Braulio Estima: Invisible Jiu-Jitsu Instructional Review

Braulio is the hottest name in town right now. The current European openweight, ADCC openweight and World heavyweight champion is not only an awesome competitor, he's a darn good instructor too. Just ask his very loyal and adoring students at the Birmingham Gracie Barra Academy. So I was very keen to have a butchers at his latest set of BJJ instructional videos courtesy of the CageFilm website...

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Simon Yeo seminar

Photo: Simon armbars Seymour, the ninjutsu way..ouch!

Last night I attended a ninjutsu seminar given by 12th dan Simon Yeo. Readers may recall that I interviewed Simon about his views on traditional martial arts and BJJ. You can read the interview at On The Mat here. So when the offer of training with Simon cropped up, I felt it was the honourable thing to at least see and learn a few tricks from the ninjutsu master.

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Kent Open: Fightworks Podcast Review

The Fightworks Podcast - published my official review of the Kent BJJ Open Tournament, Enjoy!
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Kent BJJ Open 2009

So here's the thing: I know in advance at the Kent BJJ Open, that I have only one opponent in my bracket (seniors under 76kg blue), and so for the past week or so I've planned my strategy and how I'm going to fight my one fight. And, remarkably for me, cometh the day, I actually win the match. Woohoo! But the organisers offer us a 'best of three' scenario. And now suddenly, my hard fought win looks tentative. Will I man-up and fight my best of three, or will I chicken out, take the medal and run?

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Man up!

Thanks to the splendiferous Urban Dictionary, I now know the meaning of the phrase, to 'man up'.

This weekend I will 'man up' by competing at the Kent BJJ Open in the Under 70kg Senior Blue Belt category, a weight division that is two above what my natural one is. But I'm not at all worried or nervous, in fact I'm really looking forward to it. The Kent Open is one of the 'biggies' of the events calendar in the UK, so there will be lots of great action to see and people to meet.

As per usual, your budding jiu-jitsu reporter will be there to record the event and write up my experiences.

Oooooosssssssu! Click Here to Read More..

Five Blingin' BJJ gis

Some gis are born great, others achieve greatness and some have greatness thrust upon them...here are five awesome pimped up blingin' gis that I DARE you to wear!

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Academy Tour: London Fight Factory

East London's Brick Lane: ahhhh! the piquant aroma of curry restaurants, the hustle and bustle of shoppers at Spitalfields market, the slamming of bodies on the mats...eh?

Oh yes people, Brick Lane has a new landmark, a factory for fighters - London Fight Factory in fact. And this Meerkat sampled a couple of hours of hard training at the LFF this Saturday, and just about lived to tell the tale...

LFF is actually located on Hanbury Street, a side road off Brick Lane. The entrance is up a flight of metal stairs that lead up to a roof terrace and door. The main training room greets you immediately as you open the door. Walk through the graffiti decorated dojo and down the stairs and you get a second training room, toilets, showers and changing rooms. Then, almost hidden behind the glass screen and coat hangers, lies a third training room with weights and muay thai equipment. This place is huge!

LFF owner, and brown belt, Luiz Ribeiro was taking the mat today. As the Kent Open was only a week away, today's session was all about set position sparring and free sparring. We began with a series of invigorating and l must admit lung-busting warm-up drills, interspersed with lots of press-ups. One chap told me that today was an easy warm-up session. Really? Could have fooled me, but then I was too busy catching my breath to respond properly.

Set position sparring consisted of 6 guys in the middle and the rest of us queuing up to attack or escape the guard, half-guard and turtle positions. And there was a lot of queuing since I counted at least 27-29 bodies on the mat. That's a pretty good class size by anyone's standards!

I tried taking some photos in between training, but the fog of evaporated sweat clouded the room, so much so, that my camera failed to take any decent non-misted up photos. But the lads rolled hard and were very technical. I was pleased to be able to spar with some light feathers too - one chap I remember from years back when I attended my very first BJJ lesson at Carlson Gracie. On that occasion he was kind enough to school me in the ways of the mat and face-barred me into submission many times. Today, he was kinder (or rather, I did not fall into the same beginner traps as I did 6 years ago) and he only foot locked me into submission.

Throughout, Luiz would shout and yell at the combatants like a drill Sergeant, egging them on the do better, improve position or just generally work harder. One drill I liked was the two minute last gasp must submit drill. Just as it says on the tin, you spar with your opponent and you MUST attempt a submission within two minutes because you are several points behind. Failure to do so results in 40, yes 40 press ups for the loser.

