Roger Gracie Academy charity Seminar

[Yours truly]

I went today to the Roger Gracie Academy which hosted a special charity seminar. This event occurs every year but it is the first time I've attended myself. 100 percent of the proceeds from the entrance fee goes towards New World International, an organisation that helps victims of AIDS in Africa. As well as a good cause, today was a unique chance to learn from four awesome instructors: Roger, Ray Stevens, Lucio 'Lagarto' Rodrigues and Vasile Panfil...

Fenomenal! - Interview with Fenom Kimono founder Triin Seppel

I'm really fascinated with BJJ gi designs, as you can probably tell from my previous posts, so it's quite nice whenever I get the opportunity to talk to gi makers about how they go about their business.

Triin Seppel is a mum of two who happens to love BJJ. She loved it so much she started up her own BJJ gi company, called Fenom. And what a gi! Based on reviews from happy punters Meg, in her blog here, and Georgette, here, it looks like Triin is onto a winner. But Fenom is more than just a gi company, it's a personal mission, nay, a crusade by its founder to empower women who train jiu-jitsu and to get more women to join the BJJ sisterhood.

I thought it would be a good idea to ask Triin a few questions to find out more about her company and her plans to takeover the world, Fenom style:

[Photo credit: Danny Nguyen c/o Fenom on Facebook]

Moving Fist Way Foot-age

Every Christmas I get a bunch of Amazon vouchers and I usually use them to purchase a couple of BJJ books, but this year there doesn't seem to be much interesting published so instead I bought a ton of martial art DVD films. I love Asian cinema and comedy martial art parodies, but they have to be very good. So here's a very quick review of what I've been watching...

Learn to train S.M.A.R.T.S

I've been a bit slack these last couple of weeks, attending only 2 sessions per week. So I've decided to incorporate S.M.A.R.T.S training to get the most out of each session.
S.M.A.R.T.S stands for Stupid Meerkatsu Attempts Rubbish Technical Sparring.

What? You never heard of SMARTS training? I'm pretty sure Saulo Ribeiro mentions it in his University of Jiu-Jitsu Book, somewhere on page *cough cough*...

Great British Gi Review - Black Eagle v Tatami Zero-G v Malvado

Black Eagle single weave
vs

Tatami Fightwear Zero G
vs

Malvado Fightwear BJJ gi

Introduction
This review aims to offer readers the chance to compare and contrast three affordable gis made by three different UK companies: Black Eagle Martial Arts, Tatami Fightwear and Malvado Fightwear/BJJ Kimonos. Before proceeding, newcomers to BJJ may first wish to read my article: What gi should I buy?

Tatami Fightwear and Black Eagle are brands that have been established in the UK for several years and have supported the UK BJJ scene by sponsoring  fighters and supporting events. They both handle international shipping. Malvado Fightwear is a newly formed MMA and BJJ merchandise and are currently seeking athletes to endorse.

These particular gis were chosen for this review as they are all made from single weave cotton fabric and are priced roughly the same. At times I will refer to Koral, Atama and Vulkan gis as a benchmark references due to their ubiquitous popularity.

Click on the photos to view larger resolution, or visit my Flickr page here, to see all the images at once.

DISCLAIMER: I am not affiliated, supported or sponsored by any of these companies.

Poster Girls

My photo shoot with Ana Maria India went really well I think. She's a willing model and I had lots of help from my wife and my BJJ friends Pippa and Amora - who was also our interpreter. I'm gonna save the pictures for magazine to hopefully use first but I couldn't resist releasing one of my snaps as part of a poster to advertise Ana's women only seminar. However, I wasn't to expect the minor controversy that it caused. See for yourself...

Indian Tonic - seminar with Ana Maria 'India'

Seminar with Ana Maria 'India' Soures Gomes

6th February 2010

KO-Legacy Gym, Bethnal Green, London

KERRRRRPOWWWWWWW! Female black belt Ana Maria 'India' just hit the target with an awesome seminar! For me, this was by far the best seminar I've ever attended. Not to disrespect the dozen or so previous black belt seminars I have attended in my 7 years of training BJJ, but today, the techniques I learned just totally rocked.

Half Guard Killer

The academy was really warm last night. I’m not referring to the physical temperature (which actually was still a shade above freezing), but warm because our guest instructor, David Onuma, managed to get the whole gang of us laughing, smiling and generally having a thoroughly entertaining evening.

Promotions!

There's been some fantastic news concerning some really good BJJ pals of mine.

First up, David Onuma, who I first wrote about here, was awarded his black belt after winning GOLD at the Europeans for the third year running. An awesome achievement.

I remember seeing David compete at the very first BJJ tournament I ever attended (the London Open in 2003). Back than, guys like him who were blue belts were seen as exotic high ranking pioneers of the UK BJJ scene. Since then, David has been a source of great encouragement to me and I enjoy our regular chats about BJJ, family, blogging and everything else in Meerkatsu world. Check out his very good content-rich blog here.

The second awesome bit of news is my BJJ pal, and Half-Guard Wizard, Oliver Geddes, was promoted to brown belt by Roger Gracie, following Oli's storming success at the Europeans too. Oli managed to win five fights, all by submission, to take GOLD in his purple belt division.

I first met Oli when I responded to a flyer I saw on the Imperial College walls advertising BJJ. Back then I was a Trad JJ instructor and he was a blue belt looking to form a student BJJ club. The student BJJ club never happened but we kept in touch and when I eventually joined my current academy, I've had the pleasure of seeing Oli in action (we're all part of the Roger Gracie network of academies).

Late last year I took a private with Oli to find out more about his half-guard techniques, strategies and tactics. It was extremely enlightening and I've been able to add some of his advice into my game. Before then, half guard was something I tried to avoid, but watching him use it as a platform to great success, I was very much inspired to find out more.

Anyway, this post is dedicated to two jiu-jitsu warriors who I have the great pleasure of knowing and have both helped me enormously with my jiu jitsu. Congratulations guys!

Other News
I would like to take this opportunity to say well done to all my BJJ pals who took part in the Europeans last week. By all accounts it was an amazing experience.

BJJ black belt Ana Maria 'India' is in town this week. I'll be interviewing and photographing Ana Maria as well as attending her seminar this weekend. I'm really looking forward to it as she sounds like a fascinating person.

I am mid-way through my exhaustive and meticulous gi-review. I have chosen three top-selling brands and given them my analysis. I think this review will be the gi-review to end all gi-reviews. I am measuring, weighing, shrinking, wearing, rolling, tugging, pulling, washing, drying...these gis are gonna go through hell with me and I will report - independently and unbiased as I always am with product reviews - here on this blog all my findings.

Finally, just to say I am happy to accept Facebook (Seymour Yang, UK) friends and Twitter (Meerkatsu) followers, but just drop in a message to say that you read the Meerkatsu blog - I tend to reject blank calls to be Facebook friends unless I know who they are. Thanks!

What BJJ gi should I buy?

Probably the most common question posed by people on various BJJ and MMA forums is - what BJJ gi do you recommend?, or, is brand-x any good?, or, what do people think if so-and-so brand? etc...


This article is aimed at newcomers to BJJ who are at the stage where they are fed up with wearing their cheap twenty quid judo or karate gi (or even worse the smelly academy loan gi) and have had their eyes lit up by the alluring and colourful 'pro' uniforms that their more experienced team mates are wearing. I should know...I once was that beginner, and almost twenty gi purchases later, I thought maybe it was time to write a few personal thoughts about BJJ uniforms, as well as gather some useful links all in one article...