Meerkat's End of Year Review

Well, another year has passed and we look forward to the start of, omigod, will it really be two thousand and seven???

Highs of the year:
· Winning silver medal in groundfighting
· Meeting and training with 3 Gracie brothers (Royce, Royler, Rolker)
· Getting the VIP treatment trailing Gordon Liu at SENI 06
· Getting my photo published on the front cover of Combat

Lows of the year:
· Getting something like ten colds or flu bugs in a row which stopped me training
· The constant struggle to fit in work, family and martial arts, with MA losing
· Imperial website (and influx of new students) disappearing from google

So overall, a good year with highs just outweighing the lows. My resolutions next year:
· Enter the BJJ Gracie Open at SENI 07 (just to see if I can survive 1 round)
· Increase my photographic work – starting with coverage of the 10K Challenge
· Actually try to learn some 3rd Dan techniques
· Get that elusive gold at the Jikishin nationals

So this is Meerkat signing out and wishing all my readers a very happy jujitsu Christmas and New Year.

byMeerkatsu

in

December 21, 2006

Meerkat's End of Year Review

Well, another year has passed and we look forward to the start of, omigod, will it really be two thousand and seven??? Highs of the year: · ...

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Martial arts No31 in the charts

In a survey of over 360,000 people by Sport England on the nation’s sporting hobbies – it turns out half the population over 16 are couch potatoes. The others are quite sporty – walking being the No.1 physical activity. Martial arts makes it in at No. 31 with 0.3 percent of the population doing it 3 or more times a week, just above tenpin bowling and darts – let’s be ‘aving ya!
Interestingly, they list martial arts and then they put separate entries for karate, taekwondo and Chinese martial arts. Now, assuming the category for martial arts does not include the others as listed, then actually if they did combine all the martial arts together, then it would be higher up the list – maybe making it a Top20 sporting activity.
I’m pretty chuffed to know statistically that we (as a collective) are a majority sport, but I’m a little disturbed that the Top 20 also includes: fishing and snooker. So if we get rid of the crap zero physical exertion ‘sports and activities’ from the list, then martial arts looks like being Top 10 easily.
I wonder what the breakdown of most popular martial arts are? The list probably goes something like this:
1. kickboxing
2. karate
3. taekwondo
5. judo
etc etc with jujitsu and BJJ coming somewhere in 10th to 12th I reckon.

byMeerkatsu

in

December 08, 2006

Martial arts No31 in the charts

In a survey of over 360,000 people by Sport England on the nation’s sporting hobbies – it turns out half the population over 16 are couch po...

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Mini-Meerkat passes her black belt in crawling

I couldn’t resist it, to test the imbedded picture function on this blog, here is a photo of Aimee – or Aimee-sensei to you. She’s a black belt in ju-crawling and almost-walking-jitsu.
Well, it’s been an odd week, actually a bit ratty to be honest. At BJJ, black belt head of our club David Adiv was meant to come over from America, then it was cancelled, then it was on and now it is off. The reason – not enough people could commit to attending. Eddie was understandably a bit peeved and gave us all a bit of a dressing down about how embarrassing it is for the club to invite special guests and only a few turn up etc. Of course Meerkat is not amongst those to blame as I am always first to sign up. In my opinion, I wonder if the club actually has the numbers to make it work all the time. Sure, when a big name like Royler or Royce show up, we do get 20-30. But the hardcore of the BJJ club I see who turn up week in week out only ever number about 12, maybe 15 – and it is these guys, us, that are ever likely to respond to less well known (but equally excellent) instructors coming over from the States or Brazil.
Next year, Eddie hinted that Saulo Ribeiro was making noises about coming over. This would be totally awsome. Saulo is like one of BJJ royalty. I have the BJJ instructional box set that Saulo put out and it is singularly the best BJJ instructional on the planet – no comparison. I have a lot of DVDs and most are passable to unwatchable, maybe one or two tips filter through. But the Saulo Ribeiro set is awesome. Every single technique (and there are hundreds) is totally money and spot on for technique and applicability. If the man is coming to the UK, then we had better put on a big effort to show up cos his seminar I predict will rock your BJJ world.

byMeerkatsu

in

December 05, 2006

Mini-Meerkat passes her black belt in crawling

I couldn’t resist it, to test the imbedded picture function on this blog, here is a photo of Aimee – or Aimee-sensei to you. She’s a black ...

Read More