Luiz is a very funny guy. He has a nick-name for practically everyone and really injects huge amounts of passion and enthusiasm into the session. The spirit and atmosphere of the team was very strong.

After class, I chatted to Luiz about how LFF came about and what he plans for the future. It's a neat little interview and I hope to post or publish it somewhere soon.

And, as seems to be the custom at LFF, I happily joined the lads for a post-session Nandos and chatted some more about BJJ. I had a great time there and I would like to wish them every success with the academy. Next week, star black belt 'FinFou' will be visiting, then next year, the head man himself, Ricardo Vieira will take the mat. With so much going on in their seminar calendar, I think I'll definitely be popping down again to LFF.


London Fight Factory, 82 Hanbury Street, London, E1 5JL
Website: http://www.londonfightfactory.com
Contact: Luiz Ribeiro - 07944 574046

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What are the basics of BJJ?

Photo: Nothing 'basic' about Royce armbarring your limb off!!!

I’ve been having some interesting conversations recently on the subject of the basics in BJJ. First of all, instructors these days tend not to talk about ‘basics’ per se, but ‘fundamentals’. The theory being that basics implies that you do them, then forget them as you move on to more advanced stuff. But the perceived wisdom in the BJJ world is that those ‘beginner’ techniques form the building blocks that stay with you for the entire duration of your BJJ development, thus a black belt will refer to his ‘fundamentals’ just as much as a white belt would.

I was talking in depth to one of my training partners who has been training for a few months now. She’s frustrated that whilst she is learning a whole ton of cool new techniques, she feels her knowledge of basics are letting her down and she still gets caught a lot as a result.

Oh boy, what to say? Well, here’s my tuppence on the subject of basics/fundamentals:


First off, anyone who has trained in a traditional martial art will know the routine – you learn your techniques, you drill them, you get graded and you move on to the next belt. This is a tried and tested way to learn, no problem with that. But for some reason, it doesn’t work with BJJ.

In BJJ, yes, you learn your core basic positions and drill the common escapes, positions, submissions, counters etc. But you don’t move on as you progress up the ranks in the same way as traditional system. You still drill those core fundamentals like there was no tomorrow. The difference between an experienced player and a newbie is that they’ve been doing the fundamentals for longer and thus are able to use them more effectively, and also to use them as a platform upon which to play with more advanced variations. In fact, you could argue, that a very good player will understand the fundamentals to such a deep level that they could use them to win World Championships, someone like, ooh Roger Gracie.

As a fairly mediocre hobbyist blue belt, I’m hardly the best person to be dishing out technical BJJ advice. There are lots of blogs who do that much better, see: Conceptual BJJ, Jiu-Jitsu Brotherhood and Aesopian to name but a few.
But I’ve rolled for enough years to see the common mistakes that newbies and white belts get themselves in to, and I try to offer my thoughts at the time as to how they can improve. I keep it short and succinct in class, I’m not the instructor after all, but I believe we’re part of a team so if I can help, I will.

So when I roll, the fundamentals that I personally try to always remember can be summarised very roughly as these:

• Is my opponent unbalanced in any way? If he isn’t then I try my damnest to make him or her unbalanced. Sounds simple, but of course, a huge proportion of my rolling time is spent making this happen. Good grips and effective hip movement are key, something I can often forget. Controlling the opponent's head is vital.
• Am I moving around enough or am I being lazy and just waiting for things to happen? My common thing is I am lazy and I just lie there in guard (or just sit there in the rare mounts I obtain) and wait. But one look at, say purple belt Daniel, and I can see he does not stop moving. He does not let anyone get grips on him and by moving all the time, he opens up new options.
• How many ponts of contact does my opponent have on me, and visa versa? My coach Nick often says that in order to make a good sweep happen, you need at least three points of contact on your opponent. At least three. So if I can involve both my hands in gripping and plant at least one foot in a good position to lever my opponent, then I know I am doing ok. If he is doing that to me, and I am just flapping around, then that is bad for me.
• Am I making it easy for my opponent to open me up? I defend a lot. I have no choice as I am small and, yes lazy. But it helps if I can keep my elbows tucked in tight and stop him getting any space or leverage. But I must not stay still, as it just delays the inevitable. So I have to keep moving and looking to escape. Again, sounds easy, but practically all my BJJ development so far has been about me trying to escape. you just kind of get use to it and it becomes part of your game.

...and so on I guess. Blimey one could write a book on this...oh, they have, dozens of them.

