Navita La Jiu Jitera

A great practice back

2012-01-25T23:21:00.001-08:00

Tonight was my second no gi class back after being cleared to train. My first class back was killer. I'm not use to the training and I'm feeling it both legs. We've worked a lot in the past to classes I've gone to on positional sparring. We do 6x2 min. rounds of positional sparring from guard, the second time was 6x2 min. rounds of positional sparring from side control. After that we did 30% takedown drills. Finally we started standing up and after the takedown. We had 1 min sparring on the ground (iron man style).

I'm really excited that I actually was able to do the whole practice and I'm not feeling any pain. I even did the 30% takedown drill without too much stress on my knee. When we went live starting from standing though I was a little more cautious. I didn't fight takedowns, and I didn't really go for any either. Honestly I'm just so nervous right now about takedowns... I know it will take me a while to get back into everything but some things are just going to take longer for me to get accustomed to again.

Tomorrow is gi class. I can't wait to get back in a gi and see how I am progressing in gi. I always preferred it to no gi but it is a completely different beast.

I'm also getting closer and closer to sitting in a proper guard.... I still can't fully sit back on my heels but I'm getting so close!!!! Wish me luck! Stretching that ligament slowly is difficult..

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A list of Previous Posts pertaining to Women Training BJJ

2012-01-23T16:43:00.001-08:00

While I get back into BJJ, blogging, and training up again, I wanted to post a list with links to past posts to topics of women training BJJ as the main topic. Each link will have the original post date, and a quick blurb on what it’s about. Enjoy! I loved writing all of them and hopefully they help in some way!

Women’s Training in BJJ

7/19/11- 3 different ways women’s training is changing and evolving. A look at women’s only classes, open mats, and women’s only seminars (Girls in Gis)

Why Training with a Female can Help your Game

6/28/11- Written mostly for fun with the reasons compiled by comments other females and I have gotten while training with guys.

Women in BJJ

6/3/11- Women in BJJ, some of the difficulties women face and how it can seem intimidating.

The Blue Belt Triangle (Part 1)

11/9/10- On getting your blue belt, the slump of females at blue belt, and getting through it to a purple belt.

The new Obstacle for Jiu Jitsu Women

6/3/10- Pregnancy and jiu jitsu. Training BJJ, getting pregnant and trying to train while pregnant.

Alright I am off to practice!! wish me luck on teaching munchkins and then no gi class tonight! I cant wait to train and see how I feel!!

Returning to Bjj and blogging

2012-01-16T23:55:00.001-08:00

After 6 months of trying to be good and not push it too much with light training I'm excited to be able to start training again on Wednesday! My knee has regained muscle, even though it still has a little bit to go to be the same as my right leg. It doesn't hurt, but the muscles are sore, which I can handle.

I am excited for the next few weeks... I'm hoping I can find that fire again just by being on the mats, not having to baby it every time.

Las Vegas has been kind of a cool vacation for me. I got my first real vacation in over a year. I went to see where they hold the UFC at Mandalay bay, and went to the tattoo shop inside the hard rock hotel. The interesting part was 2 of the tattoo artists at Hart and Huntington did Brazilian jiu jitsu at Lloyd Irvin's school in Vegas. one was a purple belt, riddled with injuries but he has always gone back to training.

One other pretty cool thing happened, women representing Brazilian jiu jitsu actually went hunting through my blog and pulled out a old post I had written about the slump for most women in Bjj. Because there was such an interest in it I will be putting links to some of the old ones in my next post just to bring them to the forefront and make them a little more accessible.

My goal for this year in Bjj? Stripes on my purple belt.

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Cute BJJ video of the Day

2011-10-03T23:25:00.001-07:00

Just because I love cute BJJ kids to death here is video of my youngest student Mr. Carter Cope, showing off what dad had been working on with him at home!Carter is a blast in class, always excited to try whatever we are doing and participate as enthusiastically as possible.

Carter has amazing shrimping! Most parenrts actually don’t do as well as him… So there is youre cute BJJ video!!! enjoy!!!

I have left this too long

2011-10-02T12:12:00.001-07:00

So I have realized a few things. I'm not updating like I should be on here and I'm extremely frustrated with being injured. Im so frustrated with it that I have actually been avoiding the gym except to teach the little kids class.. I feel bad about it but after almost 5 months of not being able to train I'm kind of starting to crack. I gained 15 lbs. Started eating like poop and have been throwing myself a pity party when I have no right to be. Yea I'm injured and not able to train like I want... No I'm not allowed to go to my old Bjj coaches seminar in November when he's here. But I need to stop being a Debbie downer. So here is what I have been doing

2 weeks ago I decided to start working out like crazy, this way when I was released to train I'd be in as good of shape as possible and hopefully close to my original weight... I've never been 140 till now and it's not exactly easy to het back in shape when I'm still not cleared to wok out on all machines/ exercises. One of the personal trainers at my gym is an mma guy and he trades me doing his mma fit class for me teaching grappling moves at the end to anyone interested

I have decided the little kids in my Bjj clas need to learn Portuguese too.. They know numbers 1-5 so far and are learning the positions in Portuguese. The easiest time to learn another language is as a young child and I am taking advantage of that. It will also make me work on my Portuguese (Brazilian friends beware)

I'm hoping to get a really good black belt interview lined up. I have someone in mind and will be emailing them shortly...

Finally my coach doesn't know this but tomorrow I am releasing myself to train Bjj. I will only do techniques, and slowly, but I need to start again. I'm really struggling with not being able to train. I need to do whatever possible to work on creating a new game, since I'm not sure how the ACL injury will effect me.

That's really all for now... Im going to be writing a kind of personal post here tomorrow about something I don't talk about often (actually at all on here) the content of my blog will not be changing it is just a one time thing.

I apologize again for not updating I promise I am out of this funk

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The Answer to no Physical Therapy

2011-09-13T13:27:00.001-07:00

So the answer to not being able to go to physical therapy? Work with what I had been given, work out at the gym, stretch… and the assistance of an old high school friend. An old high school swim team teammate, Paul, has been following me and my injury since it happened. He’s an athletic trainer, saw on my facebook that I no longer can afford my physical therapy, and actually emailed me a full progression for post ACL surgery therapy. I’m on track with what I’ve been sent. Things are working better, my leg is straightening well and I’ve started ‘running’ on the elliptical, it’s slow, but i can do it without pain. I usually stretch, run 10-15 min on it and lift. I’m sore when I do lower body but it’s more to do with the Atrophy that has happened in my muscles, not the actual acl graft. It’s kind of crazy, my favorite stretch is when someone encourages my leg to hyper extend at the knee. Both of my knees use to go past 180 degrees. Honestly it feels amazing, an honestly good stretch

As for being able to lift weights, I am ecstatic, it feels great to be able to do physical activity, even if it’s only weight training. From the looks of my training regimen at week 12 I’m allowed to start back slowly in sports specific training. Slow easy techniques… no rubber guard-esque technique, yet. I have to wear the knee brace but I can definitely handle that as long as I get to do bjj again!!!

Darn you curve balls…

2011-09-09T22:27:00.001-07:00

So I’ve been religiously going to physical therapy. It’s been going great, and not only that I had been cleared to do light weight lifting on lower body. Unfortunately I was blindsided by a new fun fact. I apparently have a $40 copay, I was never informed of. Every time I got to PT I have to pay $40…. My insurance says it’s the PT office’s fault, and the PT place claims it’s my insurances fault. So until they stop battling, I can’t go to the PT I need. With all the bills I’ve accrued from being injured, on top of the bills I have normally, I’m easily struggling.. My PT office is trying to help… They have found a way for me to get some assistance for my bills, which believe me, is nice. I have a home program for now. It’s nice to be able to at least work on some stuff, but until this gets under control I’m on my own for therapy. Stupid curve balls. Oh well life goes on and I need to try and keep working to make this all work out…

Sorry I’m not one for complaining, especially not on her but shit has just sucked this past year. And it’s seeming to get worse. Ok! on my way to work out! I need an endorphin rush!

Training and Injuries: 5 athletes weigh in

2011-09-06T00:23:00.001-07:00

Since I’ve been injured a few months, I took the advice on one of friends and went ahead and found a few friends who train either Brazilian Jiu Jitsu, Muay Thai, and/or MMA, and have had some run ins with injuries. Injuries are part of life and training. It’s nice to know others out there are going through injuries, tough times, but are working through it at all levels.

So enjoy, and a big thanks to my friends all of the US that made this possible!

Greg McNamee

What Martial art do you do?
I grew up training Tae Kwon Do from age 5 to 21. I obtained a second degree black belt before the times of the dojo on each corner era, where you basically bought your black belt. I have trained Muy Thai and boxing and dabbled in other traditional Japanese style Karate arts.

But now I train Brazilian Jiu Jitsu. 4 or more days per week. The more the better.

Who do you train with, what is your rank?

I am a mid level blue belt and train under Bill "The Grill" Cooper at Paragon Academy in Agoura Hills, California.

What is the injury you are currently working through?

Currently I am nursing an ankle injury that I sustained a year ago while competing at the IBJJF Vegas International Open. It just will not go away and becomes aggravated every once in a while. Plus I have a "something" going on in my left shoulder. Neither one prevents me from training or competing. I just have to favor both, and adjust my game plan a bit. I have 2 blown discs in my lower back. And had neck surgery back in 2004 for my nerve to my right arm. The nerve was crushed into / against the cervical area, and the doctor cut bone off of two vertebrae to release the nerve pressure.

How did it happen?

I am a Detective with the Los Angeles Police Department and sustained the injury on duty during a physical altercation with a gang member. I was laid up for 8 months. I went to P.T. and the chiropractor 4 times a week. I had three batteries of injections on two disc levels during that time. And eventually had to have the surgical procedure done.

Have you been able to train with your injury?

I was out of BJJ for several years and slowly began cadio and weight training after my rehab period. Now, years later, I have been back in BJJ for almost two years. And I am loving every minute. I am 36% disabled over my neck and spine and was predicted to be crippled in my right (dominant) arm. But I am going strong, with very minor disability. I am in pain every day of my life. It just depends on the day as to how much pain I am in. But training eases the pain. And it keeps my core strong, my neck loose and my body in good shape.

How has it affected your game?

Because I was so inexperienced in BJJ when I sustained my injury, I don't honestly know how it affected my game. I was only training for a little over a year. So I all but had to start all over. I'm sure I have my limitations, flexibility and range of motion, but as far as how it plays a role on my game, I am not sure. I am still coming into my game as an artist of the art and as a competitor.
Is there anything that you cannot do because of the injury?
I am not a young kid anymore. And I have to watch my neck and lower back when I train. But limitations, for me, are only in my head. Especially now that I have a new lease on life and my body. It was extremely scary to hear at age 33 that I may have been crippled in my right arm. I can not fight MMA or compete every week end. But I feel that the sky is the limit in my BJJ career.

What is the plan for recovery?

This may sound serving to our art form, but honestly, the more I train, the better I feel. When I am inactive for more than a day or two, due to work or other obligations, I start to feel the pain creep in.

What are you most excited about doing normally again?

I am just glad that I am not crippled in my neck, arm and back. I have permanent nerve damage (slight) in my right arm and have constant neck and back pain. But I get by with training and VERY little pain medication. I'm just happy to be doing what I'm doing. And doing so at a great level.

Any suggestions for the people out there who are working through an injury?

Never give up on your goals. Train smart and train consistently. Be aware of your physical limitations and train with solid partners who understand your limitations. But train. Inactivity is the worst thing for your injury, your body and your mind.

Jeremy May

What Martial art do you do?

I train in BJJ & Muay Thai...

Who do you train with, what is your rank?
I train under Renato Tavares (5th degree black belts in bjj and muay Thai under Joel Garcia. I am a purple belt in bjj.

What is the injury you are currently working through?

Fractured and sprained my left wrist in my last fight (may 27th) & fractured my neck in Feb of 2009...

How did it happen?

3rd round of the fight I landed wrong on my wrist and messed it up....

Have you been able to train with your injury?

I have trained some, the main thing is icing as often as is healthy and light workouts for the injured area...

How has it affected your game?

My neck injury has made me work on standing more and the wrist injury has sharpened up my punches so I'm landing them better and more controlled....

Is there anything that you cannot do because of the injury?

I'm limited when it comes to standing on my head or lots of push UPS... I'm right handed so I get by, but still like I said earlier have to ease up on the left side... Bench press kills it...

What is the plan for recovery?

Recovery is simply rebuilding strength around the joints slowly and carefully so I can function like normal asap...

What are you most excited about doing normally again?

Sparring HARD... I love to brawl and spar mma...

Any suggestions for the people out there who are working through an injury?

Take your time, let the injury heal and listen to your doctor... I have old injuries that haunt me to this day because I just didn't give them enough time to heal properly....

Brad Maddox

What Martial art do you do?

I train brazilian jiu-jitsu

Who do you train with, what is your rank?

I train under marcello c. Monteiro. Im a black belt.

What is the injury you are currently working through?

I have 2bulged herniated disks with a part of the herniation broke off in my spine.

How did it happen?

It happened by getting hit with a forklift in 2003.

Have you been able to train with your injury?

I teach and train 5 days a week.

Is there anything that you cannot do because of the injury?

My back will never be the same but as long as i continue to stretch and not over due it it will be fine.

Any suggestions for the people out there who are working through an injury?

The best advise i can give to someone with a injury is to take it slow at first. When it feels great thats when ur at ur weakest so dont jyst jump in and give 100%. Take ur time start slow and build urself back up. Jiujitsu is for life and u have all the time in the world to do it. If u cant perform the way u used to try to adapt ur game /style to your injury..

Christopher Dealy

What Martial art do you do?

I have been studying and training the grappling arts since 2000 starting with wrestling(freestyle, collegete, and greco thru my high school years and one year of college), submission grappling since 04', brazillian jiu jitsu since 2007, and judo since 2010

Who do you train with, what is your rank?

I am currently the brazillian jiu jitsu instructor and head coach of the grappling competition team at touch m up mma in Vancouver, WA, I am currently a purple belt in bjj.
What is the injury you are currently working through?

I have been dealing with a reoccuring bulging disc between c6 and c7 in my neck.

How did it happen?

The first time it happened was during a training session in 2009 while sparring with a larger opponent whom stacked me while having him in a triangle, and again in january of this year when it reoccured believe it or not while i was sleeping and i woke up with my head tilted at a funny angle and literally couldnt get out of bed.

Have you been able to train with your injury?

each time it has happened i have been out of training for roughly 3 months and only doing physical therapy and some instructing

How has it affected your game?

Ive never recovered back to 100% strength in my neck so it causes me to tap early in certain situations neck cranks etc and it has hindered any of the times where ive needed to go inverted.
Is there anything that you cannot do because of the injury?
as far as training goes it jjust limits my ability to play inverted that often or to hang out in stacked positions. the only real thing that i cant do any more that bums me out is being able to hold my son on my shoulders like i used too..

What is the plan for recovery?

continue with my chiropractic visits and physical therapy check ups as well as doing my neck stretches and exercises, i also do strength training that targets the muscles around the area to strengthen it up as well.

What are you most excited about doing normally again?

it seems likely that my neck will never be back to 100% while i am still actively training which is something that ill have to live with as this is a lifestyle for me and wouldnt be able to slow down if i tried. like i said the only real thing id like to be able to do again is be able to hold my son on my shoulders when were walking somewhere.

Any suggestions for the people out there who are working through an injury?

only thing i can say is to stay positive throughout the process, the human body is made to heal itself so trust in your doctors, therapists, coaches, friends, and family as they are always looking out for whats best for you. something really important as well is to keep training mentally if you cant physically: watch tech vids, comp footage, and any other material you can get your hands on and take notes( i used to search for active competitors who were my height and build and would study what they were doing and took notes.) and also when youre able make sure you at least get into class and drill technique even if you cant spar or roll..drilling is so over looked now a days and is a key to success and can be done even if you’re not 100%

Kaitlin Carlucci

What Martial art do you do?

I currently train Brazilian Jiu Jitsu
Who do you train with, what is your rank? I am a purple belt, I received it from Marcello C. Monteiro when I lived in Indianapolis. I am currently living in Olympia WA, and I train with Robert Owens and BJJ of Olympia

What is the injury you are currently working through?

Torn meniscus, fractured knee, and torn ACL

How did it happen?

During no gi a teammate jumped guard while sparring, she slipped, dislocated my knee, and the damage was done.

Have you been able to train with your injury?

I did a little of technique, and right before surgery, I flow rolled a few days before surgery.

How has it affected your game?

I don’t know yet. When I did flow roll I had to open guard immediately. I couldn’t use my left leg much at all.

Is there anything that you cannot do because of the injury?

At the moment? no BJJ, lots of watching, and only doing the upper body part of techniques. If I tear the graft, I need another surgery.

What is the plan for recovery?

Well I had surgery about a month ago, I have 5 more months of physical therapy/ recovery. Then I will be allowed to start actually doing jiu jitsu again.

What are you most excited about doing normally again?

Training, sparring, competing, at this point straightening my leg and getting it to bend fully.

Any suggestions for the people out there who are working through an injury?

Listen to the doctors, if you get injured, get it checked out, you don’t want it to get worse, or get to the point where it’s so bad you can’t train. Martial arts are a journey, and injuries are just little speed bumps.

Winning a few Mini Battles.

2011-08-27T01:40:00.001-07:00

I had physical therapy again. This time I had some really good results! They put me on the bicycle no resistance, and just wanted to see how far I could go before my knee would stop me from finishing the revolution. I did a full revolution on the first try! I had to go slow, but it was great! I did about 30 revolutions and then got to go onto the next activity.

After that I did the inclined sled (i cant remember the name at the moment) and di small leg presses to get my quads to strengthen.

I was given 2 more at home workouts to do and an at home stretch as well. I love getting new things to do because it’s just more advancement on my knee!

We measured my range of motion again, and only checked two measurements, the two that matter,flexing and straightening. I am at –5 for straightening my leg (5 degrees off from my leg being straight, it wont get all the way there until the swelling goes down. AS for flexing my leg, well the big news is I gained 15 degrees of movement!! I went from 95 degrees bent, to 110 degrees bent! that’s a 15 degree gain!!

The final thing my therapist did was put this webbing of kinesio tape on my knee. She said it would somehow help encourage the draining of the swelling away from my knee. My knee looks like I have two fighting tan squids on them.

My First Post Op Physical Therapy

2011-08-23T23:21:00.001-07:00

I had my first physical therapy appointment Monday. It was a huge eye opener. I’m kind of worried. I’ve never had a bad therapy appointment but oh my lord, I have to relearn everything. I am working on the most basic things like walking, going up and down the stairs, how I sit, I can’t even think of it all. My physical therapist is actually upset that I am back at work and walking on a wet floor. Oh well, I’m not sitting at home while I need to work.

My biggest issue right now is the atrophy to my Quadriceps. I can’t get them to fire enough to straighten my leg. So I’m doing lots of little workouts, just to get my quads in my left leg strong enough to fire as soon as I try, not struggle to get them to work properly.

We did measure my range of motion though, I’m going to try and get constant updates (if I could take pictures of the numbers I would…) But here are the results thus far. I can get my knee to bend to about 95 degrees. If I am standing without my knee brace, I am 15 degrees off of straight, if the knee brace is on, 18 degrees, when I am sitting down trying to get my knee to straighten I am 5 degrees off. So my issue is that strength… I have to get it back so my leg will be able to straighten.

I just keep hoping, and working… I want to get back on the mats, back to no pain, back to a normal life. Not that life is ever normal, but back to a not so pained place. Oh and one other thing, I went to practice Tuesday, it was gi class, and we actually did some side control work. I got to work a few of the techniques I won’t lie I felt like I was breaking the rules, but it was totally worth it. I made sure I went slow, and didn’t push anything. The rest of the techniques were too difficult to do without using my legs so I only went through the upper body motions, and stopped. One day at a time…

Working on this knee…

2011-08-21T00:24:00.001-07:00

I’m in week three of trying to recover from surgery, and it is rough. I knew it would be but after starting to feel so good with my knee before surgery, this just stinks. I’m knocked back down to about the same amount of pain, range of motion and ability as I was when I first got injured. Most of my pain is in my toes or hip, I’ve actually stopped walking as much as I was and am now using crutches again. I’m not sure what is going on but it’s kind of stinking.

My knee is still swollen, it bends to about 95 degrees, but it can’t straighten yet… The pain sucks... It’s the worst part, it never goes away, not even when I use pain medicine, so I’m just working on dealing with it. The good news? They took my stitches out, my cuts are tiny, and not only that the doctor says I am on track with my healing. My doctor lost pictures of them doing surgery on my knee, I really wished he wouldn’t have so I could have possibly put the pictures up on here.

