April 7-14 @ Oceania BJJ Okinawa

We had a massive week of training ahead of the King Of The Island tournament on the weekend.

In total we had 5 members from the team fight.

Isaiah and Elijah represented the team in the kids division.

Both did an awesome job. Isaiah won his first fight in 40 seconds via armbar from the triangle position and moved on to the finals where he put on a gutsy performance but in the end lost by points. Elijah was dominating his first fight but was put into the armbar position, he escaped though and pass the guard and maintain mount to get the win via points.

Both boys were promoted after their efforts and true showing of spirit.

Kelvin fought well on Sunday making his way to the final of his weight division.

He fought a very experienced opponent and was eventually worn down. Taking 2nd place in his weight class.

Jay Matias our big boy representative fought some tough and huge guys in this weight classes.

Jay took 3rd in his super heavy weight no gi class and 1st in the gi.

James was invited by the tournament's organizer Ivan Sakamoto to take part in a brown belt superfight against Takashi Miyagi. James threatened the pass and choke early on. Miyagi's flexibility and guard kept him safe. Miyagi in counter attack threatened with a triangle / kimura combination which James powered out. James made another attempt to pass and looked like he would get his points but in a scramble was swept. Miyagi ran out the buzzer to win 2-0. Great fight.

Out of the 8 academies that came out to fight and only have 5 fighters we placed 4th overall. 

Nice Job everyone!

Thanks to everyone who came out to support. Dave, Sayuri, Sheree, Gc, Betsy, Emily, Elisa, Jojo and Ali. Having people supporting the fighters makes a huge difference. Hope everyone makes it out next time and maybe will even get on the mats to have a roll.

Finally thank you to the other teams, competitors, and organizers. Great event see you next time.

First week of April...

First week of April and no slowing down. Kids classes are slowly getting bigger. 

We have two of our students from the kids class representing our team at the tournament next weekend. I'm sure they are going to bring home the gold.

Last week we started no gi classes.

Classes six days a week is a lot of work but its good for everyone.

Last week Kawada-San (52 years old) trained 5 times last week.

It awesome have someone so motivated to train every morning class.

We have started an MMA program for people wishing to fight.

Saturday night we covered MMA grappling basics, countering strikers, and general MMA grappling strategies.

Looking forward to another week of training before the tournament.

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.