Training Buddies

After going to the UK I realised how much I miss being able to train with soph and do things like ladies open mat, so I'm hoping that I can inspire ladies in Bahrain and the Middle East to give Brazilian JiuJitsu a try! If your reading this and don't have the faintest idea what BJJ is or what a typical class would involve then don't worry, when I first started I didn't have a clue what I was doing and had a very limited experience of martial arts hopfully this post will help you to gain a better understanding.

What is Brazilian Jiujitsu (or BJJ for shorts)
Brazilian jiujitsu was developed as a means of self defense against larger stronger individuals. The aim is to get the fight to the ground using a throw, takedown or pulling gaurd (see in the video how pippa (blue gi) pulls gaurd on leoni). Once the fight is taken to the ground you will need to reach a dominant position from which you will try to make your opponent submit or tap by applying a choke or joint lock (at the end of the video leoni successfuly reaches the mount position and manages to pass pippas defenses and get an arm bar submission making pippa tap out and winning the fight).




Helio gracie, who developed the art of bjj, was a small guy and would have been unable to successfuly beat bigger stronger opponents if he relied only on strength.

Many of you may feel more comfortable practising standing martial arts such as karate, taekwondo or kickboxing as the actions of punching and kicking are more familiar, bjj may seem daunting as it focuses on fighting an opponent from the ground and you may not understand the complexity of what is going on when watching people wrestling for the first time. However don't be put off by the unfamiliarity, Bjjs advantage is that smaller weaker opponents can develop the skills of leverage, positioning and working with momentum to defend and attack bigger stronger individuals. For this reason it makes it an excellent form of self defense as it lets you develop a sense of control and co-ordination needed to protect your self if you are ever thrown to the ground.



What will a typical class involve?
Class will usually begin with a warm up which can sometimes include specific condidioing drills to improve fitness. The coach will then show a few techniques whereby people will partner up and practice these positions. If your new your first class will usually involve going over some of the basic positions with the coach or one of the more experianced students, so don't panic about getting thrown in at the deep end, there will be plenty of help available and you can go at your own pace. After a you have become more familiar and condfident with some of the basics you can put what you've learnt into practice by rolling (another term for wrestling or grappling) with your training partners. The aim here is not to kill each other or see who is the best but simply pracice and develope your technique when under a bit of pressure.



The Benefits Of BJJ
Like all martial arts bjj can help to boost your confidence and self esteem by making you feel you have a greater sense of the capabilities of your body. Training regularly can improve your physique in two ways. 1) Grappling has a high energy demand meaning a large number of calories are burnt when training which can assist in reduced body fat. 2) Grappling also helps to develope lean body mass (mucles) which increases your metabolic rate, which is the best way to maintain a healthy weight in the long term. When i started BJJ i Couldn't do even half a push up and weighed about 67kg after about 6 months of training 3 times a week my weight had done down to 60kg and I can now happily rep out real push ups with the guys. I also compeated in a number of tournaments and felt more confident. Training gave me the chance to meet new people and be sociable in a healthy environment, it made a change of scene from the constant partying I had been doing at uni.

I hope this has helped some of the ladies to see that BJJ is a great martial art to learn and one that woman can really excel in. Don't be put off if the class is full of big grunting men, most of them will not be phased by your presence and go out of their way to make you feel welcome and help you out. Don't just take my word for it check out a whole host of other blogs by female authors that love jiujitsu at http://bjjgrrl.wordpress.com/women/women-resources/

If your in Bahrain and are interested in starting a class check out Reza's martial arts accadamy there are classes 6 days a week 10am-11am then 7-8.30pm its located in Sar/diraz I will post a map soon! I would also be interested to hear from any females training in or near Bahrain i.e abu dabi, dubai qatar, kuwait, and hear some of their experiances on training out here so leave a message if you or anyone you know wants to arrange a womans only training session like the ones going on in America, stockholm and the uk.


This clip shows how BJJ can be used by woman to fight a stronger opponent using good technique

Spree vs Steal rash gaurds

Just a quick post :) Primark have some t-shirts that are quite good for training they are long, stretchy and have a high neckline, there are a whole range of colors to chose from, I got pink blue black and green. I get one size smaller than usual so its extra tight. At 2 quid a pop they have to be my bargain buy of the holiday, If you want to be even more economical then you can wear your normal t shirts backwards so they are more bjj friendly!

If your feeling like spending a bit more cash then I love the tatami rash guards, they are tight and don't make me feel like I'm being strangled. Some of the other rashgurds for females are such a thick material and better suited for surfing. They are available in pink and black and cost reasonable 10 pounds (some rash-guards can cost up to 40quid!)steel

steal vs spree

Back in the UK!

