3-16-14 Ireland

3/16/14 Ireland

I didn’t get into Dublin until late. I wasn’t entirely sure how I was going to get where I needed to go, on the other side of the city. There were not any trains that I could see around the airport, but there were buses. First thing first, I needed to get some Euros. The first set of ATMS I went to were out of Euros, so I had to keep looking. I also needed to get a bus pass, and directions on which bus to take. After talking to the tourism information lady, a random store lady, the currency exchange (traded in my ISK for Euros), and finally the Dublin Bus attendants I figured out that I should probably just connect to wifi and google map this out. 

During the above, I also ran into two younger Americans who were out here on holiday from West Point Military Academy. They heard my American accent, noticed my LSU hat and asked where I was from. Turns out they were a couple of Southern Boys from I believe Mississippi and Georgia. They were also headed about the same way I was, down to Dublin city center, but I would be catching another bus out of there. We talked a bit, I asked if they had ever been out of the U.S. and they said no. I offered some advice as an old vet to them. I told them to keep their valuables in their front pockets, to not get black out drunk, and regardless of the situation do not get into a fight with the locals because they were going to get the bad end of the deal. They appreciated the advice and kept calling me Sir. Academy kids calling an old enlisted sailor Sir. Whatever, I’ll take it. 

On the bus ride to Dublin City Center they asked what I was doing out here. I told them, the taller of the two was pretty amazed at the whole thing and inquired about the gym I would be going to because he trained Army Combatives and wanted to check out Brazilian Jiu Jitsu. I gave him the website and told him the times that I would be there. 

The buses here have free wifi, so I had my maps application open and actively tracking the route when I noticed that we passed my stop. I told the guys it was nice to meet them and to keep in touch while they were here but that I had to run. I got down to the front of the bus and told the driver that he missed my stop, he seemed surprised and I had him let me out where we were at. I hailed a cabbie and asked how much it would be to my hotel, the price seemed pretty cheap considering. I took him up on the offer and away we went. 

He inquired about what I was doing and seemed generally interested. He started talking about how if I was fighting that I should go train with some well known boxing coach down in Spain. I just rolled with the conversation, instead of telling him I didn’t do that kind of fighting. It’s pretty common for people to assume Brazilian Jiu Jitsu equals MMA fighting, my own mother was convinced for a couple of years that I “fought ufc” and refused to come see any of my tournaments until recently when she came across some photos of me training. The driver talked about the company that he made where he pulled in a bunch of cabbies to create “Dublin City Cab Tours” (not exact on the name) because he was tired of the union politics and the like. So he put his idea in motion and the rest is history. The rates that he charges to and from the airport to anywhere in Dublin seem to be pretty damn aggressive and cheap. He told me I should call him when I was ready to go to the airport from the hotel when I leave in a few days. Since I had already purchased a 3 day bus pass, I probably won’t be spending any more Euros on a cab. The only reason that I did this time was because I was tired, hungry, and just wanted to get to the hotel as soon as possible. 

We got to the hotel, I checked in, and headed up to the room to get my stuff sorted out. I asked if the restaurant was still selling food, and was told they were closing soon and that I should get over there to order as soon as possible. So I ran over there and made a quick order before heading to the hotel pub. 

I was enjoying my pint of Smithwicks when I was interrupted by an older woman (around 50ish) who asked what I was doing and that I didn’t look to be from around here. It was casual and inquisitive and I felt as though she was making conversation, albeit a bit drunk. So I told her what I was up to and she thought it was pretty interesting, eventually bringing her boyfriend over to talk too. They invited me over to come hangout with them and their friends, I told them I needed to drop my laptop off in my room. I quickly made my way back down after doing so and joined them. It was an older group of people who were curious about me and what I had going on. I said to myself I would only have a couple of pints, but next thing I knew it was after 2am and I was a bit tipsy. 

Needless to say, I didn’t make it to the 2pm training the next day. 

Iceland 3-15-14

Iceland 3/15/14

Today was my last training day at Mjolnir, and Iceland. The schedule (only in Icelandic) showed a BJJ class at 1200 and open mat following. The plan was to attend the class, take notes of what was going on, and roll in the open mat portion of things if anyone was willing. 

