A slight neck injury and ADCC beginners tournament

Okay, we did a lot of no-gi two weeks ago and the past week was just no-gi all the way, it was very refreshing to roll without the gi to be honest. I actually think I figured out a couple of details to some techniques because of the lack of control you have when rolling without the gi. The gi have forgiven me alittle, but rolling no-gi got me thinking about how to improve my control. I also started thinking that I need more submissions when rolling without the gi, because I use A LOT of collar chokes and also the lack of control in my submission made it much harder to finish them. So I worked on my brabo choke and guillotine a lot. Got a good vibe from them, I use the guillotine much more from mount then from guard or standing (as I'm rather short). But it made rolling even more fun that it normally is.

Most of you don't know the story behind our gym, but we used to train a little under 2 years ago at this other gym, but we split due to some differences in opinions and priorities (not gonna get into that). So the guys that were interesting in grappling followed us and the kickboxing, traditions jiu-jitsu and some MMA guys stayed there. Now during the past 2 weeks we've had some of the MMA guys visit our gym once or twice a week for no-gi training. It was very nice to get some new rolling partners, and I try to teach them a little extra every time I roll with one of them. Hopefully they will keep training with out too.

Last wednesday I was rolling with this huge guy, approx 230lbs and I was working on a Monson on him from north-south and then changed it to a guillotine from mount and managed to sprain my neck somehow. I really don't know how, as he wasn't even touching my head. I tried to strech my neck etc, but I wasn't able to turn my head to the left the next morning. So I didn't train very much for the rest of the week. I just prepped our guys that were going to this ADCC beginners tournament, I did some light rolling on saturday with one of the guys that I had worked with on a guard pass.

On sunday morning we started our trip to Tampere for the tournament. There were 6 guys representing our club, 5 guys that have trained under 8 months and 1 guys that has trained for maybe 18 months. The guys that was least experienced jiu-jitsuwise has been doing greco-roman for maybe 15 years, so he is top notch in his pedigree :) But he had only trained jiu-jitsu for maybe 10 sessions or so, hehehee...

Well two guys lost their first fight on points. Then two guys won their first fights, one by kimura and the other 8-3 on points. The kimura guy lost his second fight very fast and the other guy lost due to toe-hold, he was our most experienced guy, but they paired him up against two very tough guys. The guy he lost to won the tournament. One guy won his first fight on armbar and suddenly his second opponent didn't show up. His "third" fight stared well, he blocked a takedown and was standing in open guard and worked on a pass that we drilled alot, he was very close to passing but suddenly was caught in a calf-lock... and tapped... Our greco-roman guy did really great! We made our gameplan according to his strengths, wrestling! There are no points awarded during the first 2 mintues of the fights, she we wanted to keep the fights standing for that time. I kept informing him about the time all the time, and it was very nice to see how dominating his wrestling was. Immediatley as the points started, he suplexed his opponents. AUCH! The first fight he suplex his opponent, managed to pass half-guard and get to mount, he worked on a americana but I think the bell saved his opponent, but a clear victory anyhow. The second match was the coolest, his opponent was so stubborn about wanting to wrestle him. When the points started, he suplex the guy -2points. He was in open guard and I told him to stand up, and the opponent followed. It didn't take long for the suplex to come again, BAM! - 2 points. The opponent worked on a sweep that led to a scrable and they got up. Well, you can guess what was next, yeah, another suplex! BAM - 2 points! At this point the poor guy was pretty mentally broken after those slams, our guy passed guard, secured a sidechoke and jumped to the otherside to choke him out. Victory via sidechoke.

The last fight was very good, this opponent was a good guard player. He tried to work a flying armbar 4 times within the first 2 mintues without success. The time started and, you know what was coming, a suplex! They were on the ground for a while, but he got back up and the opponent pulled guard and got penalized with 1 minus point. It didn't take long and they were on their feet again, and you know what was coming again, yeah - a suplex! So our guy was up by 5 points and there wasn't much time, I was certain that he'd win by this point as there was just like 30 second left and it was looking good. But his ground inexperience showed and he got into a tight armbar. He was fighting it hard, but with 4-5 second left on the clock he was forced to tap out. It was a shame, I'd have loved to see some more greco-roman exhibitions :)

No medals to our guys as there were 51 people in the -76kg category (3 of our guys fought in that division, the greco-roman dude aswell). But I was very happy, we train very little no-gi, and our guys displayed very nice techniques and spirit! Better luck next time :)

Today I was back to training 100% again, it was nice! Only one blue belt at practise today and he had to leave early, so I didn't get to roll with him. But none the less, it was a good day of training once again. Tried to work on my closed guard alittle, as I do it so little nowadays. Always working my open and half-guard.

First blog entry in ages...

