New blog header art

At the beginning of each year I give the blog a spring clean and knock up something fresh for the blog header. Past efforts have seen me mock up a Kill Bill pastiche, a Street Fighter tribute and um, I forget but they were cool at the time.

Anyway, this year I've gone for zombie-chic...

and in case you are reading this on your google reader, here's the header again...

I chose to sub-head the blog title with 'Words and Pictures' mainly because I'm aware that I don't really use the blog as a web log in the traditional sense (ie a log of my training activities), instead I tend to post updates about my interviews, photography, artwork and other BJJ-related media activites, so the sub heading reflects that. I might still drop in the odd bit of technical and training post, as the mood suits.

Here's a couple stats from 2010:

No. visits: 90,466

Pageviews: 185,371

No. Unique visitors: 43,998

Anyway, here's another chance for me to say thanks to all the readers of this blog and thanks for all your support, comments, emails etc I do it all for you guys...okay that's a lie, I do it for me, but you're never far from my thoughts.

:)

byMeerkatsu

in blogs, design

January 10, 2011

New blog header art

At the beginning of each year I give the blog a spring clean and knock up something fresh for the blog header. Past efforts have seen me moc...

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Academy Tour - Roger Gracie Buckinghamshire (RGA bucks)

Last night I visited the High Wycombe branch of Kevin Capel's Roger Gracie Academy Buckinghamshire (more commonly referred to as RGA Bucks). I've been meaning to visit for a number of reasons, mainly because Kev is an instructor who I very much admire and aspire to be like (small, light and very technical) and to also hook up with fellow blogger Slidey, who trains there (although is due to leave for Birmingham next week). I had a blast at the academy and Kev has built up an ace place to train BJJ with a very relaxed and friendly environment. So here's the latest report in my occasional visits to nosey around at other BJJ academies in the UK...

byMeerkatsu

in academy tour, blogs, more

April 14, 2010

Academy Tour - Roger Gracie Buckinghamshire (RGA bucks)

Last night I visited the High Wycombe branch of Kevin Capel's Roger Gracie Academy Buckinghamshire (more commonly referred to as RGA Bu...

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Blog Off!

I couldn't resist posting about this article. Although it is a couple of years old, it resurfaced recently when a couple of guys on the BJJ forums decided to use it to have a pop at BJJ bloggers. The sweet irony of using a blog to spout off against other blogs I am sure was deliberate.
Well, if you can't laugh at yourself, who can you laugh at?
Right, back to my "whiteboard and substandard training partners" to notch up my next revolutionary training method.

byMeerkatsu

in blogs, humour

March 16, 2010

Blog Off!

I couldn't resist posting about this article. Although it is a couple of years old, it resurfaced recently when a couple of guys on the...

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The Online Itch

A short while ago, my good BJJ pal and fellow blogger Matt who writes Martial Farts came up with the idea of a BJJ E-zine. He asked me to write something and for various reasons, the e-zine has been put on hold. So with his agreement, I thought I would share my article with you...

The Online Itch – How BJJ and Blogging Go Hand in Hand

It is an irrational obsession...a compulsive disorder that takes over your entire life. Sure training BJJ is an addiction, but darn it, blogging about it is even more so.  But surely blogging is all introspective self-indulgent twaddle that nobody reads? No way argues Seymour Yang, who writes the self indulgent introspective blog that is Meerkatsu.com.

byMeerkatsu

in blogs

January 16, 2010

The Online Itch

A short while ago, my good BJJ pal and fellow blogger Matt who writes Martial Farts came up with the idea of a BJJ E-zine. He asked me to ...

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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...

byMeerkatsu

in BJJ, blogs, techniques

November 06, 2009

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 ...

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Minced Meerkatsu for breakfast, lunch and dinner

Gosh, what a whirlwind past few weeks my BJJ and MA life has been. First up, I wanted to say again what a great day we all had at the official opening of the Mill Hill club. For me, it was a great chance to meet up with BJJ friends I have not seen in a while, or indeed, met only online.
I also got to get quite a few rolls in - well in four hours of BJJ even I can't be that lazy and avoid rolling.