I can’t wait to be back at practice. I’ve done almost 3 weeks, 3 months is the mark for techniques. I’m walking (with a decent limp) I can feel when I stretch the graft a little too much, it feels crazy, not really painful, just weird. I’ve started back at teaching kids class again (they’re adorable) and they are fascinated with the cuts and all. I’m dressing out for practice of my own, but just sitting and watching, helping where I can with what little things are missing when people are doing techniques. It’s amazing how much I am picking up, even though I can’t actually try the techniques, I can sit and watch and help with little issues that arise.

I start real physical therapy next week.. wish me luck!!

Knee Surgery

2011-08-10T23:29:00.001-07:00

So Tuesday, August 2nd I had surgery on my knee!! I woke up from surgery and heard 2 good things, #1 my meniscus had healed back. I guess it’s possible, I had no idea. #2 My ACL was better than they thought. It was still torn, but I didn’t need to have it fully replaced! Instead they wove the cadaver ACL in with what was left of my ACL. I am now part zombie!

So now all of that work I did in therapy, seems almost like a waste. I know it wasn’t, it will hopefully help me recover. But its a little frustrating to be back at the exact point I was at when I injured myself. Lots of aches and pains, minimal walking (mostly crutches) minimal range of motion, eh this stinks.

Anyway here are some beautiful pictures of my knee. I ice it every night, work through my few stretches and exercises. There is of course swelling and cuts, so don’t say I didn’t warn you!

My birthday cake!

2011-08-01T22:45:00.001-07:00

So for my birthday my work gave me an amazing birthday cake... It's dedicated to Bjj! My work knows me way too well.. It was pretty much the highlight of my day. Here's a cute picture of it. Heck they even wrapped my desk in superhero wrapping paper :) I've gotta love my work. It was a good 30 lbs of cake... Good thing I had 40 lifeguards to feed!

Tomorrow is ACL/ meniscus surgery. I'll be up super early getting my knee cut into. I just need to keep thinking happy thoughts!

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Well it is official!

2011-07-25T23:50:00.001-07:00

It is official, I will be having surgery next Tuesday. After a pretty stressful day, the consensus is there is at least part of an ACL there. Unfortunately there is not enough of one for me to not get it replaced. So the best option is the cadaver ACL, it has a faster recovery time, and for what the Surgeon says, women have shorter hamstring tendons which can cause problems in the future. The will also be fixing the medial meniscus tear.

I’ll have a few days off of work to recover, then it will be back to work on my best friend, crutches… (someone kill me now, I do not have the coordination to do crutches again) Nah as long as I don’t fall down the stairs again on my crutches I will be happy. I will hopefully be back to walking in my normal knee brace after a week on crutches.

The approximate timeline i have been given is

2 weeks- full weight, with knee brace slow work on straightening and bending my knee

2-6 weeks, stationary bike (slow no resistance) and swimming (yay!)

3 months some muscle conditioning and light cardio (to me this means slowly going through techniques, and only ones that I can comfrotably do)

6 months specific training!!! Working on all techniques, and light sparring/ flow rolling.

9 months full contact! Absolutely no restrictions on my practices.

1 year, back to the condition I was in before the injury, hopefully I will have a tournament done by this point, even if it is just a slow introduction tournament.

I am really glad to know what all they are fixing in my knee before they go digging in to it. I guess recovery is the name of this blog for now. Not sure if I’m relieved or upset to know that it’s finally going to happen. It’s mostly surreal. The first few months are going to be rough. I’m lucky to have Lance', my boyfriend’s help for the first 2 weeks after surgery. After that he will be deploying, and then I am on my own. I’m hoping family will be able to visit, I would actually really love family and friends from back home to visit. I won’t lie going through this without the support system of my family near is scary. So happy thoughts! I will be a huge mat rat and will hopefully have my own little corner to sit and watch practice.

Happy thoughts, happy thoughts, happy thoughts!

Women’s Training in BJJ

2011-07-19T22:31:00.001-07:00

Women training in BJJ is always a hard subject. There are few females that do the sport, and fewer that stay in long term. There are many ways out there to try and combat the high attrition rate. Women’s only open mat, female instructors, women’s only classes, women’s only BJJ Camp, and women’s only seminars. So from personal experience, and assistance from a few other females, here are some things being done to help women training Brazilian Jiu Jitsu. In advance thank you so much to Kristen and Ariadne, you have definitely helped make this article possible!

Open mat/ Class

In Indianapolis, my old team had occasional women’s classes. It was an opportunity for all of the females, pre teens- teens and adults to get together and train some. It took place on Saturdays during open mat. If any of us were competing soon we would make it more competition focused. That way we had a little more time to work with possible skills and styles we may encounter at the tournament. Otherwise it was more of a Q & A where we worked on popular issues. It was pretty loosely run. We would always invite any females we could find to it. Mainly we wanted to get more females interested so we could try and have a permanent women’s BJJ class.

Female black belt, Women’s only class

As jiu jitsu grows and women who started years ago are becoming black belts, schools are finding ways to incorporate women’s classes into their schedules. In Chicago, IL team Brazil- 021 has women’s classes 3 times a week. Their instructor Hannette Staack , is a black belt and teaches the hour long class. A white belt girl names Kristen Martin, who reached out to me through my blog, volunteered to talk about what class is like there.

There is about 4-6 students there every class sometimes there is less. we work on what people mainly have problems on or just the basics and then spar. I like the small class it is easy to work out the small details to work out positions.

This small class, give the ladies a chance to get together,ask questions and slowly let new females build up the courage and techniques before going to the full blown co-ed class.

Open mat/ Seminar/ bonding time

In Texas, something completely different has formed. Girls in Gi’s is a community group in Texas. Ariadne is a purple belt and an active member of the group. She was awesome at explaining how exactly everything worked.

Basically it's a completely free open mat for women of all ages to get together and train in a non-competitive environment. It is open to all women, regardless of affiliation (there are just too few of us and we need each other). It's not a place to check out the competition or 'win' training. We start with a warm up, then a mini seminar lead by a higher belted woman (usually the one hosting the event at their gym), then open mat till we all get tired.

To make it fair Girls in Gi’s rotates through different cities, all the ask for is a host gym where the ladies can get together and train. It’s a monthly event for them. Currently Girls in Gi’s is only in Texas. They hope to see that change soon, Girls in Gi’s is working on making it easier to start a chapter of the group in other states. Honestly I think it’s an amazing idea. I hope to get help from the amazing women at Girls in Gi’s to possibly open a chapter up in Washington/ Pac NW.

Starting a women’s program is definitely a plus. If you aren’t an instructor, sometimes the best thing to do is talk to your coach, see what could be done, if anything and start to work from there. Don’t just wait for it to happen, be the catalyst that sets everything in motion.

Bending the Rules

2011-07-19T00:43:00.001-07:00

Sooo instead of just sitting by the side and watching or doing technique only,I bent the rules today. I did a lot of light rolling. I did about an hour and a half of either positional rolling or light flow rolling. My knee is a little sore but not bad, it’s actually really refreshing. I’ve not rolled at all in 6 weeks. This little bit even if it was super light was so amazing. I may be bending the rules a bit with my knee but I’m making sure to not do anything that would hurt it or damage it any more.

I also taught my little kids today, they were hilarious. We played knee tag, went to pick up tag and then had a takedown battle. Miss Cameron won. She beat 3 kids who were all bigger than her and had a smile the whole time. Nothing better than a little girl who can beat up kids bigger than her while giggling and doing te techniques right!

Well more to come later I was just excited about being able to actually grapple a little tonight. Tomorrow I have physical therapy and I need to rock that so I can get this surgery bs over with!

Showing off my progress.

2011-07-14T17:32:00.001-07:00

I had my second physical therapy appointment! I know I shocked everyone there by the amount of progress I have made in only a week. Not only can I completely straighten my leg, but my knee can actually bend past the 90 degree mark!!! This is a huge step! With the help of gravity, there is only 5 degrees difference in my range of motion!! The swelling is low, almost non existent. After seeing the progress my physical therapist added a few light weight training exercises, and then I even had a few balance exercises… Big surprise, my balance still sucks on my left leg. It sucked before, it sucks even more now. Oh well I knew that was a losing battle…Anyway I took a bunch of pictures, I’m excited about my progress with not only being able to bend my leg more, but also being able to use weight, bike longer with a higher resistance, and not needing to wear my knee brace all day. I feel like I’m winning lots of mini battles, even if the biggest one is still not here.

So I’m still awaiting my next actual doctors’ appointment, hopefully to set up the surgery, and go from there. The physical therapist said she couldn’t feel my ACL, which is bad, but I’m just hoping she’s loony and it really is attached in there. Anyway I’m going to keep working my butt off to help heal my knee. I’m not good at being injured so I will push my discomfort level, and work to get as much strength as possible built up! That last picture is of the amount I rode on the stationary bike, 3.07 miles on level 8 resistance, in 15 min. yay!!Take that you dumb knee! I’m gonna come out on top!

The BJJ Birthday Wish List

2011-07-12T21:57:00.001-07:00

For Christmas I jokingly made a BJJ Christmas wish list. Funny thing is I actually ended up with a few of the things I wanted on the list. Now I’m not sure I’m going to be able to beat last years birthday. I got my purple belt a few days before my birthday, got a BJJ Life purple belt for normal day use, a purple ranked JJPG rash guard, and then on my birthday I helped coach a few teammates at a tournament then refereed the rest of the day at the tournament. I am going to try to make a BJJ Birthday wish list.

1. My knee fixed. Not so much a BJJ wish but an every day wish. I want my knee back to mostly if not totally normal.

2. Funny/ cool bjj tees. Really I have very little fashion/ style since my job entails me spending lots of time in a fantastic polo, shorts, and in a hot, loud indoor water park. Something to show my BA ness, while walking into and out of work while still entertaining my lifeguards would rock. The BJJ Life always has funny shirts..

3. Enough sponsors to live bjj. That just sounds like a nice dream lol. People paying me to train all day every day. Just doing bjj. that’s all.

4. Jiu jitsu pro gear rip stop gi. Seriously have you seen these? Insanely light, insanely strong, and pretty stylish. My buddy Ty has one and he thinks it’s the bees knees. Yes, you heard me right, bees knees.

5. more kids in my bjj class. I love teaching the little kids bjj and if I could have like 10 kids between the ages of 4 and 6 I would be ecstatic. Nothing better than going crazy while teaching bjj to kids for an hour a day 4 days a week!

6. BJJ patches. My gi looks awful naked… not sure if I like that.. so a few patches namely a patch of my new team… would be pretty awesome

7. BJJ of Olympia gear. i don’t have any rash guards, or BJJ Oly shirts, I need to change this. I would like to represent my new team, the next time I am at a tournament, whenever that may be…

8. Fight soap. Not just any kind though… I want the new liquid kind. Mainly because it’s new, not out so that makes me want it more... Besides fight soap rocks my socks on a pretty normal basis. Seriously it smells good and prevents ringworm, life doesn’t get much better than that.

9. Keiko Raca Capris. The black ones are cute, and they look good for no gi and working out.

10. Headgear. Gotta prevent cauliflower ear from returning… Simple as that!No idea what kind I want though.. It’s gonna be awhile till I can get back on the mats…

11. All expenses paid training trip. Brasil and or southern California, preferable to visit a bunch of bjj schools, and after my knee is fixed. No point in going if all i can do is sit and watch, at the moment.

12. BJJ belt Keychain. Thank you BJJ Life for making my life harder and making my want to buy your whole website… now I want their cute little key chains. There’s a purple belt one :)

13. BJJ Rashguards/ Tank Tops. Keiko Raca has tanks that would work awesome under gis. I only have a few rash guards, they’re getting beat up, and I want either on to represent my new team or basic BJJ ones, pretty simple, nothing fancy. (The black and green one is my favorite)

Like I said this is all in good fun.I need a goofy pick me up. Everyone has a wish list, and sometimes it’s fun to write it all down.. So what would you like for your ultimate BJJ birthday present?

Day one of physical therapy

2011-07-07T21:36:00.001-07:00

Well I started therapy. I did well, it's not like the therapy I've done before... Im not allowed to use weights at all. Just body weight, and movement. It seems easy enough but seeing how much range of motion I'm missing is rough.

The thing that is making me go crazy though is this breakdown of communication. At first it was torn meniscus and ACL. Then it was just the meniscus. Now they are talking about an ACL tear, again. I am just going with it not being torn, and am going tondo as much as possible to get ready for surgery.

Off to do my exercises!

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Being able to train

2011-07-06T06:30:00.001-07:00

Since the orthopedic surgeon told me as long ad it didn't hurt, I could work out lightly, I've started to participate in practice again. Some of the techniques I have to alter to do them without hurting my knee, and take downs are completely out of the question but I can still go through 80% of the class without too much difficulty. Heck I even did modified burpees in a tabata yesterday. It was very awkward and not by any means fast, but I could do it.

I have my first physical therapy session today, and I'm excited to go. It is another step towards surgery, ad my final outcome of completely fixing my knee. I'm nervous about everything. And all of this probably couldn't come at a more stressful time, but it just makes the end result that much better. When I went in to the PT clinic, I basically told them give me their worst. I'm not gonna complain or make excuses I am doing whatever to make this work. I'm good at concealing my pain and discomfort for the most part but i really just want it to be gone, to have my range of motion back, and be able to train hard. I'll be writing about therapy tonight.

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Some Good News! (Finally)

2011-06-30T11:51:00.001-07:00

Well after they went over my MRI and CT Scan, the consensus is a torn meniscus. I have a fracture in my knee but it will heal fine on its own. My ACL and MCL are damaged, but not torn. I have to do physical therapy to help them heal for the next 4 weeks. After that as long as my knee is improved, I will have surgery on my meniscus. Then more physical therapy. Hey it’s way better than a torn ACL!

I have a kids class again! I am now teaching kids between the ages of 4-7. It just started up this week and it’s been amazing!! The kids are hilarious, work hard, and it’s starting to grow already! I’ll be posting pictures, videos and whatnot from class. If you are interested it’s MWF 5-6, and then Saturday 9-10 am.

My blog has hit over 26,000 view, thank you for all who have subscribed, and all who read! If there is anything you would like to see or read please send me comments/ suggestions!

And now something BJJ and funny to watch!

Why Training with a Female can Help your Game

2011-06-28T15:32:00.001-07:00

Whether she’s the 130 lb girl in muay thai class kicking higher than you every think you can get, or that girl who whether she’s in or out of a gi seems to be a walking dictionary of grappling technique, that female who always seems to be at the gym can be a wealth of not only knowledge but training that may just help you get to that next level, or tighten your game even more.

1. Touch Your Toes
The first place those females around the gym can help you is with your flexibility. Generally while males have the ability to build much more muscle, they start to lose their flexibility. Females stay more flexible throughout life and she may have some pointers. The more flexible you are the less issues you have with tearing tendons and ligaments, the higher your kick can get, and the more techniques on the ground you are able to do (think rubber guard, de la Riva, etc…)

2. Details Details Details
How often does your girlfriend, mother, sister catch things you completely miss? How many more dates do they remember, notice when the smallest thing change like your hair or soap. If she catches and remembers the most obscure things in every day life how often do you think she may catch a detail in a technique you may have not seen?

3. Different movements
The smaller a person is the faster they usually move. A female is probably going to be smaller and will move and react differently than a male. Trying to control someone and train with someone who doesn’t move as expected will give you a new set of possibilities.

4. Use your Technique
With a female and any other smaller opponent it should become less about strength and more about your technique. Since you have to worry less about them using their strength, your chance to work technique and use less strength helps your game grow. Besides they will be happy you have only decided to use technique as well.. It makes the exchange better.

5. Tighten your game.
Working with a female will help tighten your game because when their size comes into play you need to keep yourself tighter to erase the gaps. Working to keep tight on a small opponent will work to keep you tighter on a bigger opponent.

The results....

2011-06-25T09:45:00.001-07:00

Well the results are in.

Issue #1although I had a clear X-ray, the MRI is showing a bunch of hairline fractures all over my knee. I have to get a CT scan to see how bad the cracks are.

Issue #2 because my knee can't bend past 90 degrees they are pretty positive I tore my ACL. The MRI shows it laying in the right place but it could be detached, the won't know till surgery time.

Issue #3 my meniscus is torn and has to be repaired. So surgery is imminent. Surgery can't happen though until they see how bad the fractures are and I have enough time for them to heal. They don't want to do more trauma to the bone while it's trying to heal.

My best case scenario is no torn acl, minimal bone damage and immediate surgery on my meniscus so I'm out for about a month. Worst case scenario, 6-8 weeks for the bone to heal enough for surgery. Surgery on my meniscus and ACL, then 6 months of recovery before I'm allowed to train again.

Writing it down made me feel slightly better, thoughts and prayers would be appreciated...

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My first big Injury

2011-06-21T10:49:00.001-07:00

Well I had planned on waiting on getting some form of good news before I started writing about what has recently happened. 3 weeks ago today I was at practice and training with one of the other girls. She went to jump guard and somehow she slippeddown and right into my knee before I could brace myself for her. There was a crazy crunching noise, my leg locked twisted and then I collapsed on top of it. Lots of pain, and I ended up in the emergency room. In the emergency room the x-ray’s came back fine, but I couldn’t straighten my leg, bend it, nothing.

I was put on crutches and was told wear an immobilizer for at least a week. The doctor at the emergency room thought I had just sprained my knee. I had trouble wearing the immobilizing splint and found out that part of the reason for that was I had torn part of my hamstring and the splint wasn’t allowing me to heal properly. I’ll admit while trying to climb the stairs, I fell twice.. not the best feeling ever.

I ended up going to see an orthopedic surgeon after 5 days. The doctor told me that I had most likely torn my ACL/ MCL or both. Not exactly what I wanted to hear. So I had an MRI and now I am just waiting for my results. It’s kind of a horrible waiting game, all I want is the results but instead I’m sitting around waiting. I’m on week 3, and it’s feeling better, but maybe 50% at best. I’m being careful, still wearing the knee brace for most of the day. Occasionally it will hurt out of nowhere, which isn’t fun but it happens.

So I’ve been put on the side for now in bjj. No training. Instead I go in whenever I can and just help. Even on Iorn man days, I will stay and help wherever I can. It’s recently been me explaining and helping new students get the fundamentals down. I also still go in and help with kids, I can show techniques, and fix little things. It’s really humbling to sit and watch and work to do nothing but help, and not do yourself. The knee brace is a good reminder that I’m not supposed to be practicing. Every time I try, it stops me from being able to move into the techniques. Which is good, I need to heal. The worst part is just not knowing. I need to find out what is wrong, so I can take my next step in my plan of action, but without an answer. Its just nerve wracking.

So until I get all healed up, the blog is going to be a recovery mission. What the diagnosis is, what me limitations are, surgery/ rehab as needed, and just staying in bjj. I’m going to keep looking for people to interview, and keep looking for topics to write on but. There is going to be tons on here about working through an injury, once I see hoe severe it may be.

Keep training everyone I wish you well!

Black Belt Spotlight: Samuel Braga

2011-06-09T21:56:00.001-07:00

Ok I am really excited about the fact I got the chance to do this interview. Samuel is probably the most decorated competitor (it is between him and Helio) that has agreed to do an interview on here! I met Samuel Braga not long after I got my blue belt. He was the referee for one of Helio Soneca’s tournaments. He ended up refereeing all of my matches, and I had no idea who he was. I later found out who he was and was pretty shocked. Samuel is a 6 time Mundial Champion. He is a black belt from Gracie Barra, and even though there has been some controversy surrounding him, he is an awesomely nice guy, and has a great sense of humor.

How old are you?

(Samuel didn’t want to reply to this one, He doesn’t want people to speculate on how much longer he will compete. Also like you saw with Helio, It’s pretty much impossible to get a Brazilian to tell you their age)

Where are you from? Where are currently living?

I'm from Brazil , Belo Horizonte MG, I’m living in Knoxville TN .

How long have you been training Brazilian jiu jitsu?

I've been training BJJ for 11 Years

When did you receive your black belt and who awarded it to you?

I got my black belt in 2005 from Vinicius Magalhaes Draculino

What got you into it?

I got into Brazilian Jiu-jitsu because of UFC watching Royce Gracie fights was really inspiring .

What is your favorite position?

I like using De la Riva guard. (Samuel also mentioned another form of guard that he has been working on but isn’t sure about it yet, granted he could have been joking with me, he kept laughing.)

What do you like about Brazilian jiu jitsu?

Its an amazing martial art , it is actually a life style , one thing really amazes me is that allows the smaller player to overcome the strength and weight difference with technique to beat a bigger opponent .

What has been one of the most memorable moments in your Jiu Jitsu Carreer?

I think winning my first world championship as a black belt.

Do you plan on competing again this year in Mundials?

Yeah , I do pretend to compete :) (Side note Samuel got third Place this year at world Championships in the black belt light feather division)

How do you feel about what Caio Terra said about steroids at Pan Ams after he won?

I think he has good intention on his statement but You always have to watch to not generalize it.

Where do you draw inspiration and motivation?

I think my inspiration and motivation comes from I want to improve as a person also my BJJ I love to compete and prove myself .

