Fundamentals 24 in class,

Was it me? Was it you? Was it the weather? I'm not sure but I think it may have been a combination of all those things. Either way class sucked!

Just covered basic sweeps from the syllabus, started with basic closed guard skills as a warm up. Then we did the first basic sweep as a drill with everyone doing 5 with different partners. Didn't work!

Then we did the first hooking sweep, first we did it properly, didn't work! Then we did the cheating (Easy) version as a drill with everyone doing 1 then swapping and joining the line to move through as many partners as possible. Didn't work!

We then did back sweep, firstly with our partners. Didn't work!

So at the end of the class we ended up with 3 half arsed versions of basic sweeps. All in all a fantastic class that left everyone energised and feeling great!

Fundamentals 26 in class.

Hot, humid stinky class. Still plenty of new people coming along to class. Tonight we started by rolling in pairs. A bit messy but not too bad really. :)

Class consisted of closed guard skills and then progressed into a couple of responses to our partners mistakes.

• When our partner attempts a basic pass, we control his arm and collar and perform a basic sweep
• When they attempt a basic pass, but leave their foot too close to us, we control the arm and the foot and perform a leg grab rollover sweep.
• as a variation to the above, we armbar from that position rather than sweep. Control the arm, swing our leg, and bridge our hips to secure the arm.
• Our partner places 1 hand between our legs, (behind their back), in an attempt to open our legs, we control his arm, open our legs and cut hard on the back of his neck with our leg, to perform a triangle choke.

Next week is the first 45split. Starting Monday , anyone who has been to a few weeks of Fundamentals can step into the first 45 minutes, and stay on for the second 45 mins if they want a bit of grappling time. Anyone can do either class, it's not compulsory to do both if you don't have the time or energy. You must have a Gi to grapple!!

See you Sunday.

Just received an email from Elvis, finalising details for his visit. He has mentioned he's keen to take a couple of private lessons if anyone is interested!!

I said hell yeah! Elvis will be avaliable for privates Friday the 25th and Sunday the 27th:
From the King "Privates are just $66 an hour for one person. $99 for two and so on."

Fundamentals 26 in class.

I'm not sure why this class is called Fundamentals anymore. The stuff I'm doing is getting further and further from the idea every time. Today was a recap and progression from last weeks work.

From Short Base Side control, to knee ride, to mount - then -
- Our partner performs a basic bridging escape, before we establish our base.
- Our partner performs an advanced bridging escape, putting us on their hooks and then performs a basic hook sweep.
- We encourage our opponent to cover up and roll to his belly, then get his hands and knees under him so we can choke him out with a RNC
- We smother our opponent and allow them to push us away by extending their arms. We secure the arm for a basic arm bar from mount.
- As a variation, our opponent doesn't push us away when we smother them, so we control their arm/wrist. Push their hand to the floor on the opposite side and spin through for the basic arm bar.

I then demonstrated how that would work from the Knee ride position, when our partner does nothing. We claim the hand/wrist on our side and force it to the floor opposite and step through for the arm bar. Not fundamentals but certainly relevant to the rest of the class content.

Something else different today, I encouraged everyone to roll for 5 minutes at the end of class. No subs just moving from position to position to get a feel of the flow. Seemed to work well and feedback was good. :)

A big problem is the transition from Fundamentals to the real classes. I say the "Real classes" because that’s what I see them as. Fundamentals classes are for learning skills to help you in your grappling, which is the whole idea of BJJ. But the step up to Monday and Wednesday is just too big and daunting for most of the newer students.

I think the 45/45 split will start Monday of next week 31/01/2005. So from then everyone who has done a few of the "Fundamentals" classes can come to the first 45 (8pm-8.45), which will be skills and drills. Followed by an optional 45 (8.45 - 9.30) of rolling. Note this is all designed to get more people on the mat more times and I encourage everyone to at least give it a try!

