Friday, June 24, 2011

2011 Mundials - Preston - Match 2

This is Match 2 for Alliance Purple belt Preston at the 2011 Mundials. Enjoy!



Next video will be delayed while I go out of town, but it will feature none other than Kron Gracie. Look for it NEXT Friday!

S&C 6/23/2011

Back to my Strength and Conditioning workout I did 3 sets, then 1 more rep of each exercise. Felt pretty good. Set 3 felt a lot more like set 2 did last time. I'm hitting up one solid day of class tonight before I head out of town for a week for work, going to try to make the most of it.

Points to work on:
Side Control escapes that include reversals or immediate sweeps.
Guard pass progression - Pass -> Side Control -> KoB -> Mount -> Standup
Takedowns from Standing - I'm good at sacrifice throws, so I'm just going to keep working those and try to get even better at them.

Wednesday, June 22, 2011

Mundials 2011 - Cobrinha - Match 1

Here is Cobrinha's first match in his weightclass, I don't know the name of his opponent unfortunately, if anyone does post it and let me know.




Next video will be Preston's second Match.

Friday, June 17, 2011

Mundials 2011: Preston v Unknown

Alliance Purple belt Preston (He's the one in white with the big ALLIANCE logo on his Gi) at the 2011 Mundials. If anyone happens to know his opponents name (or his last name!) please let me know so I can update it.



I've got one more of Preston, but first I think I'll post one of Cobrinha's matches. However, I'm on my way out of town so you'll have to wait until Wednesday for more Mundials awesomness!

Thursday, June 16, 2011

Ian McPherson v Eduardo Telles

As promised here is the exclusive video of the McPherson v Telles match from the 2011 Mundials.

A fantastic match full of a lot of back and forth and some really great jiujitsu from both guys.



My next video will feature Alliance Purple belt Preston (Sorry, don't know the last name) vs an unknown opponent. Look for it tomorrow!

Exclusive Mundials Videos Incoming!

Listen up my Grappling Brethren! I’ve managed to get my grubby little hands on exclusive video of 14 matches from this years Mundials with guys like Kron Gracie, Cobrinha, and Marcello Garcia. I’ll be releasing these videos one at a time here on the blog over the next couple of weeks.

The first video will be up this afternoon featuring Alliance powerhouse and rising star Ian McPherson vs one of the best in the world Edwardo Telles.

Now, with that out of the way, I’ve been hitting my S&C workout nice and regular on schedule and I already feel a difference. We worked on takedowns last night and in the clinch I could feel the additional strength and stability in my back and was able to maintain a lot more control and execute a whole bunch of sacrifice throws. I only hit a couple of things that weren’t sacrifice throws, but still that’s more successful takedowns in one night than I generally get in a month.

Technique was a continuation of open guard passing techniques based around the knee cut pass. First one was for what to do when you can’t get the kneecut to work, you secure a grip behind the collar, and a grip on the far pants leg, then backstep and drop down laying next to your opponent. The control of the pants leg is CRUCIAL to stop your opponent from rolling up on you. Next you use your free leg to shove your opponents bottom leg while you pull their top leg with your Gi grip to free the trapped leg. Settle in to side control.
Second up was the same beginning sequence, but your opponent lets their elbow get a little loose from their body while trying to prevent you from freeing your leg, so you switch your pants leg grip to their wrist and move your collar grip to scoop under and secure the kimura grip. Use a combination of the Kimura grip and your free leg to apply pressure and free your trapped leg, then finish the kimura. You also have the option if your opponent makes a mistake of locking up the kimura grip at the same time as you move to backstep at the very beginning of the sequence. But that can get very scrambly, so you want to be pretty confident of your ability to control the position if you take that route.
Third was the “Fancy” technique of the night. Same setup as the first two, but instead of going for the wrist you free your opponents lapel and feed it under their armpit to the hand with the collar grip. Suck it up nice and tight. Next kill their far arm by either pulling it down between your bodies or pushing it up over their head and trapping it with your hand. Now step your free leg (The one you backstepped with to get here) Over them and pin them down on their side.
Now you can try to finish with a modified armtriangle/brabo style choke, or you can put your shin in their back and roll, allowing you to secure hooks, and work to finish from the back.

After that we did some drilling from open guard, I swept and passed a lot, but JC managed to trick me into a really wicked tight guillotine while I was passing. Very nicely done.

Next up we worked takedown sparring and as previously mentioned I had a ton of success, even against Kris who usually shuts me down pretty well during standup. Eventually I got tired enough to screw up a takedown and flubbed a sacrifice throw against JC.