What is a lesson you have learned from Brazilian Jiu Jitsu?

You can always overcome hard ship on the mats and in your life as long you believe in yourself .

Are you where you want to be?

I want to have a great school and a family and above all be happy .

What is next for you?

I look myself always that someone needs improvements in many ways , I want to become a good instructor and be able to change life in a positive way

Is there anything you would like to add?

I would like to share that you have to believe in yourself and follow your instincts and dreams and pursue your happiness and what would you make you happy that is the most important thing and above all to do the right things in life would not regret later , follow right path god's path .

My Mini Battle with Cauliflower Ear

2011-06-04T12:28:00.001-07:00

Soooo after 4 years, I finally got cauliflower ear. Which stinks…. The good point, it’s not horrible. The bad news, it hurts. My wonderful fear of needles also made it an entertaining experience. So I had my teammate Joel, who is a medic drain it. Surprisingly it didn’t hurt as bad as I thought it would. It felt by far after it was drained. The first day they pulled out 4 cc’s of blood. I immediately started to put pressure on it, and just stared at the needle. Kind of gross. At home I used a finder splint to compress it and keep it from filling with blood again. I also ordered a pair of headgear online to make sure i could protect my ears at least during class. I don’t mind having the little amount of cauliflower ear that I have I just really don’t want it to get worse… Anyway day two I ended up needing it to get drained again, I didn’t have the compression on long enough and it ended up with another bubble underneath the skin on my ear. Robert tried to drain it this time and never again will I let him… It hurt, and it bled out more than it actually was sucked out. Back to more compression with my awesome finger splint. This time I even wore it at work as long as I wasn’t on deck in front of people. It actually almost looks like a really weird bluetooth. A few days and practices passed and i was doing great but accidentally caught a forehead to my ear and it inflamed again. So I drained it one final time and got the last of the gunk out, my ear is hard now and actually looks pretty normal yay!! That being said the two pictures at the bottom are of my ears, the one that I had to have drained is on the left and the normal one is on the right. Like I said not too bad right? It’s just a little bit different.

Women in BJJ

2011-06-03T23:58:00.001-07:00

So I am writing this mainly for a good friend Mr. Suleman Yousef. He is the owner and operator of a place down in Miami called Monsters Training Center. He asked me if had anything I had written anything for my blog about the intimidating aspect of jiu jitsu for women or something for supporting women who did bjj. I had two that were close but they hit on specific groups inside women’s BJJ, one on pregnancy, and one on making it past your blue belt. So I’m going to try and do this without sounding too cliché.

Before I get too into keeping women in BJJ I’m going to go ahead and tell why I started. I’ve never written about it mainly because it’s not the easiest to talk about. My senior year of high school I had a close friend that I had known for 7 years try to rape me. He was bigger, stronger, and would have succeeded but when he went to pull off my pants I caught him in the groin with a knee. After it all happened I went through a pretty bad year, was diagnosed with Post Traumatic Stress, and even after I started college, I rarely left my dorm room unless it was to go to class or work. Sophomore year I knew i couldn’t keep it up and started to look for self defense. A friend of mine had an MMA fight and he suggested I look at Brazilian Jiu Jitsu. I found a school ten minutes from my University and wandered in after emailing the man that ended up being my coach for 4 years.

There are plenty of reasons women start, Self-defense, interest in martial arts, social aspect, getting in shape, etc. Whatever the reason Brazilian jiu jitsu is a great way to achieve these goals, make friends, and be in a low pressure situation.

For women it’s not the easiest to get into this sport. Martial arts area male dominated sport to begin with, throw that into rolling around on the ground with guys in really close contact, it’s scary. The attrition rate is high, but schools are starting to target women and trying to help bridge that level of awkwardness. Women are encouraged to come in and there is more cross training that is starting to be done. There are extra classes, women’s only seminars, and when ever possible coaches try to make sure a higher ranked female is around when a new female is coming in to train. All these things help keep women coming back and it helps them get acclimated to training such a close contact sport.

Women will face some adversity in training martial arts, especially BJJ that guys aren’t apt to deal with. My coach Robert was explaining to a new female why she was only rolling with me and one of the higher ranks and no one closer to her size and skill level. He very simply said “The worst pairing I can do is a new young guy and a new adult female. The guy won’t want to lose and will most likely end up hurting her to prove his dominance” Men may not realize it, but how badly do you want to walk into practice and lose to a female every day? Most will claim they don’t care, but it has been engrained into us socially, that the man is dominant and takes care of the woman. Women are the weaker sex. Physically females just don’t have it in their genes to be muscle bound. Along with that mindset, for a woman to come in and here guys at the school say things like “don’t be such a girl” using overly derogatory language (hey it happens), can be a turn off to a school. Yes you want to portray a real look at the school but if there are kids training there, do you really think the parents want to hear the language too? Finally we seem to notice smells a little more than the average guy. And smells usually lead to fears of dirty stuff, and getting gross diseases like, ringworm, impetigo, etc.

The benefits for joining Brazilian jiu jitsu are numerous for women. It’s great exercise. The camaraderie of your teammates is amazing. Learning something that could help you defend yourself against an attacker, boosts your confidence. BJJ is a great release for frustration or any pent up energy. When you do find those females in BJJ you’ll find a small community within BJJ that love to support each other and work together to make things better for the whole group.

So guys, get your female friends, girlfriends, sisters, mothers, daughters to try BJJ. It may not suit everyone but those ones that catch the BJJ bug, will thank you for it later!

Black Belt Spotlight: Helio Soneca

2011-05-26T23:12:00.001-07:00

Helio Soneca is a black belt currently residing in the midwest. I ran into him a few times when I was a blue belt out in Indiana, and even competed at a few of his tournaments. At his first tournament he threw in Kentucky he joked that he was a ‘Brazilian Redneck.’ Helio was great to watch at the tournaments, he was continuously running from mat to mat. He either was instructing people on what he wanted done, and how he wanted it done, or he was running around trying to make sure he was there to coach any of his students. Even though he was shorter than almost everyone else there, except for me I’m short, he could easily be hear. His telltale yell was the Brazilian word porra, turned into two words “POH- HA” he wasn’t mad, just getting his point across. Helio is a happy guy, someone who would answer any question you had, settle a debate on points, and then run off to help elsewhere. It is my honor to interview him, and I know there are typos, but I refuse to alter what anyone says in an interview, I would never want to accidentally misinterpret them.

How old are you?

I can teach all BJJ secrets. Except for my age, this is like I am giving you my neck to choke.

Where are you from?

Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

Where are currently living?

Louisville, KY

How long have you been training Brazilian jiu jitsu?

34 years

When did you receive your black belt and who awarded it to you?

In 1993 by Carlos Gracie Jr. but I was always a Jean Jacques Machado and he left for the US

What team/association are you a part of now?

I am part of the No Liars BJJ association, I am myself.

What got you into BJJ?

My best friends, my family, integrity, personality and values.

In jiu jitsu what is your claim to fame?

To be the first small guy to become a champion in the open class many times over. Also when I won the world championships in 1996.

What do you like about Brazilian jiu jitsu?

The lifestyle.

What has been one of the most memorable moments in your Jiu Jitsu Carreer?

Winning the World Championships in 1996

What have you seen as the biggest changes in BJJ?

I BJJ lost the glamour and I think a lot of people came to America where they started to think that they were Mickey Mouse & Donald Duck, etc.. Also their is a lot of liars who never did 10% they claimed to have done.

Where do you draw inspiration and motivation?

To create good students and instructors that will be there to teach my kids. My inspiration is to save peoples lives, to change their personalities to make strong men and women.

What is a lesson you have learned from Brazilian Jiu Jitsu?

It doesn’t matter how rich or how poor you are when you put on the Gi everybody is the same. The most important part is the dedication and the brotherhood.

Are you where you want to be in your jiu jitsu career?

No I have not, I will be complete when I am able to change poor American kids lives. Because USA has given me too much and I have not done anything in return, but I will one day I will create life champions through BJJ.

What is next for you?

Change the big the fightwear companies mentality and make them give support (tournaments, sponsor new fighters, etc) for this part of the country. Because everything is concentrated in California and people from this area buy more fightwear than everywhere.

Is there anything you would like to add?

I want to say thank you for the opportunity and make people understand I am in this life for people to have strong feelings about me. Love me or hate me!

Hermes franca facing some serious charges

2011-05-20T21:48:00.001-07:00

While browsing the internet I came across something a little crazy. Apparently Hermes Franca, an ex UFC fighter, flew into Portland, OR to face sexual misconduct charges. The brief overview is a former female student, who is a minor has filed charges against him. There are 2 counts of unlawful penetration and 7 counts of sexual abuse of a person under the age of 14.

Hermes has pleaded not guilty to all counts, and voluntarily flew from Brazil to deal with the allegations.

A good link to the news report is http://content.usatoday.com/communities/mma/post/2011/05/hermes-franca-accused-of-sexual-abuse/1

Weird the allegations say that it happened in December, I saw Hermes in January at a tournament in Oregon... He seemed like a nice polite guy, and was helping coach everyone who was competing. Hopefully the truth whatever it may be, is found out.

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I have been slacking big time

2011-05-17T22:32:00.001-07:00

So I have not updated in a while. Mainly because of work being crazy, visiting Indianapolis for my brothers' wedding, moving, and some harassment issues I've been taking care of. Bjj has unfortunately had o take a back seat to everything else going on so I've not been able to train as much..

Now that I'm done making excuses I am happy to say that I am working on a few blogs. One a black belt spotlight, the other is an opinion piece.

Practice has been going really well. What time I do get on the mat I'm trying to work hard, working on my aggression, and even working no gi more. Unfortunately a side effect of this is I am actually finally getting cauliflower ear. And it freaking hurts. It's all red and purple-ish and swollen. Oh well it's not bad... yet. Joel, one of the brown belts refuses to drain it at the moment so hopefully it stays small!! Anyway here is a pic! It looks like I need to start wearing my hair down all the time...

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The Draw of the Cage

2011-04-24T23:58:00.001-07:00

So this is something I had written a while ago. It was published in a magazine in Miami. The guy failed to pay me, and failed to send me a copy of the magazine so in retaliation I am posting MY creative property. Since he did not buy the article, its mine to do with as I please… so enjoy!

In the middle of an MMA class, I am the least likely person you would think to see. At 5’3” and 120 lbs, I don’t seem like much of a threat. Somehow though I am drawn to the sport, not that I am sure I will ever fight in an MMA fight, but for me just watching isn’t enough. I want to understand. Thousands of people are drawn to Mixed Martial Arts. But what is it that keeps us intrigued? From the MMA fighters themselves, the people signing up for MMA fit class, to the people that just watch, and can not get enough of the show. To the casual passerby it seems brutal, almost barbaric, but as you start to study start to learn there are techniques, game plans, fakes, strategies, something more to keep the movement going.

Humans have been in battle for their entire existence. At first it was with animals, not just between each other to survive. After humans started to cultivate and become more sedentary, humans battled for rights over land, food, water, their basic survival. More recent this fight has turned into war; warring for money, land, honor, not just to survive. It is in our makeup to fight. But as we evolved, and created more technology the need for fighting has become a want.

Although the spectators do not want to get completely into the ring themselves, The want for the fight is there. MMA has started to fill that gap. It is the closest thing to a real fight a real battle, while still having the technique, and being somewhat safe. The momentum of the fight can carry over into what the spectators are feeling. It’s not just he won, it is “My guy won, the person I believe in, the person that I can connect with, the person I train with has succeeded.”

To an MMA fighter it’s an ultimate test. In the ideal case, they are two equals who have worked everything they know and are ready to test themselves. That one other guy wants to hurt him just as bad as he wants to hurt his opponent. The fight is almost a dance though. Each fighter knows their part knows their techniques, and his job is to make the other guy make a mistake to show their next step, to fall. Even two amateurs can have an outstanding fight with the most simple of techniques.

MMA is not to be romanticized though, for all of the reasons people are drawn to the fight, to train, to watch some are drawn for it’s most base nature, the blood. Some people are fascinated by the blood and possible brutality of the sport. While many appreciate the hard work that goes into it, humans look for the fight for the blood to see someone fail. Some are motivated by the money, but to just be motivated by money, can lead to a disastrous end.

Whether it is the primitive instinct to fight, the romanticized dance, the technique, emotion, or blood we are drawn to MMA. However we decide to participate the fighters deserve the respect for giving us something to look forward to. MMA continues to grow, continues to evolve. I plan on being there to see what happens next, who else is staying tuned?

Great news!

2011-04-17T20:14:00.001-07:00

Sooo I have officially hit over 20,000 views on my blog!!! Thank you to everyone who reads it's an amazing feeling to see that happen!!

I am working on the Samuel Braga interview... Jet waiting for his replies! I'm trying to find a better way to interview people too..

There was a pretty awesome visitor to our school yesterday. Jeff Monson! Apparently when he is in town he visits! It's pretty cool! I had to go to work other wise I probably would have stay and just tried to soak up whatever information I could. I am a little out of his weight class so not too sure how good of a sparring partner I would have been...

Finally I need to congratulate a bunch of people from my indianapolis team.... There was a belt promotion and a bunch of people got some well deserved promotions! Congrats to Easton for getting her blue belt! Paul got his purple belt, and Buddy got his brown belt! Finally congratulations to Mr. Eric 'big mountain' Eads on getting his black belt!!!! It is a huge accomplishment and it is definitely well deserved! I'm so excited to hear of all the promotions back in Indiana! Keep training, I love you guys!!

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Losing my Aggression in Jiu Jitsu

2011-04-15T22:44:00.001-07:00

Brazilian jiu jitsu is usually thought of as the Arte Suave, the gentle art. Aggression has it’s place in the sport, though. The aggression helps in tournaments, it helps you push through, and drive for more. I always thought I was a very aggressive grappler. I pushed the pace, went for techniques, tried whatever I could to win. Even when I was a new white belt I just kind of went for it, not in the crazy way but I kept trying to move, kept trying to do the techniques I was taught. I just went for it.

At tournaments I was even more aggressive. Looking at videos of my past competitions, I was much more aggressive as a young blue belt. I didn’t talk to anyone at the tournament that could have been in my division until after I competed. I had no fear, I wanted to win. I wanted to make everyone proud. I wanted to live up to my expectations. My theory was, what my coach taught me is good technique. I train hard, and I am getting better and better at the techniques. What I have been taught is better than what they have been taught. I am strong, confident, with better conditioning and technique. If I lose, it’s not because they are better than me but because I made the mistake. And I could tell you exactly which technique I did wrong. I remember explaining this to a teammate in Indianapolis once, he gave me a weird look and told me that’s not how I should think, I should make friends and know that I’m gonna get beat at some point by someone better than me. I’ve made friends with some of the girls I’ve competed against, but I’ve always made sure to not talk to them before competing.

I can still tell you where I went wrong after a match. Sometimes though, I’m at a loss for what I need to do right. My technique is right, but I just can’t do it… My coach Robert says it’s because I’m not being aggressive, I’m not pushing, I’m being too passive. Honestly that is pretty new. I can remember being aggressive. I can remember the events that made me stop being aggressive, and now that they are gone, I still have that mental block.. Now I have to push to be aggressive. I will be going and training with another team every once and a while. It’s our sister school. I’ve never been here but it is a very different school. Much more aggressive, much rougher. I’ll have to work, be aggressive and fight hard. If this is what I need to do to get my aggressive edge back I will willingly do it.

Some Injuries and Exciting News!

2011-04-07T23:46:00.001-07:00

Number one. The days are getting longer, and I got to see the sun today!! Sorry it just made me happy to see!

Anyway I banged up my left knee and am taking the next two days off of training to get the swelling to go down. As much as it stinks to sit out, i have 2 dvds to study and 2 bjj books to look over… I think I will be okay… At least I waited until after Pan Ams to get injured…

So after I got back from Pan Ams, I decided to get a tattoo…. For me the tattoo has two meanings. It’s called the impossible triangle. Triangles can have a religious undertones, the Holy Trinity, a big thing in the Catholic religion. The big thing I wanted the triangle to represent though, was brazilian jiu jitsu. I refuse to get a team logo unless I get my black belt.. So I tried to look for a triangle… because a lot of jiu jitsu is about the triangle, the base, and made sure the triangle I got, wasn’t being used for a logo. So yea, it was a little painful, but it was definitely worth it.

I am going to be selling Fight Soap now, yay! for becoming a product rep! If you’re in Eastern WA I’ve got you covered! I can’t wait for my shipment, I know I have some of the bars sold.. If you are interested in getting a few email me at carluccikn@gmail.com.

Finally I am excited because not only do I have an article I’m writing about Aggression/ competitiveness in BJJ. I also have a black belt interview lined up with Samuel Braga, a 6 time World Champion. I’m excited to get the chance to interview him, and cannot wait! I’m looking for more people to do athlete spotlights on… Non black belts who have a story to tell something unique and something that stands out about them. If you have any suggestions I would definitely love to have them!

The Pan Ams Adventure

2011-03-31T01:03:00.001-07:00

So Thursday I flew to Cali for Pan Ams. Apparently Brazilian time starts when you leave on the airplane for a tournament. My flight was a little late landing, and then my rise was late picking me up. Granted that’s not such a big deal, I mean Brazil time is fun. Its much more relaxed.

After an awkward night I went to the tournament, where I found out I no longer had a place to stay for the remainder of my trip. It was a nice little piece of information to be told before I competed. I tried to not think about it but it kind of got to me. I need to work on not letting what other people say get to me. As soon as I stop focusing, it usually ends up badly. Granted telling me oh yea you don’t have a ride, or a place to stay… before competing isn’t helpful either.

Enough of the complaining. I weighed in at 126 with my gi on, a good 3 lbs below where I needed to be. My first match in my division was a girl named Rikako. She is from Japan and she was a good match. She got a sweep on me, I recovered, but never got any points… Near the end of the match she went to throw a triangle and didn’t get it, but the way it ended up, my arm got caught weird, and she submitted with me with a solid armbar. You know it’s a good one when the ref sees you about an hour later, barely speaks English, and comes over to make sure you are alright. He said it bent funny.

After that I had a few hours to wait for my Open division. I was excited because I got to meet Andre Galvao before competing. He was extremely nice, and willingly took a picture with me. I told him about how I moved to from Indiana to Washington right before his seminar in Indiana. And a few weeks before I moved to Washington he had done a seminar out there that I had missed. I would really like to go to one of his seminars, and sooner or later will find a way to go… After meeting Andre, I ended up meeting quite a few of my Facebook friends, and I even got to see some of the people i used to work with through NAGA, that was a nice treat since NAGA doesn’t come to the PAC NW.

Absolute went a little better better for me. My first match was against a female actually from Gracie Barra Seattle. She was in the heavy weight division, but was on the low end of the weight class. It was the full 7 min. which was the first time I’ve had a match go the full length at purple belt. I won on points, was kind of annoyed to see they never gave me back mount and guard passing points, but that’s a decision by the ref. After the match she and I talked and upon finding out we were relatively close to each other, we’re hoping to get together and train occasionally since even though the difference in size is there, it would be great training for the both of us.

My second match was again against Rikako. It was almost the exact same match. She pulled guard and I worked to break guard and pass. it just never happened. She caught another triangle, I escaped and she got the advantage point. That was the only point given the whole match. I look forward to competing with her again. I think that it was a close match and have it on video again.

After competing I met two more people who I’m very happy to have met. Roberto ‘Cyborg’ Abreu, who is my friend Ruben’s coach, and surprisingly a man named Gilberto, who works for Jiu Jitsu Pro Gear. After talking to him about my gi, I mentioned I had posted a review of it. He named my blog and said he had been so excited to read it. I was so happy to hear that piece of new. For some reason it was a good bit of news at the end of the day.
Since I had lost my place to stay for the rest of my trip I ended up getting a ride to the airport and having my flight moved up a few days early. I was very upset to have to leave and not be able to watch the brown and black belts compete. Luckily one of my teammates Brent was able to give me a ride home from the airport. Overall it was a crazy tournament to say the least. It’s lit a fire under my butt. I’ve always been the big fish in a little pond, when I was in the Midwest. Now I have goals to hit and I want to keep progressing and competing at this higher level.

Support and the trip to pan ams!

2011-03-24T23:29:00.001-07:00

Well last night after getting my hair done for the tournament, I got quite an awesome surprise from my team.

Coach Robert told me even though I couldn't grapple I still needed to come in for my send off before the tournament. I did and was very nicely surprised by the team. They had all signed a card wishing me well and Robert had two chocolates, one for before I compete and the second for recovery after I'm done competing.

It was a really awesome sentiment and I'm really grateful. Now the plan is to come back with my shield, or on it either way I'm leaving it all out there.

