On Your Back

Wednesday, 28 July 2010

This may not be obvious to you right away but I spotted Peter doing this to great effect on Monday night when I was rolling with him in BJJ. What was it that he did? Well he was in guard and he simply decided to stand up.

If you ask most beginners to grappling what you can do in the guard you will often get the answer 'Sweep or Submit.' This is true but there is more. There are in fact five things you can do but not all of them are applicable to Sport BJJ.
1. Survival
2. Strike
3. Sweep
4. Submit
5. Stand-up



So on Monday Peter was in guard with Matt and they were fighting away and Matt was defending well so Peter moved out to spider guard and then suddenly jumped up, snapped Matt forward and took his back!! This is a great example of thinking outside the BJJ box, where you often see guys struggling away trying their various sweeps and submissions to no great effect and slowly sapping their strength and increasing their frustration. You don't have to stay there. Why not learn and drill ways to get from being in guard to standing up and changing the game??

Keep Training!!

New Black Belt

Sunday, 11 July 2010

After 13 years of training in Brazilian Jiu Jitsu, Tatiana receives her Black Belt!!
If the girls (and the guys for that matter) ever need any inspiration Tatiana is it!!
Congratulations Tatiana.

New website for Team Rey Diogo Scotland

Sunday, 4 July 2010

Hey guys here is the link to the new website for Team Rey Diogo Scotland.
You can get the membership form here. See the link to the right. Keep up with cool vid links, training news and competition news.

Staying Alive!!

Thursday, 1 July 2010

This article was written by Erik Paulson and is the end part of an article about tricky unusual moves. He explains where they come from and how he got round to them but more importantly he talks about his training and I think he makes some really good points about stuff that happens in the gym. Like the guys who don't compete and therefore think the fights in the gym.

Take a read.

"A lot of people just start playing. I played with it a lot on that bag (motion master), so a lot of this stuff just comes from playing on the ground. Just be creative. That’s the biggest thing. If you’re on the mat it’s all experimental. Who cares if you get caught in practice? That’s what practice is for. It’s like boxing & wrestling. They don’t say, "Hey did you get punched in the face today?", of course you did! You’re boxing! That’s part of the game. "Hey, did you get taken down today?", of course you did! It’s wrestling! That’s part of practice. A lot of guys have that mentality because they are gym fighters and they don’t fight or compete outside of the gym, so their whole objective is to catch other people in class and say "I’m the best guy in the gym". Big deal! That’s your gym.



What level are you? Let’s say you fight in tournaments (State, National, Worldwide, Olympics), there are so many different levels of competition that the main thing is just to be humble and train. Learn and have fun. When you start losing the fun, you don’t want to train anymore.

The worst thing is when you’re on the mat and looking at the same spot. I rembember wrestling and having guys trying to get me and I’m looking at this little cut in the mat. It’s like I’m sleeping all night long and dreaming about this little cut in the mat and the next day, it seems like five hours later, I’m looking at the cut in the mat. You put your wrestling shoes on and they haven’t dried from the night before. Five straight days, etc. That gets old. It becomes a job and it’s not fun. You have to rekindle your passion. Step away from it for a while and just say "This is too much". You actually learn a lot more when you step away from what you are doing. Except for Guro Dan. LOL. He never decreases. He looks younger now than he did ten years ago!

A loss can be a win and a win can be a loss. A loss is a loss if you quit and don’t learn. A loss is a win if you become Leonard Nimoy and go "In Search Of" and find out where the holes are in your game. A win is a loss if you say "I’m the best!" and quit.




"You were a champion yesterday, today is a different day" – George Kerr

The main thing is to have fun. Get on the mat, roll, and have fun.

If you are on the mat, there are no secrets. The secret is training."

By Erik Paulson

Respect

A lot of guys never bow in and out of class. They walk in late, mouth off, their manners are poor, their moral ethics are poor, their discipline is piss poor. The respect part, (Wai, Shaking Hands, High Five, Telling Your Name), is important. You guys are sweating together. I want to know who I’m sweating with!


The respect factor is whe Wai and the bowing. The bowing is more traditional Japanese, but I try to keep that for all my guys so they at least have the respect factor. We don’t have belts, we wear shorts & sweats, we play loud music and train hard, ubut we must keep the respect and pass it on to the new generation.