Training update
Sparring with Carmen Jahnke (female brown belt from Germany) was a great experience. Fluent, technical and pretty strong, Carmen made mince-meat of me. She is the perfect example of someone who uses jiu-jitsu smartly to get into great positions and submit without overpowering.
Carmen hopes to get back into competitive action early next year and I am really keen to follow her progress.

I had a great roll with Matt Benyon of Martial Farts fame. He documents our hilariously half-serious-trying-to-kill-each-other grappling session here. And photo above to prove I am a drama queen, as well as a poor BJJer.

But rolling with unknowns is my nemesis. One chap, Rich, came to the opening day without his kimono so I could only roll no-gi with him. Now I might be able to play ok using the gi, but nogi, I am a child stuck in quicksand. And he made mincemeat of me too.

Finally, I should mention my old training partner Ozy. He has recently come back from Brazil where he trained in a number of world class gyms and I was worried he would completely and utterly destroy me. But there lies the crazy paradox that is BJJ - one day you can suck and tap at the merest sight of a gust of wind, and the next, you are holding your own against top level competitors. Ozy's trademark moves are his De lariva and x-guard tricks, which I kinda knew, but perchance, during our roll, I slipped into high half guard (my knee across uke's torso) and he was rather stumped for a while. I managed to hold him and almost sweep him and, to his credit, he did not use his superior strength against me. It was a good technical roll and I must say, he's really improved a heck of a lot since we last rolled about 2 years ago. And yes, he did eventually make mince meat of me too.

But mincemeat or not. I always thank my partners for the experience of rolling with them. Every minute on the mat is a learning experience and I try not to forget that. By now, I am long over the 'God I had to tap out again' mindset that bedevilled me in the early years. For a start, I am improving enough to be able to ply a few tricks of my own. But most importantly I realise it is the journey, not the destination that is most important. To that end, I thank each and every one of my training partners for helping me improve.

Ninjutsu news
My interview with Simon Yeo for On The Mat drew a lot of positive comments so I decided to put my money where my mouth was and ask him to provide a ninjutsu seminar to me and my old trad JJ colleagues. My sensei, Grant, was kind enough to provide his premises so it's game on, here are the details:

Bujinkan Ninjutsu Seminar with Simon Yeo, 12th Dan under Masaaki Hatsumi
Thursday 19th November 2009
CSSC Sports Centre, Chadwick Street, London
19:00 - 21:00
Price: £22.50
Booking by prior appointment only,
please contact: grant.wakeman388@mod.uk
This seminar will introduce ninjutsu
concepts and techniques to students of other martial arts.

Writing news
I wrote a press release for newspapers and magazines about the opening of Mill Hill. The lay-person friendly version was published in a local Mill Hill news website here.
I'm hoping to get a more detailed BJJ-friendly version published in Martial Arts Illustrated soon, so fingers crossed.

byMeerkatsu

in blogs, mill hill bjj, seminar

September 09, 2009

Minced Meerkatsu for breakfast, lunch and dinner

Gosh, what a whirlwind past few weeks my BJJ and MA life has been. First up, I wanted to say again what a great day we all had at the offici...

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Keyboard Warriors

As we wind down towards the end of the year, it is probably a good time as any to mention a few blog warriors who I like to read on a regular basis.

In the regular joe blog category, we have:
White Collar Jujitsu: http://whitecollarbjj.blogspot.com/
Steve's BJJ log: http://www.stevebjj.com/
I like reading blogs that reveal bits about the writer's personality, their humour, their trials and general opinions as well as the technical aspects of the sport. To me, I can identify with regular Joe Blogger who has a family, busy job, demanding wife etc but still has time to dedicate to training and of course writing enjoyable blog content.

For Instructional blogs, there is one that is top of every BJJer's favourites list:
Stephen Kesting's Grappling Tip of the week blog. Kesting has written books and produced numerous DVDs and I'm a big fan of his crystal clear instructional style. He is also very generous and by giving away a free e-book and numerous handy tips on his blog, is someone who stands up to be admired for not using his knowledge simply as a way to make money. He wants to share his passion with you and you really get the sense that he is there to help.
http://www.grapplearts.com/weblog.htm