So now I'm in Cali. It was an easy flight... I slept the whole way on an awesome plane. Seriously if you never have flown Virgin Airways, they are pretty awesome. Very nice clean airplanes, free wifi, etc. I've been relaxing and watching my weight going through my plans for tomorrow and just staying positive. It's going to be a good tournament I am excited to compete. Thank you to everyone who has shown me support. Thank you to the Bjj Lifestyle for paying for my entrance fee. An thank you to my friends helping me out this week.

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Product Review: Jiu Jitsu Pro Gear Competition Gi

2011-03-17T07:07:00.001-07:00

In preparation for Pan Ams I decided to get a new, light weight gi for the tournament. One of my friends had recently bought a Jiu Jitsu Pro Gear rip stop gi, and had absolutely loved it. You can find his review of it here. After looking at their website and reading about their competition gi I decided to buy one and try it out. The great thing about Jiu Jitsu Pro Gear is that when you order one thing from them they will occasionally send you promotional codes for free shipping, free gifts, or discounted prices off of their gear. Believe me it is nice to get free shipping or whatever

I ordered mine on a Tuesday and got it on Saturday. That was with 7 day shipping, so getting it in less time was a big bonus. The gi came in a rip stop drawstring bag, and with a free gi material wallet. Those were a few nice bonuses. Nice way to sweeten the deal JJPG! I’m like a kid in a candy store when it comes to new gear. I immediately pull out the gi and am surprised by how light it is. Because I am about 5’3” and compete at 129 with my gi on I got the A1 gi. I could have gone with the A0 but, if it shrank too much it could have been a problem. I put on the A1 and it was a little long, but nothing a good warm wash won’t fix.

Note: the gi and the website warn that shrinking may happen, and tell you how to minimize shrinking that may happen with your gi.

The pants actually had a feature that was new to me, instead of just two loops for the drawstring there were actually 4 to help keep it in place. The pants have a to patches, on that has the size and washing guidelines on the hip. It also has a Jiu Jitsu Pro Gear patch down the leg. After washing it the pants shrank about an inch to an inch and a half. In defense of the gi, I washed it warm and dried it warm to make it shrink. The knees are reinforced, as well as the seams on the cuffs of the pant legs.

The gi jacket is simple. there are two patches that say Jiu Jitsu Pro Gear on the shoulders, but other than that there is space for team patches. sponsors patches, etc. The jacket is made with one piece of cloth, and it has a shorter ‘skirt’ on the bottom of the gi. It is a single weave gi which makes it completely legal for IBJJF tournaments. Jiu Jitsu Pro Gear does say they have a specific cut to their gi’s with “extra room in jacket's shoulders, underarms and back as well as extra room in pants for comfort and mobility” The space is there but it is not baggy. After washing it twice, it has shrunk to my preferred length.

I tried out the gi on Monday night class, it was a little stiff, but I hadn’t washed it yet, so it had the new gi feel to it. It was super light which was great because it was a hard practice and after rolling for over an hour straight, I has hot, but I didn’t feel like I was suffocating in the gi. It is extremely comfortable, and durable. A full week of training and it dries quickly, stands up to me being probably the smallest adult in class, and I don’t feel held back by it. The price of the gi is pretty great as well, the White gi is priced at $119.95, the blue, navy, and black gis are $129.95. For the price and quality of the gi I am very happy. I think I will be buying mostly Jiu Jitsu Pro Gear from now on.

A short practice

2011-03-16T23:28:00.001-07:00

Today was rough. I was sore and exhausted from work and training. So when I went to practice I got a little break in the intense training. I had 3 matches at 10 min each. They were more of flowing grappling matches. Hard but not tournament level. After that I worked my takedowns at 30%. I started to wear down and Coach Robert had me stop, check my weight, and go home.

At home I again took an ice bath.. I still don't like them.. After the ice bath was visualization and meditation. Tomorrow it's kill Katie again since I can only do that a little longer.

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So sore!

2011-03-16T01:05:00.001-07:00

So today was another round of kill Katie! I am currently writing from my ice bath... Gah ice bath, hopefully this works.. It was a difficult class and I am under instructions to do this but I'm freezing!!

Class started at 5 for me. 15 min of take downs at 30%. then it was kill Katie gauntlet! 3 people switched every 2.5 mini got a 2 min break after one rotation. Then went through the rotation again. After that I rolled about 10 min with Tristan.

Class started and we worked a pretty cool flow drill that works two different ways to get out of side control and end up with your opponent in side control.

Half way through class my muscles started to knot up in my back and shoulders. I had to stop drilling and when Robert saw what was happening he got one of the brown belts to do pressure points on my back and loosen up a lot of the knots. Then I was actually told to go home, rest and of course do the ice bath.. So at home I did my meditation/ visualization... Which I am struggling with a little.. Mainly because of my short attention span.

Anyway here are some photos of my new gym. There is so much space!!!!

The grappling room

The stand up room

There is also the changing rooms, bathrooms, showers, front area, and crossfit room! I'll get more pictures!

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Bjj and crossfit

2011-03-15T15:03:00.001-07:00

Yesterday morning I woke up to a nice surprise. My old coach Marcello from Indianapolis had messaged me on Facebook. He had been trying to call the wrong number and wanted to talk to me about everything. So I replied with the correct number and we had a good conversation about everything that had gone on in the past week. He supported my move to another gym, was glad to hear about my new team and coach, he stayed impartial in the whole situation, and he also said I should move back to train under him. I was glad to just talk to him and find out that what I had been told was untrue. I was also glad when he started to give me the tips he could for Pan Ams. The little bits of advice were welcome.

But!! Its now time to get back to the daily grind and getting ready for pan ams! Yesterday was a rough practice. I had my first try at Crossfit which was fun.
The workout was:
row 1000 meters
30 squat raises
30 burpee pull ups
500 meters
15 squat raises
15 burpee pull ups

I guess this was a pre Bjj workout. The actual cross fit workouts are a little more intense.

After Crossfit, Robert had a few of the people close to my size do a gauntlet. Every two minutes a new person jumped in and we grappled. After about 20 min. I felt like I was going to be sick.. It was great! This is the last week I can get really hard matches in.

After the gauntlet, I drilled with a brown belt named Bobby. We worked take downs at 30%. At the end of the night Robert took me through visualization and meditation techniques that I need to do every night. He also told me how I should be eating for the upcoming tournament. He wants me to be 3 lbs under where I need to be to keep me healthy and not worried. This is a whole new approach for me and I'm excited I like the fact that I've had so much support. Tonight I'm going in early and Robert and I will be sitting down and talking through my game plan for pan ams. After that I'm going to roll with him, he's going to give me feedback and help fix any holes or mistakes I keep making. I feel extremely lucky to have found a coach and team like this so close to where I live.

My new school

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A big change

2011-03-11T08:50:00.001-08:00

So I've not posted in almost a week about training for pan ams. It has been an adjustment week for me. I officially left my gym at Fife Bjj, aka Gamebred, and have joined another team. It's been a difficult decision, but something I needed to do.

I of course will miss my old teammates. But sometimes when things aren't right, no matter how hard you try, it does not work. I will definitely miss teaching the Children's classes, they were the highlight of my days, and the reason I stalled so long on leaving. I am glad some of you have promised to keep in touch, and i wish all of you good luck this weekend at the Revolution.

As for my new team. They don't know this page exists but I want to thank them for taking me in. Robert has been extremely helpful in making the transition to a new team easier. Everyone is very positive, and so many people have been so welcoming and open, it's been an easy transition.

I left for personal reasons. I do not want to get into them too much. It is difficult to hear what is being said but like I said when I left I hope for the best for my old school and wish them luck. I will always be professional, always be polite. To my friends there I will remain a friend and if there is any help I can give, I will try.

With all of that being said. I can't remember the last time I was sore when I woke up the next day from Bjj. I've been training non stop and working my butt off. I'm lucky to have a few people my size and blue belt level to train with. I love being able to help out in kids' class.

Now that I have gotten acclimated to my new gym I will start updating daily again. If you have any questions about the split, and you need to know, please contact me. I will only give out as much information as necessary

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Back to training

2011-03-04T00:00:00.001-08:00

After a few rough days of pushing it a little too much I finally had a good solid practice where I wasn't near dead when I was done rolling. The kids classes were fantastic. We played king of the hill with positions for the jr adult class. First to improve position stayed in the middle. It was awesome for working position before submission in a higher pace atmosphere. Advance class was going over techniques and then I had 3 good matches. Thank you to lily, Ty, and Michael, they were hard matches but I'm glad I kept moving. I didn't feel like I was dying after all of that and I even got a good mini ab workout done after!

Tomorrow will be cardio and lifting! I'm sad, no Bjj...

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Product Review: EFX and Power Balance holographic band

2011-03-03T08:04:00.001-08:00

So has anyone else seen these holographic bands popping up on all sorts of athletes? Late at night they have irenew bands on tv. Now the bands are starting to pop up everywhere. The first one I ever saw was when I was at no gi nationals in 2010. Marcelo Perdomo, Black belt and owner of BTT Long Beach had this little rubber and hologram bracelet on. Some MMA fighters have started to pop up wearing these bracelets including Vitor Beltfort, and Court McGee. The theory behind them is that there is a little hologram embedded in the bracelet, necklace, whatever you buy and this hologram somehow acts like a tuning fork for your body and re aligns the electronic waves in your body. It sounds interesting to say the least, right? I got a hold of two companies, EFX, and Power Balance to product review both wrist bands.
A warning to everyone, I have no idea where to find any form of testing or information that substantiates their claims. I checked on both websites and although EFX does have a little more information on theirs, there is really very little written. I let different people try both bracelets, and ran the tests without them knowing what was going on. It’s definitely something new to try. The bands seemed to work, whether it’s a placebo effect or not I don’t know. So instead of dwelling on which one works better, etc I’m going to go straight to how they stacked up against each other.
EFX sent me two bracelets, one medium sized, and once large sized bracelet. The medium bracelet had one hologram and actually fit me pretty well. The large bracelet had two holograms and was a little too big for me, so I had one of my teammates try it out to see if it worked for him. The bracelets are black and red, pretty simple. I’ve been wearing it about a month now and it has gone through everything, jiu jitsu practice, bjj tournaments, and even lifeguard instructor training. It hasn’t lost it’s color, it’s flexibility, nothing. On the EFX website they have a huge variety of products, from bracelets, to sweat bands, necklaces, and even holograms you can just sew into your uniform. EFX even has two specialty bracelets. There is a pink breast cancer awareness that “EFX designates 15% of net sales from these bands to research through 26.2 with Donna National Marathon, as well as the San Diego and Orange County chapters of Susan G Komen Race for the Cure.” They also have partnered with Save the Sea to make a blue Save the Sea bracelet. Again “15 percent of all sales from these bands will be directly donated to the organization to further their movement.” Here is a video of one of the females at my school trying out the EFX balance test.

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The Power Balance bracelet came a little later. It is light blue and white. They sent me a medium, but there was a definite size difference compared to the EFX bracelet. I will admit I had a Power Balance bracelet before, they fitted me to the wrong size ands within 3 weeks it had torn. the silicone is slightly thinne r than the EFX bracelet. Power Balance like EFX has a variety of different products to choose from. It’s more about what do you think not only will work best for you, but what style you like. Power Balance works with the Ovarian Cancer Research Fund. They have a limited edition band that comes in either green or white. $15 is donated for every bracelet bought.
The bracelets are interesting. I seem to have more balance, which isn’t saying much I’ve been terribly clumsy for most of my life. As for the strength aspect, I don’t get as sore after lifting weights as I used to. The flexibility tests don’t really work on me, I’m extremely flexible so it’s hard to read any of it on me. Most of the people I had try it out did seem to have better strength/ flexibility when trying the bracelets. Some like my teammates Tyy and Mike, didn’t see any difference at all. For people who are into the holistic side of things, it may be something to look into. At the very least the placebo affect it has may be well worth it.

A Set Back

2011-03-01T14:06:00.001-08:00

OK this entry is all about the last two days.

Sunday I woke up early for a work meeting. Afterwards I went to the gym and did a lower body workout. It actually went very well, and I didn’t hurt, although I keep pushing myself I never get that truly sore feeling. After lifting I went straight back to work for a closing shift, but I didn’t make it all the way through the night. Somewhere in the 24 hours prior I had picked up food poisoning. So Sunday night until today I have been really sick and except to go to the store and buy Gatorade so I didn’t completely dehydrate. Monday was miserable, I should have gone to the hospital, I’m not even going to lie. I’m just too stubborn. So I curled up in my bed, and slept/ drank Gatorade until Tuesday morning. I feel better now but I’m still tired. I feel a little weak but I am really relieved that it only lasted Sunday and Monday.

On a positive not I did find a new favorite type of Gatorade… Raspberry Melon. It tastes pretty amazing… It was easy to drink and it didn’t make me sick!

Saturday training

2011-02-27T00:01:00.001-08:00

There wasn't much to write for Friday, I just had a cardio workout on top of work. There want open mat or class.

Today started with Caiman's private lesson at 9 am. 10- 1030 was kids Bjj, 1030- 1115 was jr adult Bjj, and finally 1115- 12 was jr adult mma.

Now that i'm with work I am off to the gym to do lower body... Yes I know it's late but it's best this way for me. Anytime fitness here I come!

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Darn snow

2011-02-25T20:47:00.001-08:00

Yesterday, with the snow we got in Washington state, I had a little different work out than normal. At work I spent a few hours catching large rafts out of our big water slides. These rafts are easily bigger than me, and carry 4 to 5 people. So it was a good strength and resistance training. Amazing how I can turn work into something to benefit training...

Night class was slow, the snow and frozen roads stopped me from having my kids classes. Roice, one of my new 6 year olds was the only to come in so he got to have a private lesson.

Very few people made it into class so we just had open mat. I trained

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Getting ready for pan ams

2011-02-24T01:17:00.001-08:00

So a few things have been stalling a lot of my writing recently. None of them are really what I consider good reasons but regardless they have made it more difficult to write. So what I'm going to do is write about my daily training getting ready for Pan Ams. Today is a bad day to start it but I will anyway.

It snowed today, and for some reason 1" of snow = impending doom in western Washington. I ended up working a 12 hour shift at work to help out. By the time that I could leave the roads were a mess and I couldn't make it in time for Bjj. It honestly made me upset, any time I miss Bjj I'm bummed. So it's now 1:06 am and I just got home from a good hour and a half at the gym. I honestly have to say I love Anytime Fitness for always being open. I did a core workout and a nice card workout as well to make sure I'm getting the best of both worlds every time I lift.

Tomorrow will be more back to normal, work, teaching kids and jr adults, advanced Bjj training, then weights again!

I know I'm doing it weird by weight lifting being so late, but for some reason it works best for me this way.

Anyways stay in touch more about training, lifting, balancing home and Jiu jitsu life, effective ways to get ready for tournaments, and product reviews are coming up.

Tuesdays jr adult class... Gotta love them. Oh and thank you Airik for being a great assistant coach I need the second set of eyes...

Tournaments and such

2011-02-15T15:48:00.001-08:00

I figured I would do a little bit of an update since I’ve not been writing much recently.

There are two tournaments coming up for my team out here, the Revolution, a local organization, and the Pan Ams. The Revolution is March 12, and Pan Ams are March 24- 27. With these two tournaments coming up almost everyone is in competition mode. I am also going to keep a running list on the side of my blog, it will be of upcoming events in my area, so hopefully it will give people tournaments to look forward to.

Class schedules have changed so I am now teaching all of the kids jiu jitsu classes, which is a huge blessing. They are absolutely amazing to work with and every class I am more and more surprised at how fast all of them learn. There are about 8 children in the 3-6 year old class, and probably around 20 junior adults. When class is full it is definitely a sight to see.

A few weeks ago I was asked to be in a documentary about women who do jiu jitsu. I am very honored and humbled to be in it because honestly I wouldn’t expect to be asked to do something like this. There are a few other women from all over the world who have agreed to do it as well, and it is a great project. you can read more about the documentary and everything that has been going on with it here at lutadoras.

I promise to find more things to write about, more videos and pictures to put up, and hopefully even another product review, I just need to get rid of my writers’ block!

Kids Bjj tournament

2011-02-08T00:22:00.001-08:00

I want to just quickly congratulate the students on the junior adult team who competed this past Saturday. Congrats to Miss Alyssa for winning her first tournament! 2 weeks before Alyssa also competed at the Oregon sub league, she placed fourth and had an awesome arm bar against a boy.

Orion placed second, he won one of his matches. Great job Orion!

Troy competed in the white belt division and got second. Troy hasn't been training long, but he is a great competitor!

Austin did an awesome job as well and got second, unfortunately he got injured as well but I am still proud of him!

Finally my newest student, Nicole competed at her first tournament, not only did she have to fight a really big boy, but she ended up getting second!! Nicole also earned her first stripe on her white belt!

Congrats to all of the junior adults! Every one placed, and had a good time! The Revolution tournament is in March! Let's kick some butt!!

Taking care of that Cauliflower Ear

2011-02-01T23:56:00.001-08:00

Cauliflower ear is seen everywhere in the martial arts community. Grapplers, boxers, and MMA fighters are probably the biggest culprits when it comes to having it. The more trauma the ear receives, the more of a chance you will have to get Cauliflower ear. So what is it, how do you get it, how do you prevent it, and how can you get rid of it? Most of know what it is and have seen people with it, but I realized a lot of my teammates are missing an important step to making sure it doesn’t come back. Just in case I want to write about it to maybe help someone else.

So what is cauliflower ear? Cauliflower ear happens when the blood supply to the cartilage is cut off and the cartilage shrivels up and dies. How does the blood supply get cut off from the cartilage? It happens when either a blunt trauma causes a hematoma (blood filled pocket, bruise) to occur, or the skin is torn away from the cartilage. The skin on your ear is the only way the cartilage gets blood circulated to it. When there is no blood circulating to the cartilage it dies and shrivels up. So when the blood finally drains away, the damage is done. Prevention is pretty straight forward. Wear headgear for the martial art of your choice. It is the best way to prevent getting it.

So how do you treat Cauliflower ear if you do get it? As soon as it starts to blow up, you need to treat it. The best way to get it treated is to, if necessary, get it drained by a doctor. A doctor is going to have better tools, sanitized equipment, and resources in case anything goes wrong. If you can’t afford a doctor, it is possible to drain your own ear… I would definitely suggest asking around and finding out if a teammate has experience with draining cauliflower ear. Here is a basic run down of the steps though.

1. Disinfect all of your tools. You’re going to need a syringe, diabetic needles seem to be the needle of choice, rubber gloves, gauze and some thing to create compression on your ear.

2. Glove up, who ever is sticking you with a needle should wear the gloves. Keep bodily fluids away from your skin.

3. Locate the fluid filled pockets in your ear. They should be squishy pockets in your ear that move around. The hard stuff is the part that is too late to fix.

4. Drain the area. Stick the needle in to your ear and slowly suck the blood or fluid out. This step may need to happen more than once. Use a new needle every time, and stick in a different place every time.

5. After draining, use the gauze and light pressure over the points of entry on your ear. This will catch any more blood.

6. Compression. This is the part my teammates and friends seem to miss. After you drain the area you need to compress the skin to the cartilage, this way the blood doesn’t pool again and you can prevent most of the cauliflower effect from taking place.

There can be some side effects of cauliflower ear. Infection happens especially when draining on your own. Most often though the wrinkling and deformity of the ear are the only things that you really need to worry about with it. Cauliflower ear is easily treatable by a doctor or by yourself with a few careful steps. Don't forget to add pressure once it is drained, and it will greatly decrease your chances of having majorly deformed ears. But the best way to beat cauliflower ear is just to prevent it by wearing headgear

I actually found a great video on draining your cauliflower ear by yourself. Thank you to Phillipe Nover for putting up a great video!

First tournament in the PAC northwest

2011-01-20T10:52:00.001-08:00

GeoTagged, [N47.00239, E122.82702]

So Saturday will be my first Jiu Jitsu tournament in a new area. I am doing an Oregon sub league tournament. It's submission only which should be fun, I've never done a sub only tournament.

I am excited to be able to compete again, it has been a few months. With everything that seems to be going on I am excited to compete, excited to go to a tournament with my new team out here and do my very best! I will definitely keep everyone posted!

The Blue Belt Triangle Part 2.

2011-01-16T01:46:00.001-08:00

In Part 1 of the Blue Belt triangle I focused on the females. This section is all about the men that train BJJ and pass the white belt and get to Blue belt. I like to call it the Blue Belt Triangle because it is just like the Bermuda Triangle in the ocean. Tons of BJJ’ers enter this area like a ship into the Bermuda triangle, and like many ships, some are never seen again. The ones that make it out of the Blue belt Triangle, tend to be a little battered, hardened but in the long run much better jiu jitsu players for the time put in. In the first half I theorized that the point for women to start dropping in rank is white to blue. There is a fraction of females competing at blue belt then there are competing in White belt. For men though it is a little different, the big separation seems to come at the end of the blue belt.

