NEWS FLASH!!! (or why you shouldn't miss training!)

I'll update you on all the usual stuff and latest developments another time, but I need to get this down right now...

So, I hoped it may happen but so often these sorts of things don't come off, so I was over the moon tonight when, at training, we were joined by Antoni Hardonk (Rickson Gracie Blue Belt and UFC Fighter) and Henry Akins (check out this and believe the hype) - one of Rickson's Black Belts and one of the main Instructors at the Academy in LA.

Antoni is over in the UK to fight this coming weekend in UFC 85 at the O2 arena in London, assisted by Henry who has been helping with training and is taking Antoni's corner. Having trained with both Henry and Antoni in the past, Big Dean had offered to show the guys around and they both came along to our session, mainly to train a little for Antoni, just to keep things sharp, but also for Henry to give us some of his time to polish up some finer details for us.

Henry worked us through holding posture in guard, sensitivity to break down posture when holding guard, gradually progressing to standing up in guard, also off balancing opponents doing same, to breaking guard from standing and a nice little pass from in open guard. It all worked so nicely and I finally got the feeling I need to have to hold posture - the whole hip connection thing finally clicked. I was greatly helped by having Dean T as my training partner so he was able to point out little corections I needed to make and was the epitome of a helpful training partner.

After this it was kind of an open clinic where we were able to ask Henry about bits and pieces and he gave excellent coaching and advice. I saw a nice variation on escape from mount which I think will really work for me, a great little escape from half guard which at first was so fast and fluid I didn't have a clue what happened, but when broken down was just so simple, and Henry helped me with my worst position - cross side, nice frame using the Gi or across the face and a nice scoot and turn to the side - just great.

I saw Antoni in UFC 80 (his fight lasted all of 10 seconds as he TKOd his opponent with a wicked jab) and he was a really nice guy - huge, mind, but really nice and great to see him so relaxed and enjoying himself - I'd like to think we made him feel at home as part of the Rickson network.

Having Henry come see us was just great - I've heard and read so much about him and he's just a real nice guy with such extensive knowledge and makes everything look so easy that you just think "I can do that" - a great confidence boost to see Jiu Jistsu stripped right down.

Having him help us with such an impromptu session was just great. It can sometimes feel like the only connection we have with Rickson's Association is the badge we wear, but then stuff like this happens and you feel revived and I know that feeling will last a long while.

A big thanks to both Antoni and Henry for coming to see us and giving their valuable time here in the UK. Lesser people wouldn't have. And god only knows, it was given willingly and absolutely gratis - someone like Henry could command a tasty fee for what he gave us tonight - I'm just stoked! And of course, all the best to Antoni for his fight at the weekend.

I'm just so happy right now ....

(L-R) Simon "Super Kong Rubber Tube" Roberts, Antoni Hardonk, Dean T, "Little" Dean McKelvie, Henry Akins, Me, Ian "Monkey" Monkton. Behind the Camera: "Big" Dean Barthelemy - thanks mate ;)

Update 8 June 08 - Antoni won his fight in Round 2 with a sweet right hook - congratulations!!

The value of tournaments...?

A quick catch up on all the goings on since all the stuff I’ve just written about. I hadn’t trained any since last Wednesday except for a Gym session on Thursday. Friday and Saturday I just felt really tired so took the chance to rest. Sunday, I spent all day out watching Saracens Vs Wasps – gutted to see Saracens (playing in pink for Charity, which turned them all into a bunch of girls) go down 29 points to 40. A great game with some good tries but if only Sarries had played throughout like they did in the 2nd half….

Sunday night I went round to Big Dean’s to watch UFC 83. The main event was Matt Serra Vs Georges Saint-Pierre (GSP) for the Welterweight championship that Serra took from GSP at their last outing. I had hoped that Serra may pull it out of the bag again, but this was always a long shot. GSP looked to have his conditioning spot on and looked focussed in front of a home crowd. Sure enough, it panned out as per the script and GSP was in control every step of the way. Serra’s gas just ran out and at one point was too tired to put up much defence against some well aimed shots. I did see some of the BJJ for which Serra is famed, which was good, but GSP was just too dominant and with some nasty knees going into Serra’s ribcage, the fight was stopped to give GSP the win by TKO. Both fighters were consummate professionals giving each other due respect and plaudits and that was nice to see.

Another fight that I was impressed by was Mike Bisping’s debut at Middleweight against Charles McCarthy. Bisping looked trim and fierce at his new weight and easily outclassed McCarthy to get a TKO in the first round. It’ll be interesting to see where Bisping goes from here in this weight division. Even if he does sound like Ashley from Coronation Street.

