You win some, you loose some.
This one I lost.
17 in the class, which is huge for a Monday! Everyone had a few quick rounds grappling then we ran through some sweeps and countering Standing passes.

In theory these were some pretty simple techniques but after a day from hell, I had a class from the swamp!! Here's what was covered.

-- Back Sweep. Partner stands their balance is tilting backwards.

-- Front sweep variation. We attempt a back sweep but our partner squats and grabs our lapel or head.

-- Counter to My favourite sweep. If your arm is free, simply swing it across partners face and post out again.

-- If your arm is not free, post up on the same foot to stop the roll.

-- The reverse of that is the Guard player gains control of the other arm and sweeps the opposite way.

See even the blog sounds like the class.....

Background is below in another post...

--

Ok here is some background just to help you understand where my head is at these last few weeks.

Daffodil day, Fathers day, my birthday, wedding anniversaries, etc etc etc!!!!!!!

It pisses me off how one-minute things are fine and dandy and the next you're on your arse with no idea how you got there or how to get up!
A little over 4 years ago Mum, Dad and my Mother in law all passed away in the space of 6 months. (The fact I was a Mummy's boy doesn't make it any easier) So there are certain times when things are going to get a bit sad and depressing. I'm pretty good at not dwelling on it but when you're in a week full of reminders it becomes extremely difficult to face..

GSW is a hugely positive thing that was born from a hugely negative time. Sometimes I get to the mat and it blows me away to see so many people who are as hooked as I am. Sunday is a classic example. 4pm was the time I chose to train so I could get home then go to Mum and Dads for Sunday roast.. The Sunday dinner has gone but the class time has stayed, and it's the biggest class we have.

You have no idea how strange it is to have a class full of people at a time that has a personal significance to me. So usually I'm not joking when I ask what the Hell you’re all doing there!!!

So Monday sucked, and as a result class sucked and I guess this is my way of letting you know why and hoping you'll understand? If I confused or alienated anyone, sorry, not personal I can assure you. Thanks for taking the time to read this and feel sorry for me. Now get back to your own life!!!

Oh and tell your parents how you feel about them, as they are not gonna be there forever!!!!!!!!!

I downloaded this last night and JD just sent it to me again, so I thought I would let you all have a laugh as well. !!!
Back Flip mov file 1.4meg

Finally got in touch with AR and took him some Jigsaw mats for him to use at the gym. Now his game will improve at a faster rate. :) That'll be scary.

Class today: 20 in the class, We rolled for 30 min's then split into groups and covered Syllabus stuff. There were only a few separate groups but it didn't flow very well and I think I'll have to re-asses how we do that in the future. Awarded SJ his first stripe.

Today I got to MVD early and decided to join in with JR's class (Much to his distress). I've got to say I thoroughly enjoyed myself! He covered a lot of stuff but it all fitted together very well.
-- Stand up, fighting for the back to setup a takedown.
-- Figure 4 setup from closed guard
-- Making space, when we loose control of the person in guard.
-- then kicking out to gain space to regain our feet.
-- Fighting from guard for sub or to regain our feet.
-- Stand up, fighting for takedowns.

Great fun!!

Got an invite to a very special wedding on Monday. Very nice invitations, not sure if I can go though as it is in the South Island and on a Monday. :( Will have to try some wangling at work and see what I can come up with.

Who is it?? It is IS.

Buy me something you bastards!!! :)

I don't know why but recently there has been quite a lot of activity on the BJJ NZ site. (www.bjj.co.nz) and I have had quite a few 'random' enquiries through the site. People in Wanganui, New Plymouth, Gisborne, Hamilton and far south all want someone to train with. I have also personally been contacted by 3 different people who want to attach themselves to our club or BJJ NZ.

Of course I'm more than happy to help where I can but the fact is that I have no time!! Here's an example. I go to work at 5.30am Mon to Fri, finish around 6 - 6.30pm (12 hrs) then pick up Dorothie from Aerobics and head home... Answer emails for 30mins and try and grab something to eat, then off to class at 7.30pm. Get home around 10 - 10.30pm and crash!!

Tuesday is a night off but I usually end up answering emails or updating sites. (www.gsw.net.nz) Same for Friday night. Saturday and Sunday are spent with Dorothie and doing house stuff till 3.30pm on Sunday then it off to class and home again at 6.00pm. End of week. Which means not enough time for other people or pursuits!

I would love to be like John and travel the country teaching BJJ to anyone who wanted to learn but it's not something I would give up my day job to do. There must be some answer and I hope that I can find it, as I think there a re a lot of people who want BJJ but cannot find anywhere to train.

Smaller class for a Thur, just under 20. Set everyone in Side Control and let them start from there. A couple of absolute beginners, who struggled a bit but still enjoyed the class.

Covered Basic Sweep (Sissior Sweep) and Hooking Sweep. Everyone got the Basic Sweep but strugled like a bastard with the Hooking Sweep!! I don't think it helped that I couldn't speak properly and my brain was not connected to my mouth.. Finnished with a crash course on Back Sweep, most of them were able to nail it pretty good.

After class I rolled with AR, damn but he's gonna be a handful when he gets some skills. Just too big and Strong. Also rolled with MT he's still far to hesitant and when he gets a dominant position his weight is all wrong, but like AR he is far more active when stuck on his back..

I wonder now how people see me?? It must be hell fighting someone bigger, stronger and more skilled than you. No wonder they all seem reluctant to step up and roll with me in class. Looks like I'm gonna have to take it to them.. :)

Speaking of which, Big Doug is coming next week. That should bring me back down to earth!! :)

Pretty much just grappled all night. There were about 17 in the class which is not bad for a Wed. I had planed a class but when it started I changed my mind and just rolled for the night.