My coach Marcello says that other than your black belt, (which you will spend most of your jiu jitsu career at, if you make it there) you blue belt is the place where you will spend most of your time. Sherdog and other online forums are littered with with ‘Blue belt blues’ forums. This is of course different for everyone but blue belt is a huge step. It is also where the biggest difference in skill is at. Think about a brand new blue belt, a few days in, he’s definitely not a white belt, but compared to a guy who is about to get his purple belt. The difference can be staggering. So why does this happen? And how can we maybe get more people to stick with it so the field becomes deeper, and the competition, as well as the technique become better?

Go to almost any local BJJ tournament and the vast majority of the male competitors are white belts and blue belts. At any given NAGA event the Adult Male White and blue belt divisions can have over 20 competitors. The purple belt division is much smaller with some combining of weight classes to make divisions, and by brown/ black if they aren’t a local coach willing to compete, there isn’t a match. At the national/ pan and international levels, there are so many white and blue sometimes the absolute divisions are restricted or removed of the tournament. Purple belts and above are less restricted, all of the way through the black belt divisions.

To combat the drop off that seems to happen in the blue belt level some schools have started using a green belt in between the white and blue belt level. Green belt by IBJJF standards is only for students under 16. So what division does an adult green belt compete in? I am actually at a loss for that question and would love to know if anyone out there does have that answer for me. Is it fair for these guys to compete against white belts, or should they be forced into the blue belt division. It seems almost like a no man’s land…

So how do we stop it from happening? It’s true that Brazilian Jiu Jitsu is not for everyone. That because of us as Americans like that instant gratification it becomes hard to sit a belt for months and then years without seeing any form of reward. The last thing I would ever want to see is the is the belt system getting watered down. So we need to just push through it.It is a journey that doesn’t have an ending. It’s always growing and evolving. Remember your belt only covers an inch of your butt, you have to cover the rest..

Black belt Spotlight: Mike Reyna

2011-01-05T13:46:00.001-08:00

Mike Reyna is someone I just recently met. He was refereeing at a tournament I ended up refereeing at (there weren’t any female purple belts) Whenever there was some down time I talked with Mike, he ended up helping me when a few black belts tried to say I giving away points. Mike had my back and saw the same thing I did. Actually, until the argument, I had no idea he was a black belt. He never mentioned it he just talked about jiu jitsu, techniques who he trained with. Mike is a pretty unassuming guy, he is very laid back, you would never think he had grown up in the area he had, that he has travelled all over the world competing in various martial arts competitions, or that he was even a black belt. After working at a few tournaments with Mike I wanted to interview him. He has found a way to use his martial arts to see the world and to spread his passion for martial arts.

How old are you

I am 30 Years old

What team do you train with and who is your coach?

I train with Champion Jiu Jitsu, and my coach is Assou Harvard.

How long have you been training Brazilian Jiu Jitsu?

I have been around jiu jitsu for 10 yrs but total time I have put into sport jiu jitsu is 4yrs.

What belt rank are you?

I am a black belt

When did you earn your black belt?

I got my black belt at this years Mundial 2010

On the topic of Mundials, where have you gotten to compete because of Brazilian Jiu Jitsu?

I have gotten to compete in Brazil two times, California 4 times, Ohio once, and Amman Jordan once

What other martial arts have you trained and competed in?

I have trained in wrestling ,boxing , and muay Thai.

Where have you gotten to go because of your other martial arts training?

I have gotten to go to Egypt ,Spain, Great Britain , Canadia, Maui, Mexico, Panama, and Texas.

I have also been to Morocco, North Africa. and fought in a K1 tournament (muay Thai) in which I was runner up . It was call Morocco vs. The World

What got you into Brazilian Jiu Jitsu? What Kept you in it?

I have always been a fan of Judo . My father is a brown belt in Judo. I would always ask him if he would teach me. He would at times teach me and my brother some things. But he never wanted to show us too much, he thought we would pick fights with people. Since my dad didn’t want to show us. I joined wrestling in middle school. I learned really fast and was a natural at it. My first year of wrestling I was 25-1, not to bad for my first year! I continued to wrestle in high school. After that I did a few freestyle tournaments a did really well.

My brother started going to this guy Assou, whom I didn’t know at the time. He was teaching my brother jiu jitsu on the northwest sub. My brother was coming home and beating on me with this jiu jitsu stuff, and I didn’t like that at all. So I started going to Assou and it has been the best thing I have done in my life. I had been wanting to get my black belt since I started that was my goal. Now it is to be a World Champion and be one of the best black belts in the world.

What do you like about bjj?

I like how it is so effective for small guys and women.

What weight class do you compete at?

I fight at the 141 Weight class.

Who are some bjj practitioners that have influenced you?

Some guys who have influenced me are Terre, Andre Galvao, and most of all my coach Assou.

What are your future goals with Brazilian Jiu Jitsu?

One is to be a World Champion and be one of the best black belts in the World. I also want to open my own gym in the next year.

What advice can you give BJJ practitioners?

Don’t stop training. The moment you think you are good, that is when you get beat.

Do you plan on competing again any time soon?

I am planning on competing in the Pan- Ams in March. I also hope to compete in an MMA match in Brazil afterwards.

The Required New Years Resolutions

2011-01-03T15:53:00.001-08:00

So it’s the New Year which means I need to put up my resolutions… I’ve had a few days to think about them and I think I have a good list…

1. Compete at IBJJF Nationals, Pan Ams, and Mundials. Be comfortably ready for all three and make a good impression.

2. Keep my body weight low so I do not have to cut as much to make my division. This will just be over all helpful since there is no way I can make the next lowest division..

3. More weight trraining, more running… I hate running…

4. Positive attitude all the time, even on bad days, just keep up the happy thoughts!

5. Teach my bjj Kids as much as possible and help any of them compete that want to.

6. Teach a few seminars for the local girl scouts on bully proofing and stranger danger topics.

7. Get back to writing on the blog, post things people want to read and things people enjoy, check out my older stuff and give me any feedback!.

Big shout out to BJJ Santa.

2011-01-01T22:42:00.001-08:00

So Apparently BJJ Santa got at least part of my Christmas list this year. And I was honestly stunned! So here is a quick breakdown of what I got…

I got a new gi, correction 2 NEW gis! One white Keiko Raca, and one pink association gi!!! The pink one is somewhere in the mail. big thank you to a mister Michael Proctor who got them for me.

Second I got a t-shirt! Thank you to Jonathan from MMAshorts.com for hooking me up! I will be posting a little blurb about them. It was really cool because he stumbled across my post emailed me and offered a shirt! it also came with candy canes so that was pretty awesome too!!

Thirdly, I got a slug of viscous vixen fight soap… not the fort I was hoping for… but there is rumor that I may be getting more Fight Soap… Kind of excited, I am a nerd/ clean freak like that….

So yea there is a little bit of excitement there. I was definitely not expecting to get this stuff so it just made everything better!

The Joys of Teaching

2010-12-28T15:06:00.001-08:00

So now that I have gotten settled in Washington, I’ve started teaching the little kids bjj class and started helping with the Juinior Adults bjj class at my gym. I’ve got to say it some of the most rewarding things I have ever done. The kids class has students from the ages of 3-6 and the junior adults are 7 and up. The kids though never cease to amaze me. I’ve always been stunned at the young kids i see competing bnut the more i teach the move i realize that if you get kids into jiu jitsu and sports at a young age the faster their coordination evolves, the more outgoing, and confident they become. Bailey is the pack leader of the 3-6 year olds, she has been in jiu jitsu the longest out of them and not only knows tons of technique, she can shrimp better than most of the adults. She also loves to help fix the other kids techniques. Nico is the youngest at 3 but even he amazes me with how much he can do and how easily he picks up the training. The junior adults are great too1 if they do any little thing wrong as soon as we tell them how to correct it they have it down! Some of them are too smart for their own good. They love to compete, love to play jiu jitsu games, and just generally shock us with their technique on a daily basis. Anyway enough talking here are some videos of the kids and i will definitely be talking more about these awesome kids.

ANOTHER UFC!!

2010-12-21T16:08:00.001-08:00

So UFC is coming to Seattle!!!!! I’m really excited because last time I had an absolute blast running around Indianapolis and talking to the fighters. This time it will be March 26th in Seattle. But it kind of stinks because by the 24th I will be in California competing at Pan- Ams. So I’m going to try to get as much coverage as possible before heading to pan ams.

I’ve heard a few of the guys from Indiana will be fighting on the card and possibly even visiting to train. It will be great to see a few teammates again. As more info comes up on not only the Pan Ams, but the Fight Night I will be posting them on here and seeing what fun stuff I can get planned for it!

Oh by the way the main event for Fight Night 24 will be Ortiz vs Little Nogueira.

A little Christmas picture

2010-12-18T15:46:00.001-08:00

So my iPhone has an Elf your face app, instead of doing the face, i did the association logo! Enjoy!!

My BJJ Christmas Wish List

2010-12-13T00:56:00.001-08:00

Everyone has a Christmas gift list. Well just for fun I made a BJJ wish list. I know it’s all far fetched, but hey you have to admit we all have dreams of what we want out there… So Jiu Jitsu Santa, if you’re out there, here is my Christmas list, I am also sending one to you in the mail. But I have to ask do I send it to the North Pole, or are you down in Rio somewhere training?

1. A new mouthpiece, I haven’t had one in years

2.. the drawstring bag made out of jiu jitsu gi.

3. A sponsor or two to help with my Airfare to tournaments.

4. All Expenses paid training trip for two, preferably to Brazil or San Diego… both have amazing BJJ.

5. A new gi, preferably a nice one, I’ve had the same two for about 4 years now… They are just to small. And I will give them to a kid or two on my team that have outgrown theirs..

6. Marcello C Monteiro’s full BJJ DVD Curriculum.

7. Assortment of jiu jitsu tees. maybe even a few to give away on here.

8. The chance to do a self defense seminar for a local girl scout group or two.

9. Enough Fight Soap to build a fort.

10. Like 20 kids in the little kids BJJ class, so I can teach them all of the time and have crazy/ fun classes.

11. A few ranked rash guards.

12. Keiko Raca Supplex capris

13. Private bjj lessons

14. More jiu jitsu….

15. Whatever my school needs equipment wise, I want everyone who goes there to get the training they deserve.

So what would you ask for from the BJJ Santa? This was in a perfect world, and Santa brought me unlimited presents…

Athlete Update : Ruben Alvarez

2010-12-07T22:49:00.001-08:00

Ruben Alvarez was one of the first people I interviewed on my blog. He’s a 19 year old purple belt from Fight Sports South beach who has worked his way up, and has competed and placed in the top tournaments. Unfortunately Ruben had a pretty unfortunate injury happen to him this past summer and he has been working hard to get back into the sport he loves.

Injuries happen in our sport and some of them can be really bad. Because Ruben is a friend I wanted to make sure I featured him, and kept tabs on his recovery. From a few weeks after the injury happened to getting back to practice, and hopefully his first tournament back.

When were you injured?

I was injured July 18th

Describe what happened to you.

I broke my leg in two places competing against Hector Lombard, Bellator MMA champion.

What is the extent of your injury?

the tibia and fibula were broken

How long did the doctor say you would be out?

One year

How long were you out?

I was out 4 months, But I am waiting to get the screws and plates out.

What did you do to aid in your recovery?

I did lots of physical rehab.

How did you work your jiu jitsu while injured?

I watched lots of videos of many different grapplers I like.

When Was your first practice back?

October 21st, a few days before the Miami Open

How was your first day back to class?

It was Amazing, I almost cried. Just to see my instructor smiling was the best feeling.

What has your training been like since you got back onto the mats?

It’s been ok. I’m still getting used to what I can and cannot do.

Do you have your eyes set on an upcoming tournament?

Hopefully,ADCC trials in March and Mundials in June, if God lets me.

Do you have any advice for other people going through a rough recovery?

Man try to stay positive. It’s hard trust me. I had my ups and downs. I owe all my recovery to friends and family.

Is there anyone you would like to thank?

I would like to thank my brother Hard Core for all he did, he was a major impact. My great instructor Cyborg, who helped me keep a focused mind and positive thoughts. He is my hero, if it was not for him I would not be there. My father and mother, I love them so much and I would not have made it without them. Enrico Cocco for always coming by and checking on me, and giving me positive feedback. He helped me a lot and is a great person. And all of my teammates from Avengers, Fight Sports, Deninho Fight Team, and Zen BJJ, thank you all for the calls and wishes, much love to all of them

Sports Psyche Paper on Anabolic Steroids

2010-11-26T23:32:00.001-08:00

So I wrote a paper my final semester of college on steroid usage in MMA. I tried to be impartial and keep my opinions to myself on what I thought about Steroids. That being said it was a sports psychology paper, so enjoy!

Use of Steroids in professional sports has become more and more prevalent. With the emergence of Mixed Martial Arts (MMA) as a new professional ‘must see’ sport, the governing bodies have started to crack down on the abuse of all forms of steroids. Steroid use has repeatedly been found in MMA fighters and the psychological effects have had more negative effects than positive effects on the performances of MMA fighters. So why do MMA athletes use steroids? And what are the drawbacks psychologically, from using the steroids?

Use of anabolic steroids has for some time been widespread among competitive sportsmen and women, who selfadminister[sic] doses of up to 100 times the recommended therapeutic dose, and use combinations of multiple oral and injectable [sic] preparations.”(Williamson)

Baseball players, football players, and professional wrestlers have all admitted to, or have been caught using steroids. They claim the steroids enhance their athletic performance. The psychological side affects range from

reports of violent, criminal behavior in individuals taking AS(anabolic steroids). Other side effects … are euphoria, confusion, sleeping disorders, pathological anxiety, paranoia, and hallucinations. (Kuipers)

One thing that seems to also be a problem is when the athletes try to stop using steroids, the psychological withdrawl symptoms can be very severe includidng “aggressive and violent behavior, mental depression with suicidal behavior, mood changes, and in some cases acute psychosis.” (Kuipers) In July of 2007 pro wrestler Chris Benoit killed his wife, child, and himself during a ‘roid rage’ episode. The psychological affects can greatly harm not only the athletes, but even the people around them.
In the past eight years, the three major commissions, Nevada State Athletic Commission, California State Athletic Commission, and the Ultimate Fighting Championship have had Thirty one fighters test positive for some form of steroids.

Two fighters, Jeff Monson, and Kevin Randlemann both admitted to using steroids or trying to alter their urine tests to not get caught.”(potato)

In 2007 there were fourteen major professional fighters that had failed to pass their steroid tests. In an article posted on Cagepotato.com an interesting trend was seen “Of the aforementioned fighters who were accused of steroid use after fights, 11 were successful in those fights, while 18 were unsuccessful.” (potato) Two of the fighters in this article were repeat offenders. Josh Barnett and Kimo Leopoldo were tested before their fights and failed; they were not allowed to fight.
The two most common psychological side effects are,

‘roid rage,’ a manic rage where the user displays episodes of outright aggression and/or violent feelings and actions”(CESAR) and “ users may suffer from paranoid jealousy, extreme irritability, delusions, and impaired judgment stemming from feelings of invincibility(CESAR)

Both of these side effects can have very negative effects on MMA fighters during their fights. If the fighter does start having any of the psychological effects of steroids they make the fighter lose focus, which can be very bad. They make mistakes leave openings, and end up being more vulnerable. Another problem that happens, is when the fighters start to cycle off of the steroids, they do not have as effective of practices and training. If an athlete has multiple practices where they perform to a lower standard, or can feel themselves getting ‘weaker’ it can start to negatively affect athletes psychological stability. Not only are the effects a negative, but the Sports commissions have made it very costly to break the rules.
Is it worth it to break the rules for a better physique, and better practices? Many of the athletes claim they had only used what doctors had prescribed to help them get over surgeries, or overcoming major injuries. One of these injured athletes, Dennis Hallmann, said after testing positive for steroids

I honestly think that taking steroids is counter-productive for MMA, they do not improve how you punch or how good you are at subs. They actually hurt your cardio which is the biggest factor in MMA. (potato)

Many others were not even aware they had used an illegal substance, at least four of the MMA fighters mentioned in the cage potato article claimed they had picked up supplements from national stores like GNC and Max Muscle. Not one of them had realized some of their supplements would make them test positive for Nandrolone, an anabolic steroid. In the case of Ken Shamrock his brother commented that “Why do you think he crumbles before the big fights? He's got no psyche. He let steroids give him a false sense of security and the moment that stuff is gone he's no longer superman.” (potato) Losing that edge it starts to make the fighters doubt, and if they do not go in confident, they lose the fight before they can even start. And the governing sports commissions usually fine the athletes, then suspend the fighters anywhere from a few months to indefinite bans.
Athletes in all sports have been coming under harsher and harsher punishments for steroid. With more MMA fighters losing in cases where they have been found to have steroids in their system, it is getting harder and harder to justify using them. They psychological drawbacks to using the steroids do not end up giving the fighters the edge they had hoped for and in the long run end up hurting them even more in the long run.

Cutest BJJ’er I’ve ever met…

2010-11-14T12:59:00.001-08:00

So I have met probably the cutest little BJJ girl ever. Her name is Bailey and she is a very hard little worker. Check out her practicing in class. She’s going to be a champion!

The Blue Belt Triangle Part 1

2010-11-09T12:41:00.001-08:00

Martial arts are hard. I will never nock someone who does a martial art. In many martial arts though it does not take very long to advance through the belt system. For everyone in Brazilian Jiu Jitsu though, it is a little different.The average amount of time it takes to get from white to black belt is 10 years. For many, that is a huge commitment, but when they finally do get there, they are more than ready, and there is a HUGE sense of accomplishment. Making it to black belt for a guy is hard. For a female, it is even more rare. It’s so rare, that at the most prestigious tournaments, they are forced to have brown and black belt females compete together, just so they can fill divisions. I’m not saying that male BJJ black belts are a dime a dozen, because they aren’t. But when looking for a black belt female, it’s like a needle in a haystack.

So where does the decrease start? True there aren’t many females that do BJJ in the first place. But there has to be a point where the amount of females that are in BJJ start dropping off. The points where both men and women start to disappear are relatively close in time. For women, this point is near the end of their white belt, beginning of their blue belt career. For men the point happens a little later, mid blue belt to almost purple belt. I like to call this the Blue Belt Triangle. It is just like the Bermuda Triangle in the ocean. Tons of BJJ’ers enter this area like a ship into the Bermuda triangle, and like many ships, some are never seen again. The ones that make it out of the Blue belt Triangle, tend to be a little battered, hardened but in the long run much better jiu jitsu players for the time put in. My coach Marcello says that other than your black belt, (which you will spend most of your jiu jitsu career at, if you make it there) you blue belt is the place where you will spend most of your time. Sherdog and other online forums are littered with with ‘Blue belt blues’ forums. This is of course different for everyone but blue belt is a huge step. It is also where the biggest difference in skill is at. Think about a brand new blue belt, a few days in, he’s definitely not a white belt, but compared to a guy who is about to get his purple belt. The difference can be staggering. So why does this happen? And how can we maybe get more people to stick with it so the field becomes deeper, and the competition, as well as the technique become better?

I’m going to hit on the women’s Blue Belt Triangle for now. Mainly because just about 2 months ago I escaped this triangle and became a purple belt. As excited as I am for being a purple belt, I know I was already having trouble finding competition as a blue. In my almost 4 years of Brazilain Jiu jitsu I have seen over 25 different females at my jiu jitsu school. Vanessa, who is a brown belt and just had a baby, is the only one that has been there longer than me. out of the ones that I have seen start, 12 no longer do jiu jitsu, or made it our of white belt. 3 are white belts that have been there less than a year. 2 have their blue belts and have moved to other parts of the country. 3 are newer blue belts at my school but do not come regularly now that they are blue belts, The last two are white belts that are advanced and will hopefully be promoted soon.

The biggest obstacle for females in Brazilian Jiu Jitsu is getting started in it. There aren’t many females, and walking into a room full of guys who possibly train MMA or roll hard, is intimidating. Even if a female and a male are the same height and weight, a guy is going to have that physical advantage. Now turn that into pairing a small female with a bigger muscular guy, even just to train techniques in those first few months, it gets down right scary. The first day I went into class there were three females there. So it wasn’t so bad. Vanessa immediately started talking to me and was very friendly. She was a blue belt at the time and made things much easier to get use to. The first time I had to train with only the guys I was terrified and it showed.

I will give the females at my school credit for one major thing though, half of them are mothers and juggle very hectic schedules while still trying to train when possible. I think the pressure of after college, getting careers, or starting a family life, play a huge roll on why women don’t get past blue belt. Many females like Vanessa, Lindsey, and Allison had been doing Brazilian Jiu JItsu, before getting pregnant. While Vanessa just had her baby and still has a little bit until she can probably train again, she was coming to practice even into her 6th and 7th month of pregnancy. Getting back into jiu jitsu after having a baby though is rough. So when they do come back to practice it’s an awesome thing. The major events in our lives can be difficult but there are always ways to work things out.

