BJJ Intermediate 17 in the class.

Started with a lite warm up then sat 5 pairs in the mat and they rolled. Then rotated the pairs with the rest of the class. Great opportunity to see what other people are doing when grappling.

Unfortunately I think I broke Ko again. God I hope not as he would be as gutted as me. :( Rolled with a good cross section of the class. After watching JK grappling I awarded him with his 1st stripe. The time he spend grappling Ichi has really improved his defensive game.

BJJ Fundamentals 23 in class

Today we covered Open guard skills. My game is a top game and when I'm on my back I tend towards closed guard as my preference, this is something I want the students to shy away from so we will concerntrate on open guard a bit more.

Really just worked basic skills, using hooks, all 4 weapons, keeping head away etc. Then we covered a couple of very basic open hook sweeps moving into butterfly guard and butterfly sweep.

After class Jack Grappled with a new guy and ended up getting KO'd. pretty scary stuff as it didn't look like a hard hit, but clearly it connected with a sweet spot. Thanks to MP for taking control and looking after Jack for me.

Gotta run now I'm late for class. :)

He'll probably not like this but what the hell. News from Dan:


Hi all
Just come back from 4 days in Chiang Mai. Amazing!
On Tuesday,after a couple hours of yet more temples, I went to a
snakefarm just north of Chiang Mai. There were 3 crazy snake-men
who fired these reptiles into a frenzy(one snake escaping into the
rapidly fleeing crowd) before completing death defying 'snake kissing'
type stunts. One dude got bitten on the arm, but he just laughed ot off
as crazy thai snake men do..
The Night Bazaar was alright ............ if you want to buy shitty, cheap
crap - shirts, shoes, watches, gemstones that aren't, hideous thai
crocheted things, dvd's that dont work. It was all abit tiring. Most of you
know shopping's not my strong point.
The next 2 days were great however.
I went in an orgainsed group of 15 pharang(thats whitie I think) with 3
guides, up to stay with some Hill tribe people.
Met some cool people. Ate some interesting food. Shat in some
altogether unsalubrious places.
We went bamboo rafting - thats when you pole yourself down the
murky river in a long narrow raft made of bamboo.(Looks like
Huckleberry Finn - you can imagine.)
Than elephant riding on this bad tempered beast which I named "Smelly
Hairy bastard", cos he was.
When we got back to Chiang Mai I had a genuine Thai Massage - and I
know what you're thinking, but it was a proper cultural experience, with
no happy ending.
Then yesterday I took a day trip up to "The Golden Triangle" Where
Eddie Murphy made that movie ; )
We took a long-tail boat which zooms up and down the river between
the Northern end of Thailand, and Burma, before depositing us on Laos
Island, where there's a market set up for stupid pharang to buy more
stupid shit.
I did give in, and bought a bottle of snake whiskey. It taste pretty rough,
but for 80baht (bout $3) I can hardly complain, or see straight.
Got an overnight bus back to Bangkok, where I'm sitting writing this,
then off down to Kho Phanang on another bus tonight. It saves $ on
accomodation. The down-side is I currently smell like the elephant I
rode.
How did Wellington's game go this weekend (and last w/end by the way)
Dan

This weekend I sat here in my cave and Made a DVD for my brother. He didn't need it, or want it and the footage used is now over 5 years old! But hell that didn't stop me doing it and making a special trip to give it to him. I'm a sad sad individual.

I also made a new web page. Don't now why but I did www.mvd.co.nz now has it's own club web site with a news page and everything. It should also help with search engine placement. Not that we need it, but the Karate club listings are not as good as they could be.

Here's and example.
Go to www.google.co.nz type in BJJ Wellington. My listings. 1,2,4,5,7, & 9
now type martial arts Wellington 1&2. Now Karate Wellington. Nothing, in fact they have had to put a payed listing in (at the top right) What gives?? Hopefully the new site will rectify the problem!?

17 in Class tonight, we covered some aspects of a top game, starting with just moving from position to position using our weight to hold down our opponent.

Then we covered moving from side control to mount, and back, without loosing control of our opponent. Firstly we used a very low Knee ride to achieve the transition then we progressed onto a flowing transition with emphasis on moving rather than controlling.

