The Gi-Smell Pull Up
February 28, 2009
As anyone who trains Brazilian jiu-jitsu knows, it is very hard to be away from the mats. Due to the bad knee injury I sustained last month, I have been unable to train jiu-jitsu for about 6 weeks, which is torture! So as you can imagine I am dying to do anything that reminds me of training again.
In a desperate attempt to recreate any of the sensations one gets when rolling, I decided I could throw my gi over the top of a jungle gym at a nearby park, lay under it, and grab the arms of the gi to pull myself off the ground. That way it feels as if I am pulling on a jiu-jitsu training partner, and I get to work my grips and some back muscles too.
The perversely gratifying side effect of this exercise is that when you’ve pulled yourself as high as possible, your face is right inside the gi, and it now smells like you’re back on the mats! (Yes, I do always wash my gi after training but there’s always just a little of gi smell that never seems to come out.)
Here’s an advanced technique for this exercise: turn your gi inside out before hanging it over the top of the jungle gym. The rust on the jungle gym tends to smudge onto your gi, leaving suspicious-looking dark brown stains that would take too long to explain to someone you’re about to roll with!
I don’t know if I will come up with any other ground-breaking exercise techniques for the injured jiu-jitsu person, but if I do, I will post them here. In the meantime, count yourself lucky that you are not injured and that you do not look like a weirdo in the park!
BJJ Poll: Should iCompete.org Also List Jiu-Jitsu Seminars?
February 28, 2009
We recently re-launched iCompete.org. We gave it a fresh coat of paint, and stripped out the insides and replaced it with a new engine. Traditionally iCompete was a hub of information about Brazilian jiu-jitsu tournaments, just as it is now. What it also used to list were BJJ seminars from travelling BJJ black belts.
Since we rolled out the new iCompete.org, I’ve been asked by a few people whether we had plans to list seminars up there again. I originally was not going to put seminars in there to keep my workload down, but if the majority of folks would like that information back, I would be happy to list them again.
So what do you think? Should BJJ seminars return to iCompete? Or should it only list jiu-jitsu tournaments?
(On a side note: one of the most common ways people get their information from iCompete is to have all the newly added events emailed to you. You can sign up for that here if you haven’t yet! It’s free of course.)
Kron Gracie at the Gracie US Nationals in 2008
February 25, 2009
Back in February 2008 Rose Gracie (daughter of UFC founder Rorion Gracie) and her husband Javi Vazquez held their annual Gracie US Nationals at the LA Convention Center. The event had saw approximately 400 competitors mostly from Southern California, including a healthy children’s division. BJJ practitioners-turned-MMA-fighters Renato “Babalu” Sobral and Fabio Leopoldo stopped in to check out the action too. Although tons of elite-level BJJ practitioners were present, including Saulo Ribeiro, Xande Ribeiro and Jeff Glover, the competitor in the event with the highest profile had to have been Kron Gracie. Kron, the son of Rickson Gracie and a brown belt in BJJ at the time, had four matches that day all of which were won by submission. Above is video footage of the endings of three of them, presented in order. Here are the details of his performance that day:
- Middleweight division: Kron Gracie defeats Daniel Santana (Franco de Camargo) by armbar.
- Middleweight division: Kron Gracie taps Alfredo Barun with a choke from the mount.
- Absolute division: Kron Gracie armbars Felipe Fogolin.
- Absolute division: Kron Gracie armbars Bruiser Neal (not in video)
Kron threw the Kikskin gi he won for his performance into the crowd after the medal ceremony.
While Kron did lose his debut match as a black belt later in 2008 at the 2008 BJJ Mundials to Alliance‘s Sergio Moraes, he has since bounced back, winning all of his matches at the 2009 European BJJ Championships.
As always, if you’re interested in automatically having our BJJ video automatically download to your computer, you can subscribe to them in iTunes!
Tournament Review Tuesday: Chokefest in San Diego
February 24, 2009
It’s not often that you attend a small jiu-jitsu tournament where your nose is not defending the vague smell of nearby body odor, and where your ears are not constantly assaulted by the irregular clamor of coaches and teammates shouting instructions to their friends who are on the mats competing. On Sunday Chokefest II: The Quickening broke both of those stereotypes. Although this crowded no-gi event was held in one of Undisputed’s training centers here in San Diego and competition was limited to just two mats, the open bay doors allowed the body heat and odors to escape and a cool breeze to bring in the tempting smell of the hamburgers that were being grilled outside for event spectators. A DJ played some beats in the background but not so loudly that it distracted from the action on the mats.