So plenty of things have happened since my last entry the past summer, I will try to write short and in a chronological order.

I suffered from some injuries during late summer, so I didn't get to train that much. During the summer I attended a very good seminar, the Hilti summercamp. Pedor Duarte was in charge, some great training, but this is where my injuries started.

Then Sami Markkanen held a good weekend seminar at our school i October. The last weekend in October I attended the GB-gym BJJ tournament in the colored belt 82,3kg division. I got the first round on a free pass, the 1st fight I pulled half-guard, swept my opponent, ended up after a scramble into full guard. Passed his guard late in the fight and won 5-0. The 2 nd fight my opponent pulled half-guard and we were there for 5minutes and 45 second, in the last 15 seconds I managed to pass his guard but didn't get the point due to lack of control. But I won the fight by decision. In the final I met my friend who I lost against 1½ years earlier. This time I pulled half-guard, tried a collar choke - 1 advantage for me, he then tried to choke me with an ezekiel - 1 advantage for him. Then I managed to get a kimura on him, sweep him and submit him by armbar. Gold for me :)

November was very focused om me losing weight. Had the BJJ Finnish Opens coming up late in November. The weight was good, 75kg the night be fore the tournament and I dropped another 0,8kg during the night. I don't know why, but in the blue belt -76kg division there were only 5 guys fighting which was very sad. It turned out even worse as my first opponent didn't show up because he wasn't able to cut weight. So I advanced to the finals without even fighting, this was very depressing. I didn't even bother warming up properly, which was very stupid. My final opponent was very convincing, he defeated the first guy 15-0 and the second guy 10-0 on his way to the final. We pulled half-guard the same time and he came on top and got an advantage, I didn't understand this (it happened twice during the fight). I got some advantages for a choke and a sweep/takedown attempt. I think we were tied 2-2 with the advantages when he passed my guard and tried to go for the mount and I re-guarded. I was totally exhausted. So I lost the fight eventually 3-0. I got silver without winning a single fight, that didn't feel very good. Our club got 1 gold, 1 silver and 1 bronze medal.

December turned out as a terrible month, I trained maybe 2½ weeks and got sick. Got back to training in early January. Then Hilti BJJ black belt Sauli Heilimö held a weekend seminar at our academy. Good training and I picked many things from him, some I'm still working on to get to work, but very good thoughts formed during that seminar. He awarded 3 blue belts to our gym and I got my purple belt, this was the 17th of January.

February I focused on training hard and attended the first of seven Hilti BJJ seminars this year in Stockholm. Great training, very croweded :) The best experience was when I got to grapple with Hilti BJJ black belt and UFC veteran David Bielkheden and of course witnessed my first black belt grading, there were a total of 6 bb's awarded during that seminar, great experience. I fought in the colored belt 82,3kg division in Hämeenlinna on the last Saturday of February. I got the first round on a free pass, the second round my opponent pulled guard, tried to play some spider guard, I started passing and eventually flipped him over and he turtled up. I took his back from there and choked him from the back. The second fight I pulled half-guard, tried to go for a kimura which I tried to change to a wrist-lock in a scramble. Returned to half-guard, locked in a collar choke, my opponent stood up and he tapped standing to the choke. In the final pulled half-guard, swept my opponent and passed his guard. I tried to choke him for a while from north-south but tried to hard and he slipped back to guard. Then the disappointing stuff started. I kind of blacked out, I was trying to pass his guard and screwed up totally by doing a big newbie mistake and letting him slap on an easy triangle. But I know he is a very game opponent so there was no shame in losing to him. So silver for me. Our club got 3 silver medals and 3 bronze medal from that tournament. Not too bad.

After that tournament I got a terrible stomach flu, just throwing up and well... you know. We had SBGi bjj brown belt Martin Aedma from Estonia teach at our academy over a weekend, the 5th to 7th of March. We did mainly posture stuff and guard passing, very very good stuff! This seminar opened my eyes for many small details I've overlooked in the past. Good training. Last weekend I was training at my first gym back in Hanko. Friday was no-gi, got a few good round in and on Saturday I rolled bjj with my two instructors Tony and Jocke, they are both brown belts under Rikard Andersson. I got my ass kicked :) This week we are only training no-gi, as there is a beginners tournament in Tampere next Sunday and 7 of our guys are going there. Let's hope all goes well and we got more medals than last year (1 silver and 1 bronze).

Today was my 50th training for the year 2010, not as many I had hoped for, but sickness and life in general has gotten in the way of my training. Hopefully I'll be able to train more during the rest of the year. I'm trying to get in as much freestyle wrestling in as well to improve my takedowns, but my sore shoulders are getting in the way of my wrestling training.

Sorry for typos and unclear text, there was just too much to spellcheck and re-write. The future blog entries will be shorter, I promise.