Anyway, those be just a few thoughts off the top of my head. Not exactly comprehensive but they mean a lot to me - they are the absolutely boiled down to the bone constantly nagging thoughts that go through my head, every time I roll.

Thanks to David Onuma, who has begun an ace new blog, for giving me this article idea.

Anyway, just a week to go until I compete at the Kent Open, you can laugh at my 'fundamentals' then. Ah well, in for a penny in for a pound as they say...

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Mrs Cyborg

I came across this photo for the forthcoming edition of Ultimate MMA magazine and I thought it was really cool.

So I posted it on the forums and was unpleasantly surprised by some of the responses – some of which have since been removed. So this blog entry is about the BJJ and MMA fighter Cristiane Santos, more popularly known as (Mrs) Cyborg.


According to her website, she earned the nick-name ‘Cyborg’ when she started dating Evangelista Santos, himself a well-known MMA fighter with the nick-name Cyborg (the two are now married).

Her Wikipedia entry states she has an MMA record of 8 wins and 1 loss.
Her most high profile fight was against Gina Carano in August [click here for fight report]. The fight was the first time that a major MMA promotion (Strikeforce) has featured a women’s fight as their main event.
She is also a BJJ purple belt and recently fought Penny Thomas in the semi-final of the ADCC in Barcelona. In my interview with Penny (out in shops soon folks!), she talks of her in glowing terms. Mrs Cyborg is clearly a very competent and highly regarded competitor and fighter.

So why the controversy?
One quick google search of her name brings up a large amount of commentary from various people – stuff about her looks, her sexuality, her personality – basically lots of vile and misogynistic comment. Quite awful really.

Now this type of banter is common to sports in general. Look at the kind of remarks that athletes such as Fatima Whitbred and Martina Navratilova have had to endure over the years, and more recently, Caster Semenya.

Anyway, I don’t want to dwell on the negative, let’s look at the positives to this amazing character, woman and person:

Here’s a funny video where she puts to sleep a reporter:



Here is a highlight reel.

Her MySpace page:


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Breaking news...Nick Brooks...black belt!!!!!!

NEWS JUST IN...My instructor Nick Brooks was awarded his black belt in BJJ by Roger Gracie!!!
On behalf of me, everyone at Mill Hill and, heck, the entire UK BJJ community, let's all say a massive congratulations to Nick. Were all so proud!!! Click Here to Read More..

BCK2THEOLDSKOOL

Last night I was invited down to my old traditional ju-jitsu club for a spot of groundwork teaching. When I ran the club, I tried to get everyone involved in ground-fighting based on my knowledge of BJJ. So I thought it would be a good idea to keep in touch with the lads and offer them my slim but perhaps mildly useful amount of knowledge on the subject. But before that, there was one importantant thing on my mind. It was a matter that I've given far too much thought to and still not had a conclusive answer to...



Which gi and belt to wear?
I mean - do I wear my BJJ outfit and blue belt? Or do I don my old black belt and JJ uniform with association badges? You see I worry too much about these things so in the end I consulted that great font of wisdom - the eenie-meenie-miney-moe oracle. Old skool gi won.

Okay, onto matters at hand. How to show a handful of BJJ techniques that would work within the tradJJ rules of groundfighting?

I chose to focus on one thing - start from the knees, grab for the cross collar grip, then attack attack attack. I went through basic loop choke, then reverse bow and arrow, pulling guard and then cross choking, pushing into your uke to sweep him backwards (assuming he has bad balance) - basically a lot of really basic stuff with the common theme of starting from that one cross collar grip. Its something my instructor Nick showed me often and, going way back, my former intructor Eddie also showed me whenever I asked about our 'on-the-knees' style of competition. And it seems to work. The gripping arm is also a basic guard if you 'stiff arm' your opponent, or acts as a foil if your uke tries to pull guard. At the very least, its certainly a solid way to start a match I think. Remember this is from-the-knees competitions, BJJ with its standup, is a whole different kettle of sardines.

From my experience of past tradJJ comps, the two minute time-frame is simply not enough time to work a complex guard game and in any case, the judges will always score the top player (even if he is within the closed guard) the win because he is seen as, er, the top player. Hey I don't make the rules. Hence my reasoning for the wholly attack oriented theme last night.

No workshop is complete without a few flashier techniques to wake the audience up, so I offered them a suicide choke from on the knees (risky I know), evil knee on solar plexus and evil knee on sternum. Oh I also made up a kata where you move from side hold variations into knee on belly into full mount into modified mount into taking the back. I figured it was important to give the newbies to groundfighting a sense of position rather than just stuff like 'here is a choke' etc.

