Ok,
Thanks to everyone who stepped up and gave it a crack, thanks to those who helped out behind the scenes, thanks to those who made Elvis feel welcome and looked after him while he was here and thanks for putting up with my stressed out classes. :)

There really are too many of you to mention but there were some standout people on the day.
"He hasn't secured your bottom" Jonny
Something to do with "fear and/or evil" Alex (I'll check the tape for the quote.)
"there's only 20 points left to go" James
"there's only 37 seekonds left" James

Many more will surface as we watch the DVD I'm sure. :)

Click the link below for the results and images from the comp and seminar. http://www.bjj.co.nz/nats_2005.htm

Please feel free to discuss the event and after stuff at the GSW forum.
http://www.gsw.co.nz/forum/phpBB2/index.php

So now everything should be back to normal??? We'll just have to wait and see. :)

Geoff

Thursday’s fundamentals class was pretty full with 20 odd people. We kept it pretty low key with the nationals coming up on Saturday and started with a light warm up followed by a drill to help reinforce some basic guard principles. From there we moved on to the leg over rollover sweep from closed guard, where our opponent makes a mistake when passing by posting on his leg, and leaving it within our reach.

Secondly, we covered a slight variation of the same sweep, but this time our opponent is a bit smarter and does not give us the posting leg, so we attack the other leg and apply the same sweep.

Once we covered the above two sweeps we moved on to the concept that all sweeps lead to armbars. We went for the same 2 sweeps, but this time our opponent resists the sweep, we counter by applying the straight armbar from the guard.

Finally to finish we looked at applying the sweep, our opponent once again resists and we move into the armbar, for whatever reason the armbar does not come off for us, so we attack the opponents other arm by applying the omoplata or bent shoulder lock.

The techniques covered in the class were far from fundamental. The main point of the class however was to try and illustrate that often when we wrestle we go to closed guard and hang on, another option is to loosen up a bit and apply a basic sweep, from there once we are confident with opening up a bit, we can apply a variety of finishes depending on our opponents reaction.

Hopefully it will add to everyone’s understanding and game in some way and good luck to all those that are competing in the Nat’s on Saturday.

Ko

Sorry I couldn't make class last night. 15 year anniversary took precedent. :)

I know you were in good hands with Ko on the case. Thanks heaps to him for taking the class.

Tomorrow!!
9am weigh in. 10am kick off! Comp will run most of the day. $25.00
6.30pm Moonsoon Poon dinner. $30.00
Sunday: Seminar 10am $50.00

Unlike last time there are no "Prizes" for winning your division. (I gave cameras and gi's last time) This time it's just going to be cash. $100 for taking out your division.

Good luck to everyone competing, and if your not on the mat please come and show your support by standing around yelling. :)

I got a call from Darren in Palmy last night. He and Callum are coming down and are going to compete!! Unheard of.

Also got an email from Craig, he's pulled a leg muscle and won't be competing! Needless to say he's a bit pissed.

Our Crazy Kung Fu traveller has sent another email, Really sounds like he's getting around!! Settle in, it's a biggy. Here it is. >>


Cuz!, a lot of things have happened since I have spoke
to you, I will try and recall a few things recently.
Ok, I went to Hong Kong for a couple of days. Hong
Kong is pretty cool, a lot of people speak english, so
if you are into spending coin on clothes, etc, it is
the place. In my opinion it is less expensive than
Singapore.

I went from HK to Shanghai. Shanghai is a freaking
monster!, you can not imagine the size of the place. I
think there is around 15,000,000 people there, not as
much as Ho Chi Minh ( Saigon), 20,000,000.
Shanghai's weather was -1 when I got there. Shanghai
is quite expensive, around 600 RNB, for a room, so
divide that by 5.6 and it is just a little over a
hundred bucks. I am saying it is expensive as I have
just left Thailand, you can get a room for 500 BHT,
$17 NZ.

Not knowing any chinese in China is a no/no!, no one
speaks any english, even the hotels having problem
understanding me. It was scary!, I was at a super
market, and this old lady was looking at me like I was
an escaped alien or something, I got my translator to
ask her if she watches T.V, as there are these hairy
white people who live in cold places, called white
people. I felt like an escaped monkey!

