Crazy JG weekend

Jorge Gurgel is in town! He came in Thursday night and is teaching all the bjj and mma classes until Sunday. Last night was an intense class which was 2 hours of straight drilling. We worked reguarding from standing guard passes until everyone could do it proficiently. We then continued on and worked two de la riva to sitting up guard sweeps to use in tandem with one another. While I had seen the sweeps before, I haven't worked on them in a while; and the concepts that he introduced were great.

After the class we went to Big Dawgs house for a bonfire and had a lot of fun. It was a great time and will only be getting better today. There is bjj class in a couple hours, then a mandatory stop at the van andel arena to watch Big Dawg's princess Emma win the cheerleading national championship!

On a side note, I thought I broke my hand thursday night while rolling. It hurts really bad (my 5th metacarpal for you medical people). I went to the doctor on the advice of a teammate and got x-rays. I got the great news that it is not broken, and is just a bad sprain/contusion. I am supposed to stay off the mats for a couple weeks, but as they say:

"If you're gonna be dumb, you gotta be tough"

Awesome week

I get to train most every day this week! This means life is good! On top of that Jorge Gurgel will be taking over my school this week Thursday through Sunday! He will be teaching all the BJJ and MMA classes and I'm getting a private with him as well. This should be an awesome time, with some great workouts to tune up my game before the Jorge Gurgel association tournament in a couple weeks.

Today is no-gi class at 4pm with Mr. Hyde. If it's as muggy as last night, I plan on sweating bullets. I am "walking around" at about 196-197, and have been 194 after practices the past couple days. With some good workouts and continued good eating habits it should (knock on wood) be an easy cut down to 189 to make the 170-190lb division at the JG association tourney.

Last night at class I put in place a couple things I learned from rolling with Mr. Hyde and Dan-O recently. I tried to use my head as a makeshift underhook and a quick push of the elbow to make a pseudo arm drag. I need some tweaking on both, but am excited that I can fit these tweaks into my game right away.

Time to work, then train, then eat, then sleep, then train with JORGE!!!

Jeff Glover Deep Half Guard video upcoming

This is the funniest ad ever...and I SO CAN'T WAIT FOR THIS SET!!!!

Intensity

We had a really good hard practice last night. Coach Hyde put us through a good warmup, then we did a ton of situational guard passing drills. Mr. Hyde then showed the guard pass that Carlson Jr. taught when he was last here, as well as a counter for it. The guard pass is a basic knee in the butt "gracie gift" style pass with a couple tweaks. The counter was awesome, and I think Hyde said he came up with it rolling with his partner in crime, Dan-O. As your opponent comes up with a single leg of your underhooked, you grab his wrist with one hand, and elbow with the other in a kimura like grip. You use this like a kimura sweep. Using his momentum you can roll him right over. It was very cool.

We did a few 6 minute live rolling matches, followed with jogging, and more rolling. We finished up the day with 10 minutes of hard HIIT sprinting and some strength exercise. It was a great class and I was sweating bullets. I dropped about 5 pounds, despite drinking about 40 oz of water throughout the practice.

We are definitely ramping up for our Jorge Gurgel association tournament which is in about 3 weeks. I am going to go in the 170-190 lb weight class in blue belt and advanced no-gi. I was 202 (yes I'm a fatass) about a week or so ago. I settled in a few days later at 200 lbs to start my diet/cut. After cutting out soda and really bad food, combined with a few tough BJJ practices I am now at 196 fully hydrated. It should be pretty easy from here on out as long as the evil food demons don't haunt me too badly.

Thought of the day:
It's not what you do when your coach is watching that makes you better. It's what you do when your coach ISN'T watching that makes you better.

Gear Review: Gameness Single Weave Gi

My friend at Karate Depot let me try out the Gameness Single Weave gi in white. I had used a Gameness Pearl Weave before (was my first gi) but not the single weave. Several guys in my school wear this gi, so I was eager to give it a try. After a few weeks of rolling with it, I can say that it may not be the worlds best premium gi, it is definitely one of the best values you can get in a gi.