Rolled with Casey, Johnny, and Brian for a couple of rounds and had a blast with Casey. He dials it down to just above my level and lets me work and I always have a great time with it. Johnny and Brian are a completely different story. I’m able to get on top and pass guard against Brian for a while but eventually he generally manages to dump me over and then I spend a ton of effort just defending. Johnny pretty much immediately smashes into me and I spend the entire time defending against subs. I’m kind of a jerk with them though, I don’t tap unless they are doing things EXACTLY right, so sometimes I end up getting my head crushed for two or three minutes while they try to sink in a choke using more muscle than technique. That’s getting less common now though, which is nice. They tend to set them up and sink them in properly before starting to crank up the power.

S&C Again tonight, then 2 days off since I’m going down to Florida to hit up Disney with my in-laws.

Tuesday, June 14, 2011

Bullshido Presents: James Clingerman

*Update* Just want to give a shout-out to Matthew Perry, James Clingerman, and the guys at Indiana Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu Academy.


As promised here is some more in-depth info on the Clingerman guard passing videos that are up over at Bullshido.
Video 1

My personal passing style shares a LOT with the style James uses. All the way from the way he maintains combat base through the passes he uses. For that reason I was able to pull some GREAT details out of this first video.
The very first thing I picked up is that his stance is even MORE compact than mine is in combat base. To that end I've started tucking my chin even deeper and burrowing my elbows in even tighter which has already led to a higher guard passing percentage for me.
Second great detail is how he uses the forearm across the throat as well as the stacking pressure to make your opponent WANT you to pass. At the point where you are half-choking them and smashing their own knee into their face they want nothing more than to let you take side control and that detail has also helped me to increase my pass percentage.
Third thing, and one that I've been doing for a while now, but a LOOOOT of people miss comes in at the 4:45 mark. When you are passing over a pinned leg, bring your back foot up and cross it over that leg BEFORE you move your lead leg off of it. Stops you from getting caught in half guard and gives you a lot more control of your pass.

From there the rest of the video is gravy. I recommend watching it three or four times, but just the three points I mentioned will do wonders for your guard passing.

Video 2
This video picks up pretty much where the previous one left off, with some specific guard passes. This time against butterfly guard. Again I share the same methods. the first detail I picked up that I liked was at the four minute mark, up to that point I already was doing everything he mentioned, but the way he scoops the arm across at the end of the pass is a detail I've not previously paid attention to. It really makes your pass more aggressive forcing your opponent to start defending against your submissions immediately instead of trying to regain guard.
The second thing that I really liked was the detail on the pass at about the 6:15 mark. It looks like you're giving your opponent a free triangle choke, but if you pay attention he actually has complete control and as long as you maintain the control he described you aren't in any danger and it really adds a LOT of options to your passing game.
This video just has some great specific pass techniques in the first 10 minutes. Several of them I plan on drilling into my main game over the next few months.
Towards the end he revists some of the details for controlling your opponent while you are passing which are all 100% pure gold.
The detail at 11:40 where he is passing to one side, his opponent blocks his hip and he switches to the other side is a fantastic point to take note of since it's one of the things that people have tons of trouble with. You get committed to passing on one side and get blocked, so you just shut down and your opponent gets to take over the momentum. Switching your pass to the other side lets you maintain the initiative and more likely complete your pass.

I highly recommend that everyone keep an eye on The Fighthub Forum over at Bullshido for more Clingerman videos to come. The guy is awesome and he has an excellent teaching style as well.

Monday, June 13, 2011

MMAHQ Launches BJJHQ!

So my friends over at MMAHQ have seen the light and launched a similar website devoted to BJJ related merchandise deals. The current deal is a Vulcan LW Gi for only 135$. So go check it out! Hopefully I'll get some merch from that side of the show to review soon as well.

Sunday, June 12, 2011

BJJ 6/10/2011

Spent some time watching the videos from James Clingerman posted over at Bullshido about guard passing. I love his videos because his style is so similar to my own.
Taught some guard passing to the beginner class and had them work on posturing, guard breaking, and passing for a while.
Main class was open guard passing which tied in quite well with the stuff I was working on with the beginners. Drilled for a while then did a gauntlet with the lightweights. Spent the whole time sweeping and passing. Also hit the Ghost escape a few more times on various people. Really starting to get it tuned up.

Saturday was a full rest day and I took my wife to see “As You Like It”, it rained so I built us a makeshift tent and the play ended up going on despite the rain.

Sunday my jiujitsu was interrupted by work, but I was able to hit up my S&C Routine as well as the Riders fitness routine my wife is doing.