I went to a lot of places, and never had the time to
really appreciate there beauty. I went to Hangzhou,
Hangzhou has a saying there is a heaven, there is a
heaven on earth, that is Hangzhou. It is a beautiful
city, surrounded by awesome old China style
architecture, it is surrounded by a lake and all
little tea houses and that. I never had more than 5
minutes to look at it, I was hustling in the hotel
with these big Kats in the Chinese medical business.

From there I went to Suzhou, Wuxi, and Jiache. I met
these interesting Kats there. This one individual was
quite a laugh, he's my teachers martial art brother,
meaning they both studied under the same teacher. He
is a muslim, and quite a hard man, he used to
wrestle/spar with bulls for a laugh, he is quite
famous in China, he has been in numerous martial art
films etc. But I cant remember his name. That what's
happens when you speak another language, it is hard to
remember different sounds. My teacher used to joke
about how he has a big picture of Osama Bin Laden in
his lounge. Each to there own, eh cuz?

I finally fulfilled what I have been wanting to do for
a long time. I went to Shanxi. Shanxi is in northern
China right up the top by Mongolia. Bro it was real
cold!, -6! . Taking a leak was scary, it took a lot of
encouragement.

After all my complaining, this little 2
year old walks around the corner with a unusual
attire. The front of his pants was fully cut out, so
his Henry was uninterrupted and low and behold there
was a big hole for his ass!, I asked his mum, and she
said that little kids dont know how to go, so they
make a mess, so this way they can go when they please.
I am telling you these people are hard!.

The main reason for me to go was to see my teachers,
teacher ( Grand master) Long Chang Yan. He is a real
cool guy, he is pretty much a recluse, he just lives
in the wops, flies carrier pigeons as a hobby and
practices his Xin Yi Liu He Chuan. ( I cant be
bothering translating that, apart from it is a form of
kung fu). He is really humble and quiet, but at the
same time you know he is very serious and powerful. He
is now 66 years old, but does not show any aging. I
hope to bring him and his wife over for a holiday to
NZ in a year or so, maybe I can bring him up to class.

Left Shanxi, the grand master looked sad to see us go.
Before I left we had a mad feed with his martial arts
brothers ( same generation as him, as they all studied
under the same teacher), but they all admit he's the
man and were real reluctant to pose doing some moves
with him.

Then back to Shanghai were I met the 2 last great
Hernan ( Muslim) Xin Yi Liu He teachers. The first one
I met was Wong Shu Wen, he is 77 years old, but fully
onto it. I had a yarn about training related things
and he got up and showed me some moves. He was a
really nice gut, I hope I get another chance to see
him again.

Maybe the funniest persons I met was Li Zhen Si. When
I mean funny I dont mean a clown, I mean a interesting
mad man. He is really big, violent muslim. He has a
strong reputation as a street fighter from Hernan.
Hernan is of course the birthplace of Shaolin Kung Fu
and all that cheesy stuff, but in certain rural areas
it is very poor and dangerous. My teacher had said
that on certain visits he stayed in a $2.00 hotel
where around 20 people stayed in the same room, he
said he would sleep clutching his sword.

I cant believe in this modern day, people are still carrying
swords. In certain areas they still have bandits that
lay ambush to quiet little roads.
Master Li is 88 years old but extremely agile and
powerful. He showed me a quick combination of a
distraction/elbow/head butt/knee strike attack. His
art is very violent, the basic philosphy is attack
first with full power and speed and always be
discontent with the outcome, meaning always try to hit
them harder and faster. There is a lot of in fighting,
shoulder strikes, knees and other nasty things.

He is pretty funny, he asked my teacher," if the young
man wants to feel the force", meaning he was going to
give me a crack and see if I could handle it. My
teacher said there was no need to inflict unnecessary
pain on me, he then asked if I am hard or soft. I sort
of told my teacher that I dont mind him striking me a
little, but my teacher replied that these old guys are
a little out too full on, meaning that if he hit me,
there was little chance of me standing afterwards,
sort of like I am old but I will still kick your ass.