Well I'm having a quick holiday back home, it started with a 7 hour flight via Doha 1 night in London then off to my aunt's 25th wedding anniversary, which, for a huge family event went down without any drama or scandal as can be the norm when my family are all contained in one place. Amazingly my nanny wasn't wearing anything covered in sequins or from topshop, my crazy aunt managed to avoid seducing any of my cousins friends the underage drinkers did so responsibly, and the dinner was yummy. I am somewhat worried that with an average of 3.5 puddings a day and an extremely large Scottish cooked breakfast that i will go back to Bahrain a kilo or 2 overweight so when i got back to eastbourne i stocked the fridge up with everything healthy and wholesome my chocolate detox begins now!

Back to BJJ, I went training at canton last night, I was a bit nervous but once I saw all my old friends I had a great session. We started off with a quick warm up maybe ten minutes compared to the half an hour at reza's which considering my numb feet made me very happy. We then drilled 5 different take downs 20 times each including a 3 judo take downs which i can never remember the name and 2 single leg take downs. Tolly let me do the stretching and I threw in a few yoga moves which was met by a lot of grunting haha i love me some stretching. I really liked the moves we drilled, I had nearly forgotten all the attacks I knew from side control so it was great to go over some and fun to have Sophie back to drill with. What was even nicer was having a good 5 rolls at the end it was good to test some of the stuff I had learned at reza's with the guys here, although I was so excited that my usual slow and steady approach was replaced with wild all out combat!

I am very tempted to go to slough tonight and see all the guys from BTT but i think my mum would kill me, and I want to go see Anna and check out her gym in Worthing on Thursday so tonight I think I will go for dinner with her and my brother in Brighton. I'm even more tempted to stay a bit longer but I need to get my ass back to Bahrain and work so I will try to enjoy every minute of my hols and squeeze in as much bjj time as possible!

training this month and Fabio Gurgel Seminar

Training this year has been pretty hit and miss but I seem to be getting back into the swing of things. I'm writing this after a 6.30am driving lesson and let me tell you driving in the Middle East is an adrenalin filled affair, lanes exist purely as a rough guideline of where you should be and people seem to think nothing of swerving into oncoming traffic or going off road if they have to que for more than 5 minutes. Anywhooo I'm looking forward to coming back to the UK for ten days in February, unfortunately it doesn't co-inside with any kul bjj related events, other than getting to go to canton and btt and train with my old team mates but I am hella excited about it!

Things at the academy are good, we hopefully have someone starting to teach yoga which is great because lately our stretching in class has been non existent. I'm still doing capoeira every now and then and might start more after the abu dabi comp or if i ever pass my test and get a car!

The big news is we are having a week seminar with Fabio Gurgel, one of the co-founders of Alliance in April, there might even be a whole gang of his black belts coming with to train at the academy before the abu-dabi world pros so that will be something to look forward to, here is an article in gracie mag about our school in Bahrain http://www.graciemag.com/en/2009/12/alliance-heads-to-the-middle-east/ hehe I'm easy to spot in the picture due to my mega pink gi!

I keep getting pissed off every time i get an event invite for something in the English bjj scene that i can't go to I feel like I'm missing out on a lot but I'm trying to keep focused on training here. Reza now teaches the basic alliance course on 3 days of the week which I'm still trying to get used to, there's alot of self defence techniques and details on some of the moves that I haven't seen before, theres 25 lessons all in all and we're up to 16 but I think we will need to go through it a few more times before I get the hang of everything.

I'm reading a lot of books at the minute, one being jiu jitsu university which I amazingly found it in a book store here. It made me chuckle when I read that blue belts should be working on mastering escapes as I feel that's all I had been getting good at lately. Another book is The essential guard, carrying on from my last post I am finding this a good book for helping me to attack more as there are lots of Nice submissions and it progresses through attacking and defending closed and open guard. I always find that books or a dvd can give you a bit of extra motivation which I have defiantly been needing at the minute. I think this weekend I will put up some shelves because my book collection is getting slightly out of hand and Alex is getting increasingly concerned that the huge tower of books on the bedside table will collapse in the night and bury him while he sleeps hehe.

Thoughts on Motivation for 2010

My coach keep mentioning that I need to start developing my game for competition and start taking a less defensive approach when rolling. Based on that comment this post is a brainstorm of sorts on how to develop a competitive game when you don't have the option of sparing with suitable competitors, for me this would be someone a)female and b) anyone weighing less than 65kg of which the academy is certainly lacking.