I showed up about 30-40 minutes early and changed into my go. I walked out of the locker room and up the stairs to the training area for BJJ. There are three training areas. I’m not sure entirely what the other two contain, but I know the BJJ area has a decent amount of mat space, some seating, and a MMA cage. It’s a pretty nice and spacious setup in my opinion. 

I spent the extra time in the training area going over notes from prior classes at my home school, notes from seminars (mainly Robert Drysdale), and stretching. I was a bit sore from sparring the day before. Partially my problem for not training like I normally do before heading out to Europe, but more on that later. 

As I said yesterday, the Mjolnir folks are pretty intense. I was one of the oldest people there, if not the oldest. Talking to the receptionist/trainer at the front desk, I was told that the majority of people at Mjolnir who train are below 30, and none really above 35. That’s a bit of a contrast compared to my home gym, were it seems the bulk of the regular students are in their 30’s or higher, and very few below 25. And now that I think of it, it seems like a lot of gyms I’m been to in the U.S. have been pretty heavily populated by a 30+ crowd. It will be interesting to see if the rest of Europe is similar to Iceland or the US. 

Slowly people started to trickle in. At first I thought that maybe nobody would show up on a Saturday. The classes back home are usually pretty small on Saturdays, although they are in the morning and Mjolnirs are in the afternoon. I keep stretching. 

After a few more minutes, a tall athletic guy with a shaved head walks onto the mat. He’s wearing board shorts and a rash guard. I know I didn’t misunderstand the uniform for the class, because all the folks around me have their go uniforms on also. The instructor/nogi guy says something I don’t understand and everyone gets up and assembles in a kind of semi-circle around him. Warm up drills. Some of which I had not seen before, but nothing exotic. All functional movements to stretch and warmup. Hip and ankle rolling, squats, jumping jacks, etc. Some other things are said, and younger blue belt looks at me and says something, I apologize and tell him I don’t understand. “Slow roll, yes?” Oh, yeah sure man!

We start the slow rolling, going back and forth. my definition of slow roll and his seem to be a bit different. A lot of the flow rolls I’ve seen in the U.S. are “you go, I go”. This was more like I went a step, he went three steps. I was constantly on my back in side control or knee on belly. No worries, it’s just a flow roll anyways. This went on for about 6-7 minutes. I noticed yesterday that their rounds are 7 minutes long, which makes for a tiring class, and an intense roll also. 

After the round of flow rolling, we begin the actual sparing. I end up rolling with more of their blue belts, and a couple of their four stripe white belts. Overall I felt like i maintained a lot of positional dominance through the rolls. I had one pretty difficult roll with one of the striped up blues. I couldn’t keep the guy off me. I would pull guard, he would break and start to pass, I would hold him off and sit up only to have him attacking me from the other side and pushing me into side control. Then went on and on, with him finally taking my back. The hooks he was using and the angle he had me at made it very difficult for me to use my go to back escape, the Saulo Ribiero version from his book. I would go to move out and isolate a leg of his only to have him not only threatening a choke, but also moving into mount. I ended up fending the attacks off until the buzzer sounded. Had this been a points match, I would have lost. As we got up and shook hands, he tells me “you’re a very tough man”. I nod at him and tell him “You folks here at Mjolnir are all tough, and have been very good training partners”. He smiles and we move on. 

I had a few more matches, nothing that really stands out until I ran into a tall lanky guy who wasn’t wearing a belt. As we start I ask him was color belt he is, and he tells me that he is a blue belt. I say “OK, just wanted to make sure that I was going to be mean to any white belts”. He laughs, we start. He’s pretty spastic and is technique wasn’t very quality due to him attempting to use his youth, speed, and perceived strength against me. After about 30 seconds I have him on his back into side control. I’m waiting, I shoot for mount, miss it and end up in his half guard. But not any half guard. I feel the vise tightening around my ankles, this guy is using the “lockdown”, a move I use against a lot of my heavier teammates back home. So I shoulder locked him. We reset, I butt sit and start experimenting, end up getting passed and thrown into side control but not to far away is my turn for the lockdown. I lock him down, tight. Stretching him with the lock and my undercooks on his upper body. He isn’t going anywhere, he hasn’t worked any of the escapes, I know this because he isn’t making any of the movements towards them. After a little while he is a bit tired from struggling, I whip him up and over, still maintaining the lockdown in top position. Eventually I let it go and move into side control. Then I move into knee on belly, not too much pressure, but enough to let him know he needs to stop playing around. He attempts to escape and I keep changing position, knee on belly, opposite knee on chest, then the buzzer rings. 