I remember another story about this guy how he was
showing a student a shin kick. He went onto
demonstrate by kicking this poor bastards toe nail
off! ( tell me thats just got to tickle a bit!). My
teacher has big scars on his shin from his shin kick.
If he really wanted to he could shatter your leg with
one blow.

I am now on Sing winding some business up, and then
onto Thailand for another 2 weeks. Should be good,
going to be hanging out with my old man there. I told
him to not get too pissed or I will hook him up with a
Gatoy ( lady boy) and then extort money out of him.
Nah I wouldnt do that, thats too mean!

See you all soon, I get back around early March.

Jon

We're going to monsoon Poon!
I've made a booking for 25 but they can accommodate more if needed. 6.30pm Saturday night. Here's the menu choice.
$25.00 http://www.menus.co.nz/monsoonpoon/monsoonbanquet25.pdf
$30.00 http://www.menus.co.nz/monsoonpoon/monsoonbanquet30.pdf


monsoon poon banquet menu $30.00 per person
starter
Combo Platter -prawn toast,char siu,
pakhoras,vietnamese rolls and squid rings
main
Butter Chicken
Pumpkin Korma
Vegetable Mee Goreng
Beef Rendang
Philippine Style Pork
Indo-Chinese Fried Fish
25 Herb and Spice Lamb Curry

Naan &Garlic Naan -punjabi style bread
Steamed Rice
Condiments -Mango Chutney &Raita
L O V E U L O N G T I M E

I'm picking the $30 because there's more choice. Please let me know if you want a seat as I can assure you 25 will fill up fast!!!!
Email me or post comments here.

Competition: is next Sat!!! 26th, 9am weigh in, 10am kick off!! $25.00

Seminar: is Sunday 27th 10am kick off 3 hours! $50.00 or $60.00 for both.

Elvis flys in on Friday and is checking out Welly with Ko, he'll then do a few privates (Already booked).

Saturday night we are going out, everyone is welcome and I'll book us a private room SOMEWHERE!!!!! so everyone can sit and talk shit.

The Seido camp was pretty cool, Matty, Alex and Brent kindly helped me out as there were 62 of them I would have been screwed on my own. Big thanks to you guys for stepping up and giving up your time. There were some very keen people and the usual non-believers. :) But overall a very positive bunch and good to work with. Their gi's will be stained green for weeks. :)

I'm gonna be hectic this week so discuss things on the forum ask questions if you want but I can't guarantee I'll have the time to answer.
http://www.gsw.co.nz/forum/phpBB2/index.php

[StartRant] Someone mentioned what an expensive weekend this is going to be for you all. Can I just say that you have no idea. Please believe me when I say that I'm doing this for you more than me.

Think about it.

If I was doing it only for myself I'd just jump a flight to Australia and train for a couple of weeks with Elvis or John Will, and still have money left. The price of the seminar doesn't even come close to the cost of the weekend. So if you don't participate we all miss out. [/EndRant]

Today my wife got a promotion at work. She's basically been doing the job for about 1 year but they finally acknowledged her and offered her the position and a pay rise.

So celebrate someone smashed the lock on the car and ripped out the stereo, munted the dashboard and took the whole parcel tray from the boot, with the speakers in it.

Gotta love that shit!

“Your honour, all I need is 1 minute with the accused, just 1 minute!”

Help.

I've been asked to take a 2 hr session at this years Wellington Seido Karate camp in Paraparaumu. It's this weekend, Saturday 19/02/2005. Alex and I are going to head up at about 12.30 for the sesson which starts at 1.30 and goes till 3.30.

If anyone is keen to help out I'd appreciate it. There will be about 60 of them and it'll be a basic BJJ 101 session.

BJJ Fundamentals, 14 in class.

Started with a warm up using side control escapes from the pass few classes. Then progressed into a few specific skills starting with using the forearm and elbow to make space to escape when our partner has a good control of our head.

Then we moved onto some of John's switch base techniques. Firstly how to escape when our partner has control of our hips and legs. To escape, use our hands to stop them following us. We move away from them using a sidewinder motion, one we have enough space we can then hip out and place them in our guard.

