After reading the deplorable state of Judo on Facebook, I am thinking why is BJJ is so popular. Judo has all the potentials to become a popular sport and martial art in NZ as it was once but yet it seems it is struggling at the moment. The number of clubs are dwindling. It seems the blame is passed on to the top management. Well, at least they have a federation which you would think is better than BJJ. We do not have one in NZ. Years ago, several attempts of creating a BJJ Federation failed miserably. The reasons were greed and massive ego. The instigators were just planning to copycat the IBJJF and had no intention to share the power via election etc.. So we do not have a federation to blame for the lack of success for our clubs. Having no federation also means that our club members do not have to waste their hard earned cash in federation fee. Each club is left to promote themselves. They are left on their own to fund raise. Now the question, why do you need to...

This week, Dom completed one year training at the club. In one year, he won 6 medals and earned 2 belts (yellow and orange). It great to see to see the new generation of the club coming through the ranks. The beginners did half guard sweep series with Stu while Serge taught the concept of butterfly guard to the advanced students. Next week topic is questions and answers. Please note we will be training NOGI every thursday from now on. Next 2 events for the competitors is Interclub NOGI at city BJJ on Sat 24 September http://www.aucklandbjj.com/2016/08/interclub-nogi-competition-is-confirmed.html and NZ grappler NOGI regional on Sat 29 October.

 Wishing Serge's and my (Stu) former instructor Professor Douglas Santos good luck tomorrow in the IBJJF masters. He and Noel Thompson have been training hard at Riberio Jiu Jitsu HQ and are looking good for their fights this weekend. Proffessor Douglas's first fight is on at 5:30am Saturday (NZDT) and he is up against André Silva Galvão (Carlson Gracie Team) (no not that one :-) ). Good luck again and come out on top!!! That is ALOT of Black belts at a training

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 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... I would approach couple of more clubs to see if they are keen to enter. If you want to enter your club, please send us an email and see if we a spot for you. Each club would need to provide one official and one referee.

Half guard is the most important guard as it is a transition from closed guard to getting your guard passed. At the same time, sit up guard for the advanced students is similar as it is the link of getting your de la riva guard passed and the one of the many solutions is to switch to the sit up guard. Ben also taught the basic and fundamentals of how to walk in proper Judo stance to avoid but also set up throws. We also experienced a milestone with Dom training with us for 1 year. Awesome to train the new generation. P.S: that is an old picture and Dom has grown a few inches and kilos by now. with many medals I must say. Well anyway, if you are free tomorrow Open mats at citybjj (from 10 am) or Judo at Judokong at 11 am. http://citykickboxing.net.nz/ http://www.judokong.com/

For more information, please check their link and FB page https://www.facebook.com/events/1331275800235788/ https://www.facebook.com/groups/kiwigirls/

For more information, please check out their FB link. Brought by the NZ grappler https://www.facebook.com/events/1006379046148715/ http://nzgrappler.co.nz/