All in all I was pretty damn tired by the end of class. Sucking down an entire liter of water. In the two days I’ve been in these classes it feels like the room, which is HUGE, gets ridiculously hot. I’m covered in sweat like I would be back home in the middle of summer. I feel a little sick to my stomach and decide I’d better go get something to eat rather than roll more. I also forgot to mention that the class was supposed to be a technique class, but instead we rolled. This was OK by me. I need to get into better shape before the IBJJF tournaments in Rome at the beginning of April. I’m probably not going to learn any new technique by then, but it would be nice to polish some technique up. I’m still weighing around 205# naked and about 208# with my gi on, which is fine for my go matches. I need to be below 201 for my nogi matches or I risk a DQ. $100 is a lot of money to risk to not get a chance at a medal for my division. I may end up having to shave my head and beard for a pound or two of weight savings. 

I ended up running back to my accommodations and taking a shower and throwing some clothes in the washing machine. I needed to wash my dirty uniforms and the like before I leave in the morning. I get the first load out of the wash and into the dryer and start the second load before taking off for the night. I ended up leaving somewhere around 4pm to go checkout the rest of the town. 

I walked and walked and walked throughout Reykjavik. I went to the well known Music Hall. Walked through that, got some pictures here and there of some artsy stuff. Took some pictures out into the harbor, and then decided to go into the “downtown” shopping district to see what was going on. It wasn’t too terrible, but it was reminiscent of what we would call a “tourist trap” back in the U.S. There were bars and places to eat. By the way, did I mention the Icelanders seem to have a hard-on for hamburgers and pizza? Restaurants like that were all over. I wanted to get some “real” Icelandic food, but wasn’t sure where to go. So I kept walking. I ended finding a couple of viking statues and nabbed some pictures of them. I found Iceland’s huge chapel thing on the hill, which was pretty neat from the outside. Sadly it was closed by the time I got there though, so I couldn’t check out the inside. 

I was trying to hunt down a place that served “Lobster Soup” that had rave reviews on Yelp and on Google. I remember walking pasted it the day before, but couldn’t remember where in the hell it was. I finally stopped into a store for trinkets and asked the women where the place was. Turns out I was only a couple of blocks away. I find the place, I don’t recall the name but it has a sign that states it’s known for it’s lobster soup. I go inside and it’s packed. There isn’t anywhere to sit, and there is a group of older Germans in the middle who seem to think it’s OK to sit around being loud and obnoxious (and well done with their meals) while others are waiting to sit. I finally get to the counter and order a lobster soup, a potato kabob (Liene, I’m saving it for your sister!), and a beer. The girl behind the counter is looking for a place for me to sit, I tell her not to worry about it, I will go sit outside until something opens up. I grab my beer and go sit in the cold. I finish my beer (it was a tall one), and still don’t have my food. I look inside, there is a single seat! I go grab it and sit down. I have the waitress bring me another beer while I wait. Pretty soon the soup comes out with bread, but no kabob. No worries, I give it a few minutes before inquiring to its location when the server tells me that I “did not order one”. I chuckle, give her the price I paid for beer, soup, and kabob and she checks it out with the counter girl. After a bit I get my kabob. As I’m eating my soup, I notice there is ZERO lobster in it. I inquire to the folks around me if they had lobster, they all fish out multiple large chunks and ask why I don’t have any. I say I don’t know. I should have said something, but I wasn’t really in the mood. I finished up and head by to my accommodations. 

I think I walked around for somewhere in the neighborhood of 6 hours. Being from the middle of the middle of the U.S.,  walking around for that much time isn’t normal unless your car has broken down. Mass transit doesn’t really exist outside of slow and unreliable buses, and everything you go to almost always has parking within 6-7 street blocks. Needless to say my shins and ankles were feeling some pain in the morning when I woke up. But, all in all it wasn’t too terrible. 

3-14-14 - Iceland - Mjolnir

The trip over to Iceland wasn’t very bad. I’ve done a lot of traveling through my life, including outside of the U.S., so layovers and the like don’t bother me. I left Nebraska in the early afternoon yesterday, flew to Charlotte, flew to D.C., and then was on my way to what I thought was Reykjavik. Turns out, you fly into Keflavik, then have to take a bus up to Reykjavik. The bus wouldn’t have been so bad, but I think we maxed out at like 45 mph through the whole thing. I was able to see a lot of the scenery between both cities, which was pretty nice. 