From the top. We switch base onto their hips, control their legs
- if they hip out then we throw our leg over their legs and touch our top heel (over their leg) to our bottom knee, (on the mat) from there we slide our body up theirs and wrap our top arm around their head securing their arm in a cross face position as we move to mount.

- If they don't move we shuffle and encourage them to use their arms on our back, when we feel the elbow raise we grab their gi pants and use our hips to control their arm as we transition to front control, from there we again use our arm to secure an cross face as we mover to side control.

Again we loose a GSW member to overseas. This time Daniel is heading out for a few years, to parts unknown. He's some info on his goodbye drinkies.


"Hi Geoff
Just some details for next Tuesday - it's at Imbibe in Swan Lane. Since no-one seemed to know where that is, here is a link:
http://www.imbibe.co.nz/imbibeantipasto/pages/contact.htm
We'll be there from 4:30/5ish to at least 9, and it's super informal - everyone is welcome to just swing by at any time and stay for as long as they like.

For anyone who's interested, exaggerated stories of our travels will be viewable on vickidan.blogspot.com

While the gi isn't going to fit in the backpack, continuing training once I know where I'm going to be will be a priority. Hong Kong is the current best guess, so http://www.hkbjj.com/ looks interesting.

It's been a pleasure and a privilege to be a part of the gsw family, and I'll follow the blog with interest, especially to hear about arse-kicking exploits at the nationals.
cheers
Daniel"


Good luck Daniel, we'll miss your rubber legs. :)

As you can see I'm finding it harder and harder to update this little bloggie. With longer classes and more members there is more to be done behind the scenes. Also with the approach of the comp time is stretched.

So from this adversity comes a couple of gains for you G.S.W.ers. Firstly if you have the time and inclination to assist with this blog then I'd like to invite you to create a blogger profile and I'll set you up as a contributor to this blog. That way we can get others posting their take on each class.

While I will retain ultimate control, this move will allow you guys to contribute when I cannot. Anyone interested? Let me know I need your help.

The other bonus for you guys and girls is a new forum. Yep I've been playing around with a free php forum and although I have no idea how it works, it does works. My hope is that it'll give us a place to discuss classes and stuff. :) As it's pretty much a G.S.W. forum I'll email you the link if your interested.

Thanks
Geoff

Fundamentals 16 in class.
With the change to Mon and Wed the pressure has eased somewhat on the Fundamentals time slot. Tonight’s class was made up of beginners and as such I was able to focus on the big problem for most of them in the 45-split classes: Escapes.
Starting from the beginning again we covered the basic side control escapes.

Starting with Escape to guard: From side control, our partner has both arms on the far side of our body, we move to a position where they are touching our forearms and thighs, bump and hip out towards their head. Then slide our bottom knee through the gap between us, use our knee as a brace on their body and straighten our body up with theirs and put them in our guard.

Escape to our knees: This time our partner has blocked our hip with their hand, So from our back we bump and hip out until we can move the hand nearest their head to under the arm that is blocking our hip. From there we hip out until we have aligned our body with theirs. Then we swing our legs and go belly down under their chest, we then drive our legs under us and move into their base.

Underhook escape to the back: We have the underhook on our partners arm, raising our elbow we shrimp downwards and duck out the back. From there we throw our arm over their back and secure side back control on our knees.

We finished class with some simple points on Underhook, pillow defence and staying on our side to help escape the position.

Our second 45-split class!
Well it looks like the new idea is a huge hit!! 25 on Monday and 25 on Wednesday. So it's pretty set that the 45 split will continue for some time. :)

Tonight we covered the basic Sweeps again, going over the 4 syllabus sweeps, Scissor, Hooking, Back and Front sweeps. We added the rear leg hook sweep and rear leg reap sweep.

Rear leg hook sweep: When you partner stands up in your guard, with their right foot back, making the front or Back sweeps difficult. Claim their left foot with your right hand; claim their left sleeve with your left hand, (cross grip). Place your right foot in their hip, extend your left leg/hook to behind their right knee. Sweep by pulling your right hand back, you left leg back and pushing with your right foot.