Material:
The material feels remarkably thick for a single weave. It weighs just over 4.5 lbs and has a pretty thick collar and lapel (at least compared to the other koral and shoyoroll gi's I have). It is comfortable and moves well.

Fit:
I am 6'0 195 with a bit of a gut (all muscle) and I got an a3. The pants fit perfect although the bottoms are a little wide. The top is a bit baggy, but that is a common problem for me. With the 6 gi's I have owned I find that with an a3 the pants fit great but the jacket is always a bit too big. I really would need like an a2.5 top and an a3 pants in a perfect world. Oh well. It fits as well as most of my gi's, and the cut is ok, although I do prefer the cut of koral mkm and shoyoroll better (which are both far more expensive gi's).

Durability:
I've only put my Gameness single weave into my rotation for a couple weeks now, but it looks and feels like it will hold up pretty well. I have teammates that have had this gi over a year and it's still holding up strong. That being said, it's unlikely it will last as long as heavier double weave gis.

Overall:
The Gameness single weave is a pretty damn good gi. Costing less then $100 makes it a steal. It's not quite as snug as my Koral MKM, and it's not quite as light as my Shoyoroll Superlite, but when you can get two of these for the cost of one of the others, you have to consider it. I would definitely recommend this for anyone looking for solid gi and a good price. If you want the best money can buy, you should probably look elsewhere.

Thanks again to KarateDepot.com for letting me try out this gi! Check out there ninja costumes for halloween! I bought one a couple years ago and it's pretty damn cool. I was thinking of wearing it to BJJ class and posing as a new student one of these days =)

NSFW

THis video is totally NSFW, but hilarious. Kiely, you better learn this good.

Sean Roberts

I head of this kid as he posts on the Sherdog forums, or at least he used to quite a bit. He is a phenom who is under Ralph Gracie. He got 2nd at the blue belt mundials with just a year or two of experience and now is a purple I think. His simple but effective full guard work is inspiring!

29 days till glory

I went to no-gi class today which was awesome since I haven't been able to do a no-gi class in like 3 weeks. Ryan "the mountain lion" Stutz taught the class today, and did a great job. We did a lot of drilling armbars/triangles/oma platas from the guard and worked some basic guard passing. We then did some situational rolling focused on guard pass/sweep games.

The tone of class is going to be simple focused training for the next month, as we prepare for our Jorge Gurgel association tournament in Cincinnati. Clint said in class last night that we won't be learning crazy new techniques, but rather focus on cardio and basics. Big Dawg says that if you can pass someones guard effectively, you will break there will, and they will let you submit them. This makes a lot of sense to me, and knowing guard passing isn't my biggest strength, motivates me to put that piece of my game up front to work on.

I am planning on attending most all classes for the next couple weeks, so life should be good again. The D.A. gets angry when he can't roll.

I am now on the Twitter rage, and you can see my twitter posts on the top right of this page. You can also click the link below to follow me. I started getting more into it following Jorge Gurgel as he put some cool stuff up about his last fight. Also my head instructor, Big Dawg, now is doing the twitter thing.

Peace and BJJ!

2nd worst post ever

OK guys,

I have been to like 3 classes in the last 2 weeks. This is the longest stretch of little to no BJJ I have had since I started 20 months ago. It is due to many factors outside of my control like work, and school being closed. I hate it. I went last night and it was amazing how badly I missed being on the mats. The unfortunate thing is there are no classes this weekend due to the Independence Day U.S. holiday.

Whoa is me, right? Anyways, I got a treat last night having Dan-O run most of the class. There weren't too many people there, but those who came were a good group. We went over several concepts and drills form half guard. Dan-O showed his now famous reverse kesa pass, aka the Marcello pass. We also did a lot of positional free rolling. It was a fun class. Sadly now I have to wait until Tuesday for my next class.

Meanwhile, I think I want to be like Leo: