The FightWorks Podcast Headquarters Looks Back at 2009
December 23, 2009
The year is over. 2009 was a busy, busy year at The FightWorks Podcast. From live blogging the 2009 Mundials and the 2009 ADCC, to severing my ACL and LCL, and recovering from it, things have been non-stop for us. In between all the craziness we put an internet radio show just about every week. Two sister sites to The FightWorks Podcast were born this year and are doing very well.
- iCompete.org lists upcoming jiu-jitsu tournaments and seminars and has posted over 470 events in 2009 for our community.
- The jiu-jitsu school directory BJJMap.com added more than 550 places to train BJJ in 2009.
We have always been fortunate in terms of the support we receive from the jiu-jitsu family out there and 2009 was no exception. Among them are a few who stand out that I have to thank personally.
Alicia Anthony is an unspoken hero of our site and I don’t thank her nearly enough. I’d have to say ninety percent of the images you see on our website are the result of a camera that Alicia pointed at someone. Her works adds a critical visual component to our coverage of the beautiful art of jiu-jitsu and its athletes. You must check out her work at aliciaphotos.com. If there is a better visual record of Brazilian jiu-jitsu competition out there, I am not aware of it. Please support her.
Bruce Hoyer for contributing countless interviews and videos to our show. There are multiple weeks where because of my day job I didn’t have time to get content put together but Bruce was able to deliver great content and save the day. Despite snoring when we share a room at the Mundials, I consider him a huge asset and am very grateful for his help (hey I snore too, so I shouldn’t throw stones!). Bruce runs Next Edge Academy in Sioux Falls, South Dakota so be sure to stop by if you are in town.
Cohost Dan. Dan runs the original FightWorks academy in Northern Virginia where we both started training in 2000 or so. In addition being an awesome cohost who makes himself available despite the short notice I give him every week, he was a best man in my wedding in August. Our relationship is a perfect example of the many gifts of Brazilian jiu-jitsu.
Of course, I want to warmly thank all the BJJ competitors out there who contributed to our Tournament Review Tuesday column. Those pieces help shed light into the majority of the competition scene out there that we frankly don’t have access to. Those experiences represent the bread and butter everyman’s experience of jiu-jitsu competition and are really important to document. So thank you to the BJJ competitors that have contributed the almost 30 reviews in 2009 for the rest of us to enjoy.
In closing, it’s been an awesome year! THANK YOU, Mighty 600,000 for your support. Here’s to another great year in 2010!
BJJ Poll: What Type of Hours Does Your BJJ School Keep?
December 19, 2009
This idea for a BJJ Poll came from Jason in Wisconsin, a longtime member of the Mighty 600,000! Thanks Jason!
Dan's Version of the Relson Shake
December 17, 2009
By Cohost Dan
Okay guys and gals here is the recipe for my version of the Relson banana shake. As mentioned previously, Relson Gracie, who has been eating this for decades, uses about 6 bananas, cream cheese, and less protein powder. Many people have come up to me randomly and asked “cheese?”. The answer is YES! put in the cottage or cream cheese. The cheese is what makes the shake especially good. I personally prefer cottage cheese instead of cream cheese as it is almost pure protein and has little fat. So here goes:
Put in a blender:
1) Two large bananas
2) Two heaping tablespoons lowfat cottage cheese
3) One scoop Vanilla protein powder (Syntha-6 is my favorite)
4) One cup cloudy (non filtered) pure apple juice.
Blend until smooth and enjoy! Sometimes I have the shake for breakfast after a hard night of training. Other times I down one prior to training for some good fuel. Either way it tastes great and has some super nutritional content.
Give it a try and let us know if you like it!
Tournament Review Tuesday: Abu Dhabi Pro Jiu Jitsu European Qualifiers
December 15, 2009
Action in the A division. Photos courtesy Jon Broster.
By Jon Broster
This event was hosted by Zé Marcello of Brazilian Top Team and Jude Samuel of European Fight Network.
Arriving at the venue, it was clear for all to see that this was no ordinary competition. Dartford Judo Club is the Performance Institute for British Judo and is, therefore, home for a number of Olympic judo players. As might be expected, the facilities are excellent:
- Two full size Olympic judo mats.
- Cinema-style seating for around 200 spectators (ie soft chairs, not bleachers).
- Large, clean changing facilities.
Dartford is around 30 miles south east of the centre of London, and is within easy reach of all 4 of London’s airports, as well as being only a short drive from the English Channel, placing it within easy reach of European competitors and making it an excellent choice of venue for this international event. Participants had traveled from all over the United Kingdom and there were significant numbers of French and Polish competitors as well as people from Portugal, Spain, Belgium, the Netherlands and Switzerland.
At the weigh in it was obvious that this was a very serious event – everyone was in great shape, there was no one who looked to be over weight or really skinny – and with good reason; up for grabs were all expenses paid tickets to the finals to be held in Abu Dhabi in April.
The event was well organized and, despite starting a few minutes late, ran smoothly all day. The officials all looked very smart, sporting black polo shirts and the venue had been suitably adorned with tournament sponsorship boards. One obvious difference from more standard events, was the relatively small number of divisions; there were no juniors, masters or seniors, simply adult divisions divided by weight for white belts, blue belts and a combined purple, brown & black belt division. The women were simply divided into 2 divisions by weight.
Right from the beginning there were some outstanding performances.
In the white belt under 83kg division, Wout Westra (Gracie Barra Netherlands) submitted all his opponents and finished one match in around 15 seconds, to land the quickest tap out of the day, with an armbar from standing.
East European judo player Vasil Panfil (RGA) smashed his way through the under 93kg blue belt division, repeatedly throwing all who stood before (some as many as 4 times) clocking up huge scores in the process, before taking both his weight division and the heavier of the two absolute divisions.
At the lighter end of the blue belt divisions Londoner Daniel Agard (BJJ School)demonstrated some beautiful sweeps and submissions on his way to winning both the under 73kg and the lighter absolute divisions.
In the women’s division, the fight of the day had to go to the white belt who held out for the full time and was only beaten on points by her brown belt opponent, showing some fantastic defense in the process.
Division A (the combined purple, brown and black belt division) was like a who’s who of European BJJ competitors; there were no fewer than 14 European gold medal winners competing, together with medalists from every major tournament across Europe and around the world.
The standard of competition was, as would be expected, outstanding.
In the under 83kg division Henrique Santana (Gracie Barra) ground out victories all his opponents, scoring well and conceding very few points indeed to his opponents.
I think for many the stand out performance of the day was by Luke Costello (Gracie Barra Birmingham) at under 92kg, who, despite being only a purple belt, showed some fantastic movement, taking the fight to and beating brown belts and coming close in the final against Nic Gregoriades (RGA) who is one of Britain’s leading black belts.
The atmosphere throughout the day was fantastic, thanks in no small part to the sizable and very vocal French contingent. Now it only remains to wait until April to see how well the European qualifiers rise to the challenge of taking on the best in the world.
As a spectacle, this was without doubt one of the best BJJ tournaments that has ever been held in Britain – congratulations to all those concerned.
The venue, Dartford Judo Club.
Jon Broster trains under Victor Estima & Dave Briggs at Gracie Barra Mansfield and under Lee Livingstone at Bushido MMA.
This is an installment in our Tournament Review Tuesdays column, 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. Through the rest of 2009, if you submit a Tournament Review Tuesday piece, you might win an Isami gi!
- Caleb
Tournament Review Tuesday: Grapplers Quest World Series of Grappling
December 15, 2009
By Tren Long
I attended the “World Series of Grappling” put on by Grappler’s Quest last weekend in Las Vegas Nevada. This was my 4th GQ event and I think it maintained its high level of organization with just a few glaring problems. This event is held annually in the first week of December and always promises a lot of good competition and a well put together tournament. To add to the excitement there was a Pro Division this year with a bunch of high caliber big name BJJ and grappling guys and gals competing for a cash prize.
The Good:
The Pro division was awesome fun to watch from lightweight to heavyweight. I enjoyed watching as many of the matches that I could manage between my own matches and was in awe of the skill and competition on those Pro mats. They did a good job of announcing the finals of those pro brackets so you knew when to watch and who you were watching.