Andy Wang, of The Ultimate Fighter fame was the event’s organizer and invited his friends and acquaintances who run Brazilian jiu-jitsu programs in southern California to participate. While the total number of competitors in the event did not reach 100, it was probably for the better due to the size restrictions of the venue.
A couple of details from the more advanced competitors:
- Jason Bukich defeated Brandon Bouvier by rear naked choke. Bukich swept Bouvier from x-guard and as Bukich was coming on top, Bouvier gave his back and fell victim to the choke.
- Former IFL fighter Adam Lynn was defeated by Steve Magdaleno, who trains at Vladimir Matyushenko’s VMAT training center. Lynn won an earlier match with a flying triangle but Magdaleno was able to outpoint him 2-0 in a contest that took place mostly on the feet.
- Russ Miura defeated Orlando Jones (Machado Redondo Beach) by kimura.
- Renowned Brazilian jiu-jitsu black belt and no-gi competitor Baret Yoshida was supposed to compete, but shortly before the day of the tournament Yoshida became sick and was unable to participate.
All in all Chokefest II: The Quickening was a nice little tournament for a warm southern California Sunday in February.
In our new column Tournament Review Tuesdays, FightWorks Podcast listeners submit reports about Brazilian jiu-jitsu and grappling competitions that happened the weekend prior. The opinions expressed do not necessarily represent those of The FightWorks Podcast. (Although this time around I wrote it!) – Caleb
#154 Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu in Public Schools, BJJ Research, & More From the Helio Gracie Ceremony in Torrance
February 22, 2009
Gracie family members from the Gracie Academy in Torrance, from left to right: Rener, Reylan, Rorion, Ralek, and Ryron.
A few weeks ago I get an email:
I’m a big fan of the show been listening for a while now and have just recently started mt Jiu Jitsu journey. I was wondering if you could ever see Jiu Jitsu becoming a High School sport? I know that it could be a little dangerous but so is any sport. Just wanted your thoughts.
Thanks
Josh
So, in a recent episode I answered the question to the best of my shallow knowledge about public education. Shortly afterwards I find out that there actually is already formalized Brazilian jiu-jitsu classes being taught in California! In this episode we will speak with Esaul Viramontes, the physical education teacher and Brazilian jiu-jitsu purple belt who teaches jiu-jitsu at Highland High School in classes that count toward students’ physical education requirements!
Speaking of Brazilian jiu-jitsu’s growing presence in popular culture, we will also speak with Bryan Hogeveen, a sociologist at the University of Alberta in Canada. Hogeveen is initiating research on Brazilian jiu-jitsu culture that will culminate in a book. His goals are to answer some basic questions about Brazilian jiu-jitsu that we think we know but have never been formally investigated.
Part of Hogeveen’s research will be based on information provided by BJJ practitioners out there, and he invites you to participate by filling out the surveys here:
- Male BJJ practitioners click here
- Female BJJ practitioners click here
Finally, we’ll round out this episode with some audio that I have from the Helio Gracie Ceremony in Torrance that took place on February 7. Throughout this past week I have posted a few BJJ videos from the event, but I had some extra audio that I thought you’d enjoy as well. In the clip that is in this episode of our BJJ podcast, you’ll hear from Rener Gracie, who share memories of his grandfather Helio Gracie.
Don’t forget that we still have the gi patch photo contest underway! Entries must be provided to us by February 25th!
[iTunes] Subscribe to the Podcast directly in iTunes (recommended)
[mp3] Download the show
BJJ Poll: When Did You Begin Training BJJ?
February 21, 2009
I have my own suspicions about when it is in one’s life that a person begins Brazilian jiu-jitsu on average, but I am curious to see if the data here will support those ideas.
So vote in the poll and tell us in the comments: When did you begin training Brazilian jiu-jitsu?
Helio Gracie Ceremony – Video 3 of 3
February 19, 2009
On February 7th, the Gracie Academy in Torrance, California held a ceremony to commemorate the life of Grand Master Helio Gracie, who passed away in late January at the age of 95.
The third video with some words from Ralek Gracie is posted over on YouTube but I still recommend you subscribe to our BJJ Video feed in iTunes so that every time we release a new video it will be automatically downloaded to you, your iPod and / or iPhone, so you won’t miss anything!
This post marks the last of the short videos we’ve brought back.
Helio Gracie Ceremony – Video 2 of 3
February 18, 2009
On February 7th, the Gracie Academy in Torrance, California held a ceremony to commemorate the life of Grand Master Helio Gracie, who passed away in late January at the age of 95.