We finished off with a few rounds of sparring. It was good to have a scrap with my old pals. The Team Imperial lads compete in two weeks time so I wish them luck!
Hopefully, if I make it back again I would like to focus on defence defence defence, you know, just for the sake of a Yin Yang style balance to the proceedings.


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Panic stations!

Oh boy, how to top the highs of last week?
Well, naturally, there's only one way to go and that was down.
I've been a bit slack since the seminar and with the Kent Open only three weeks away, I'm slightly starting to panic that my form will be awful come the big day of the competition.


My goal at each tournament is simply to learn from the experience and hopefully hold my own against my contemporaries. And I think this has generally been the case apart from Grapplers Showdown which forever will be known as 'the comp that dare not ever speak its name again!' But it I can only help myself by committing more time to training and sparring, which isn't quite happening at the moment.

However, I did manage a training session last night where my slackness caught me off guard and I got footlocked by a white belt juvenile! He got it on pretty tight and possibly, in my defence, I would say it would be ruled illegal as he crossed his legs over the leg he was attacking, but it was my sloppiness that led to me getting caught so I just said well done and moved on, a bit crestfallen. To add salt into my depressed ego my next spars were with (now purple belt) Daniel Strauss and Nick Brooks.

With Daniel, I realised one reason (apart from his general brilliance) that I struggle so incredibly badly against him is that he never lets me get one single grip on him. Not a single one! I mean, one lousy lapel grip or a sleeve -no, he slips away and dances around me and I'm flapping like a freshly landed fish. then he picks and chooses his submissions at will - usually involving attacks from the back. At least he complimented me on my defences from this position.

Anway, in other news, I've finished writing my Penny article and hopefully, once James has edited his pictures, we can see what the media interest is in publishing it. The select few I have shown it to for proofing think it is very interesting.

Tonight I'm off to visit my old traditional ju-jitsu club to work on various BJJ techniques that are of relevance to the syllabus and their system of sport groundwork. There are significant differences between the two styles, for example in the trad JJ comps, standing up is not allowed and many techniques are banned eg body triangles, and any technique that threatens the back of the neck eg possibly a head lock could be viewed dimly. [note techniques that threaten the neck vertebrae are also banned in BJJ.] However there are tons of techniques from BJJ that do apply and most of all, the basic principles of fighting on the ground remain the same -mainly those to do with position, balance and leverage. It'll also be a good chance to catch up with my old tradJJ buddies.

Final bit of news, it looks like Nick has finally updated and revamped the new look Mill Hill Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu website. Thanks to Nick for keeping my blog link and many of the photos on there are by yours truly. The user name 'The Fighting Photographer' has been used for years by my blogging friend Carl Fisher, so I'm trying to think of another one. Possibly 'The Jiu-Jitsu Blogographer' might be catchy?
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Penny Thomas Seminar

Seminar with BJJ black belt Penny Thomas, x4 Mundials champion, Warrior School of Combat,

Kensington, London, 20-10-09

So I'm talking to my wife and rather randomly, we have a conversation that goes something like this:

Wifey: Oh yeah I forgot to tell you, my mate Mel at work says she knows a BJJ world champion, oh darn what was her name?

Me: Was it a Portuguesey sounding name, maybe Kyra?

Wifey: No it was a english name, oh what was it? Erm anyway Mel just came back from Barcelona or somewhere where they fight world competitions.

Me: No way?

Wifey: Way!

Me: Oh my god, who is it? who is it? who? who? Call Mel NOW!

[Brrr brrr, brrr brrr]

Wifey: Hi Mel? who was that mate of yours? Oh yes, oh yes, oh yes [goes on for a bit]...Penny Thomas...yes that's her, what? she's coming over to the UK next week, ooh Seymour would like that.

Me: [I have just wet myself]

So here we are at the Warrior School of Combat in posh Kensington on a cold October evening and I'm interviewing Penny with probing questions offering a fascinating deep personal insight into the jiu-jitsu fighter's mind, oh and lots of silly questions like 'is her favourite colour pink?'

I first came across Penny after listening to her Fightworks Podcast interview with Caleb. I was struck by the interview because she tells a rich story about her life and comeback from severe injury and about her giving everything up to follow the jiu-jitsu lifestyle. You can listen to it here.