Probably the most noticeable place to see this Blue Blue belt Triangle is at tournaments. At major tournaments there are tons of white belt females in many divisions. The blue belt divisions are almost cut in half with participants. By the time purple belt comes around there are only three or four females in a division. Finally the brown and blacks, compete together. At the more localized tournaments, there are always female white belts with a few different weight divisions. Occasionally there will be one or two blue belt weight classes, but more often than not, it’s more of an open weight class. By Purple belt, they struggle to find more than one or two if there are even any. I’m speaking mainly from my experience. I’ve not done smaller tournaments on the coasts so I’m not sure how the breakdown is out there. Every year I hope to see more females sticking around. But in the three years I was at blue belt, I never competed against the same girl more than one tournament. They were all blue, but they all disappear.

So what should be done to help keep females in the sport, to get them past that blue belt slump? First, invite friends to train, make friends with your guy teammates’ girlfriends, wives, fiancés, sisters etc. and maybe get them to come in train as well. When there is a new female in class go out of your way to help them, make them feel comfortable, and get to know them. My female teammates are some of my best friends, and almost like sisters. Push the other females in whatever road they want to take in their jiu jitsu careers. If they want to do it just for fun, then push them to come in, learn more technique, and relax at practice. If they want to compete, push them to compete with you, push each other and always make sure to keep each other positive. One of my teammates would feel horrible if we text messaged her and she didn’t go to practice. So every chance we could we would send messages to see who would be at practice to train. It kept everyone coming more often. If you know of girls on other teams, try to visit their school or have them visit your school. Nothing is better than getting a whole new group of girls to visit, and trade experiences with. Try to establish a women’s only class/ team, if your school has a decent amount of females. When there is an option of going to women’s only class, more females tend to stay because they can get use to jiu jitsu before diving into a full class with a mix of men as well. Or at the very least organize a time at an open mat for everyone to get together. Try to hit up a women’s only seminar, or a women’s only competition, etc. Finally, with all of the social networking websites, try to make contact with other women out there that train. The more we encourage the other females we know to keep pushing the more of us will get past that blue belt hump and progress through the belts.

Impromptu Open mat

2010-11-08T01:21:00.001-08:00

So even though it was Sunday Michael and I went over to the gym because a few people were there to roll for open mat/ mma. It was cool, I got to meet a few more of the guys Don and Aaron. Both have mma fights coming up and were working hard on everything. I went with Jared, an white belt who for only a few months of training is doing awesome, and really seems to be grasping how to work hard on only using technique, and trying not to muscle around. The best part is he will admit any time he uses it. Michael and I rolled, of course, and we always go for a while. I tried so many times to submit him, but no way was it going to happen… he’s got such a smooth technique, and it’s great to go with him. After I sparred a few times, Michael went over some techniques he had been working on, showed a bunch of things I hadn’t seen before, I think I’m really going to like this school.

I do miss Indy though. It’s going to definitely be weird not going in and seeing my jiu jitsu family, but at the same time I’m excited to add to it. It’s definitely some mixed emotions. Tomorrow my mom flies home, I move into my apartment, and there is a full day of BJJ! I can’t wait to see the school with classes running! Also Marcello comes Friday for a seminar up here, I’m excited to see my professor! The Gambred team has a tournament, the Revolution BJJ tournament, and a few of the guys are fighting so it’s a big week! I’ll keep everyone posted as more happens!!

I told you changes were coming…

2010-11-02T23:21:00.001-07:00

So for everyone who doesn’t know Thursday November 4th I will be moving across the country to Olympia, WA. This for me is a huge/ crazy step. It is something I need and want to do though. I got a great job with a great company. I have a bjj school to train at out there, and I’ve even got a few people I now know out there.

So Today is my last day at work. The rest of the week I will be packing up my life into boxes, and on Thursday, I do a cross country road trip. I will be at every practice I can get to until then.. I will take pictures, video, whatever I can, because I am going to miss everyone terribly.

To my team in Indiana, I will still try to keep a list of Midwest bjj tournaments updated for you. For my new team, I will keep a new list of bjj tournaments for us. I promise to keep in touch with Indianapolis. I will be on the lookout for belt promotions from you guys, and any time I’m in town, you better believe I will find my way into the school.

I’m so sorry to the ladies on my Indianapolis team… I’m going to miss Vanessa kicking my butt all the time. For Alison and Lindsey, you guys are amazing blue belts and I can’t wait to hear about you getting your purple belts. Easton, keep going to practice, that blue belt is in sight. Beth, keep at it so you can beat up Paul. To any new ladies, keep at it, work hard, I look forward to seeing you when I come back

To the BJJ young adults,you guys are amazing. I wish I had found bjj at your age. Edwin and Mikey, I know you guys will take the bjj world by storm and become amazing blue belts, and eventually black belts. Hollie and Becca you ladies are hilarious, keep everyone smiling, keep working hard, I want you guys to beat me up when I come back to visit. Tony, stick with it, you have some great teammates, and you will be able to progress with them so much.

To the rest of my team, thank you so much for being a part of my bjj family. I know it’s only been four years but I look at you as an extended family. Marcello, you are an amazing professor and I am so lucky to have wandered into your school first. You have shaped my jiu jitsu, and I am honored to be one of your purple belts. I am also so relieved that I found an affiliate school of yours to train at. I don’t think I could fully ever leave the association. Junior, thank you for being my first black belt interview. You are an outstanding black belt, mma fighter, and instructor. I can’t wait to see you compete in both, again. I will miss your attention to all of the details, you pushing me to be better, and work harder. Thank you so much.

I promise to be back, I already know when it will happen for sure. I want pictures of everyone when they get promoted, when they compete, everything that happens.

To Gamebred Jiu Jitsu. I can’t wait to come out and help however possible. You guys have made me feel so welcome, even though I have only been to train once. What ever I can do to help your guys’ game, any questions I can answer I want to help! I love jiu jitsu and hope to make the gym and team a better place.

So 7pm will be my last bjj class for now in Indy. I’m taking pictures, maybe getting video, all will be posted, I love you guys. Now on to the new adventure! wish me luck! Please stay tuned!!!

Product Review: Fight Soap

2010-10-27T23:50:00.001-07:00

Something pretty interesting happened a few days ago, I was approached by the owner of Fight Soap and asked to do a review of his product. Now this is something totally new for me, but I am definitely up for it. My normal skin cleaning regimen had been girly body wash every day, and then once a week I took the dermatologists’ advice and used dandruff shampoo, because I didn’t know where to get anything like Fight Soap. I’m really excited to try some of this soap out after writing the whole article about skin diseases you can get from training. If this stuff prevents it like it says it will, I will know a lot of happy fighters.

Thursday, 10/7, I got the soap and me being me, was super excited. They sent me a purple soap call Vicious Vixen. They also sent me this little yellow sample one, which is called Brazilian Bully. There are 5 different soaps each one with a unique name, and purpose, so I am excited they sent me two to try. The big selling point on these soaps, other than the fact they can kill pretty much anything on your skin that is creepy or crawly, is that they are “made with vegan friendly and all natural ingredients.” So this stuff wouldn’t harm my skin with anything crazy and it was good for the environment. Sweet!

Vicious Vixen

Fight Soap actually has done something pretty cool with the Vicious Vixen. They made a strong soap, for the females in the sport. There may not be many of us females but the fact that they do have something for us in mind, is awesome. I’ve used it for almost a month now and I have got to say I love the stuff. The Vicious Vixen smells amazing and it has Shea butter in it so my skin still feels smooth! The nicest part is no matter how gross and sweaty I am after BJJ I jump in the shower, and the soap makes the gross grimy feeling go away. So I can still smell feminine but not have to worry about if my soap is strong enough.

Brazilian Bully

I’ve been using the Brazilian Bully to wash my face, mainly because it gets a lot more contact with gis and skin… And I’ve noticed I’m not getting the weird black heads I use to get. This is a big plus, my skin is clearing up!! The Brazilian Bully has a clean Citrus smell, great for waking up in the morning. Also the crushed apricot seed exfoliated my skin. Which think about it everything these soaps are made from are all natural. Apricot seeds as the exfoliating ingredient, very ingenious.

The thing I love, that I mentioned before is the scents. They don’t smell like a hospital, or like sandalwood. So far Fight Soap comes in 5 different scents, all with varying ingredients. I will admit the boyfriend is loving the smell of the soap. He didn’t know the smell was the Fight Soap. But after reading this he probably will… One month down and no ringworm, staph, etc. I know it’s only been a month but I am definitely sold. I really like the feeling, the fact it’s getting me very clean, and that I don’t need to worry so much about the nasty stuff you can pick up on the mat. This soap is my new body wash.

All this being said. Fight Soap and any other heavy duty soap made to kill these diseases can only do so much. If you don’t clean your gear, or help keep your gym mats clean, then you won’t be able to prevent everything… sooner or later your luck will run out. So keep you stuff clean, wash with the right kind of soap, and you will keep yourself healthy!

Check out Fight Soap, the Fight Soap models, and the fight soap blog at fight-soap.com hope you guys enjoy!!

Updates, Seminars, and help these guys out!!

2010-10-20T14:28:00.001-07:00

Ok lets do a quick update, Ruben Alvarez is now back to walking! After being on the receiving end of a nasty ankle lock. He’s been working hard though and is getting closer andcloser to being back on the mats!

There are to really awesome seminar opportunities for midwesterners coming up. We can thank Small Axe Jiu Jitsu for putting both of these on so check them out!

There is an Andre Galvao seminar October 30, check it out here It’s a really great opportunity. Andre Galvao is a great competitor and has a lot of good technique.

The next is something that I wish I could do! Small axe is working on doing a women’s weekend bjj camp. Again Small Axe bjj, is trying to put this on, and if i could be here for it i would definitely be going. Check here for the info on the seminar. Seriously ladies of any level should go to this seminar they have Emily Kwok, Felicia Oh, and Val Worthington coming to teach the seminar.

Finally there is one other big thing that I want to encourage everyone to go and do. There is a gym in San Diego trying to help give kids a chance to do bjj even if their family can’t afford it. I’m a major advocate for kids and women’s bjj programs so I have to ask you guys to PLEASE cast your vote for these guys… They are doing a contest to win $5,000 from US Bank to give kids bjj scholarships. Let’s see how many children’s lives we can change.. So please Vote!

I was Interviewed, Wait Hold on A Second….

2010-10-18T14:35:00.001-07:00

That’s right guys I got interviewed. Which is weird because I have never been interviewed. Normally I am the one asking the questions… So anyway I did it for a group called Musica1. Its a bilingual website that’s now all over the Nation. I was really honored to be their first athlete and non latina, that they interviewed. Anyway check it out! it was pretty fun!

I wish I could put the video on here but I don’t have the embed code, anyway check out the link! My Interview it’s at the 22 min mark!

Don’t make too much fun of me, I was super nervous…

Tips for New Students

2010-10-10T20:40:00.001-07:00

Everyone has been the ‘new person’ so in an attempt to make the transition either to starting BJJ or training with a new team, I’ve come up with a list of rules and I have also gotten other people that have been doing jiu jitsu for a while to give helpful suggestions. Like always take posts like this with a grain of salt, they are supposed to be a mixture of serious and funny.

1. Tap out on your opponent.This may sound weird but if you are sparring or even practicing a submission, tap on your partner, not the mat. And do it with some meaning, not just a feather light tap. There are always lots of things going on if you tap on the mat, the sound may get drowned out by other sounds going on at the same time. If you are in a place where you can’t tough the person, say ‘TAP’ loudly and/ or tap with your feet. Doing this may be the thing that saves you from passing out or getting injured.

2. The trunk of your car is bad storage for your gear. If you throw your gear straight into your trunk after practice and don’t take it out till then next day before practice, it will make your gear stink/ and possibly mold. That is gross, end of story

3. If your gear stinks, we reserve the right to not spar with you. Sorry but if you do not follow the above mentioned rule, or if you wait until you smell so bad someone tells you to wash your gear, then we reserve the right to say no. Yes not everyone washes their gi every day, but buy some Fabreeze, preferably the anti-microbial one so it will at least kill some of the gunk on your gi. Most of the time people will endure a little bit of smell, but be reasonable here, don’t make us suffer.

4. When using changing areas or bathrooms lock the door. This should be a no brainer. Close and lock the door. I don’t want to open a partially closed door and run into you changing. You may not care but remember your gym has adults, females, teens, and children. Protect everyone!

5. Knock on said doors before trying to open them. Again some people forget to lock the door, by knocking you can find out if someone is in there or not. Also it scares the crap out of me every time I have the door locked and someone just yanks on the handle and tried to open the door. So just knock, it’s a nice thing to do.

6. Wear something on your feet to go to the bathroom. Bathrooms are generally dirty areas, so going from our mats to the bathroom bare foot, in the socks or wrestling shoes you were wearing on the mats, is just gross. Buy a pair of cheap flip flops and put them on every time you leave the mats, or keep your shoes by the mats and put them on before gong to the bathroom, it keeps stuff clean.

7. If you find something weird growing on your skin, get it checked out before coming back to class. It’s that simple, if that infected hair isn’t looking right, you have weird bumps or sores, or a round red spot on your skin get it checked out before going to practice, don’t infect your teammates, if you’re not sure what I am talking about, see THIS article.

8. If you are a larger person/ muscley please be aware of your weight or strength. In my case yes I may be a purple belt. But that only helps me so much when I have a guy that can bench 3 times my weight picking me up and tossing me. Or if someone twice my size has side control and is trying to suffocate or squeeze me. From experience, my 5’3” 120 lbs can’t handle Your smaller teammates will love you if you learn to balance and not use all of your weight/ strength on them

9. While some catch on faster than others, no one becomes amazing over night. With the exception of BJ Penn who got his black belt in 3 short years, jiu jitsu is a difficult sport. The people that have higher belts have been right where you are and know that it can get very frustrating. One day in class you will just kind of hit you how much you have learned or how much you have grown so far. So keep working this sport does take time!

10. Sparring in class is not Mundials nor any other big championship. Use this time to make mistakes, and fix them. Sparring in class is to try new techniques, to think and make game plans. Please don’t go full out against your teammates, someone could get hurt. Most of all relax and have during class!

11.While sparring, move for higher belts. That’s right, if you’re sparring and you get to close to another pair, whoever has the highest ranked person rolling gets to stay, the lowest one’s have to move. It’s just courtesy. Now occasionally everyone is even, whichever set can move easiest and restart in the same position, moves. There will be some times where higher belts will move for lower belts, like when the lower belts are in a place to finish the match (submission), or the lower belts are much bigger and the higher belt moves to get out of the way of whatever is going on. But generally speaking, move for the higher belts.

12. Please do not call it ‘Jits’ yes we all like to shorten the name of the sport some how. Brazilian Jiu Jitsu is a long name, but there are already jiu jitsu or BJJ, how many names do we need to call it? Besides, there are a lot of people that have been in BJJ a very long time, and really don’t like hearing it called that.

13. While there is some good technique shown on Youtube, most of it is bad. We all like to watch video of technique, read the books out there, take notes, practice at home, etc. You need to be careful about what sources you are using. Many good jiu jitsu coaches have websites and online video tutorials. Many will have a couple free tutorials, with a membership you can buy to see the rest. Those are the best online sources. Using Youtube to supplement your game is like using only Wikipedia as a source to write a paper for school… Not smart. Anyone can post anything on Youtube. There is some god stuff but most of it isn’t legit. If you’re going to use it, make sure the person teaching the skill is good, many of the top competitors have one or two videos up, but leave youtube for looking up opponents past fights, or watching top athletes compete.

14. Remember to relax! You’re here to learn how to do a martial art, specifically BJJ. BJJ is the ‘Arte Suave’ it’s really hard for your teammate to help you through a technique, if you are so stiff your arms are shaking. If you remember during technique to stay loose and relaxed, the techniques become easier. If someone comes over to help keep loose, listen to everything they say then try and move, occasionally they will put you in the right place, don’t resist, just go with the flow!

15. And finally! If you have a question, just ask! If you don’t know how to tie your belt, if a technique just isn’t going right, or you just aren’t sure ask someone! The higher belts know what it was like to be new, the white belts that have been there a while know how it was to be new we all are willing to help but if you don’t ask, we don’t always catch it. If you’re shy, look for someone on the team that is always talking to every one, or has a smile on their face, and of course the instructors will always try to help. The more questions you ask, the faster you learn!

Those were just 15 basic things that should help out anyone who is starting BJJ, or switching/ visiting a school. Some were meant to be funny, but all of them are there to be helpful. I hope it helps someone new. If you have been training a while hopefully it made you reminisce, or made you think about how to help out those new people at the gym. Either way hopefully it affected someone!

Big changes may be coming.

2010-10-08T09:54:00.001-07:00

So for those of you who don’t know me very well Iam a recent college grad. When I graduated, I didn’t have a job lined up, I couldn’t find one anywhere. I reverted back to lifeguarding which was something I have always done and loved. Well it doesn’t pay well for someone with bills, and student loans. So I have been actively seeking jobs. I have found a few, and one of them is calling me in for a second interview. The only thing is it is literally across the country. In a totally different town, state, region, etc. But the good thing, and honestly one of the reasons I agreed to apply for the position out there, is because there is an affiliate school, close enough, that I will be able to still do BJJ in my free time.

So What does that mean for now? Well it means next Thursday I will be in another part of the country doing my second interview, visiting the BJJ school, and just seeing how everything goes. The good news I get to visit an affiliate school! Train with them for a day, meet everyone, and watch some of the students fight in an MMA event. The bad news, well I’m not sure about bad new yet but I really am excited to go out there and visit Michael Proctor, and his team at Gamebred Jiu Jitsu.

Fight Soap

So this group called Fight Soap got a hold of me and requested that I do a review of their soap. I just got my sample, and I’m excited to try it out and see how it goes! I think it’s a great that I’m getting to check some of this soap out. It kind of goes along with the post I did about what you can get from the mats. You can check out that post here. So look for that post coming up soon.

There is a new BJJ poll up on the right hand side, please feel free to vote! If I can get a good response on it I will try to find good video of the winning guard position.

I have a few shout outs. Congrats to my blue belt teammate BT for an awesome showing at the Michigan Open on 10/2. BT got third place, and is a pretty hilarious guy if you have never met him. Every school has a comedian of the team, well BT is actually a comedian, he gets paid to make people laugh and he’s always keeping us in good spirits at the gym!

Secondly, good luck to John ‘Sampson’ Correa at the US grappling Chicago this Saturday! We wish you all the best and let us know how the tournament is!!

Finally, I have to shout out my friends over at BJPenn.com, Erad, Jofil, Filharmonic, Munks, Benjii, Eddie C, Miss Hillary of Penn Academy, and to anyone I didn’t name I’m sorry! Thank you guys for the support! you know I’ll be in there chatting away whenever I can!

And finally, as crazy as this sounds, in the month of October I have already gotten over 1,000 views already! Thank you everyone for reading! Please give feedback I love to hear what you guys want to see. If this keeps up I plan on building a full website and seeing what happens! So stay tuned!!!

Apparently I’m now Sponsored by the BJJ Lifestyle!

2010-10-07T11:42:00.001-07:00

The past few months I have been working on getting sponsored by the BJJ Lifestyle/ BJJ legion. After a bunch of fun/ crazy missions I am now sponsored! So anyway any time I end up succeeding in completing a mission I will go ahead and post it on here.

So here is the car with her newest sticker… YAY BJJ LIFE.

And because I’m always on my computer, blogging and such I decided to put the Life/ Legion stickers on it too…

So if you guys haven’t seen the stuff that is on the BJJ lifestyle you will definitely have to check it out. They have super affordable gi’s, t-shirts, lifestyle belts, just crazy stuff! The guy in charge of it Luke, is pretty hilarious so even if you don’t buy anything, just go on there and read his posts, and the crazy stuff he comes up with.

Kind of a stinky Week

2010-10-03T17:27:00.001-07:00

So this past week I have definitely been a little under the weather…. Strep Throat will do that to you. I’m finally almost totally recovered though, YAY! Unfortunately I was bad enough I only was able to go to jiu jitsu once this week, and after techniques I was so wiped sparring and specific training weren’t an option.

I’m also working on a few blogs but unfortunately while waiting for other people to come through I’ve been left with a few mostly finished posts, so I am going to do a few things with this one. #1 I am going to talk about the newest addition to the BJJ family, #2 I am going to post some pictures that i forgot about from the UFC and #3 I am going to put video up of a technique that I like, and want to learn more of.

Say a big olá to Olivia Marie Riviera! She is the newest addition to the BJJ family! She' has one tough Momma in Brown Belt Vanessa Smith. Anyway I wanted to wish well to Momma and baby. I can’t wait to see them both around they gym!! Vanessa and baby Olivia actually inspired one of my earlier posts, which you can check out here.

Ok so I found a few more pictures from the UFC weekend, and I’m still trying to get a hold of the last few… Dumb camera of mine kept messing up. Thankfully I have people who took pictures, it’s just trying to find them… Anyway here is Mr. 10th Planet, Eddie Bravo and I. And then Herb Dean and I. Crazy week way to many pictures, I need to find the rest!!

