Last week was crazy I'm still recovering.

We spent the week preparing for Betinho's visit.

His first class covered basics and some new attacks from the triangle.

We had a pretty tough rolling session that day.

In the evening Betinho taught us new drills for both conditioning and techniques.

Saturday's seminar was a big hit and the gym was packed to the brim.

I was promoted to brown belt after the seminar which is awesome but a huge responsibility.

It was awesome to have two other black belts present during the seminar giving their blessings.

All you need to do to get better at BJJ is to keep training, win or lose, never give up.

This week @ Oceania BJJ Okinawa

Pretty awesome week leading up to the Grand opening.

Monday's kids class was full and we worked on beginner techniques.

It was great to see some of the more experienced kids helping others with their technique. 

Wednesday morning we had a visitor from mainland Japan. Despite being 15 years old he is ranked 3rd in Japan in his weight class for freestyle wrestling. His takedowns were monstrous and he was incredibly strong for someone his size and age. He is going to be a force to reckon with in the future.

Wednesday night was bittersweet. Our class was packed and we had some new visitors who had trained Sambo and at another mainland Japan BJJ team. Tad, who has been training with me on and off for a while is leaving Okinawa to go to university in Osaka. Tad is really tough and a fast learner I hope he finds a place to train in mainland and wish him the best with his studies in the future. He was put in a meatgrinder for his last class and sparred against various opponents for a total of 45 minutes. Nice work. 

Friday night the mats were crowded again. Two people trialed class. Apparently BJJ is a little tougher than their badminton training they were doing. We had two other blue belts visit our class. It was a great chance for everyone to test their techniques against different, in some cases stronger, and some cases more experienced students. 

Saturday open mat was busy.

We had our usual Saturday kids class with two new female students. Both immediately picked up the techniques quickly. Proving that BJJ is not just for men, or boys. 

We have started preparing everyone for the "King of the Island" tournament April 13th and 14th next month. We pushed our competitors hard and we luck enough to have some large adults to train with them.

Awesome seeing a 35kg student taking the back of a 110kg student. BJJ at its best.

Thanks for the great week everyone. See you Monday.

This week...

This week was pretty busy.

We had a few new people join our classes this week.
We were really lucky to have 53 year old join our  morning classes.
He wasn't interested in taking free trial classes, he immediately joined our team.

Our friend and brother Jay came back form Afghanistan this week.
Jay was missed on the mats.
It is important to have someone bigger and stronger than you to train with so you can improve your technique during class and sparring sessions. If you have trouble with techniques against bigger guys you can immediately refine your technique.

Welcome back bro. 

Everyone lets train hard and always have fun.

This week @ Oceania BJJ Okinawa

This week...

Drilling, drilling drilling...

I worked out we spent roughly 10 hours drilling the same 4 techniques this week.

It's pretty boring but the progress is palpable. 

One of my old kung fu teachers liked to say: 

Practice a technique 1000 times to learn it;

Practice a technique 1000 times to make it your own;

Practice a technique 1000 times to perfect it.

I'm not sure if we did 3000 of each technique but we can keep chipping away at that number.

Friday night we had 4 new people on the mat!

It was awesome!!! 1.5 hour class followed by 1.5 hour sparring session.

Sorry for the knee in the face... old school dirty technique. ;)

-Ossss.

This week we have been hitting the judo pretty hard.

The boys just added their patches to their gi's and the look awesome.

I finally got around to finishing the 2012 highlight video. Check it out.

It's been a big couple of weeks...

Finally got the academy semi-sorted.

Been pretty hectic but awesome at the same time.

Thanks to everyone for the support and help!

First morning...

Thanks Ko Chan for the awesome lockers

Blackboard, clock, etc

Wall logo and pics..

We still have some work to do before the grand opening but still awesome to finally have a place to roll and call our own.

Thanks to Mario, Roberto, and everyone in the team for their support.
Thanks to Okinawan BJJ!

March 8th, 2012 - Berimbolo

I finally decided to write a post for the blog I created almost 6 months ago.

As work teaching English is starting to wind down I've had more time to focus on BJJ. I've been spending quite a lot of time focusing on my students development as opposed to my own. Although,I've found that teaching the basics to people new to BJJ really helps me reinforce my fundamentals. It has also forced me to step outside of my self enforced boundaries and look into new techniques as they evolve in the sport.
There as been a lot of noise about the berimbolo in the BJJ community lately. "What is the berimbolo?" you might ask. The Berimbolo is a position(?) or movement(?) used from - but not exclusive to - the de la riva guard or when someone is standing or kneeling in your guard and you are controlling one of his legs.
Take a look at Renato Tavares' video for a good example of what potential the berimbolo has.

It's a pretty crazy position. Anyone without a good understanding of the fundamentals of de la riva or open guard might pass this movement off as one of those "exotic techniques" or "low-percentage moves". However, if you take a look at this video of Rafael Mendes, you can see that the berinbolo can be used at the highest level of BJJ tournaments.

There will be a number of people out there who might argue against learning the berimbolo as an offensive tool because they: don't like playing guard, lack the flexibility, or whatever. I have to admit that I probably would have been in this camp until I was swept with a berimbolo sweep by Roberto Yokoyama, a recently promoted black belt in Nagoya. I had a eureka moment and immediately asked him to explain the sweep's fundamentals. So to those of you out there with doubts, my reply would be that everyone needs to know what is out there, how it works, and how to defend against it regardless of level, belt color, or lack of interest in the gi. Otherwise you will be limiting your own progression and ignoring a developing technique in BJJ.

Berimbolo rolling into an armbar!? Hell yeah. LOL.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=dKRkqFav2-I