As always they put on a fast paced, well put-together event. For the most part everything kept moving. We had guys in our group that were among the last divisions to go and we left for the long drive home at about 8:30pm which is pretty typical for GQ events.
The refs I have always thought were awesome at GQ events and this year was no exception. They are all helpful with the new guys and are amazing at resetting matches in as close to the original position as possible if they went out of bounds.
The level of competition I thought was very very good. It could have been just me but it seemed like there was a whole bunch of guys from Paragon (and women for that matter) that were bringing the hammer down on the mats. I include myself as one of those whom had the hammer drop down on them.
The Bad:
The Venue – They normally have it at a very large sports complex where there are bleachers, open air, great lighting, and visibility of the mats. This time around they opted for one of the conference rooms in the Texas Station hotel in North Las Vegas. Although it was really nice staying in the same hotel as the tournament so you didn’t have to load up and drive to the event, the actual conference center was much too small for an event of this size. There were no bleachers to speak of other than a few rows of folding chars on the floor and a few rows of folding chairs on an elevated platform with seating for about 60, which lead to everyone’s favorite pass time at tournaments: crowding the mats. So from any seat you could not really see any of the mats or matches going on which made it very difficult to not only find your own mat, but to try to find your team-mates mat became nearly impossible. In order to watch the Pro Division I had to watch from about 50 feet away in the crack between a doorway and one of the tables. Otherwise it was shoulder to shoulder to get to any of the mats.
The P.A. system you could hear fine in the conference room, but the second you stepped outside the conference room to find a seat or to warm up it was impossible to hear any of the announcements.
Originally on the website the Pro brackets were going to be contested on Friday night, but a few weeks before the event it got switched to 1pm on Saturday. I think that was a mistake. It would have been a lot better as a spectator to watch on Friday night. The mats would not have been crowded, you would not have to worry about missing your own match while watching the pros, and it would have opened up a lot of room for the normal competition on Saturday.
The mats had HUGE cracks where the pieces of the mats came together by the end of the day. It made these lovely little crevasses that I am sure where just begging to break some toes. I am not sure what had happened because GQ always uses Zebra Mats and they have always been awesome but something about the way they set it up had the mats coming apart all over the place. Before every one of my matches we had to stop and try to adjust the mats back together with little success.
To sum it up as always Grappler’s Quest put on a classy show with a pretty fast paced, mostly on time tournament with one flaw- the venue. I hate to say it but if they hold it at the hotel again I will not be attending and I think most of the people I train with feel the same.
Tren Long trains under Keith Owen in Boise, Idaho.
This is an installment in our Tournament Review Tuesdays column, 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. Through the rest of 2009, if you submit a Tournament Review Tuesday piece, you might win an Isami gi!
- Caleb
#192 Romero "Jacare" Cavalcanti and BJJ in 2009
December 13, 2009
Romero “Jacare” Cavalcanti and Fabio Gurgel, the leaders of jiu-jitsu team Alliance accepting the 1rst place team trophy at the 2008 BJJ Mundials.
Romero “Jacare” Cavalcanti is the founder of the Brazilian jiu-jitsu team Alliance, who has won the gold medal for BJJ teams at the World Championships both in 2008 and 2009. Today on our humble BJJ internet radio show we chat with Jacare about the state of BJJ in 2009. Jacare also discusses how BJJ helped him survive a tough environment as a teen and how it also helped pull him through serious health issues earlier this year.
Plus cohost Dan and I will recap the most recent BJJ Poll and take some listener voicemail regarding last week’s show with Rener Gracie!
[iTunes] Subscribe to the Podcast directly in iTunes (recommended)
[mp3] Download the show
BJJ Poll: Does Your BJJ School Charge a Fee for Visitors Who Want to Train?
December 12, 2009
We know that 72% of folks bring their gis so they can train Brazilian jiu-jitsu when they travel. I know I always try to hit a new school when I am on the road. Sometimes when you arrive at a new school to train, you’re asked to pay a mat fee to participate.