The final thing today is a highlight technique that I definitely want to learn more of. I was shown this video a few months ago and I keep watching it because it’s something completely unique. Roberto ‘Cyborg’ Abreu has made it famous. If you don’t know who Cyborg is, he is a black belt, who competes at Super Heavyweight, but his tornado guard, is something that has really made me want to try it.. I have a friend who trains down in Miami with Professor Abreu, and I actually hope to visit him and train with the team, this video kind of pushes me to go sooner rather than later..

Anyway check out this intro to tornado guard. I will be trying to do these during open mat until I can get them right!

To all of my friends who competed at No gi Pan Ams great job!!! I believe a few of you medaled if you send me your names I will definitely do a big shout out!! Keep working hard and training hard!

UFC 119 and the Post Fight Press conference.

2010-09-26T20:21:00.001-07:00

Enjoy the random pictures, video etc from my adventure last night!!

Dana White Herb Dean and I

Weigh Ins!!!! UFC 119

2010-09-26T18:30:00.001-07:00

So thanks to some more dumb luck I Ended up meeting Dean Lister Thursday night. Pretty awesome right? Well Friday he ended up helping me out some more by having me come with him to the UFC weigh ins where I got to sit pretty close, with all of the teams of the fighter’s… Holy heck how did I get here?? Like I said it was pretty awesome to see everything. Everyone was really nice. The would come up and joke with me. I talked a bunch with Dean about jiu jitsu, and MMA. Dean actually is a very smart man. He was teaching himself Croatian, but already knew how to speak English, Spanish, French and Portuguese. Again pretty freaking cool. I’m going to try and interview him for a black belt spotlight.. ok here are the videos I got at the weigh ins!

UFC Press Conference pics and video!!!

2010-09-23T12:46:00.001-07:00

Well I got to go over to the UFC Press Conference today…Pretty cool I won’t lie. Standing a few feet from the main fighters was cool But by far the best question of the evening was Matt Mitrione asking Chris Lytle if there was a fire Saturday night was he on call and would he have to go take care of the fire? I’ll try to find the clip because his reply was awesome. but enjoy some of the videos and pictures!!

I wish the frank mir pic wasn’t so blurry. I’m waiting to get my ryan bader pic too….

UFC Hunter Strikes again!

2010-09-21T14:37:00.001-07:00

I found Waylon Lowe at the Airport! he was a good sport! Enjoy the little interview!

Look who I found walking downtown!

2010-09-21T12:56:00.001-07:00

Yep that’s right look who I found downtown Indianapolis! Click and enjoy!!

The UFC in Indianapolis!!

2010-09-21T06:35:00.001-07:00

So this week the UFC comes to Indianapolis and along with that I have decided to run around the city looking for UFC fighters, Dana White, Joe Rogan, and the ring girls, caude heck why not have fun and get some great video? These little segments are going to be called UFC hunter, Kind of a spoof off the croc hunter, so we will see how this thing works out!

At the moment I’m sitting in on the pro MMA class. Chris Lytle is here. He’s been cracking jokes, talking about Sonnen testing positive for PED’s, and how guys his age can’t have after parties at nightclubs. Everyone is getting ready joking and having an all around good time. Practice started and everything is more serious. Some of the guys are working stand up, others are listening to Marcello who is back from Brazil, and showing jiu jitsu techniques in the other room.

A Random Blog of Updates.

2010-09-15T18:46:00.001-07:00

This blog is going to hit on a few quick topics! Honestly none of them are long enough to stand on their own so I figured I would put them all together.

First off, I randomly get free gear sent to me, and some of it doesn’t fit or at this point, I really don’t want, be it because I don’t think it looks good, or I have too many pairs etc, already... From now on if I get one of these objects, and it has to do with BJJ I will be having little contests on here. If you win I will find a way to get it to you ok? Sweet! I have a few little things right now, so I’ll work to put something together as a contest!

Secondly, with the end of the year coming up, there are fewer and fewer tournaments to do. Just the nature of the beast. There is one October 16th, though, that I would LOVE to have a good showing of Team Monteiro at. Honestly we have a great group with great techniques, I think out team could place if we just had more people show up to compete together. Not only that it’s more fun to compete when you have your team there to cheer you on and keep you relaxed. It’s the Bluegrass BJJ Open in Louisville, KY. It’s not a huge tournament, like NAGA where you sit there the whole day and don’t leave until late late at night, but the price is preregister $60, and at the door $70. Pretty good for a gi and no gi tournament. And if it’s your first tournament, that makes it all the better, low pressure situation. The team that puts it on are a good group of people too.

Athlete Spotlight Updates

Omar Sabha, has had about a month off of school. He has been travelling around the Middle East.

In UAE I trained with a Machado brother and that's it....In Jordan I trained daily with Zaid Mirza BJJ....who are having the first MMA tournament in the Middle East in a few weeks, as well as the second biggest BJJ tournament, the Capital Challenge here....

Omar will be returning home to his team of Brazilian Top Team Long Beach in November. You’re almost home Omar!!

Ruben Alvarez, has been rehabing his leg, and still watching every bjj video he can get his hands on. He found out 9/13 that he is on crutches for 4 more weeks. Injuried like his are hard but he’s keeping his head up, studying and visiting class. Step by step Ruben, keep your head up!!

Joao Herdy Junior, was supposed to fight September 11, 2010 up in Wisconsin. Unfortunately his opponent was way over the allowed weight class, and the Wisconsin gaming commission would not allow the two to fight. So the next time Junior gets a chance to compete or fight I will plan on having the full information as quickly as possible!

Third, since about July I’ve gotten over 2,200 views to my blog! thank you so much to everyone who reads it!! Honestly it makes my day to see people are reading it, that I’m getting feedback on my posts. I’ve still got a few ideas on things I can’t wait to write, but as always I LOVE getting feed back, and ideas for articles. So please do not be shy if you want your opinion to be heard. Also, ideas for jiu jitsu polls are always welcome!

You guys are great and I hope to keep my blog growing! I may do a few video blogs, we’ll see how it works!!

Working for NAGA

2010-09-11T13:40:00.001-07:00

So for everyone who doesn’t I kind of stumbled into working for NAGA, a group that puts on Brazilian Jiu Jitsu tournaments, about three years ago. It has definitely been a huge help in my Brazilian Jiu Jitsu career. It’s helped me understand what goes into putting on a successful tournament, how brackets are made, the rules and how they can sometimes differ from tournament to tournament, and finally, as they have evolved over the past three years, I have seen the changes, and what changes make everything run a little smoother. This past weekend was the NAGA Midwest. After the Last NAGA they had in Chicago had an insane amount of people come to the tournament, Kipp Kollar decided to make the tournament two days, instead of the traditional one. This made the tournament run much faster, and keep everyone, including the workers much happier. Up until this most recent NAGA I had been on permanent table worker. Which is fine by me I like being able to help people out and make brackets, occasionally I would referee when there was a need. This time though Kipp actually told me to referee some, because he wanted me to ref more.

On the first day of competition, we had adults compete gi and no gi. I was at the women’s table getting everything set up and was happy to see all of the new females. When I was a white belt I felt lucky to see more than two females at a NAGA, but this past weekend, there was enough white belt and beginner females to have three or four weight classes an d multiple females in each weight class. I ended up having to compete because a purple belt did end up coming to compete. Her name is Fatimeh, and she apparently has been to the Olympics for tae kwon do. I had no idea, I just knew there weren’t any other females to compete against her, and NAGA keeps me around for the reason that just in case, I can jump in and fill out a female division. In no i I pulled guard, got her to the ground, and almost had an omoplata, when she went to defend I swept her and landed in a really akward position, I was in guard but facing the wrong direction. she wrapped her legs around my waist and I worked to get out but she grabbed the ankle I sprained a few weeks ago, and heel hooked me (heel hooks are allowed in the expert division of no gi at NAGA)… it stunk, and hurt but it was an interesting learning experience.

Before gi, Junior (see black belt spotlight) was giving me advice on what I should go for. He flat out told me just got for a flying armbar, she doesn’t want to wrestle you, you can set it up and just go for it. So I took his advice and went for the armbar. I almost got it too, she was surprised I had gone for it, and I’m sure if it was something I practiced a little more, she would not have been able to defend it. Anyway, no more making excuses, she got out and backed away, so I rolled back got to my feet and when she charged me I landed on top of the scramble. So again I was leading by points. I’m not sure exactly what happened after that but she kept grabbing my fingers and pulling/ twisting them. She then wrist locked me (wrist locks are allowed at purple belt in NAGA, i didn’t realize that until right before we started.) So both times I was leading by points, had good submission attempts, and even though she was about 30 pounds heavier than me I held my own. Next time I work for NAGA I think I am going to train like I am planning on competing there, just in case.

A few of my other teammates competed in Chicago. Jake won his blue belt division. Easton competed in both gi and no gi, she won her white belt gi division, and

After the first day of competition, we all went out to eat, after I ended up just going back to my room and crashing. Sunday was all of the kids divisions. I got a great surprise when two of the kids from Marcello’s showed up to compete. They got to be in different weight classes which was even better. Gabriel and Brandon? both went beginner, and won their gi and no gi divisions. I didn’t get to see gabriel compete but brendon was on my mat and I got to watch every one. He submitted his opponents easily, even after a few of them scored points on him. After he won his gi division, we needed someone to fight intermediate and he willingly competed in intermediate. The best part was, Brandon won!! Gabriel originally was in the novice division, but I convinced his parents to move him up, because after we moved him up to beginner he still did an amazing job and got first place. It was awesome to see Gabriel win since he has only been training about three months.

Overall it was a great event NAGA had about 800 competitors over two days, and from what I could tell everyone was fairly happy. I had a blast working with NAGA again, watching the new female competitors, and even getting to ref. There were a couple added bonuses, like getting to spend time with a guy named Mike Reyna. After talking to him and learning about his time in BJJ I decided to make him the next black belt interview I do. So keep your eyes peeled for it!

Black Belt Spotlight: Joao Carlos Herdy “Junior”

2010-09-08T11:03:00.001-07:00

So I finally got the chance to do an athlete spotlight with a Black belt! And to kick it off, I am using the first person I ever met that did Brazilian Jiu Jitsu. Joao Carlos Herdy “Junior”. I wandered into Marcello C Monteiro’s Brazilian Jiu Jitsu school and Junior, who was a brown belt at the time convinced me to come back when Marcello was there and talk to him about trying out the class. After I started Junior seemed to be a staple in the school, giving people little tips and hints to improve their game. When he left there was definitely a hole at the school. Junior recently was able to come back to the United States and started with a bang. He won his black belt division at the Arnolds, started teaching and training back at Marcello’s and won his first MMA fight back in the United States against Dustin Neace. With everything he does Junior seems to live, eat and breathe the sport. He pays attention to every little detail, and during class, he makes sure to point out every one, then he makes sure to stop and watch every person do the technique.

At his young age, Junior had some great responses. He has an amazing view on Brazilian Jiu Jitsu and MMA. He was also the first person I got to interview in person, which is a totally different experience, it is a little more interesting to see the responses people have to the questions. So I hope you enjoy Junior’s interview, and take something he had to say away with you !

How old are you?

Where are you from?

I am from the mountain range of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

How long have you been training BJJ?

11 years, I started when I was 12.

When did you get your black belt, and from who?

Marcello C. Monteiro, in my home town in Brazil. I got my belt when I was 21

What got you into Brazilian Jiu jitsu?

(Laughs) Do you want to know the truth?? I started really young and I started because of girls. I saw girls my age with older ex boyfriends, and the ex boyfriends were beating up guys my age that would date their ex girlfriends. I didn’t want to get beat up over a girl. So I started with judo but the school was too far and I had a classmate who was about to start jiu jitsu and Marcello’s and invited me. I started with my classmate and we even got our yellow belts together.

What do you like about BJJ?

The simplicity of the controls. You learn how to not depend on your strength you learn how to combine speed, pressure, everything. You learn about your body and about your reactions. you learn more about yourself.

What was one of your best memories so far from BJJ?

Every day on the mats, every day I am on the mats is a good memory, because everyday I’m around friends. Sure there are tournaments, but I love every day on the mats. That is the secret to doing this every day!

Are there any black belts that have influenced your game?

Many if not all! I used to watch a lot of Margarida, when I started jiu jitsu. Saulo, all of the old school guys, I grew up watching them.

How old were you when you did your first MMA fight?

I was 17. I did 5 fights at 17. I got my only loss on my fourth fight, it was against Brian Garidy. I started learning wrestling muay thai boxing, I started to learn different martial arts all at 17.

What made you want to do an MMA fight?

I was a purple belt, I was training with the guys from Integrated Fighting like Chris Lytle. Someone just asked me to do a fight. I did it just to see how I would react. I never fought in the streets because of the BJJ, and I wanted to test myself.

What weight class do you fight at?

I fight at 145 lbs.

What do you plan on doing in the future with MMA?

(Smiles) To be one of the best. I would just like to be one of the best MMA fighters, I’ve been training for it and I have the team for it.

Do you prefer competing in MMA or BJJ?

I can’t compare them. MMA is technical, but you have to be really aggressive and want to hurt your opponent. Jiu jitsu is more technical, more smooth. There is adrenaline in both but it’s used differently, and you have to learn to use the adrenaline right.

Do you plan on competing in BJJ or MMA again any time soon?

Yea! I’m young I can compete in everything, I have nothing to lose. I am always looking for fights, and look forward to doing another again.

* Junior will be fighting in Wisconsin September 11th. More information will be up soon!

What advice can you give BJJ practitioners?

We all have those days where we’re not felling good, or don’t have the ‘mojo’. Just go to jiu jitsu and leave your problems at the door. Relax and have fun every day we are learning and changing our game. Don’t be lazy (laughs)

Is there anything else you would like to add or talk about?

Thank you very much for the interview congratulations on your purple belt and like BJ Penn says, “the belt is just an accessory!”

What is That on Your Leg?!?!

2010-08-30T21:28:00.001-07:00

So we all know that possible trading of germs comes with the territory of doing a sport where we are in very close contact the WHOLE time. But some people don’t know what exactly they are. So this post is going to be all about those lovely little infections you can get on your body by competing, Brazilian Jiu Jitsu, MMA, and whatever other martial arts on these mats. The types of skin infections can be separated into bacterial, viral, and fungal. I’m going to try and hit on the most common ones, that way if you do get one, you can get it checked out and know how to get it taken care of.

* Writers note, there will be labeled pictures of the infections… I’m warning you now. So please don’t be mad at me!

Bacterial

Normal bacterial infections found in grapplers, mma, etc. are impetigo, staph, folliculitis, cellulitis, and probably the most dangerous, MRSA. Guys these are bacterial, most can be taken care of easily, and prevented easily.Take a shower after every training, use clean gear, clean towels, if someone has a weird looking mark, ask them to get it checked out. It’s not just their health its yours. You don’t want to end up unable to train or compete because you let a bacterial infection get too bad. Impetigo, staph, folliculitis, and cellulitis, can all be taken care of in the early stages by topical ointment. If it gets a little more advanced then an oral medication may need to be used. If it gets really bad, possible surgery to drain the area, and if you let it go too long, gangrene can set in. So don’t let is get that far.

MRSA on the other hand is more serious, it’s a Methicilin Resistant Staph. Basically with this strain what has happened is because of the overuse of antibiotics, MRSA doesn’t respond to the normal stuff, you have to use very strong, antibiotics, and have the area surgically drained. MRSA is also highly contagious, and depending on how bad your case is, you may get quarantined for a few days. I actually do know more than one person who has gotten MRSA and ended up in the infectious disease ward at the hospital. MRSA is serious guys,there are a lot of complications that can happen from it, and MRSA can be fatal if ignored. MRSA looks like a boil, an infected hair, pimple, spider bite but it wont pop, and they become very painful abscesses. The main noticeable thing is how painful it can be. Just keep in mind that is a bacterial infection isn’t getting better, get it checked out!

Fungal

So fungal is probably the smallest group, there are one of two things you can get and they are related. Ringworm, and tinea versicolor. Ringworm’s name changes with the location but athlete’s foot, ‘jock itch’ it’s all ringworm. Ring worm looks exactly like it sounds, its a pink itchy ring on your skin. The tinea versicolor looks like a white rash, sometimes with small bumps. It’s usually not noticeable until the person gets someone and there are lighter color blotches on the infected area. Both are easily transmitted, so competing or training really aren’t options until you have been doing treatment for three days. Most ringworm on the feet and body can be taken care of with anti fungal sprays. If it does not respond or the area is big, you may need a prescription strength ointment, or even a prescription oral medication may be required. There are other ‘home remedies’ to kill ringworm, fast, but most do more harm to your skin than good. Use the stuff that is made to kill the fungus. After you have started on treatment cover the area with a CLEAN bandage or wrap until it is completely gone. Ring worm outbreaks at a gym take a little bit to get over with. So do your part to help contain it!

Viral

The main viral infection grapplers and mixed martial artists need to worry about is a version of the herpes simplex virus. It’s actually been given it’s own name, herpes gladitorum. Herpes Gladitorum, is like the cold sores you can get around your mouth, except it can be found on pretty much any part of your body. With that being said while an athlete has an outbreak they should not be training. It can spread on their skin, and to other people much easier. All that has to happen is skin to skin contact. There are antiviral treatments that can help speed up the recovery and return the person back to practice but while they have any form of sore, they can’t be training.

Plantar warts (verruca) are another virus that can be spread. The easiest thing to do is if they are small try the OTC wart remover kits. If they are bigger go to a doctor so they can freeze or burn the wart off. If you let warts be they can multiply, and it ends up becoming painful.

Those were the most common skin infections grapplers and mixed martial artists get. There are some really easy things out there to prevent getting these infections. First off make sure you’re always wearing clean gear, that way nothing gross can grow and multiply on your stuff. Second, take a shower after EVERY practice, if you practice in the morning and night shower after both. Along with showering, get a bottle of Selsen blue, and once a week use it as body wash, or there is even a specific soap called Defense Soap that has been marketed towards the Martial Arts community, it can be found on some of the online MMA stores. It’s a great way to kill anything extra on your skin and prevent things like ringworm. Finally probably the only thing you can’t control is how often the mats and gym gear is cleaned. That is up to the gym manager or coach. But possibly offering to help clean the mats will make sure it’s done more often. Hope everyone found this a little informative. And sorry if any of the pictures grossed you out!

The Friday before, and Nationals!

2010-08-24T19:56:00.001-07:00

Friday the 13th, oh that just sounds bad. Ok so Friday we were able to go to morning practice one more time. I only went through techniques though, no sparring. I just rested and watched BTT train, joke, and have an overall good time. I asked questions, watched people spar, and just tried to soak everything in.

So after a good morning class, we ran back to the house to make sure we had everything we need for the trip to Nationals. After a few false starts, we finally got on the road to Vegas!! The drive was interesting, I got to experience rush hour traffic. I’m not going to lie, the traffic was horrible. Once we got a little further away though, the traffic seemed to melt away. and we drove through the desert! Sorry I’ve never gotten to see a desert and being able to drive through it was pretty cool. We finally got to Vegas later at night, I was refusing to eat just because I wasn’t sure where my weight was and didn’t want to have to worry. We stayed in the Rio casino, it was amazing! Go figure the Rio hotel for a Brazilian jiu jitsu tournament…

Saturday was the tournament. Normally I would talk about the matches I won highlighting the details of everything I did well, and kind of glaze over the one I lost, just kind of acknowledging it but not going into detail. This time I will be different though… I’m going to talk about the match I lost, because for me no gi is my weakest point. I don’t train it near enough. Now that I’m a purple belt I really do need to make sure my game is stronger, force myself to train the positions, and techniques I don’t like as much. So the match I lost. Well it went the full time, I lost 2 advantages to 1. And my main mistake? I didn’t hold side control. I thought I did, thought I got the 3 points for passing guard, but I was too low, I didn’t establish complete side control and the girl got me back in her guard. I kept my head too low, so she could control it. So nothing but my fault. Actually Marcelo Perdomo, the black belt who had let me train with his team at BTT Long Beach, had told me to keep my head up a few days before. After the match, he looked at me and asked me if I knew what I did wrong. I told him kept my head down and he told me right. So yep I know what I did. The girl had really hard legs to control, I wont lie, and she was strong. So after that Marcelo told me to compete gi, that my gi game is better. I kind of knew that I just really wanted to make the tournament hard on myself. So hopefully Gi Nationals in September will be on my list and I will be able to show some technique there!

After I competed, I ate some really fattening pizza, had a Pepsi, and watched the rest of the tournament. I did get third place, which is nice, I just wish I hadn’t missed my chance for finals. So next time I will work harder!