Big class today, again a few new people and a lot of the new members coming back for more, great to see. It was also very cool to see Toby and Melissa and their baby girl. Nice to finally meet her after almost a year. :)

A new baby. I spoke to Chris today and he informed me that Jill had a little baby daughter last weekend. Both mother and baby are doing well.
Congratulations from all of us at G.S.W.

A weekend in front of the PC. I did a bit more work on Sacha's site
http://www.reefside.co.nz/
Check it and feed me back, there are always things I miss or miss spell so if you'all could have a look and let me know that'd be cool.

I'm going to sell my Video copy of John and David Meyer's "Masterclass Curriculum" I need the money and as I now have it on DVD it's become surplus to requirement. It's 9 ntsc tapes. they're used and the covers are a bit worn. The tape quality sux which is why they converted it onto DVD. but the content is gold! Basically the full BJJ Australia Syllabus to Purple belt. If your interested let me know at class. I'm hoping for about $150 for it. Keep in mind this sells on their site for $650.00 us.

Daniel sent me this link, I know several of these guy's very well and I think some of you know them too. Can you spot which one you are???
http://www.subfighter.com/ftopict-5972.html

Ok, here's the update on the comp.

http://www.bjj.co.nz/nats_2005.htm

The day will follow the same set up as our comp in November, this time though we will have more competitors and special guests, including: Elvis Sinosic and Geoff Aitken.

Elvis will assist on the day and will also run a seminar on the following day (Sunday 27th February) starting at 10am and going for 3 hours. Cost for the seminar will be $50.00

BJJ Fundamentals 22 in the class.

Class tonight was slightly smaller than previous weeks as several of the clubs senior students stepped out to make room for the new guys. There were 6 new students tonight, with 4 of those joining up and purchasing Gi’s. In fact tonight saw several brand new Gi’s on the mat. Everyone was at least looking the part.

Class consisted of the reverse of our previous sessions. We covered several escapes from mount. Starting with the basic bridging escape. Then we did a more advanced escape using a hard bridge and post with our hands on our opponent’s hips, making space to bring our knees through. From that escape we worked a basic hooking sweep from open guard position.

Wow, after Mondays poor showing I was pleasantly surprised to see 16 on the mat tonight, including a few from the Fundamentals class making their first grappling session.

As always we pretty much grappled all night. :)

From the feedback on the mat tonight and through the Blog and emails, it really looks like we will be going with the 45/45 split for Monday and Wednesdays. I need to run it by the MVD owners and hopefully we will commence soon. It will be a good opportunity to work some comp specific stuff in those new time slots?
Stay tuned.!

Ok tentative date, I have yet to confirm the venue etc. But.

Elvis Sinosic has indicated his availability for the Nationals! He will help out on the day and run a MMA / BJJ seminar on the Sunday.

So put this weekend in you diary and hit the mats in preparation!

February 26th Saturday Competition Weigh in 9.am start 10 am till late.Cost $25 per division

February 27th Sunday Seminar 10 am start 90 min BJJ 90 min MMACost: $50 for both or $35 each

Venue for both days yet to be confirmed but it is in Wellington!!

This will be big for G.S.W. and I know from last year that we are up for it, I will be calling for any and all helpers to coordinate several aspects of the day and also leading up to it.

An email has gone out to Auckland, Hamilton, Napier, Palmerston and Christchurch Machado associates and hopefully they will all send representatives for the day.

Stay tuned.

Geoff

IN the comments below Ichi posted this fantastic news!

It's great many people come to GSW.
Sessions,I think good idea.
Drilling is important, grappling is important too.

anyway, I had a comp today and I won. I got a belt. Purple.
GSW is always on my back.Thank you guys!!

Ichi

Huge congrats to you my friend. Well done on your win and your promotion, you deserve that belt!!

Ok,

Fundamentals classes have always been bigger than grappling. Grappling just isn't always fun. But clearly we need to get more people on the mat on the Monday and Wed nights or Sunday and Thursday are going to explode!!

Here's a question, how would you feel if Monday and Wednesday become two 45 min sessions?