Adding to this we covered going from Knee ride on one side to Knee ride on the opposite side and also changing our height to compensate for their movement. Then we finished by putting it all together in a fast moving transitional drill with resistance from our partner.

19 in class tonight.

Warmed up with rolling and 1 step.

Then I tried a new concept for grappling class, with 6 pairs (12) rolling and 6 people watching. Then changing when the focus pair got a sub.

Two things became apparent,
1) A lot of people are just rolling for the sake of rolling and not really focusing their game.
2) People are having trouble capitalizing on the superior positional control. Eg when JM gets side control, he puts too much emphasis into holding rather than subbing.

So the focus needs to go onto the finish a bit more, everyone has good positional awareness and control, now it needs to be converted into subs.

Awarded Alex and Jack with their first stripe. Well done guy's

Check the comments in the site news below, there are a few words from Ichi!!

Just up loaded the new GSW site.
New galleries and a bit more organised??? I think. :)

Anyway have a look and let me know what you think.

www.gsw.co.nz

22 in class tonight. Grappled all night, played pass or sweep for a few rounds.

A lot of people seem to have reached a plateau in their training, as the questions put to me after class were all concerning a perceived lack of progress. I could only put it down to the night and the few fine days we've had. Everyone's minds seem to have stepped out of winter mode and are now looking hard at where they are and where they are heading.

It was great to see KR back on the mat for a grappling class, I hope everything is alright today buddy. Several people mentioned seeing Ichi on Sunday on TV1, if anyone happened to tape it please let me know.

BJJ Fundamentals Class. 20 in the class today. It was good to see the return of MA after a knee injury and KR returned from holiday.

Class today was escapes from the bottom.
1) Basic side control escape, to Guard
2) Side control, Underhook escape to knees
3) Switch base side control escape, (push the opponent away with a stiff arm and roll to your knees.)
4) Basic headlock escape to back, (when your arms are free)
5) Rolling headlock escape (when your arm is controled by your opponent)
6) Side control underhook escape to back / side back

It's important to be able to escape from headlock position as initially escaping sidecontrol with an underhook exposes your head and allows your opponent to assume a headlock control.

Underhook and Pillow defence are your best means of escaping Side control and you should focus on being on your side as soon as possible to begin your escape before the opponent pins your back to the mat.

Fundamentals class 20 in the class.

Tonight we covered some basic sweeps and sweeping concepts.

1) Basic Sweep
2) Reverse Basic sweep.
3) Basic hook sweep
4) Modified Hooking sweep, removing the supporting leg.

As some of you are aware Richard is leaving us very soon!! He runs a highly successful Kids Martial Arts club in Wellington and is loath to close it when he goes.

So he has asked if there is anyone that would be willing to take on the role of mentor for a group of very keen little grapplers. The students have well and truly been bitten by the grappling bug and has had some phenomenal success at the SJJ comps in NZ.

If there is anyone interested in taking Richards offer please contact him at class or let me know and I'll pass your info onto him.

Pretty much Grappled all night, also had a few rounds of Pass/Sweep.
Ichi's last night with us and I spent a good 30 min's just rolling with him to try and pick up has game or some of his tricks!!

Apart from that he tooled me all over the mat, even went sleeps for a while. :) It was a fantastic experience and I know the little guy will be sorely missed by a lot of us. It was clear from Ichi's reaction at the end, that he will miss us as well.

I wish you all the best Seiichi my friend and I hope to see you again one day. :(

Ichi and Dion took care of class tonight. Ichi took the 18 students through his favorite Passes and subs.

1) Knee through pass variation
2) Hook/open guard pass.
3) Variation on 2, when the opponent follows with their hook. Do the Ichi hip switch in mid air to unstick the hook.
4) Mounted, attempt a cross lapel choke, if they defend, ride high on the arm and armbar.

Finished class with pass/sweep and a quick roll

Here are a couple of pic's from Melissa from Saturday night at Kazu.




Ichi with his card done by Ivan



The crew

The new GSW patch's are done, they are the new Richard Wood design. Big size and will cost you $10 each. I will also get some shits or Sweats done if anyone is interested?


