Monday 17th October 2005

23 in the BJJ class tonight. Once again, we kept to the same theme and covered our sweeps by drilling our favorite and then working on a quick session of pass or sweep before finishing with a few rounds of grappling.

Wednesday 19th October 2005

22 on the mat for BJJ tonight. Started with some lite rolling and moved onto pass or sweep. Tonight we tried a new approach to escapes. Working with 6 on the mat and allowing their partners to put then in a hold or position they have trouble with, then working on escaping that position. Finished the class with rolling.

I tried to work the rolling the same way we used to do it at JJJ. Starting in 2 rows facing each other and rolling from there. Did not work at all! Far too many people on the mat. Which jogged my memory of training at JJJ and how there were rarely any more than 10 people on the mat. It's funny the things that come into your mind...

Thursday 20th October 2005
MMA class:
About 12 on the mat for MMA. Again we simply carried on with the Submission Grappling as everyone seems to enjoy doing some Gi-less grappling for a change. A fast hard hour with everyone adding whatever submissions each partner agreed on.

BJJ fundamentals my ass...
Only 18 on the mat tonight. As the class had only a couple of beginners we continued with the drill from Wed. Working on our escapes again, with one person being pinned in a bad position and practicing escaping 2 times before leaving the mat to join the cue again. This drill is working really well and everyone is taking the chance to work his or her bad points.

Sunday 23rd October 2005
MMA 10 on the mat, unfortunately I was not up to hitting the mats today. So I just left everyone to the submission grappling again. While I filled the new cabinet with goodies. Thanks Chris... For the last month or so I've been dragging boxes with Tees and Rashies and other goodies along to class (when I remembered) but Chris has purchased 3 new huge cabinets for each club to store their stuff. He's also tidied the reception area and put down some carpet squares.

So now behind reception is a cabinet full of our GSW merchandise! Tees, long sleeve tees, Hoodies, Rash shirts, beanies and MMA shorts and gloves. Take a look next time your at class.

BJJ fundamentals my ass.

Now keep in mind this is a sunny Sunday afternoon in the middle of a long labour weekend break. So as always the class was packed! 25 on the mat with the surprise appearance on Shayne Cox from Napier. Shayne runs the Will - Machado BJJ school in Napier and has over 240 students training with him. To say it was a surprise to see him is a bit of an understatement! Shayne actually made the trip just to catch up with us and join in the session. Another unexpected face on the mat today was Ko, I must admit he looked a it rough around the edges but I guess no sleep will do that to you.

As there were no new students we again covered our sweeping drill, where we set our favorite sweep and perform it twice before leaving the mat and joining the back of the queue. We then moved into our escapes drill again, allowing ourselves to be placed in a hold and then performing our escape twice, before joining the queue. Good class and a great turnout for the middle of the holiday. Thanks