My interview fills hopefully will get published in a mainstream magazine, like wot they sell in WHSmiths. To help, top BJJ snapper James Oluoch-Olunya had spent the best part of 4 hours shooting cool photos of Penny and I've bagged what I think is a good interview.

And so onto the seminar...

Penny began the session with a warmup drill which included the usual running around and flapping arms, but then things got a bit more specific and weird. There was one partner drill where you turtle up and your partner stands over you, but you roll over your head whilst at the same time grasping your partner's ankles so you end up taking his back, then he does the same.

Penny then moved onto a series of partnered take-down drills which looked to me like they came from her wrestling training, but Penny added some nice twists. Such as her 'Michael Jackson dance skip before slipping on a wickedly fast half shoulder throw (please feel free to offer the correct Japanese name).

I should mention that in the room, there were probably about 12-13 women and about 10 guys. This is probably the one and only time you will get a BJJ session where there are more girls than boys in the room. And the flavour throughout the night was decidedly female oriented as Penny made cheeky remarks about how the more flexible girls would like so-and-so technique. Us guys just muttered and giggled nervously like little schoolboys, just grateful Penny didn't pick on one of us and crush us with her immense physique.

After the stand-up part of her session, Penny took us through a brief stretch. I say stretch, but when a former Olympic gymnastics prospect and yoga expert does a stretch, it is with the flexibility of someone with zero joints. I mean we were just laughing at the impossible contortions Penny put her body through. One simple stretch is where you sit wide legged and reach forward, easy right? but oh no, Penny bent forward and touched her nose on the mat.

In another episode, Penny was just mucking around and did some weird breakdance pose - basically holding her contorted upside-down body aloft on just one arm. Wow!

Assisting Penny throughout was BJJ blackbelt and main instructor at WSC Leopoldo. Leo was ever so courteous and happily let Penny rough him up with, in her words, 'my mean techniques'.

For the ground fighting portion of the seminar, I enjoyed this the most. Penny offered us tips on maintaining the mount and how to execute basic moves, such as kimura, ezekiel and head and arm triangle. I was happy to finally meet up with Camilla Hansen, who I have mentioned a few times in this blog. Camilla and I partnered up and she quite easily softened me into a pulp with her choke drills.

For the final part of the session, Penny asked if anyone had any requests and I immediately (and possibly quite rudely) jumped in with a request for tips on open guard - Penny's forte. And this I really enjoyed. She showed us her spider guard and how she moved from one position to another and how she could sweep her opponent with any one of these basic positions. Penny really emphasised the push-pull tension that one needs when gripping sleeves and placing feet on hips. She also showed us how she likes to place the outside edge of her foot directly on the person's biceps to inflict a little pain (one of her'mean' techniques). You could almost hear the whole room making mental notes to use that little nugget in training for next time (including me).

Finally, the session was over all too soon. I would have loved to explore more on Penny's open guard. The short period where she talked about this was really interesting. But hopefully there will be another session if Penny can make her way to the UK next year. I really enjoyed the session. Penny is articulate and coherent on every aspect on how a technique works, adding some personal insights and offering variations on themes you may not quite have come across before. She's also a very warm and engaging person.

After handshakes and thanks, it was group photo time! And you can see more pictures of the seminar on the Flickr slideshow below.

My thanks go first to Penny who was gracious with her time, not only for the seminar but also for the enthusiastic and brill interview. Thanks to my wife's mate Mel for bringing Penny over, also to Pippa Granger, who managed to organise the seminar with zero notice and after I pretty much gave up organising it myself. It was great to meet all the gang, especially the BJJ girls who I chat to a lot but not met personally and finally thanks to Pedro Bessa, who was not present, but pretty much helped make this seminar happen.

WOOT!

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Penny Thomas

....BREAKING NEWS!

That female black belt I mentioned in my previous post has now confirmed that she WILL teach a seminar in London next Tuesday. She, is none other than World Champion Penny Thomas. I'm so excited.
Here are the details:

Date: Tuesday 20th October
Time: 8-9.30pm
Price: £20
Venue: Pedro Bessa BJJ London
Warrior School of Combat
Lower Ground Floor
Glen House
125 Old Brompton Road
South Kensington
London
SW7 3RP

And here is Penny's very impressive fight record:
- 2009 ADCC silver +60Kg
- 2009 Grapplers Quest Del Mar No-Gi Absolute Champion
- 2009 Grapplers Quest Las Vegas No-Gi Absolute Champion
- 2009 Brazilian Jiu-jitsu World Champion, Brown/Black