The second video with some words from Ryron Gracie is posted over on YouTube but I still recommend you subscribe to our BJJ Video feed in iTunes so that every time we release a new video it will be automatically downloaded to you, your iPod and / or iPhone, so you won’t miss anything!
This post marks the second of the short videos we’ve brought back. We’ll post the last one tomorrow.
Tournament Review Tuesday: NAGA 2009 New England Grappling Championship
February 17, 2009
From Dan “Micro” Faggella.
I showed up to the event at around 11:45am with a teammate of mine. We went to meet up with the rest of the competitors of the Omoplata BJJ Team. We were going to have 8 competitors, but we only had 4. Two people out due to injury, two people out due to illness. I was one of those who had the illness (the plaaaague!). So be it, it gave me more time to watch the absolute division, coach students, and do this write up.
The venue at Twin Rivers was rather nice. Large ceilings and lots of seating. Tim Burrill (a black belt under Carlos Machado out of Providence, RI) commented: “They seemed to regulate the air in there very well.” Not too hot, cold, or humid. In addition, like some kind of Christmas Miracle, people stayed seated around the mats. Anyone who’s been to more than one grappling event knows that around the border of the mat there is nearly always a forrest of bodies standing and watching. Kipp Kollar, the President of NAGA, must have done something right this time around – although his instructions for people to sit didn’t sound very different from usual.
A super-fight between Gabriel Gonzaga and ATT black belt Luigi Mondelli was intended to take place, but it was replaced by a super-fight between Danny Lauzon and a local MMA fighter named Will Kerr from Strikezone. I was excited to watch Gonzaga but I understand his concern not to grapple – he’s going to be fighting in the UFC again soon.
The super-fight was quite exciting. Both men were clearly confident on their feet. Kerr seemed more aggressive at first, attempting a few shots and keeping his level low. Danny defended a shot with a standing guillotine, and as Kerr’s head popped out of it, Danny took him down swiftly, moving right into a pass. Some crazy reversals happened and Kerr got another takedown, bringing the score to 6-8 when Danny drove him into the crowd in the last seconds and it was called a takedown, 8-8. Overtime began immediately and Danny won on points.
The other divisions seemed to run pretty smoothly, no mats went empty for too long. I caught up with Kipp Kollar himself to talk about the event. “I like this venue” he said, “but it cost a lot of money to rent this place out, thats why we only did it for one day and didn’t split up the kid’s and adult’s divisions.” I asked him how many competitors there were at the event, I myself was surprised to see this many people on a Valentine’s Day. “We have over 1000 competitors today, usually here in New England we don’t get this many. I think Valentines Day might have actually done some good for us, maybe people showed up with their girlfriends to go gambling afterwards, I don’t know.” [Kipp Kollar emailed and said that the event's official competitor total was 1,067. - Caleb] Kipp confirmed that there was in fact another NAGA event for June that is booked at the Twin Rivers casino as well.
I also caught up with Mat Santos, who was one of a great number of competitors in the absolute division. The absolute division was completely stacked, with a lot of highlights – such as Santos tapping another black belt in 15 seconds with a guillotine, and Dan Simmler unfortunately being carried off the mat due to an apparent rib injury. Santos won his first two matched and lost his third. “I lost to Harris from the Brick House, he trains elite level wrestlers over there. I think I’m going to have him down for a seminar.” I went on to ask him how he liked the tournament “Good tournament, I had fun. I wish I had won but that’s life sometimes.” The winner of the absolute division was Peter Kerantzas, a massive judoka who I’d never seen before.
Overall the tournament seemed to go well, and after 8 hours in a casino fresh air was pretty nice. I’m definitely looking forward to the next NAGA here in Rhode Island. Next time I’ll surely compete unless another bird flu rolls in.
This is the eighth in our new column, Tournament Review Tuesdays, where FightWorks Podcast listeners submit reports about Brazilian jiu-jitsu and grappling competitions that happened the weekend prior. The opinions expressed do not necessarily represent those of The FightWorks Podcast. – Caleb
Helio Gracie Ceremony – Video 1 of 3
February 17, 2009
On February 7th, the Gracie Academy in Torrance, California held a ceremony to commemorate the life of Grand Master Helio Gracie, who passed away in late January at the age of 95. We headed north to capture what we could of the event and brought back three short videos that we will share today, tomorrow, and Thursday.
The first video with some words from Rorion Gracie is posted over on YouTube but I still recommend you subscribe to our BJJ Video feed in iTunes so that every time we release a new video it will be automatically downloaded to you, your iPod and / or iPhone, so you won’t miss anything!
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