First 45 are technique and/or drilling.
Second 45mins is just grappling or grappling related.

That way those with injuries, less experience, no inclination, phobias etc, etc can still have 4 sessions to choose from and those who are wholly addicted and have a bit longer on the mat.

Please click the comments or email link and GIVE ME FEEDBACK!!! :)

Thanks
Geoff

BJJ Fundamentals 22 in class. Continued on the same theme as Thursday, basic responses to mount. This time instead of rolling them for a rear Naked Choke we took the arm bar option.

From Short base side control, controlling the head, move to knee ride, then through to mount.

1) From mount smother our opponent forcing him to push us away, crush him down and spin through for the arm bar.

2) From mount, force our opponent to cover up, roll him onto his side with our chest behind his arm. Secure his left arm across his face and behind his head (Arm Wrap). Feed our left hand under his armpit and secure his wrist with both hands. Free our right hand up and post it directly in front of his face. Control his left arm with our left and spin through for the arm bar.

3) From mount, secure the Arm Wrap again, this time feed our left hand through and secure our own right wrist. Dismount behind our opponent, move to his head; rise up on our right foot. Then as one move, pop our right elbow from behind our opponent’s head, kneel on his right arm, and apply the Kimura. Hug the upper arm to our body and keep the forearm parallel to the ground, rotate to our left.

All of the above can be done from the side control start, transitioning to mount, then depending on our opponent’s action or reaction we can apply one of the above moves.

BJJ Fundamentals 29 in class.

I seriously think that we've reached capacity! 29 was just about too many for the mat, but we managed. It really looks like the emails are paying off this year and many more people are learning how fantastic BJJ is.

Started class where we left off on Sunday.
Side control. This time we attempted a forearm choke, quite a few of the new guys got it pretty quick but the finer points we missing so I decided to change tack.

As I spent a bit of today watching Gracies in Action and after Craigs performance on Sunday, it felt right to cover the most basic response to being mounted.

From side control, as with thr transition to knee ride from Sunday, this time we carried onto mount. Then shuffle under their armpits. From there encourage them to cover up. Then use our body to help then roll over to their knees. Insert our hooks, control their forearm, and then flatten them onto their face.

From this position with then face down on the mat, apply a rear naked choke. This drill is the simplest most basic response to subduing a fighter with little knowledge of the intricacies of ground grappling.

See you all Sunday. :)

Royce gets squashed by a very large mand. :)
Chris Double has a link at his blog,

http://radio.weblogs.com/0102385/categories/maMusings/index.html

I've said it before and I'll say it again.

I feel very lucky to have found Chris and Jill at a time when they were needed the most. I never take them for granted as our success can easly be placed at their feet, but today I was reminded again how lucky I was to hook up with them.

Thanks guy's you rock!

www.mvd.co.nz
www.martialartswellington.co.nz

Pretty small sized grappling class, 11 only tonight.

Everyone grappled and I got the Blues to assist students with specific problems, virtually creating several small private lessons within the class format.

It seemed to work very well, with personal attention given to everyone during the class.

13 in class tonight.

Warmed up by rolling, then did several rounds of pass or sweep.
Spent the rest of the class grappling. Very good feel to tonight's class, everyone moving well and working their skills.

Took the opportunity to promote several people.
Congrats to the following students.
Daniel (to 4 stripes), Sacha, Brent and Chris.

Also great to see the return of Izi to the mat. :)

Oh. My. God!?

BJJ Fundamentals 26 in the class. Including 4 new students.

Far too many people on the mat again. :)

Class was exactly the same as Thursday, covered the same armbars from Side control and Knee ride.
Near armbar from kneeride.
Far armbar from kneeride.
Far armbar from underhook side control.

Good class, great turnout. The ladies also had 2 new students turn up. It looks like this year is going to go off!! :)

Some of you may be aware Jon D has gone away. :) He's taken his wife home to see her family. He was going to Phuket but fortunatly left after the tsunami desaster. Heres an email I received from him today.