- 2008 Grapplers Quest Las Vegas No-Gi Absolute Champion
- 2008 Brazilian Jiu-jitsu Worlds, Brown/Black, 2nd
- 2008 Grapplers Quest New Jersey No-Gi Absolute Champion
- 2008 No-Gi World Championship, Brown/Black, 2nd


- 2007 NAGA Hawaii, Advanced Gi & No-Gi Champion
- 2007 Pan American Champion, Brown/Black
- 2007 ADCC Champion
- 2007 Brazilian Jiu-jitsu World Champion, Brown/Black
- 2007 No-Gi World Champion, Brown/Black
- 2007 Triple Crown, Men’s Brown Belt, 2nd


- 2006 Pan American Champion, Purple Belt
- 2006 Copa de Mundo (BJJ World Cup) Champion
- 2006 Gracie Worlds Champion, Purple/Brown/Black Belt


- 2005 Brazilian Jiu-jitsu World Champion, Purple Belt
- 2005 South African National Grappling Champion


- 2004 Brazilian Jiu-jitsu World Champion, Blue Belt
- 2003 Brazilian Jiu-jitsu Worlds, Blue Belt, 2nd

From her website: Pennyfighting.com

And here is a great interview she did for Caleb on the excellent Fightworks Podcast.

http://thefightworkspodcast.com/2008/08/31/penny-thomas-jiu-jitsu/

Photo above from Andy Foxx Photography - see his Penny gallery here.

Of course your Meerkatsu intrepid reporter will be present to capture in words and pictures his presence at the seminar - sometimes life is just too hard!!

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Awful Analogies #2, BJJ is a bit like...music

Awful Analogies #2, BJJ is a bit like...music

BJJ is like music. Why? Well both are crafts that require the need to learn in a physical and technical manner. As in BJJ, the learning curve for playing an instrument to a moderately decent ability is pretty steep. In both, there are teachers, books, DVDs, youtube etc who can guide your progress, but ultimately, you only get better the more your practise. As in BJJ, some exponents are just outrageously talented and beyond the ability of most practitioners. Many, many people give up at an early stage. But I think the best analogy between music and BJJ is this - to really 'feel' the joy of music - to take the experience to another level - one needs to play live, onstage, in front of people who appreciate your art. It's the same with BJJ, practising and sparring is one thing, but competing in tournaments, live, in front of people who appreciate the sport, is an experience that cannot be replicated.

Finally, music is clearly a wonderful art-form. Some wouldsay that BJJ is an artform. And when you see the world's best grapplers in action, using techniques that you can also do, but executed in a way you can only dream of, that to me is surely an art.

Below, here is one of BJJ's best artists:

Media news
I should, crossed fingers, have a snippet published in this month's MAI magazine, and another, lengthier article, in the Jan2010 issue of MAI. I'm off to 'Smiths soon to see if they printed it.
Having my work published in print media is pretty nice kudos, but someone close to me remonstrated with me about not getting paid for this kind of work.
Naturally, I see things a little differently.
Writing gives me an outlet to let off steam and think about the sport on a more cerebral level. After all, it's good to exercise both mind and muscle.
Writing also opens doors for me. As my status increases as a spokesperson for this wonderful sport we call BJJ, so I find I get people telling me stuff, asking me about stuff, giving me stuff and best of all...inviting me to see and attend stuff that perhaps I would not normally be given access to.
Of course, things would be different if I relied on this as a means of income. But for now, I'm happy to play the hobbyist BJJer and the hobbyist writer.

Training news
Last week was a great training week. Got my x3 sessions in and sparred with a really good super feather blue belt from Carlsons who visited us. He showed me a ton of stuff and happily beat me into a twisted pretzel. And I was happy to be pretzeled! Thanks to Vince!

But this week I've had to hold back the training. My little lad is ill and wifey and I have to take it in turns to hold him upright at night to stop him choking and screaming in pain. It means we do not get any sleep.

Despite this, I've been trying to get a visiting female black belt to come give us a training session. This person is real special and I'm keeping my fingers crossed something comes out of it. Given her tough schedule, it's unlikely this time, but she knows the interest in the UK is high so maybe a 2010 seminar will happen.

Finally, I would like to give a shout out to Camilla Hansen, who just received her purple belt from my former instructor Eddie Kone. Camilla also took gold at the recent Ground Control no-gi tournament with x3 victories in a row. Awesome! (she's one of the outrageously talented people I talked about above!) . Speaking of Eddie, here's a seminar review written by fellow blogger and long time BJJer Carl Fisher.

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