Don't forget you can get GSW gear online at Cafepress:
http://www.cafepress.com/gsw,bjjnz

Added some shit to the Bob Jones Site
www.bjma.co.nz

20 at class tonight. Keeping to the "Fundamentals" theme we covered Chokes.

1) Cross lapel from guard
2) Guillotine from Guard
3) Lapel half Nelson from Side mount
4) Back Choke (Rear Naked Choke)

No girls at class tonight so there was no Womens only class, so everyone stayed and grappled for another hour. Grappled with AR, SI and JQ. Actually had several rolls with AR and gave him a few pointers on his game.

Tomorrow Ichi is going to take class with the help of Dion. So everyone should make the effort to get along and learn some of his stuff!!!!!

As I'm sometimes wont to do, I was just checking the listings in google.
A search on Google.co.nz for bjj nz listed the first 13!!!! links as mine or linking directly to mine!!!

Damn I'm a geek..... :)

http://www.google.co.nz/search?hl=en&ie=UTF-8&q=bjj+nz&btnG=Search&meta

Went along to the MVD match fights for a look before heading out to dinner. I was only going to stay for a couple of fights but there were so many people I knew fighting that I ended up staying till the end of the fights.

Very entertaining stuff and it was good to see Kyokushin in action. Particularly liked watching DS in action and I thought he was the most technical fighter of the night.

It was also good to see Moray, Paul and Sensei Chris take on the big guy. But a draw??? Come on, your kidding right??? :)

Anyway, grabbed some blurry photos and some shaky videos for you to see here>

Photo gallery>>


Video Gallery>>

Also here is the link to the DS K.O that I have mentioned:
DS K.O Brazil>>

After that we headed out to Kazu for dinner to farewell Ichi. I must say that I had a good time but was disappointed with the numbers that came along to say goodbye. Someone mentioned there might have been some kind of ball sport on that night so I assume that's where everyone was? :)

Anyway a good night was had by all and the food was great, very nice place, I think we should all get together more often, maybe someone could form a small social club at GSW??

Got some footage of Ichi and Dion rolling and also a cool photo of the blues on hand after class.

The MVD display by Ichi and Dion is not going ahead as there really is not enough time to fit it into the card. I also believe that it would be of no benefit to us.

Martial arts demonstrations at a martial arts event always seemed a waste of time to me. The people watching are there to watch their style/friends and usually aren't that interested in what other people are doing.

Ichi's farewell is still on, 8.pm Kazu 13 Tory St!!!



Mel, Dion, Ichi, Geoff and Nick



Seiichi "Ichi" Murao and Dion



Seiichi "Ichi" Murao and AR



Dion and Ichi QuickTime MOV file 6.6meg

20 at class tonight: with quite a few regulars missing.

Continued on the fundamentals theme, covering the figure 4's.
Started with warming up, using side control drills, then hip out drills.
Then,
1) Figure 4 from Mount
2) Figure 4 from Side Control
3) Figure 4 from Guard
4) Figure 4 from top Control

After class, rolled with JM and AR, grappled them both in exactly the same way, using the same skills and resistance. Just trying to see how easy it is to gauge the difference in skill level and thought processing.

I found it very helpful as it clearly highlighted the difference between the two and their reactions to prompts. Big difference was in the speed of their escape response. AR was slower to react to a change in my top position, whether as a result of a positional change or a reaction to an attempt to escape. Where as JM was moving as soon as I shifted position or opened a safe gap.

Big AR posted this in the comments but I think it's better out here :)

"Yep, i got a heap o' mats but no-one to roll with!
Had to resort to grappling with a Tae Kwon Do dude today, which is even less fun than it sounds...

If you're keen for somewhere to roll outside of the dojo you probably wont have to go the whole hog and become a member, im in the process of sorting out some 'grapplers concession' cards (like a 10 trip ticket) which will hopefully be around $10ish.

This invitation is open to any person from any club with any style (wrestling, judo, whatever) though the cards will be $15 for any non-bjj dudes.