Hey bro, hows things?

I am in Pattaya at the moment. It is a bit of a hole. If you are old, fat and hairy you can still get laid. So for old perverts it is a dream come true.

Since I dont fit into that category I dont have much to do here. The beach here is ok, but they are filled with fat sleazy Russians and what not.

I have been around a few places here. I started in Lop Buri which is 2 1/2 drive north of Bangkok, this is where my wifes family is based. The people here could not be any nicer. The weather is good, food, and piss is real cheap. I have been drinking Heineken a lot, but have just recovered from a 2 day hangover.

I have tried all the weirdest food I could try. King cobra, endless supplies of insects, crabs, frogs etc. Next thing I am looking at is Jalakay ( crocodile), and Rat. When we go rat hunting they burn the long grass and the little bastards run out, you stamp them on the head on the way out. I have to make sure I wear shoes when I am doing that.

Martial arts here is pretty much standard. As you could expect it is mostly Muay Thai. I have made a few friends on the net who practice B.J.J. But like I said before since Phuket was sodded, that training may have to be on hold.

I have a couple of contacts in Bangkok, but it is real hard to get free time on my timetable. I brought my Mum along which at time's is infuriating. But after all she is my mum. You know the deal cuz, old people!

I am off to Sing in the next couple of days. If I am lucky I might be able to have a grapple. Been getting a bit of Mat withdrawal, maybe if my mum complains any more I can practice on her.

I am off to China on business and Kung Fu training. I am a bit nervous as I have been asked to demonstrate in front of the worlds best. A few of these cats are in there 70's, but from what I have been told still have a spark left in them.

I am going to have to keep up practice, because my teacher has gone on a limb teaching me. I am one of a very few westerners to learn this particular style. A lot of chinese have a lot of resentment towards me, as I am not chinese and they dont think I am worthy or trustworthy enough. As you know all that race favourtism is bullshit, its your attitude and hard work that counts. I know I train just as hard and even harder as my teachers students.

I have been told that it is around -10 in Beijing. I am even heading more north where the temperature could even be as low as -15. It is going to be a shock going from 30 plus.

Anyway I have to go cuz, will try and keep in touch. I have a shit loads of photo's, maybe I can send you a funny one when I have time.

Tell Richard Wood congratulations from me. I am glad he got his belt.

I knew this was coming as but completely forgot to follow it up. So I would like to take this opportunity to congratulate Richard Wood on receiving his Blue Belt from John Will late last year.

As you know Richard was a regular at GSW for many months and I would like to think that we had a big influence on his gaining his Blue, Richard is the man responsible for our updated GSW logo.

You can see some of Richards’s real passion, Photography at his site:
http://www.richardwood.co.nz/

Congratulations Richard, and we look forward to seeing you in Welly for you traditional new Blue crush. :) Also congrats to Richards training partner Damian who also received his Blue from John. Well done guys and well done to Shayne.

Fundamentals, 14 in class.

Carried on with the side control theme this week.Started by working the top position. Moving from side to top to opposite side maintaining control and balance.Then added motion and defence from the bottom side to help cement the control by the top partner.

Added a tight close kneeride from side control then transitioned into near arm bar from knee ride. Worked that for a few reps then moved to far arm bar from side control. Scenario is, we loose the near arm or don't control it well enough, our partner then pushes on our knee in an effort to relieve some of the pressure.
Our reaction is to slip our hand in the crook of their elbow and stand up pulling the arm. Then spin round and arm bar the far arm.

Both arm bars are part of the second stripe set. Also reiterated the points of control for the arm bars.
1) Keep the head covered with your to leg, so they can't sit up
2) Separate the arms if at all possible
3) control the near leg to stop them spinning out of the arm bar attempt.

Finished with a variation of far arm bar, starting in short base side control (knees close to our opponent) claiming the underhook, lift the shoulder (lift and crush) and moved around to kill the head, left foot up, spin under the shoulder, extend the right leg and apply the arm bar.