MA damaged his knee grappling PS and is off for 6-8 weeks, which sux as he really had just started to get back into it after his last injury. Looks like he's heading the same way as MH. Not good for him or us, I think.

Grappling Class 15. 40 mins grappling 4 min rounds then covered off 2 knee ride escapes.

First controling the knee ride leg and hipping away to your knees, finishing with a single leg shoot.

The second controling the far leg ,then the mid section and hipping away, focusing on keeping the support arm locked straight the whole way through.

Again touched on starting from the knees, giving everyone the option of choosing their starting position, eg: Guard, knees, side-control etc. It's important to make the distinction between drilling or practiceing from these positions and Starting Grappling from these positions.

Fundamentals, 20ish in class. Started with light rolling for 3 rounds then covered of some "from Knees" concepts. Although it is not a realistic starting place it is at least neutral.

Then we covered a couple of basic mount escapes, Elbow Escape, Bridging escape and hip thrust escape. Tried to convey the idea of working the escapes in combination as many times a single attempt will be thwarted.

Finished with sparing for 2 rounds before the ladies took over.

Big Doug from Aussie is coming to NZ to ski and visit family. He will be at the club for at least 1 session on the 1st of Sept. It will be great to see him again after so long. He recently won the Will / Machado Purple Belt open at the Nationals last week.

Here is a post from the BJJ forum on the UG. It's gold from a BJJ black belt, giving advice to a student who says "The More I learn the worse I get"

From: Gordon Hester
Date: 08/21/04 04:58 PM
Member Since: 01/01/2001
6717 Total Posts Ignore User

Unless you have a foundation for growth, information becomes chaos. I learned BJJ focusing on a few basic questions.

1. How did I lose my base or how did I take someone's base? This is most important aspect and foundation of BJJ?

2. If I was being controlled by my opponent, how do I take that control away from them? This enabled me to focus on answers to any problem my opponent could throw at me.

3. How can I become more effecient with the application of BJJ by using movement over strength? Whenever I felt my opponent controlling me with strength or using strength to muscle through a technique, I examined ways to use circular movement and space to be more effecient at applying the concept of base.

In the end, I have a couple simple principles that allowed me to better understand and apply BJJ. If you don't master they questions and continue to examine them every time you hit the mats, additional techniques will only be create additional chaos. Take the time to understand the details of any technique before you move to the next one. You know you master a technique when you can apply it is a real situation. Best of luck with your training.

I've noticed that the official Machado Jiu Jitsu www.machadojj.com site has gone. JJM has had his site revamped and I assume the main portal is being done as well. In the mean time I have revamped my www.machado.tv site using the old official site. Confused??

I copied the old Machadojj.com site a few months ago and now I'm just using it as a portal for the Machado Brothers until their site is online again...

Dave Meyer has finally decided to change the Masterclass Curriculumn's to DVD format. I've tweaked the site and changed the postage rates for him. The DVD should be much better and hopefully more widely received.
www.grappling.us

More news for www.bjj.com.au with 2 new Brown Belts in Geelong. Also added a new article to the site http://www.bjj.com.au/john_article_web.html
The article is from John's July newsletter.

I have added to a Royce post on the undergroundBJJ forum and already the Royce sportzah clip has been downloaded 10 times in a few hours. :)

www.bjjbooks.tv is not performing as I had hoped, but it is still early days. The bjj.com.au site is large and linked by many site on the net so it's placings are very good as a result.

Last weeks classes were good but the absence of Blues on the mat on Thursday was a bit disappointing. Still it was a big class and we worked through side control issues for the beginners. Without the Blue belts present I was not pressured to smarten it up as most of the class were quite happy with the basic skills being taught.

Wed we did a crash course on Johns seminar content, quickly covering off on some of the skills he taught. I think we will do it again this week as I have seen several people pull the escapes of in class recently.

John has mentioned that he may stay for a couple of days in November which would be a huge boost for the guys.

Results from the Machado Nationals and news of two big promotions including George Sotiropoulos to Black Belt and Dave Hart to brown belt. More at www.bjj.com.au .

Yesterday was the Will Machado Nationals in Melbourne. Once again I was unable to get there and also missed out on seminars by Rigan Machado today. Hopefully someone has taken pictures so at least there will be something for the website http://www.bjj.com.au/.

Class today was pretty good. About 20 with 1 new guy. Covered side control, initially with partners just grappling from the position and then covering concepts on escaping and holding. We also did the first basic drills to reinforce the need for position. Finished class with a couple of quick rounds.

DM and AR grappled with DR making a couple of small mistakes and being unable to return, also he was concerned with hitting the wall which I think distracted him. I grappled with AR and contented myself with testing his mount and choke defence, both of which he handled quite well. TA had issues with leaving his head up when caught in side control but was not pressured by any of his partners so I quickly reaffirmed the need to defend his head/neck when underneath.

AR was at MP's party and I had gone to the right place, so I'm damned if I know what went wrong???

Well today is the Australian Machado BJJ Nats and here I sit at home on my PC waiting to hear about it second hand.

I really should have been in Aus taking 1000's of photos and Video footage, but you can't have everything. Thats 3 years now that I have missed, not a good thing for the BJJAU site. Also to top it off I also miss out on the Rigan Machado seminars... Damn that sux.

So tonight I decided to head of to M and PS's party. Well I hope I'm the only one that couldn't find the place otherwise it'll a very small party for sure.

Ok, so I'm finally getting the hang of this interface. :) Hopefully I'll find time to fill this sucker up with content. Maybe once a week on Friday shouldn't be too optimistic. :)