So, Monday night’s session, just four of us again and I arrived not feeling 100%. I think it’s a continuation of the tiredness I’d felt last week and has transformed into a weird feeling of mild nausea and weakness. I can’t explain what it is, except that I just don’t feel “right” and it sucks – I’d rather be properly ill – at least that way I’d know what to say about how I feel. Anyway, we focussed on the stand up in prep for Seni – defending base, against throws and against opponents jumping guard. We also did some ankle picks which I found hard, but it was all to do with my posture. I found defending the jump to guard tough too, until Si pointed out that I shouldn’t try to hold onto my opponent as this was dragging me down – problem fixed! I found the whole thing tough – physically I mean – sweating loads more than usual, breathless real quick and my concentration wasn’t too sharp so I came away feeling pretty fed up with myself, but I guess it can’t be helped.

On to the “big” news from me. I’ve decided today that I’m NOT going to enter Seni. There are a couple of factors in this decision. The major one is poor organisation on my part. I thought that I had time to enter and logged on today to do that thinking that the cut off was 23rd (which it is). However, I’ve missed the deadline for early entry and late entry is at a fee of £40. It makes a significant difference to me financially and also in terms of the value that I attach to competing (i.e. do I consider the tournament and any potential benefit to be worth £40 – in short, the answer is no). I feel a bit down about it, mainly because of the time that Big Dean and Si have given in helping me train. I just want to say thanks to you guys. I hope you don’t feel I’m letting you down or that any of that time was wasted – tournament or not, it has all been useful and will still be useful as I turn my attention to other tournaments later this year. Sorry and thanks.

The second, less significant, factor is my current “wellness”. I could well be 100% again by the weekend, but right now I feel mentally and physically ropey, so why spend £40 and potentially give a less than honest account of myself at a tournament. I’ve done this in the past – played in important Rugby games with injury when I should have stepped aside. The result makes you feel a lot worse than if you hadn’t played.

I’m disappointed, but I guess that now, I just get on with training as I always have and I’ll have a look to see what tournaments are around for the rest of the year and decide whether I want to go in for them.

Let's get it on!

I gotta lot of catching up to do so here goes…

Monday last week there were five of us. I wanted to work on going round open guard so Little Dean showed a few variations that he’s seen lately. These all worked pretty well and I remember elements of them, but here’s the rub with not keeping up with the blogging – I’ll need to revisit these sometime. He also showed us a drill which was great for just working movement – omoplata to triangle to armbar. You need to work with your partner to make it work, but it’s a drill, not a contest – just trying to keep the movements flowing. Really good for a warm up – might try and get a film clip of it up soon. We had a little bit of rolling at the end – usual story – nothing significant to report.

Except....that is....a bizarre conversation about what super power you'd have if you could pick one. Without being too graphic, one of our number (he shall remain nameless!) chose the ability to freeze time and re arrange things, then start time up again. He must've had some bastard teachers at school because he went off on a tangent about freezing time, putting teachers into comprimising positions and taking photos of the evidence. It was just far too detailed to have been an impromptu thought - a whole lot of repression there if you ask me...scary! I am frequently left dumbstruck by the direction our conversation takes at times.

Dean T had scheduled to teach on Thursday this week, and due to domestic arrangements I had to choose between Weds or Thurs, so Thursday it was. We covered a lot of ground, so here’s a quick summary. (1) Escape from omoplata – rolling into the opponent. (2) Escape from armbar – 3 variations all involving disrupting opponent’s base (3) 3 variations from opponent taking back- 1 escape from position – 2 escapes from chokes (gi choke and Rear Naked). It’s a whole lot to remember, but the principles for all of it was the same: move as you are attacked to either the escape, or to disrupt you opponent’s base. These principles are essential to just about every technique – move to late and you’ll have to fight for what you want – timing and sensitivity are everything. No time for rolling this session, but my mind was working overtime to store all I’d seen. We did just finish of with a sensitivity drill – one person making a move, the other just exploiting the movement to off-balance the opponent – a really useful thing to do and something I’ll aim to do more of.

On reflection, I also felt I picked up the value of small movements rather than big bold attempts at techniques, particularly in the armbar escape drills – 10% this way, 20% that way, 30% this way, 40% that way and so on rather than 100% that way and then fail.

All in all a good session.

Onto the main event of the week - UFC 80: Rapid Fire!!!

Big Dean had arranged for a few of us to go and see UFC 80 in Newcastle. I took the opportunity to blend the event with a visit to the in-laws so drove up on Friday, whilst the rest of the guys flew up Friday night. Sounds like I got the better end of the deal as they were all delayed getting away from Heathrow following the crash landing there the day before.

I arranged to meet the guys Saturday afternoon in Newcastle, so we met up (Me, Big Dean, Mike, Si, and Dean's mates Mick and Robbie) and had a few beers. After a short detour for the guys to spruce up we headed to the Metro arena - a decent sized venue.

