This week, we covered knee on the belly for the fundamental program. Knee on the belly (2 points) is a great position to secure the guard pass (3 points) as the result would be 5 points (3+2) as long as you can retain it for 3 seconds. We covered concept, escape and a couple of submissions followed by situational rolling and concluded with normal sparring. Students are already talking about entering the next competition in Auckland (Saturday 15 June). If you are planning to compete, please come talk to me and we can start brain storming on strategies and game plan. Adam W. also planning the entering the NZ grappler event in Dunedin (Sat 18 May). Next month, Stu will flu to Japan for 1 months training Judo from Mid May to Mid June. Therefore Graduation will be on Monday 24 June at the Sandringham Dojo. Otherwise, we attended graduation on our affiliate club: Auckland Kids BJJ which is located on Grey Lynn. For any additional information, please click on below link ht...

Stu and myself went to the referee seminar which was held at Gracie Barre in Manly. The location of the seminar (the Gracie Barra gym) was very nice and their staff were very friendly and professional. I am impress with the set up in terms of size and cleanliness. The course was held by the same instructor (Gabriel) that we met in Melbourne during our last Seminar. The course was 4 hours long and also included a written exam which stu and myself with a 95 % pass. The funny story is that we both failed the same question but we gave the a different wrong answer as well. Gabriel also used lot of videos as teaching help which can be found on their you tube account. Having a visual aid is big improvement compare to the previous but you now also access on you tube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OUhrE6CnIi8&list=PLndFOMjO-W27bcQWzJbHMhul7llTclJpB

We went to support our competitors on Saturday 06 April at the NZ National NOGI competition. Stu won silver at the black belt division and Kane won silver at the white belt division. The competitors from our Kids club also had their share of medals. The event conclude our nogi season which started from 13 October 2018. So about 6 months of no gi training. From now on, we will be training GI only at both locations (Epsom & Sandringham). We are still taking new students at our Sandringham location. Please note that competition is not compulsory at our clubs and most of our members train for fitness and self defense among other reasons which I cannot think off at the moment. If you are interested in kids classes, please contact directly Adam.  I understand he has a waiting list but he might have take new students in April https://www.aucklandkidsbjj.com/ https://www.aucklandkidsbjj.com/p/contact.html Meanwhile, the next competition is t...

After submitting a visiting black belt last Saturday in Whanganui, Jack decided to turn pro. He admits that he took advantage of the black belt that stopped sparring by pointing out to him that he was knee reaping: "I cannot believe that he took the time to explain that I was doing something illegal, I just heel hooked while he was still talking. I guess you should be ready at all time...just like a fight...right?". Since this event that he described as pinnacle in his career, Jack has quit his job working at the local bank to concentrate on training full time: "I need to reach my full potential, I just realize that I had insane talent that I cannot waste it working an 8 to 5 job, I could make heaps of money fighting in nogi competition and doing seminars, I heard of this Aussie that went from purple to like ADCC competitor high level over two years, I even downloaded his DVD..it is the bomb..that how I learned to heel hook people, it has been my favorite submission....

We are now completed our week 10 which covers bottom half guard for fundamentals. For advanced program, we took a break from the front head lock system on Tuesday and did a quick review for de La Riva and transition to Sit up guard. Next week is the turtle position for fundamentals. We are 3 weeks away from the National NOGI competition (on Saturday 06 April). Please note we will stop training nogi after the nationals competitions. Also, Adam Wilson competed at the Wellington Nogi Regional on Saturday 16/03/19. He posted some of the videos on facebook. He had several matches and gains more experience. We are still taking new members at the Sandringham Dojo: 681 Sandringham Road, Sandringham All level welcome. If you have train before or not, please come down for a free class or email us for more information. We have a fundamental programs for our beginners which was created, tested and improved for the past 7 years. If you have trained before but have stopp...

This week, For fundamental program, we covered the top half guard. We always cover the top half guard topic before teaching the bottom half guard. As usual, we usually teach positions that reward more points Basically, passing top half is rewarded by 3 points while sweeping from bottom half guard. While originally, half guard was look at a transition  which your closed guard got opened and your opponent will eventually get a more dominant position like side control, north south, knee on the belly, mount etc. However, half guard is no longer considered a weak guard and lot of competitors are having lot of success with half guard. Half guard is probably the guard we covered the most in our fundamental program: 1 week of top half guard followed by one week of bottom half guard. Which we repeat twice per semester and therefore 4 times of years: 8 weeks of half guard (two months). Regarding the advanced program, we continued on the new front head lock system and we lo...

For the year 2019, we decided to stray from our normal 12 guards system that we teach to our advanced students. I wanted to look into new BJJ instructional material but mostly because I was curious about John Danaher teaching products and wanted to this what was the fuss all about. Everyone by now has heard that he is the head coach at Renzo Gracie Academy and his latest students are having massive success in nogi submission competition to the point that they call themselves the DDS (Danaher Death Squad). To start with, John has a very slow and repetitive style of teaching. It is not for everyone and I did get a bit bored in some of parts. However, the information and the system is brilliant. It does challenge some of the preconceived ideas and principles that we taught as white belts but it does make sense. I guess that the concept of isolating one arm in order to improve your chances of strangling your training partner is not a new concept but John managed to create...