Managed 3 full sets. 10 swings, 5 rows/arm, 10 dumbell deadlifts w/ 55lb dumbells.

That is a ferocious pace for me and I really feel like if I can push my way all the way to 15 minutes solid of it I’ll be in the kind of physical shape I need to be for the mundials.

There will be a more detailed post about the Clingerman guard passing videos soon.

Thursday, June 9, 2011

Strength and Conditioning: Day 2

My eventual goal is to hit 15 minutes straight of these, but today I managed 3 minutes. I still pulled out twice as many reps as Day 1 though.

Swings w/ 55lbs 2x10
Bent over Rows w/ 55lbs 2x5 each hand
Bent leg deadlifts w/ 110lbs 2x10

Time, 2:45 secs.

I consider that to be a successful 1/3rd of one round. I intend to be able to maintain that pace for 15 minutes straight by the time I hit the mats at the Mundials next year.

I also joined my wife in an Equestrian fitness workout that is sport specific to horse back riding. It has a lot of crossover with jiujitsu so I found it thoroughly enjoyable and surprisingly challenging.

Forthcoming Product Reviews

Regular visitors may have noticed the large prominently placed MMAHQ logo to the right there, that's because I've just closed a deal with them to review products for the blog here. The site idea is awesome, they function as a kind of WOOT for MMA Gear putting up one really good deal each day.

The first item I'll be reviewing will be a pair of shorts which are on the way currently, I'm looking forward to checking out their merchandise.

Wednesday, June 8, 2011

BJJ 6/8/2011

My first day of training getting into a Mundials mindset and it was pimp. Managed to fit in a pre-jiujitsu horseback ride and then was off to the gym. Warmed up the class with some skipping and jogging, tech fall and tech stand, then upas and sitouts and some stretching.
Technique was open guard passing using the cross collar grip and the same side knee to pass, then moving to collar choke if they clamp down on your leg, then on to a darce variant if they try to block the collar choke.

After that we drilled in open guard for a while and hit a slick DLR sweep to the back and then to side control. Hit a lot of sweeps and passed guard a bunch. Rolling was a gauntlet for the lightweights, hit a couple of Bow and Arrow chokes that I've been working on as alternate ways to finish from the back. Hit a baseball bat choke, hit my spinning loop choke a couple of times, and worked my guard passing really strongly. I was never in a bad position unless I let myself be put there so I could work out of it and everything felt great.

I finalized my S&C routine yesterday and it's going to look like this:

All Using my 55lb dummbell:
Kettelbell Swings x10
Bent over Row x5 each arm
Static holds x30 seconds (55lb in each hand)
Deadlifts x20 (55lb in each hand)

Repeat for 15 minutes.

The goal being to make it through the entire 15 minutes without stopping for more than changing the weight. Then add time and see where it goes. I'm basing the exercises off of the things that I saw over and over and over again in the top guys routines. Pulling, posture, and grip strength are huge assets.

Monday, June 6, 2011

Inspired by the Mundials

So I spent large chunks of the weekend watching or reading up on the Mundials and as a result I've decided I'd like to compete there next year.
So yesterday was spent getting my nutrition in order and figuring out what I'm going to be eating for the next 12 months and today I'm working on getting my training schedule put together and getting my strength and conditioning routine fixed up. I'd like to compete at 154 with the Gi on, which means I'd like to weigh 155ish and cut down to 149 which is a super easy cut for me. But right now I'm walking at about 146, so that gives me a solid 9-10lbs I can put on in muscle over the next 12 months.

My training schedule should look like this once I get everything in place:

Mon: Lunchtime BJJ - 1hr. S&C - 1hr
Tues: Luncthime BJJ - 1hr. S&C - 1hr
Wed: Newaza w/ Judo School - 1hr. BJJ - 1.5hrs
Thurs: Lunchtime BJJ - 1hr. S&C - 1hr
Fri: BJJ - 3hrs
Saturday: Trip to Alliance HQ every other saturday for 3hrs BJJ.
Sunday: BJJ 3hrs

That gives me an avg week of 13 hours of BJJ training with 3 hours of additional strength and conditioning.

If I can maintain that pace I think I'll actually be ready for a run at the Mundials with a good shot at taking a medal.

At the same time I've decided I'd rather shoot for that than start trying to deal with MMA since I hate training striking.

Friday, June 3, 2011

BJJ World Championships This Weekend

For anyone who doesn't know the Mundials are this weekend. Budovideos is broadcasting Saturday for FREE with a 10$ PPV for Sunday.

This tournament features some of the absolute best in the world and is a must see for everyone.