Once inside we had seats about 30 meteres away from the Octagon and I was impressed by the set up - big screens, great lighting and a good buzz of expectation. The crowd was pretty mixed crowd - nerds, guys that train and know their stuff and a spattering of steroid abusers posturing their way to the bar, but all in all a good atmosphere.

The early fights were pretty good- most notably Paul Taylor V Paul Kelly (a unanimous decision to Kelly) - two British scrappers embroiled in a war of attrition - great stuff. Some other notable fights with surprise outcomes were Jess Liaudin losing by TKO (a sweet punch straight on the jaw - out before he hit the mat), Kendall Grove losing by TKO to a couple of punches that sent his pupils wide like black holes, Gabriel Gonzaga losing by TKO to Farbricio Werdum and also a very quick win by Antoni Hardonk over Colin Robinson (TKO within 1st 30 seconds of round 1). Hardonk's win is notable to this blog since he carries a Rickson Blue Belt and was proudly sporting Rickson's logo on his fight shorts - a proud moment for us all!

And the main event - the interim World Lightweight Championship bout between legendary BJ Penn and Joe "Daddy" Stevenson. Wow- the place went mental right from the off. Expectation was high and both fighters have a great record. Penn looked in great shape as he entered the Octagon, calm and determined. Stevenson looked pumped and ready for anything. Right from the off, Penn had the upper hand with excellent boxing skills and on the ground his BJJ pedigree shone through - such amazing control. Part way through round one, everything looked to be over as BJ dropped a nasty elbow that split Stevenson's face open - blood everywhere. Saved by the bell, Stevenson's cut-man started his fight with a losing battle. Round 2 was more of the same with Penn keeping Stevenson at bay with good footwork and well placed shots, but it looked more and more as though the fight would be stopped - BLOODBATH! The Doc had a quick look at Stevenson, but judged that his vision wasn't impaired by the blood. Eventually Penn off balanced Stevenson with a few good shots and took it to ground. More big blows gave Penn Stevenson's back - hooks in and after a few brief attempts by Stevenson to halt the inevitable, BJ sunk in a textbook rear naked choke for the tap.

What a fight - what a result - what a champ. I've also gotta give big respect to Stevenson - he put in a big effort, but BJ was just sooo superior on the night. Despite being absolutley distraught (you've gotta feel for a guy who has put months of focussed training into this one night), he still went across to raise BJ's arm to give him his due plaudits. Really nice to see.


See round 2 of the fight here. (Get it while it's hot - it's bound to be taken down sometime soon!)

BJ's message? "Sean Sherk- you're dead" - what a fight that'll be and on this form and in this shape you'd have to put your money on Penn.

Certainly this was my first live MMA event and I wasn't disappointed - well orchestrated, very professional and I was impressed by the time given by refrees, announcers, fighters etc to the fans for photos and autographs. The UFC have it sewn and know that it's the fans that keep it where it is.

So, cheers Dean for sorting it out, and to all the guys for the company - a great night. Here's a few pics:


So, one more session to cover off and that was taken by Dean T on Wednesday. Good to see French Steve back again and Ian aka "Monkey" after a while. Continuing with the "least energy used" methodology, we covered a nifty little escape from Kimura (on your side with attacker over your head). Main points: weight on - pull the attacker in to off balance, swing legs to side you're facing, then bridge back in to get the escape. Weight off, swing legs opposite way to spin out from under the position.

The rest of the session was largely given over to practicing more sensitivity and staying in control from cross side. Dean made the point about keeping the hips connected - the rest, the arms and legs were irrelevant and all the fancy grips you see many people using are just counter to what you need to be happening. We all spent a long time doing this - it's a pretty tough thing to do, but when it's right, there's little your opponent can do. I felt pretty good under cross-side in this drill, securing some good escapes and making good movement for myself, so pleased about that.

We also looked briefly at taking an armbar from allowing the opponent to make an escape from cross side: as the escapee pushes you away, you accept the push which over-extends your opponent's arm allowing an armbar to be executed using your knee to apply pressure. This fitted in nicely with a talk that Dean gave about accepting opponents' movement from the outset rather than resisting - going with the flow. It makes a lot of sense but runs counter to instinct, so needs to be trained as hard, if not harder than the myriad techniques in BJJ. It's great stuff.

Really enjoying training at the moment but I'm suffering with Catarrh. I don't actually remember having a cold, but I'm just so congested lately - I've gone deaf in one ear too. It's a pain in the arse- I'm not ill, but it's making life uncomfortable and stopping me going to the gym for a decent workout lately. May have to go to the doctor's to try and get something to clear it - it's taking too long on its own.

'Til next time - keep on training!