What does your BJJ academy do when someone from out of town stops in and would like to train? Do they have to pay? If they do, let us know how much your school charges in the comments below!
Thanks to @Diffs13 for the poll idea!
BJJ Poll Review with Penny Thomas
December 11, 2009
2009 has been the first year where every week we post a BJJ poll. I have to say it has been informative to get real numbers for trends and behaviors in our community. Plus it gives us something fun to talk about every Sunday on the show.
So about a little over a week ago I met up with 2009 BJJ World Champion Penny Thomas to put together a brief recap of some of our polls from this year. We did not get into the real crazy ones about marijuana or steroids. But it’s a nice reference that people can find on YouTube that will hopefully point them to the interesting data that was gathered.
If you’re curious, the two black belts in the video you see are Joao Assis (CheckMat) in the white gi and Andre de Freitas (Cesar Gracie) in the blue gi at the 2009 American National Championship.
Enjoy! More to come in 2010!
USA Gets a New Female BJJ Black Belt
December 11, 2009
Katie Weilbacher is promoted to black belt. Photo courtesy Katie Weilbacher.
Women’s Brazilian jiu-jitsu in the United States takes another important step forward. On Saturday Ricardo “Franjinha” Miller awarded his first-ever female black belt to Katie Weilbacher.
At the age of twenty-four, Weilbacher is likely the youngest American female to be promoted to black belt in BJJ. Like fellow Paragon jiu-jitsu prodigies Bill “The Grill” Cooper and Jeff Glover, Weilbacher is a fierce competitor. She has taken home the gold medal at the Mundial at lower belt rankings three times in the gi and once in no-gi.
Congratulations to Weilbacher on her accomplishment. This is a good step forward for women’s BJJ here in the United States. And it should make for an even more exciting Pan-Ams and Mundials in 2010!
Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu Magazines
December 10, 2009
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It’s the time of year for giving. I’m here to make the case today that one thing that the Mighty 600,000 should have on their wish list this year is a subscription to one or more BJJ magazines. We all have a favorite BJJ podcast 
but it’s nice to have something to hold in your hands with great photos and interviews with jiu-jitsu personalities. And magazines can definitely do a little better job at showing jiu-jitsu techniques than we can!
Let’s go in alphabetical order. And just to clarify, this post is about magazines whose primary mission is providing information about Brazilian jiu-jitsu, front and center. I won’t be able to do either magazine justice in a paragraph, but I can give a quick intro.
BJJLegends published its first issue in 2009. Based out of Los Angeles, California, the magazine has featured articles and interviews with BJJ and grappling stars from all over. BJJLegends is published quarterly and every issue comes with a DVD of jiu-jitsu moves and interviews. The quality is high, with heavy paper stock. A year’s subscription (4 issues) to BJJLegends is $49.99 but its editors tell me that can be found for $12.99 per copy in Barnes and Noble, amazon.com, Borders books, Hastings books/music, some BJJ academies. There are wholesale discounts for academies.
GracieMag originates in Brazil where its first issue was printed in 1996. (Trivia: It was previously known as the Journal Gracie before that time). It still calls Brazil home but has full time staff in New York and publishes all of its content both in Portuguese and English inside the same magazine. Each issue contains interviews, articles, and technique sections and is also printed on heavy, very high quality paper. A year’s subscription (12 issues) to GracieMag is $89.50. GracieMag can also be found in many BJJ academies who are part of the GracieMag Association.
If you kindly suggest to your significant other that you would like a subscription to a jiu-jitsu magazine as a holiday gift, you can remind her that it is a normal gift to give a BJJ person. Brazilian jiu-jitsu industry research that 64% of jiu-jitsu people received BJJ-related gifts during the holidays last year. Your loved one surely would not want you to be one of the minority of people who don’t get a good BJJ holiday gift, would they?!?
So my final recommendation: no matter which magazine you decide to get, SUPPORT BRAZILIAN JIU-JITSU MEDIA!
For full disclosure’s sake I should mention that content that originates here at The FightWorks Podcast (an occasional BJJ poll or short article) sometimes finds a home in these publications. But we received no compensation for this posting.
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