Saturday, August 30, 2008

End of an Era..

Well, almost... No more Monday and Wednesday classes at Elswick from now on, they are replaced by classes at Wallsend boys club. Both remain BJJ classes in a Gi and the time has changed to 7-9. However Friday nights MMA/Nogi class remains at Elswick pool for the next few weeks (stay tuned for updates).

Friday, August 29, 2008

Downtime

Downtown = Domain renewal due>spam folder>downtime>someone noticed>domain renewal>DNS refreshes... Capice?

Tuesday, August 19, 2008

Stripes in Mondays class

After last nights tabata torture session, we did some cool stand up techniques, during the drilling Dave gave Kev 2 stripes on his white belt and Ross actually got the final 4th stripe on his blue belt!

Both well deserved, congratulations! :)

FILA Grappling Tournament

I'll be collecting entry money from now until Aug 31 for the competition (I'll bring entry forms on Friday for everyone) so please have your money for me (£25 for one event or £30 for both gi and no gi)

There's been a couple of changes to the FILA Grappling Tournament so I'm putting the details here for everyone to see.

They have made it three levels of ability novice, intermediate and advanced.

Novice: Less than 18 months of training any grappling art (white belts only).
Intermediate: Less then 3 years training any grappling art, (blue belts in BJJ).
Advanced: Over 3 years training any grappling art, or purple belt and above

So for example if Jimmy wanted to enter he'd have to do advance due to his Judo experience. Neil could have the choice of intermediate or advanced. Chris or Lisa would have to do advanced as they have trained more than 3 years.

The age limit is over 20 but 18+19 year olds can compete with permission.

The advanced will be a pool system with everyone fighting each other. You must do advanced if you want to qualify for the Great Britain Team (and take a passport to prove nationality).

Novice and intermediate are knockout comps but have repercharge like Judo, so if you lose in the first round to the eventual winner you can get a second chance and fight off for a maximum of bronze medal.

Weights are the same

Men: 62, 70, 80, 92, 125
Women: 48, 55, 63, 72

Straight ankle locks are legal in all divisions.(Gi and No Gi),
Kneebars, figure-four toeholds, bicep slicers, and calf slicers are only legal in Advanced divisions (Gi and No Gi). A slicer is the American name for a muscle crush.

Entry: £25 one event or £30 for both
Spectators: £5 (£3 kids)

Weigh in is in shorts or underwear and on the day will have a 1.5kg allowance

No gi event is on the morning, Gi event on afternoon

Sunday, August 17, 2008

Pile on!



Thanks to some quick photography from Kamelia we managed to get this shot of a rather painful pile on..

In order of fatness (bottom to top)

Ross, Me, Dave, Tyrone, Shamster, Michael and Sergio

After Ross' comments of "IS THAT ALL YOU HAVE GOT?!" while on the bottom, I think next time we need the heavyweights to join in.

Wednesday, August 13, 2008

Back from the Mundials



Hi guys we just got back from the Mundials. Had a brilliant time.
Lisa competed at 3 events and won 5 medals out of a possible 7.
OTM BJJ Champs - gold in category, silver in absolute and silver in superfight
US Open No Gi - silver in absolute
Mundials - Bronze in category

Will see you when we get over the jetlag (most likely Friday)

Friday, August 08, 2008

Saturday class not on

Tomorrows spar class at Wallsend (9th august) has been cancelled due to nobody going to go lol!

Tonights class

Dave is away for the weekend but tonights MMA class is on taught by Bri Blewitt.. If you get down early and Dave isn't there lol don't worry the class is still on!

Tyrone and new stripes



Dave gave a little speech at the start of Wednesdays class with some very good points, Tyrone has put in the work and mat time to become one of the best kids in the country and in the sport. He's shown this with his dominant performances on the mat most recently at the NEGC and SENI competitions (and regularly beating us up), so his Dad gave him 2 stripes tonight very well deserved!

Not the greatest picture I'm afraid but we will get a better one.

Tuesday, August 05, 2008

Monday nights torture..

Well Dave came up with a new way to torture the lot of us, consisted of Tabata intervals (20 secs work 10 secs rest for 8 rounds) of:

Alternating squat jumps
Alternating hand position pushups
Situps to toes
Squat thrust to pressup

I think everyone felt the pain... Especially the un-named guy who turned up for his first class, did the warm up and proceeded to throw up and run for the hills out the back door and not look back! Never seen that happen before!

If your reading this don't push yourself so hard with us next time it takes some getting used to!

Sunday, August 03, 2008

OnTheMat BJJ Championships

Hi guys from sunnyLong Beach.

First day of the tournaments today. The place is like SENI only 95% MMA. We met Jens Pulver, Pat Miletich, Din Thomas, Robbie Lawler, Kyle Maynard, Uriah Faber, Shannon Hooper, Gazzy Parman, Tonya Evinger, Mike Bisping, BJ Penn and Joe Stevenson just wandering about.

Anyway Lisa won gold in her weight division (54.5kg) after jumping guard for an armbar and then tightening her guard and locking in the cross collar choke for the submission.

She got silver in the absolute after losing to an 80kg opponent. Lisa went for the single leg and drove like mad for it but the girl dropped her weight on top and squashed her into the mat. Lisa fought like hell to recover and almost reversed several times but the weight difference was too greast and Lisa lost on points.

Lisa was then asked to do a superfight with a teen competitor who is a college wrestler, just did the trials for the US Olympic judo team and also does BJJ. It was a good fight which Lisa unfortunately lost 0-4 after the girl secured the mount following Lisa's takedown attempt.

So fight day 1 - 1 gold and 2 silvers. It's the US Open no gi tomorrow.