Reaping sweep: As above, our partner stands in our guard and puts their right leg out of reach. Our right hand grabs their left heal, our left hand grabs their left sleeve (cross grip), this time we place our left foot in their Belly/hip. Then our right foot goes between their legs and our heal reaps their right leg as we push our right foot in their hip and pull their left leg with our right hand.

Another email has arrived from our crazy traveler. :) I didn't edit anything, I think he must be typing on an Asian keyboard. :)

Do you miss me?, I miss training at GSW so much!, I am now in Hong Kong awaiting my plane for Shanghai airport. I am quite excited, it has been my childhood dream to go to China.

Thailand was out of this world!, the weather, the food, people etc, could not be better. If anyone is considering going there I could not recommend it more. Through the media all you here is all the negative things, such as the sex tourism etc, but if you look at all other countries they all have negative side. Even our little country has a seedy dark side. I have been as much places as I could. Bangkok, Lop Buri, Kanchanaburi, Chiang Mai, Chiang Rai, Ayutthaya, Cambodia's border and a lot of other places. I spent a lot of time in temples and just walking around eating.

I never had the time to do any B.J.J in Thailand, there is a couple of very good clubs. One is the Bangkok fight club and the other one is affiliated to a 4th degree black belt called Soneca, like I said before he is one of the people who founded Gracie Barra. I get on really good with one of his purple belts called Gionata, as we both have Thai wives and a 2 year old daughter etc.

It was a real disaster Phuket, even royalty lost someone, the Thai king lost his grandson. I expect that area will take several years to recover properly. Other problems in Thailand is down south there is a war going on with Malaysia, they want to claim a chunk of down south as it is predominated my members of Islam. It could get nasty!,

I think Singapore would support Malaysia and China would support Thailand. Thailand is a very placid country, I think they would like to use diplomacy, but sometimes when you have your back against the wall, you have to fight.

I saw you were hosting another B.J.J expert over, you bastards! I have to miss out!, never mind. Maybe when I get back around late Feb, John will pop over and make everyone look silly again.

Good news for the bro in Osaka! I am really happy for him. He is a great grappler and a nice guy, everyone you had a go with him knows that was really good.

Tell Sacha that I got his souvenir. He knows what I am talking about! Hahahaha!

For those of you animal lovers out there, you might be pleased that I never had the chance to napalm the rats and eat them, even though I did eat rat. Just in case you are wondering what it tastes like, it tastes like bird. I tried buffalo as well. Buffalo is too tough, real hard on the jaw!

See all you B.J.J nuts on the Mat soon!
P.S. When I get to China I will send you a couple of pics.

Jon.

One of my ZDK buddies has asked if I know anyone looking for a flat? Heres some info.

The house is in Johnsonville - 10 minutes walk to the Johnsonville train
station (15 minutes back).
A smallish double bedroom. There is off street parking, access to a
storage room and a 'study'. They would be sharing the house with high
quality computer support and a loverly cat.
All for $125 per week (+ phone, power etc). Available from 13th of Feb.

Sound like any of you? Post below or see me at class and I'll put you in touch. :)

Tonight was our first 45 split class and with 26 on the mat I would have to call it a huge success!!! The first 45 were spent doing Sweeps. Following the theme of the last few weeks.

We started with 6 in the hole with everyone rotating through doing Basic Sweep, then adding Hooking sweep then adding Back sweep. After a few rounds of that drill we partnered up and covered Front Sweep, which rounded out the first four basic sweeps from the syllabus.

In the second 45 I anticipated loosing some people particularly some of the newer student but in fact the opposite happened. We gained 2!! So needless to say the mat was crammed! We started with 2 rounds of light rolling with no subs, and then played a quick couple of rounds of Pass/Sweep. The rest of the night was spent with 6 in the hole and everyone rotating at my call.

To say I’m stoked would be an understatement. The turnout truly blew me away. I hope this is a sign of things to come, but I guess we’ll know after Wednesday! Thanks to everyone who came to class and tried the new format, I really appreciate your support!