Saturday 24 March 2018

A Saturday Surprise

What a great day for Jiu Jitsu.  We had a special visitor today.  Henry was a student at our old gym a while back. He is a great sparring partner for Aidan as well as a good friend

Today we worked on our hip escape.  We showed how our warm up hip escape movement works in our Jiu Jitsu game.  The first use of the hip escape is to escape from side control and recompose a guard position.  This will need some more work as a reverse hip escape movement/frame is required to complete the sequence.  The second option that we showed was to escape side control to a belly down position and progress to driving forward for a sweep.  Everyone got the concept of the sequence.  As always more drilling is the key to mastery.

We had a great rolling session at the end of class.  I was very impressed with everyone's performance. I really liked that everyone was looking for control before attempting an attack.

I found this cartoon which illustrates the power of Brazilian Jiu Jitsu.




Saturday 17 March 2018

Saturday training report - 5 more classes until the competition!

Good day everyone

Today we started putting some foot work into our tool boxes. We worked on a guard pass drill that puts us in the knee on belly position.  Everyone did well on their first attempt at this drill. We will continue working this technique as it will become part of the warm up in the future for the more advanced students.

We learned how to pass the open guard of an opponent that is sitting up.  Everyone liked the shove to the forehead to put their opponent on their back so they could execute the pass to knee on the belly.

After we finished our stretching we worked on some balance exercises.  Balance is super important in any sport and in our daily lives.  We will continue to challenge our balance abilities in class.

Special thanks to Aidan for cleaning the mats today.  We all love our super tidy dojo.


Saturday 10 March 2018

NZ Grappler No Gi National Registration is Open



Registration closes April 3rd.

$50.00 for the Kids
$60.00 for Adults Age 18 and up
$60.00 for Masters Age 36 and up
$10.00 for open class blue belts and up.

Wednesday 21 February 2018

Tuesday training report

It was dad and lad day at the dojo.  Everyone opted to stay home with the storm approaching.

We worked on 3 mount attacks.  the first one was the high mount armbar.  The review of this attack went smoothly and the confidence Aidan has in this attack was good to witness as he had my arm bending the wrong direction. Next we reviewed the Americana and remembering to grapevine at least one leg to shutdown a sweep attempt.  The Americana has earned a solid spot in the tool box.  We played with the s mount armbar however we decided to work that armbar and stay on top.  It took a little more work to get this one looking sharp.  We nailed it after drilling repeatedly.  

Once we accomplished our armbar work I showed Aidan a sweep from side control.  When he was rolling last Saturday he started working the sweep not knowing that he was doing the right things.  He just need the final piece of the puzzle to make it work. It will need a little time with an opponent his size to add it to his tool box.

See you all Saturday.

Sunday 11 February 2018

A surprise visitor

Saturday's class was fantastic.

We had a surprise visit from Professor Serge Morel.  I'm very happy that he came to see how our class goes and to meet the students. Serge and Stuart run the Auckland BJJ school which is were I continue my study in Jiu Jitsu.  I'm very lucky to have such great students to teach and to have high level Professors helping and teaching me.

It was great to see some of the students that have been gone on holiday return to class.  We continued to work the arm bar.  The day's arm bar position was from the mount using the s-mount.  Like the arm bar from the guard there are a lot of technical pieces that have to come together to accomplish the attack.  This attack will take time to execute efficiently so don't get discouraged if it takes a while to nail it.





Wednesday 7 February 2018

Tuesday's submission class

What a great bunch of students I have.  The concentration and focus that was displayed
in class was spectacular.

It's all about the arm bar this month.  We reviewed the arm bar from the guard and all the pieces are coming together nicely.  Everyone did some really nice work learning the attack.

The second arm bar attack we worked on was from the knee on the belly position.  This arm bar always looks impressive as the movement is very dynamic.  Everyone has a good grasp of the movement.  We will be working both arm bar attacks a lot this month.

Our 3rd arm bar attack will be from the mount.  This attack has one basic setup however we can finish the job in many ways.

Saturday 3 February 2018

A cool morning at the dojo

Good day everyone

It was a pleasure having class this morning.  The cool weather was welcomed by all.

Today we started working on the arm bar in the guard.  This attack has a lot of invisible techniques and can seem overwhelming in the beginning.  With steady and focused practice it will all fall into place.  This is one of Jiu Jitsu's fundamental attacks from the guard position.  Overall everyone did a great job getting to know this attack. 

We will be working on arm bar attacks and defense this February.  Once a BJJ fighter learns how arm bars are applied in a few positions a light bulb switches on and they start to see that opportunities present themselves often for this attack.