I used to be the new generation, but now I’m old. It’s weird. When I go to Japan, the place where all of the respect is, you walk in the door, stop and bow. Now some walk in and wave their hand and keep talking. For some, the respect factor has really changed.

I see a lot of this in mixed martial arts because they see Tito Ortiz and some other guys with the Bad Boy image. If you really get to know Tito, he’s not really like that. He’s a little cocky, but it’s for the hype of the media, and that’s what they need. Phil Baroni is the same way. He’s kind of crazy, lol, but, once you sit down and talk to him, he’s not really that way. People see the image on TV and love pro wrestling and that kind of attitude, so it tends to come out and the young people see this and that’s how they act. That’s not what it’s about.

It’s about respect, and it’s very important!

By Erik Paulson
Combat Submission Wrestling

I must add to this the respect goes as far as the uniform too. Some arts are more traditional than others and some arts have elaborate uniforms that here at AMAG we don't wear. But one system that I feel strongly about is
Muay Thai Boxing.



The uniform at its most basic costs you about twenty quid for a pair of Thai Shorts off of Ebay or out of our ProShop. MMA has become popular these days and maybe the reason some of you have started training. Some of you really like wearing the MMA uniform of rash guard or Hayabusa t-shirt and MMA shorts and have the little gloves that they wear. You might feel ace and not want to wear the traditional uniform but this shows a real ignorance on your part and you should address it. It's not a good attitude at all to say you'll take the push-ups punishment rather than train in the correct uniform. Show some respect for the art you train in and the instructors that teach or maybe it's time to look elsewhere!?

As good as it gets?

Friday, 4 June 2010

I was having a conversation with a good friend of mine last night about training and in particular getting high level, world class coaching.
He'd been on a recent visit to London and amongst other things had visited one of the training academies down there. He had been thinking and was articulating this to me in his usual way! How could we ever compete on their level when they have so many high level coaches and competitors? He also mentioned how formal and professional their class structure was compared to ours.



Well of course this got me thinking and although on first thoughts I thought he was right I reconsidered. At AMAG we get a lot of world class and high level coaches and instructors coming to visit us and teaching for perhaps one or two days. The way they teach us is that they pass down techniques, drills, training methods and bad jokes for all the students to take away and practise. But one thing may have been overlooked on the first pass, so to speak. AMAG has a unique approach in that it has some good level instructors and coaches teaching there all the time. These instructors also take part in the seminars and training sessions of the high level guys and learn the material, often quicker and more effectively than the students. This new material then becomes the basis of the classes taught at AMAG and before you know it the students are able to do and use the material taught at the seminar to much better use than if they had just attended on their own and had only taken notes for example.

I know that what I have just described is not the same as being taught on a daily basis by Marc McFann or Erik Paulson or Guro Inosanto or Daniel Lonero or Rey Diogo or Ajarn Chai or Toco but with AMAG's unique approach we can maybe reach 85%?? I think this puts us on the level with students who have these guys on their back door step. Even if we do have to perhaps train and think harder.


Also when you reach a certain stage in your martial arts career, you start to travel to these guys to train with them and improve even more. For example, some of us travel to LA or Brazil for weeks at a time to get exposure to the best in the world and then we bring that back to the gym for others to benefit from too!!

This


brings me onto my final point about class environment. I personally don't like a too formal class approach because basically I don't think it is conjugative to learning. The best approach that I have seen from all over in the different places I've trained is a light hearted semi formal environment, where there is a lot of respect going around for one another and the instructor, but light hearted enough for people to talk and discuss what they are doing. I think this is the best way to learn and if there is an element of play in there then I think that is where you see the best results.



Such as sparring or rolling for instance. You need to take things easy to learn the stuff as well as hard to see what you've got. But as far as sparring goes the fight is in the ring or on the mat, not in the gym with your training partners. There are a lot of people that won't ever have the courage to go and compete and they are the worst for trying to kick everyones ass in the gym. I know that was slightly off subject but a good point all the same.

I'm glad in had the conversation with my friend because it reminded me of just how good our gym is and how far we have come.

Keep training :-)

Scotia BJJ Competition - Neil Cushnie going Laldy

Monday, 31 May 2010

I asked Neil to go a bit laldy on this one and lo and behold we got a good result!!
You can't be too timid or overly technical when you enter these competitions. Get in there and get what you want out of it. Like Neil did. This guy was 82.5kg and Neil was 71kg.

Awesome!!