Great turnout for such a dismal day; Sunday should be extremely busy if the inquiries are anything to go by. :)

Another combined class with a few less newbys tonight. Again we just grappled the night away. Quite unfair on the new crew but they still seem keen and didn't grumble too much.

We saw the return of Dion and Melissa, along with Craig made 3 blues on the mat, so there was a good variety for everyone else to grapple with.

Also had Chris on the mat, something I haven't seem for quite some time. :)

Here's a link to check out, this is the company that copied the competition DVD's for me. http://www.amstore.co.nz/

Also I have some DVD's and Tapes that I'm going to sell on Trade Me so check my listings if you want them just let me know.
http://www.trademe.co.nz/structure/show_member_listings.asp?member=328218

I've spent most of today on the PC mucking around. (as per normal)

I have actually done some work for a change. :) I've changed John Will's site http://www.jbwill.com/

Added his articles and more options to buy his books. I'd like to seperate it from the look and feel of the http://www.bjj.com.au site and I think I've achieved that with this upgrade.

Take a look and let me know if something isn't working. Thanks

Since the very beginning when I was looking at ways to get more people into BJJ and GSW, I focused on the Website side of marketing. Early on I purchased Stephen Oliver's "Extraordinary Marketing" program and an extremely high cost!

But it's full of fantastic ideas and I quickly became overwhelmed with the possibilities. So I took the same approach as I do with my training and focused on one thing, his web principals.

Now anyone that has followed my web sites knows how well I place in my chosen categories. My favourite gloat is getting people to go to Google and type in BJJ NZ or Brazilian Jiu Jitsu NZ and see what they get. And what do they get, my sites or other sites that link to my sites. Hell if you just type in BJJ you get one of my sites at number 2, that’s 2 out of 246,000!

Anyway the "martial arts Wellington" and "BJJ Wellington" are the ones that are important to GSW. The whole idea is to get as many people along to class as possible. The more people training BJJ the better it is for us as a whole. So I have recently focused on the second big point in the extraordinary marketing program and I am sending follow up emails to everyone who inquires.

When someone fills out the online form I send them an email with our details and invite them to class, (as most of you know) but according to the program I should have also been sending follow up emails every week to encourage people along. I never have. The class has grown by word of mouth and people who have inquired and shown up after 1 email.

These holidays I checked the number of inquiries I'd received in the past 2 years and it's a staggering 434!! Apparently if I follow up with several emails I can expect a 60-80% response. That’s between 266 and 347 people! I'd be happy with 10%. At the end of the day I love BJJ and I love training! The more people I can encourage to train the better it will be for all of us.

So I've started to send follow up emails, let’s see how it works out in the next few weeks. Either way, with classes of 10-15 people over the holidays things are clearly going to rock in 2005! I hope you enjoy the trip with us. :)

I've also taken the time to change the colour and images on the gsw page. Take a look. Click the "link" below.

Well, first class of the new year and surprisingly a good turn out.

Although we didn't do what I had planned, (yes I do have a plan for classes:) it still worked out well in the end.

We stuck to the normal Monday thing where everyone grapples. The difference with this class is that more than half were new students with little or no idea of grappling principals.

So I gave people the option of working a position or rolling with no subs etc. Clearly more direction is required than that, as a there was a fair bit of sitting around talking shit! (mental note: give the newbys less options. :)

Anyway a fantastic turnout for the holiday season with 12 in the class.

There will be classes on Wed and Thursday this week, again they will be combined classes and normal sessions will resume on Sunday the 9th.

Dorothie and I headed up to Auckland for the Cirque du Soleil show "Quidam". About 4 years ago John went and saw Saltimbanco with Richard Norton and was adamant that if ever cirque came to NZ we had to see it. Well in 2002 the played Aligrea in Auckland, so on John's advice we went and saw it. It was fantastic. Although not the same show that John and Richard saw it was still breath taking.