Athlete Spotlight: Ruben Alvarez

2010-08-20T22:05:00.000-07:00

I met Ruben last NAGA Chicago, I had just gotten over tearing my bicep tendon and wasn’t able to carry the boxes full of swords. Ruben helped me out, and we spent the rest of the weekend talking about Brazilian Jiu Jitsu, tournaments, and what it was like training in different areas. Ruben comes from Miami, an area that is brimming with Brazilian Jiu Jitsu. Ruben has had a rough past couple months, losing a close friend, and teammate, Peter Bivona, during Mundials. And most recently suffering a pretty severe injury he got during a no gi absolute match. The amazing thing about Ruben though, is he has accomplished so much already. I’m positive with his determination and passion for jiu jitsu, he will easily come back better and stronger. I can’t wait to see what he does when he gets back on the mats.

What is your belt rank?

Purple belt under Roberto ‘Cyborg’ Abreu and Mike Cardoso

How old are you?

How long have you been training?

4 years

What team(s) do you train with?

I train with Fight Sports South Beach, Extreme MMA, Deninho BJJ, and Zen BJJ.

What are some of the bigger tournaments you have won?

I am Grapplers Quest Beast of the East Champion, and a winner of many super fights, and I have beaten many nig names, and submitted multiple brown and black belts.. I’ve won multiple Grapplers Quest and NAGA tournaments. I placed third at the Abu Dhabi trials. I am ranked number 1 in no- gi in Florida at 139 lbs.

What got you started in BJJ?

I use to do Aikido, and I heard about BJJ. So I watched videos and saw Royce Gracie kicking people’s ass so I left Aikido and went to BJJ.

How has BJJ influenced your life?

Brazilian Jiu Jitsu is my life.

What BJJ practitioners do you look up to?

Roberto ‘Cyborg’ Abreu, Mike Cardoso, Enrico Cocco, Master Deninho, Boca Olivera, Pedro Torres, Jordon Schultz , Hillary Williams, Mike Wacker, Renato Tavares, Xande and Saulo Ribero, Terere, Jeff Glover, Ryan Hall, Cobrinha, Rafael Mendes and Gui Mendes, Andre Galvao, Justin Rader, Rafael Lovato jr , Alexandre Pulga, Tarsis Humpreys, Marcelo Garcia, Patrick Leber, Emilio Urrtia, Jake Mackenzie, Marcel Goncalves, Incredible Ribiero, Pablo Popovitch and his team, Dustin ‘Clean’ Denes, Gabriel Samurai, and my big bro Ricardo Rezende.

What techniques have interested you recently?

Well I’m getting credit for my 50/ 50 guard a lot of people have been asking me about that and my half guard. But I have been interested in different types of guard passes and things you will see when I come back. I am starting to switch up my game a lot.

Can you explain a little what happened at your last tournament?

I broke my leg against bjj black belt and Bellator champion, Hector Lombard.

What are you doing to keep up with jiu jitsu?

I’ve been talking to my coaches and to my teammates. I have been reading read books watching videos and instructionals of many different players of the game. I have been visiting my teams at the school. I am still involved with community even though I'm out.

When do you get to start physical therapy, and how has everything been going since the surgery?

I'm getting stronger everyday. I just have to take it one day at a time. The physical therapist says I'm healing faster than she has ever seen someone, and making huge progress.

What are your plans when you get back to jiu jitsu?

I am just going to train lightly until I am back to 100 percent

Is there anything you would like to add?

I wanted to thank my family, God, coaches Cyborg Mike Cardoso Enrico Cocoo and Mestre Deninho, all I love dearly. To all my teammates I miss them and will be back soon. And last, a special shout out to Peter Bivona, my brother who will be missed. I love you and miss you bro. Jiu jitsu is not the same without you and you are deeply missed. And to Kaitlin for the interview and support. Thanks so much.

Training with Brazilian Top Team 8/12/2010

2010-08-17T13:29:00.001-07:00

So because of me, I won’t lie, we were late to morning practice with BTT. It was no gi class though so it was definitely a huge help. I ended up getting paired with the toughest thirteen year old I have probably ever met, Little Rudy. Rudy is probably about the same size as me and a strong kid. He does the adult classes, and kids class. I’m not sure how long he has been doing BJJ but he’s a very serious kid. I was super sore from the day before and definitely underestimated him. I was planning to go light and work through technique but Rudy was ready to go and caught me in a tight guillotine. After that I was like ok, I have to compete in a few days, you got great technique but I need to roll light is that cool? after that Rudy not only showed off how much technique he had, but he also showed how great of a training partner he could be by changing the intensity he practiced with. I really hope to hear how he does in the future. I also invited him out to Indiana because I think he’d have some great training partners in Mikey and Edwin, two of our teens, who like him, love bjj. After that I trained with another guy, who unfortunately I forget his name! I’m so sorry! but I believe he was a white belt, had only been training a little while but was definitely hard to control. He had a good base and he really was great to train with because he wasn’t too much bigger than me. Finally I trained with Marcelo and he absolutely kicked my butt, started pointing out the mistakes I was making and pushed me through two rounds of sparring.

After sparring we did a few more errands, had a pretty healthy lunch of turkey burgers, and shockingly went back to the beach! This time I brought my bjj stuff with me so we weren’t late to practice.

Night class was MMA ground for an hour, where I learned a few cool little tricks, and again went with Marcelo. I tried to remember the pointers he showed me but I made a few of the same mistakes, and learned my lesson!

During gi class, I only worked techniques, all three black belts told me to sit and rest during Sparring. During this time I met a few more people on the team, talked abuot jiu jitsu, and watched the rest of the team spar. Probably the most interesting guy was someone named JP. He’s a gigantic guy, with a crazy sense of humor, and this bottle….Yes Bottle. Marcelo had gotten JP a bottle they use to feed baby cows, and JP uses it every day. So of course, pictures of this had to be taken…

JP and his Baba

Thank you guys for being such great sports!!

Wednesday August 11, Long Beach

2010-08-16T21:37:00.001-07:00

These past few days I have spent in Long Beach, California and Las Vegas, Nevada. My time I spent in Long Beach was with Marcelo Perdomo, and his team at Brazilian Top Team. After hearing my fiasco with losing sponsors, my friend, who was supposed to go to Nationals with me, getting to injured to compete, etc. Marcelo invited me to stay with him and a visiting Black belt Diogo for a few days before No- gi Nationals to train and then go with the rest of his team to Vegas to compete. So after everything crazy I agreed and had an amazing few days in Long Beach! I got off the plane Wednesday and it was off to practice immediately. Morning practice with BTT, was a little rough, I didn’t sleep the night before and after the first two trainings I was beat. We went over some open guard techniques, sparred, I went with Kristen, a really strong blue belt, and with Professor Marcelo.

After class Marcelo, Diogo, and I got sushi, ran some errands, and then I got to try my hand at surfing. They had an extra board which was awesome, but the water temp, was a little colder than i was used to… 64 degrees and trying to surf in a bikini? Not so great of an idea… I tried, but unfortunately low waves and cold water sidelined me. After that it was just getting cleaned up and back to practice. Night practice we worked on some sweeps, actually sweeps I had only seen my team practice. It was kind of crazy because normally Marcello Monteiro and de la Riva schools apply it, and I was really surprised to see Brazilian Top Team showing and practingit. I actually practiced the sweeps with a another visiting Black belt named Jefferson, he and I talked about training at other schools. What some of the little details that were different between what was being shown and what he had originally seen. It was cool because while talking about the techniques I pointed out a few details he hadn’t realized and was impressed I had noticed them. Jefferson had taken a little bit of a break and was getting back into doing Brazilian Jiu Jitsu he gave me advice, and encouraged me to visit teams whenever possible and that it would be an amazing learning experience. After lightly rolling with Jefferson and Professor Marcello, I finally had to cal it quits. I was too tired and my body wasn’t responding.

Back at the house after practice I got cleaned up, and while Marcelo, Diogo, and one of their friends tried to fix the bed frame to the bed I was supposed to sleep in I ended up passing out on the couch. No sleep, flying in, all the jiu jitsu and trying to surf had me unconscious. Luckily Mopar, and Lulubell kept me company. They did wake me up when the bed was ready though, I don’t remember, but I guess I got myself to the bed and just went right back to sleep.

I wish I would have been able to stay awake later though. Apparently, Marcelo grilled out and made some really good food. Diogo told me about it in a mix of English and Portuguese the next day. That was pretty much it for day one, I know not too horribly exciting but tome it was amazing. I being able to train that much, and make it to the beach all in one day was a dream come true. In all of the down time, we talked about BJJ, some of the history, how the lineages worked, and how different jiu jitsu is state by state. Also Diogo being around was really cool. He had just come to America not too long ago from Brasilia, Brazil. He doesn’t know much of any English so I tried as much as possible to speak Portuguese/Spanish with him. He has such a passion for jiu jitsu that even though he couldn’t completely communicate, whenever he taught, or helped out in a class he got his points across very clearly. He would ask how to say different things, and told us to correct his English because he wants to get it right. Day two will be up soon!

getting the surf boards ready

‘My’ board

Athlete Spotlight: Omar Sabha

2010-08-07T16:41:00.001-07:00

Omar is someone I met randomly through Facebook.We had a few mutual friends, and ended up talking a ton about Brazilian Jiu Jitsu, and how it is evolving differently in different parts of the world. Like me Omar decided to study abroad, and has been able to travel quite a bit and compete in Europe during his stay there. Omar has a little more time left in Europe but he has a few pretty impressive championships already under his belt, and it will be really interesting to see what he does once he gets back.. I will leave the rest for him to talk about. I’ve probably said too much already…

What is your belt rank?

Purple Belt, given to me in August, 2009 by Marcelo Perdomo, a black belt under Murilo Bustamante.

How old are you?

Thirty years young!!!

What divisions do you compete in?

I compete in the 181 and under division, middleweight, as well as the open class, I love surprising big guys….

How long have you been studying Brazilian Jiu Jitsu?

I started with BTT in February 2007, and trained BJJ occasionally, but the passion wasn’t sparked until I was asked by Marcelo to compete in the Pan Ams 2008. Only then did I start taking BJJ more serious. Ever since then, trained at least five days a week, a minimum of three hours. The last year and a half, it was more of an obsession. I would train with the infamous four o’clock crew, take a thirty minute break, help teach the kids, and start BJJ class at six o’clock and wouldn’t leave until nine pm. I sometimes get the question as to why I got promoted so fast, and my answer is simple, I did enough mat time equivalent to three years probably more. There were many instances where I wouldn’t take days off for two or three weeks. With that being said, I agree, I still believe that sometimes I am a blue belt. However, BJJ is not about rank or belt, but rather a life long journey, and I am here for the ride….

What team or teams have you trained under?

Brazilian Top Team is where I started, and where I will always be. Currently I live in Prague, Czech Republic, and the head coach, Fernando Araujo, trained with Brazilian Top Team and Carlson Gracie. He is a black belt under Rordrigo Medieros, (a black belt from Carlson Gracie), which so happens is from the same lineage as my coach. The academy in Prague is Jungle BJJ, and has some amazing people on the team.

I have also trained at Team Mirza in Jordan. I was extremely happy that the country where I was born in has an exceptionally high level of Jiu Jitsu. The guys over there are amazing Just this year, they had a few European medalists. In addition to the great competitors, they had a huge kids program, so I am very excited for the future of the sport in Jordan.
I also had the honor of training at Chris Reese academy. Chris Reese is a stand up guy, with A LOT of skill. All of his students are well coached and they have some amazing grapple rs. In the European Championships, I fought Rob Taylor in the final, and after that, we became friends. I have nothing but great things to say about Rob. Although, I will admit, when I rolled with him at his academy, he was gunning at me, but I still had a blast training with his team. (hahaha, JK).
That is the beauty of Jiu Jitsu, on the mat, we are competitors, and off the mat, we all share this common passion that makes us great friends. I hope to go back to visit Chris Reese and Rob before I return to California.

What major tournaments have you competed in or won?

The most recent tournament is the European Championships, a tournament where I placed First in my division, and tied for third place in open. I got snubbed on the medal, but I didn’t care too much, I came in with goal of getting gold in my weight class, and achieved that. It was my first IBJJF medal, and it was by far the best one so far.

I have competed in several tournaments and medaled, South Bay, Grappler’s Challenge, Grapplers Quest, ADCC, COPA Pacifica,….those are just a few off the top of my head, I have competed a lot off tournaments. Those who compete will tell you, not only is competition addicting, it also serves as a measuring tool to gauge where your BJJ stands. I firmly believe my game has improved tremendously as a result of competition so much.

What got you into Brazilian Jiu Jitsu?

The adrenaline rush of controlling your opponent, along with the physical endurance that is necessary to excel in the game, makes me LOVE this sport. I have always loved fighting, and physical activities, so this sport just made sense on all levels. I also enjoy the fact that success in BJJ is more than physical strength, but also a chess game. It is whoever, is faster, sharper in their mind will end up excelling, Of course, having strength doesn’t hurt.

Explain from what you have seen are some of the major differences between BJJ in America, and in Europe.

At Jungle BJJ, the main difference is that people here refuse to tap, it is somehow against their culture to tap, I don’t know why. The style is traditional old school Carlson Gracie, smash and pass. A lot of physical strength is involved in the game here. Which is great for me, because it helps me focus more on technique in order to be successful
When I was in Stockholm, it seemed to be more about finesse and use of flexibility. I really enjoyed training with team Hilti in Stockholm. A few of their black belts have received their belts from Murilo.
From the conversations I have had with a quite a few BJJ practitioners, the best in Europe are from Oslo, Norway, and train at Frontline BJJ. I have officially put that city on my must visit list.

How often do you train right now?

I train only twice a week, bjj is not that popular in Prague, and we only have classes MWF. However, I have classes on Friday, so i am basically stuck with twice a week. A stark differencece between twice a week in Prague, and twice a day, seven days a week of training back home. However, At Hilti, in Stockholm, there were classes daily. I hope someday BJJ catches up in the popularity as other parts of Europe

What are some of your favorite techniques?

Half guard sweeps are my favorite, and I love GI chokes from side control.

What do you look forward to when you come back to America?

I can’t wait to start training full time, four hours a day. I can’t wait to make my mother crazy because I am washing two gi’s a day. (my number one pet peeve, an unwashed gi, if your gi stinks, I will not roll with you, straight up, or I will go extremely hard and try and finish you just so I can move on to the next person) Hanging out with my BTT family members, Brazilian bbq’s, eating some home cooked meals….just to name a few….

Is there anything else you would like to add?

Extending a welcome to anyone to come and train with the Brazilian Top Team family in Long Beach, CA, or if you are interested, come train in Prague, Jungle BJJ….Both facilities are great and provide a very productive learning environment, and most of all, it’s a fun fun atmosphere!!!

The Plan for this Blog.

2010-08-05T07:57:00.001-07:00

Ok so I should probably give everyone a brief overview of what I hope to do with this blog. First and foremost it will be a mainly Brazilian Jiu Jitsu blog that branches occasionally into MMA, wrestling, muay thai, etc. What I want to do though, is have any tournaments that I go to will be put up on here, with any major fights being highlighted, and possibly even a few interviews from the tournament. I am gong to try my hardest to get interviews from coaches, and black belts, I don’t know how good my connections are, but believe me, I will use them to hopefully get good ones as often as possible. I really want to be able to show how BJJ is affecting different areas or communities.I hope that the Athlete spotlights, will become a weekly article. Some of the ones I have in mind are

Manuel de Celis, Gracie Barra Sevilla
Omar Sabha, BTT Long Beach, but Living in Prague
Ruben Alvarez, Fight Sports South Beach
Vanessa Smith, Marcello C. Monteiro
Mike Reyna, Champion Jiu Jitsu
Jean Phellippe, GB Montreal
Luke Summerfield, Neutral Ground

And finally, I have been offered by a few different teams the chance to visit and train, either by the coaches or by students who have become friends through jiu jitsu. I already have a pretty long list of schools that I can’t wait to visit. Here they are in no particular order, including where they are located.

Brazilian Top Team Long Beach. Long Beach, CA
Fight Sports. Miami, FL
Team Helio Soneca. Louisville, KY
Champion Jiu Jitsu. Chicago, IL
Gracie Barra. Chicago, IL
Robert Lovi BJJ. San Diego, CA.
Texas, there are a few schools out there.

I am sure there is one or two that I am missing, and if there are I am truly sorry, let me know and I will update the list! Team Marcello C. Monteiro is always my home, but I have to say thank you to everyone who has invited me to visit!

So yea! there will be the occasional random post put in here of course. I can’t promise I won’t ramble, because that is normal for me… I really look forward to seeing what I can get done. The next main articles will be training with Brazilian Top Team, Long Beach; and interview with their coach Marcelo Perdomo; and my experience at No Gi Natoinals in Las Vegas, Nevada.

As always suggestions are not only welcome, they are encouraged! If there is something or someone you want to see, let me know and I will try my best to get it done! Stay tuned, this is about to get very busy!

Turning 24 and Celebrating it My Way.

2010-08-04T19:33:00.001-07:00

So Saturday the 31st. was my 24th birthday. non of my family was able to be home but I found my own way to celebrate it. The night before I went with my friend Lauren to have sushi, and quite honestly, it was amazing sushi… After an early night, I woke up super early, and drove up to the C-3 tournament put no by Braulio Corral. Since getting my purple belt i gussed there wouldn’t be any females to compete with, but I brought my stuff just in case. I didn’t really want to compete on my birthday, but I wanted to cheer on my teammates. So when I got up there we ended up having a group of the kids compete and they all did amazing jobs. After the kids Easton competed for the first time in the adult women’s division. She got first place in adult white belt absolute, and second in the no gi women’s division.

After that I really did not see many of the fights. Braulio needed extra help with refereeing. I actually got to referee the rest of the gi divisions. I have to admit it was a lot of fun! It’s kind of stressful. There are coaches on the side that are trying to coach, but at the same time if they do not think you are doing a good enough job at keeping the fight moving they yell at you, or they are arguing points/ advantages. So you have to tune everything out and watch. The worst part is when there is no score. If there are advantages given it’s better but it’s not fun when there is a tie and you have to decide who wins. At the end of the day I ended up making a few good contacts from the Chicago area.

Oh and I got two great presents for my birthday. My younger brother Collin got me a Jiu Jitsu Progear ranked rash guard. M parents said that they would pay my entrance fee for No gi Nationals. So now I’m pretty much all set! I can’t wait to go!!!

Hitting a Huge Milestone.

2010-07-29T13:43:00.001-07:00

Monday night after working a fairly long shift at the pool I went to train with my team. Marcello was back in to and having a seminar. He showed a bunch of great half guard positions, and some new submissions to work on. It was overall an amazing seminar, and it was great to have Marcello back in town.

Not only was it a seminar but Monday night was a stripe and belt promotion. Many white belts were given more stripes, a few blue belts were awarded stripes. Even Big Mountain and Brad Maddox two of the brown belts were given another stripe on their belts.

Pat McPhereson who has been training on and off with Marcello since the very beginning was promoted from his ‘permanent’ blue belt, to purple belt.

After Pat was given his purple belt, Marcello turned his attention towards me. He said a few words then awarded me my purple belt! I was a nervous wreck I won’t lie. I’m very honored that Marcello feels I’m ready for my purple belt and I want to do nothing more than represent the academy as well as possible. So now there is even more to work at. Competition will be much more difficult, with even less females at the Purple belt level. So now I’m going to work hard to just better my teammates, be a good teammate, a good competitor. and Keep everyone informed of anything coming up.

I am so blessed to have a great team, great coaches, and people to support me. You guys definitely make every practice better!!

An Interesting Weekend

2010-07-19T20:35:00.001-07:00

So this week has been a little bit of a ride. It started with the doctors deciding I needed to get some blood work done, which came back with one of my hormone levels being off, and a few other things. So more blood work and getting that taken care of is in my near future. It’s nothing dangerous or life threatening, but it’s something that needs to be taken care of, to better my standard of living.

So after finding out my main sponsor has moved to another country and sut down his company, I’ve had to look for other ways to get funding for no gi nationals. So a few things will be happening. I’m looking for new sponsors, and will not wear anything from my old sponsor to no gi Nationals. Leaving it to the last minute to inform me really stinks. But with stress and adversity usually comes opportunity. So that brings me to my fund raising event to get to No- Gi Nationals. I’m having a Car Wash!! That’s right, what better way to raise the funds than to do a car wash? So here are the details. It is July 25th from 12:30 to 6 ish. Donations only, and I have friends who are promising to help out! And it’s going to take place in the parking lot next to my bjj school. So if you need your car washed, live in Indiana and want to help out please come! I promise it will be a great time!

Over 100 Views!

2010-07-12T13:33:00.000-07:00

Thank you so much to everyone!!! I've had over 1000 views on my blog in a very small amount of time!! I just wanted to say thank you to everyone who has been reading, who have answered any of the polls, and who have decided to subscribe and follow my blog!!

I have some great ideas for the blog that I will be going into detail with later! I just wanted to say thank youand much love!!!!!