If you or anyone you know of is interested you can email me at alex.cpw@xtra.co.nz or call me at work on (04) 473 2273 or 021 165 5555
Cheers

AR

This weekend Ichii is having a bit of a farewell as he is heading home to Japan soon. Melissa and Dion have made a tentative booking at a little Japanese place on Tory St called Kazu. 8.pm Ichii, Dion and I are going to be at the MVD for their Match Fight Nite at about 6.30 pm. See you all there???.

Also leaving us is DM. He's heading overseas for a couple of years on the big OE. I want to wish him the best of luck and I hope he has a blast and stays safe while he's away from us.

Guy's remember there will always be a place at GSW for you whenever you return.

Stay safe

G

After Mondays class there were a few injuries. NS rolled his ankle and is out for a few days and SJ has tweaked his neck, hopefully nothing serious. Get well soon guy's.

Tonight there were 19 of us!! Including CN in his first grappling class. :) Took a bit of getting used to by the look of him but he seemed to have a good time.

Tonight we warmed up with a lite roll then moved into Pass or sweep then onto Grappling. Pretty much rolled all night. :) I had a grapple with JM and MP both of whom have come along in leaps and bounds in the past months. Both are clocking up a lot of mat time and really covering a lot of their problems in an intelligent and progressive way. I awarded them both their 4th stripe at the end of class.

Had a crap day at work but when I got to class and saw how many were there it really lifted me and I had a great class, (Although I'll admit I goofed off a bit much. :)

17 in class tonight. Started with a lite roll for a few rounds.
Concerntrated on Side control escapes and controls with the rest of the class basically covering this position.

I've opened up the comments field for anyone to add their thoughts about classes and stuff. So if you have something to say just click on the comments link below the posts and fire away. (although you'll have to wait as it takes a age to load :)
Feel free to add your thoughts as you can post anonymously or use your initials or whatever you want.

OH MY GOD!

I think we have run out of room!!

27 at class tonight, what a buzz! and everyone switched on and lovin it.

Today we covered more syllabus stuff and some drills.
Started with Hip outs, then Butt scoots. :)
Then we did a side control escape drill followed by mounted armbar drills. Then the rest of the basic armbars:
1) Near Armbar from Knee ride
2) Far armbar from Knee Ride
3) Armbar from Guard.

Cool day really, I spent a lot of time with the wife doing together stuff. It was really nice. Saw the Bourne supremacy. Liked it alot.

Got some cool stuff including a bunch of gift vouchers to spend. Got a great book from Ko. He had shown me this guys site before and I had a quick look but didn't like the site so didn't take much notice of the message. The book is "Would you like attitude with that: by Justin Herald"
http://www.justinherald.com/

But the book ROCKS! Unfortunately it's gonna cause some problems cause it's full or stuff like this:

"I don't have an attitude problem. You have a perception problem"

I love it. I haven't put it down yet. Also got a cool prezzy from my sister in law. Crayfish, yummmmmm. And tonight I got a surprise at class, and got a couple of cool gifts from everyone and a fantastic card from the crew, some very touching words:

Thanks everyone.

For those of you that don't know, I'm a dedicated Elvis Stalker.
I first met Elvis in Geelong for the 2001 Nationals, the guy was awesome to watch and he was cool as hell, especially to his fans. Anyway I've taken my obsession a bit far and made a bit of a fan site.
www.stalkelvis.com

But the news of this post is to say that Elvis had another win on the weekend. Defeating Roberto Traven in an MMA fight on the gold coast. Roberto is, like Elvis, a UFC veteran and also a 3 X world BJJ champion Black Belt. Elvis Won by Ko early in the 2nd round.

Way to go Elvis!!

A couple of pics and a quick vid of Richard and Doug working through an answer to Richards question.



Doug and Geoff


Doug and Geoff Grimace competition


Doug and Richard quicktime MOV file

Donna mentioned it at the end of Wed's class and here are the details from Jill.

It’s going to be the greatest Mt Vic Dojo fight night ever on 11 September (put in your diary - that’s Saturday 1 week from now)!