Not having a suitable sparing partner is not the end of the world but it is important to consider the advantages and disadvantages and how your game could be lacking because of it. I'm sure most girls training bjj have had their concerns on such matters met with the old "training with the guys is better for you, it will make you stronger then when your fighting with girls you'll kick their ass!" For me fighting with guys who are often bigger or stronger means I have to really ensure my technique is perfect because i do not possess the strength to compensate for small mistakes. I feel its important to point out that in all my fights my opponents have never been lacking in strength, i feel most girls training bjj have that one covered, so don't think you will be able to destroy other girls when you get the chance to fight in competitions. The most important lesson you can learn is to perfect technique and "neutralise the aggression" * of your bigger stronger opponents when training as this is something that you can use to your advantage when competing.

So what are some of the things I have been doing to get me out of my usual routine and think more in terms of how I would roll to develop my competition game rather than just survive the 5 minutes and be happy that some 85kg guy was unable to completely crush me.

Roll with different people - this may seem fairly obvious but I've gotten to the point where i know who I like to spar with. I how to defend the moves they like to use, tell when they are getting tired and generally know I can survive 5 minutes without any real threat of injury. After the 5 minutes are up I'm happy I managed to defend against their attacks, escape or reverse positions and maybe control them in my guard but is this a performance I would be happy with in competition - hells no - In competition I want to be continuously attacking and controlling my opponent not just simply surviving. I am forcing myself to ask someone completely different to roll with each class because it means during that roll I'm out of my comfort zone and in a different mind set. **

Work your brain not just your body - I train a lot, some days if I'm tired and stiff or just in a bad mood its easy to just make it through training without really thinking too much. After the warm up, conditioning, and drills its easy to grab the same old training buddies and just flow not really thinking too much about your performance when sparring. I have been trying to avoid this and make sure that its not just my body working but also my mind. I try and think strategically about my opponents the same way I would in a fight, I love bjj for its tactical side you have to be able to think and make connections between moves constantly.

These are the two main things that have been helping me to think more positivly about developing my game for competition. Some more general tips would be to get your friend to score points when you are sparing to see where you are losing or potentially giving up points and just to remind you of the rules when compeating. Attending as many semiars or open mat sessions as possible(there are more and more womans open mat sessions being hosted, unfortunatly there are none in the UAE or Bahrain)can really help give you the chance to roll with different people closer to your size and see how you do in a non competative environment. Its a good feeling to finally see how much more fluid your game can be against an evenly matched competator, it might not be easy but you will definatley feel the 20kg differance when your executing a nice sweep.


* quote by Hellio Gracie
** (this being said there are still a select few guys I avoid rolling with at all costs, the ones that crank submissions, crush me with their knee on belly and shoulder to the face, or even worse just lye on top of me for the duration of the roll, I know bjj is not a sport for the faint hearted but these people will always have the mind set of taking every roll as an opportunity to crush and destroy their opponent by any means seeing each tap as a personal victory and I don't feel I learn anything by sparing with them.

stripe and seminars

Well last night was the last night of our 2 week semiar with alex monsalv, I managed to make it to most of the classes and really enjoyed his style of bjj. Feel like my game is getting better now that I've stopped sitting down on my ass and pulling gaurd so much which was a slight problem before, I think the reason I started doing it so much is 1) I suck at standing and passing open guard and 2) guard seemed like the safer option with most of the bigger or more technical guys. BUT thats not how my game is in competition so its good to at least be more agressive and try passing their gaurd.

We had 3 belt upgrades from white to blue, one was ali who just turned 16 so could switch his green belt to blue rolling with him still frustrates the hell out of me becasue he's fast and uses positions the other guys just physically can't (i think he secretly trains yoga). Muneer and Jeff also got thier blue belt so congratulations I think that makes around 10 of us now? Reza also gave stripes out I was a bit surprised but also happy to get one as it feels like i just graded to blue not that long ago.

In other news lost my passport so probably won't be coming back to the UK before january as the uk embasy is having problems at the minute soo kinda bumed about that but at least it means I can plan my trip properly and maybe do the europeans or some other comps when i'm over.

Heres a couple of bjj quotes I found that I like

A real jiu-jitsu fighter does not go around beating people down. Our defense is made to neutralize aggression. "
-Helio Gracie

"The secret to this sport is while you are the nail hang in there, let them hit you. Untill the day that you become the hammer and then you smash them back." - Renzo Gracie

Pictures

Feeling too sick to write anything remotely intelligent or entertaining, was getting into a really good training routine till alex infected me with flu haha ahh well at least we get to spend some time together even if it is wrapped up in blankets watching californication and burn notice :)

Till I recover Here's some pics from training