Closer to home, Roger Gracie black belt, Nicolas Gregoriades, has a very informative, if less frequently updated blog here:
http://www.jiujitsubrotherhood.com/
My favourite article of his explains just how awesome Roger Gracie is at BJJ:
http://www.jiujitsubrotherhood.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=16:understanding-the-phenomenon&catid=5:miscellaneous&Itemid=8

There are hundreds of BJJ blogs out there and possibly a thousand times more on the theme of martial arts. It is hard to read even a small percent of them and so a good blog has to really stand out. It should have enjoyable content, updated regularly, pretty pictures help and so does spellcheck. So, on that note, if anyone wishes to nominate Meerkatsu in BJJ Blog of the Year award, they can do so here:
http://thefightworkspodcast.com/2008/11/20/bjj-blog-of-the-year-2008/
No pressure...

byMeerkatsu

in blogs, websites

December 16, 2008

Keyboard Warriors

As we wind down towards the end of the year, it is probably a good time as any to mention a few blog warriors who I like to read on a regul...

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Forked Tongue

According to google stats, I’ve just received my 2,000th visitor to the Meerkatsu blog this year. Of course this figure could easily represent 10 people visiting 200 times, or one person 2,000 times (more likely), I’m not entirely au fait with analysing the figures, but it is reassuring to know that some people read my rants at least some of the time. Interestingly, in the figures for 2007, there was an extraordinarily huge peak of visitors when I posted a photo of the rather gorgeous Kyra Gracie. So just for the sake of clarity, let’s see what she looks like again…

Taken from her website: http://www.graciekyra.com/
Every male BJJ practitioner I know goes on about Kyra, including me. But the website actually offers very interesting information, revealing her impressive fight stats and training photos and it endorses the widely held view that she is a tremendous athlete who is dedicated to her sport, which is more than can be said about me.

I had a number of people emailing me and commenting in my last post about the Chinese characters I wrote in the made-up fake martial arts diploma. It translates: I believe I am Chinese, but I am really a ‘Big Nose’.
'Big Nose' being an old-skool insult that Chinese people give to western ‘foreigners’. Other phrase book nuggets to use on your holiday could include ‘pale face white ghost’ (very nasty insult), ‘son of a turtles egg’ (probably the worst you could ever say) and ‘Imperialist Opium dealing scumbag’. OK I made that last one up, but in my experience, Chinese people used to be very blunt with their insults. What with the Olympics, international economy and general more openness they are probably much more world aware now and have more subtle insults. Or maybe not.

Anyway, the point I was trying to make was that I sometimes come across people here in the UK, especially martial arts fanatics, who live, eat, breathe, dress, and even speak with an oriental accent in their quest to be a martial arts master. It is really weird. But there are also reports of American BJJ instructors who, overnight, begin to take on a Portuguese twang when naming their techniques. For example, the word ‘guard’ is almost universally re-iterated by a Portuguese speaker as ‘Gwardo’, which is very quaint sounding but you know what it means. If you catch a native English speaker saying GWARDO, he has either been watching too many BJJ DVDs or has spent half his life in Portugal or Brazil…or just wants it to appear that way.
But nowhere is the ‘crime’ of pretending to speak in a fake accent more prevalent than in the karate dojo.
24FightingChickens master, Rob Redmond writes in his excellent website about just this very phenomenon:
To quote his article:

“I personally do not like using Japanese terms in my karate classes. I think it gets in the way of good communication, and that it makes things seem mystical that are truly quite plain and unimpressive. I also worry that use of Japanese in my karate classes will create an exclusivist culture where newcomers feel uncomfortable. I also tire of spending time and energy teaching the terms to students, or reminding them of what they mean. I also do not care for trying to teach pronunciation, since my Japanese is accented with American, it seems a little preposterous that I would be correcting pronunciation.”

It is probably for this reason that our style of trad JJ does not use Japanese words to describe techniques. But this can lead to problems when I get the odd Aikido, judo or jitsuka from another style coming to my dojo and talking about techniques using the Japanese terminology. I just nod, sagely, narrow my eyes, and witter something inscrutable under my breath…was that an insult maybe?…I'm not saying.

byMeerkatsu

in blogs, humour, kyra gracie, websites

August 28, 2008

Forked Tongue

According to google stats, I’ve just received my 2,000th visitor to the Meerkatsu blog this year. Of course this figure could easily represe...

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