So naturally when I found out they were bringing Quidam to NZ I booked and we went this weekend. This is a big rant so I'll break it into the good and the bad. First the Bad!

Bad – Super shuttles! We had booked everything through Trips (see the good) and one of the things we booked were transfers with Super shuttles (last trip they were good) Well, we had the privilege of waiting in the van at the airport for 30 mins while our driver waited for more passengers. Not other booked passengers just casuals to fill the van. Our trip started with the driver running a stop sign and cutting off a 4x4 with a family in it (something he had to accelerate to do) and it’s all down hill from there. The driver (189 Thomas 74) should not be on the roads let alone driving in the transport industry. To top it off a 25-minute trip took 35 and cost us $2 less then the return 25 min taxi ride.

We also tried to book a shuttle to the show; I had to confirm this by phone at the hotel, as I couldn’t understand the driver. (“No speak the good England”) The trip to the show took 20 minutes and cost $45.00!!! (Different driver) The return taxi trip took 15 minutes (heavier traffic) and cost $19.00!! Verdict Super shuttles Blow!

Bad - Queen st. dirty smelly and not inviting, ate at a food court in the cinema complex – Dorothie got food poisoning! So she spent the whole of Sunday in bed very ill. Verdict - Queen st Blows!

Now, the good stuff.

Good – The Duxton! Friendly, accommodating, clean and unobtrusive!

Good – The show. Quidam was totally different from Aligrea in feel and performers. Our seats were 4 rows from the front and the view was fantastic. Several of the performances were outstanding, but the one that sticks in my mind the most is the strong partnership of Marie-Laure Mesnage & Tves Decoste. Unbelievable strength and symmetry. Words cannot describe the way these two methodically worked through their routine as if it were a walk in the park and not a display of balance, timing, flexibility and power, the like of which I have never seen before. They didn’t even break a sweat! Great show!

Good – Nathan Rarere – So, we book into the hotel. Then decide to head downtown for some shopping and food. We get into 1 of the 2 lifts and travel down 3 floors where the lift stops to pick up 2 people. Nathan and his partner Kelly (must be a model, she is hot).

As soon as I see him I’m blown away, I say hi, and he says, “ Geoff, how are you”.
I’ve met Nathan once! And he remembers me and what my name is??? Talk about making my year. Kelly says he still talks about the seminar and meeting Royce. So we chat for a bit and I try to impress on him how great the Sportzah! Piece was for BJJ NZ and GSW as well. It’s not till later that I realise that I didn’t give him my card or say half the things I wanted to. I did thank him and tell him that we owe him a lot for his publicity. (What are the chances of that, same city, same hotel, and same lift at that moment???)

Good – Trips. - Through the ASB Bank I’ve gained a ton of rewards points using the CC. So I converted them into flight and accommodation. Unfortunately I was so busy at the end of the year that I forgot to organise it all. I’ve had the tickets for 6months and knew we were going. So I finally got onto Trips and they sorted everything by Email in 2 days between Xmas and New Year. Legendary!

Fortunately the good totally outweighed the bad and the trip was well worth it. It does make me wonder now about Wellingtons transport providers.

I know at my work (Post Haste) there are some complete dicks with no personality or people skills and it makes me wonder how they interact with their clients or the general public. I’d hate to think that I was being judged by the service they provided, rather than the service I provide. One of the reasons I made a note of the shuttle drivers names, so I could specifically complain about them as individuals rather than the company as a whole.

Anyway thanks for reading see you at class. [/EndRant]

I've updated some stuff on the G.S.W. site and also uploaded a story writen by Ko.
Lately we have both been asked about some of the history of G.S.W. and Ko has taken it upon himself to write it all down for us to read. Click the "link" below for the GSW story. Also check the site map at GSW for all the info on the site.

http://www.gsw.co.nz/gsw_story.htm
http://www.gsw.co.nz/map.htm

Hey all,

There will be a class on Monday the 3rd. 8pm open to all. see you there.