So far we have ELEVEN confirmed Kyokushin fights and all of them superb matches by rank, weight & talent. The format is 3 x 2min rounds so look forward to almost 2 hours of exciting action. There are currently TEN fighters from Mt Vic Dojo including those you know & love:

Sensei Chris Gower!
Sensei Paul Kleer!
Vijay Ranchhod
Donna Hicks
Steve Bassett
Moray Bevan (snr)
Sam Minns
Darren Manks
Rachel Ray
And Tim (Horse)

So far we’ve had two casualties – Greg’s out with a suspected fractured rib (thanks to Steve) and Haines now has his arm in plaster (the lengths some people will go to!) Well done guys for making the commitment – you’ll be all fired up for next time!

There are some big names in that list but their talent could well be matched by the fighters coming from as far away as Rawene in the far North! Some you might recognize – World Tournament fighters from Auckland, Lyndon Pehi, Eddie Te Ahu & the monster Warren Gabb with more international credentials than most NZ fighters combined (although he’s down to a piddly 138kg). Tall boy, Daniel Salek (ex NZ Champ & Brazil Cup rep from Honbu in Newtown), NZ Champ & Women’s World Tournament representative Rachel McLean from Hamilton and quiet achiever, 2007 World Tournament hopeful, Kevin Mayber from Kihikihi.

The fight of the night could well be the final match between the current king of the ring, Warren Gabb and three Champs of the past, Chris, Paul & Moray. Between them these three have held the lightweight, middleweight, light-heavyweight and heavyweight NZ titles in years gone by. They’ll be pitting themselves against super-heavy Warren in age order, Paul taking the first round, Chris taking the second & Moray the third (Moray’s giving away almost 50kg’s to the big guy – that’s a whole Sue Trinh!)

The door price is $10 (can be avoided if you’re quick to volunteer for door duties) but well worth the coinage for the show we’re expecting.

ALSO – now seems like a good time to produce another Mt Vic Dojo t-shirt. We’ll go with a high quality navy blue v-neck t-shirt probably embroidered with the Mt Vic logo some of us have on the sleeve of our dogi’s. I estimate $35 for good quality, embroidered t’s so if you want one (and you’ll definitely want to be wearing one for the fight night), speak now as we can’t afford to carry stock right now! Also, since we’re getting embroidery done, if you want jackets or hoodies or anything else you can imagine, let me know & we’ll have them all done at the same time. You might also choose to have your own favourite shirt done – we just need to approve it as appropriate first. Cost will probably be about $10 for embroidery only.
Cheers. Tell your friends. Mark your diary. See you there.
Jill
PS. BBQ after – bring sizzlers!
Mt Victoria Kyokushin Karate Dojo Inc25 Home Street Mt Victoria WELLINGTONPO Box 9908 Te Aro WELLINGTONFree Phone: 0800 4 KARATEPhone: 64 4 3854715Fax: 04 4 3853815www.mvd.co.nz

God that was a big class. After last nights turn out (19) I figured tonight would be small but there were 23 of us tonight including 3 brand new students.

Things we covered in the class tonight
Blue Belt Fundamentals,
1) Basic Sweep (scissor sweep)
2) Hook Sweep
3) Back Sweep
4) Front Sweep

Went out on a limb with the front sweep as the class was pretty much beginners but everyone handled it well and best of all no one got injured.

After class several people rolled for about 1/2 hour. Grappled AR, just keeps getting better and better, he'll be a real handful very quickly.

Also grappled JM, his game is really falling into place now and the mistakes of old are being left behind. Really had to concentrate and put some big effort into escaping and defending, which is a great indication of how he's progressed.

I can 't tell you how great it was to have Doug on the mat with us tonight.
I haven't had a beating like that is such a long time.... I have a couple of shots of me and the big guy that I'll put up on Friday.

Things we covered in class were.
1) Started with light rolling no subs just working 'flow'
2) Pass or Sweep for 20-30 mins
3) Grappling for the rest of the class. I rolled with Doug for the whole time. Damn good fun.

Finished class with a few questions, answered by Doug.

He was really impressed with how the mat has grown and how everyone was moving and the things we were doing. I have huge respect for Doug and it was a buzz to hear him praising you guys. Well done..

More latter.