions of beginners, Intermediate, and Advanced divisions for all weight classes). I expect some of the divisions to have over 25 competitors as per their last competition. So plenty of fights to get the gold medal. Get that cardio ready for November. NZ Grappler’s NO-GI NATIONALS is the largest grappling competition in New Zealand. Don’t miss your chance to challenge yourself among the best of New Zealand. This year’s 2013 event will be awarding the Men’s Absolute division grand-prize winner a free trip to Las Vegas USA to compete at Grappler’s Quest in 2014 (IMPORTAN...

Usual one step sparring for warm up. Our classes follow a teaching system based on positions. The first class is mount The second class is back Thirsd is side control, knee on the belly, north south 4: guard pass 5. guard sweeps 6. guard submissions 7. top 1/2 guard 8. bottom 1/2 guard 9. Turtle 10. Q & A The topic of the day was questions and answers. Every students get to a question and the instructor answers. Question 1 was the inverted guard. Size and back problem can make it difficult for the larger players. However, it is a great guard for avoiding getting your guard passed. Lot of the lighers are reknown for this modern sport BJJ guard.         Question 2 was the hip bump sweep. The details are in the posting of the hand (and not the elbow) and raising your hips higher than the opponent hips. Tip: hips as high as his face.               ...

Today we visited Auckland university's sister club at the Maunouchi police dojo. This is a strong club that consists of mostly masters players who are Tokyo business men. One of the team pointed out that the judokas at the dojo like Bjj so much that they had dressed up their throwing dummy in a Bjj suit :-)

Well the team and I decided to get out of Tokyo and see A local district club. This really was the definition of local as were hosted by Tomohiro san who we had met at the masters. His family also run the local Buddhist temple and preschool. The training was good japanese tradition dictated that they gave team nz red belts and threw high school students, senior and masters players at us for 5 rounds. After that it was free practice but we tried to keep 2 new zealanders on the mat all times. Luckily, for us they kept us on a masters time table of 2 minute rounds. Unfortunately, at the end of randori Dmitry hurt his leg fighting one of the top high school u100 players in japan. But he did get a black belt in return.

We did one step roll for warm up. The exercise consists of each training partners taking turns making one move at at time against each other. It has to be done at about 50% resistance. It forces students to think about their moves ahead of time and stop using strength and aggressiveness. It is very similar to playing chess. The topic of the day was the turtle position. The turtle position is to used when you are about to get your guard passed. You will give up an advantage instead of 3 points. From the turtle, you can reverse the position or recompose the guard. Please note that you can only reverse from the turtle position (meaning you cannot 2 points for the sweep, it is not considered a guard. A guard has to be from your legs.                       Training concluded with rolling from the knees.