On my arrival to the Reykjavik bus station, I wandered around for a bit look for the taxis. Turns out they were on the other side of the building. No worries, I walk up to the taxi, tell him the name of the guest house I’m staying in, and he has no clue what I’m talking about. As it turns out, my hostel wasn’t a hostel, it was literally a guest house. I find the address and we set off. We get to the house, I walk up and ring the doorbell and nothing. I have no cell service and I can’t get any wifi around me. I ring the bell one more time and a groggy Austrian guy comes wandering down and lets me in. He is also a guest and says I should call the owner. I laugh and tell him I have no cell phone coverage and he gives me the wifi password and I email the owner. She shows up 10 minutes later and gives me a tour. The accommodations were a lot better than I thought they would be, considering it was the same price as a lot of hostels in the area where I would have to share a room. 

                                                     (My new cat friend checking me out)

Its about 0900 local time at this point, and about 0400 back home. I’m tired. I quickly check the schedule for Mjolnir, they have class around 1200. Great! I set the alarm on my dying phone (but charging on my computer) for 1100, and lay down for some quick shuteye. I wake up, it seems odd that my alarm didn’t wake me. I check my computer, it’s like 2pm. Crap. I check the schedule again and the next class isn’t until around 6pm. OK, no problem. I get up and move around. I’m hungry. I freshen up a bit, throw on some clothes, pack my gi into my daypack and head out. 

Reykjavik isn’t very big. I’m pretty sure I could walk the whole thing no problem. Iceland as a whole only has around 350,000 people on the entire island. Which is crazy, because it’s a big island. I’m looking around for somewhere to eat, and I can’t seem to find anything except a random Subway. I walk in, the entire menu is in Icelandic, the girl behind the counter greats me in Icelandic and starts talking to me in the same. I tell her I have no idea what she is saying, she switches to a very heavily accented English. This will be a recurring theme here, I feel. Must be the giant beard I grew before I left. Anyways, I get some kind of a sandwich wight the local special “fish sauce” on it. It was pretty good, especially for a Subway sandwich. 

I do a bit of walking around before I decide it’s time to go to Mjolnir. I walked right by the building the first time, and I’m not entirely sure how. It’s a pretty decent sized building, especially for Iceland. I walk up to the second floor and immediately I see viking looking things all over. I walk into the main area, and there is even more, including a shrine to “Mjolnir”. I smile to myself and walk over to the desk woman, who again greets me in her mother tongue and I say “I have no idea what you just said” which elicits a chuckle from her. I tell here I’m here to train BJJ and ask if they have a schedule in English, I’m told they do not, but she was nice enough to go through the schedule for the next two days with me. It turns out that the BJJ classes, while with Icelandic words, have BJJ in them. I’m also informed that this evenings class isn’t the usual, it’s “grading” night and there will be a lot of sparring. I tell her that I’m OK with this if they are OK with me training with them. She says it will be fine, but that I need to know that I “probably won’t get ranked up” because the instructors don’t know me. I laugh and tell her that’s fine, I came to train not to get stripes or belts from other instructors. 

                    (various viking related stuff with the Mjolnir shrine at the bottom)

So I suit up into my go and head into the training area. It’s pretty big and I get the impression that the area might have been a movie theater or a theater for plays and the like because of the large amount of stadium like seating in the back of the training area where parents, friends, visitors or whatever can watch classes. There was a kids class going on, it looked like a lot of fun for the kids. Very slowly people started showing up. 

Around 1805 or so, the instructors (two brown belts) start giving instructions on how to tie the belt. I only know this because everyone took off their belts (except me) and were retying them. There was a bit more talk, I look over at a guy next to me and say "whats are we doing?", he tells me we are "easy rolling". Ah, ok..a flow roll. I end up with one of the purple belts for a couple of rounds. The third round was, I shit you not, a round that you actively TRY to lose. My purple belt partner was gracious enough to let me know that I was really good at trying to lose. Not entirely sure how to take that one, but we all have to be good at something, right?

After that there was more that I didn't understand, so again I ask for direction from the purple belt. He says they are splitting us into weight groups, kg wise, and I should find the appropriate group. I did some quick math in my head, 205# should be around 90kg, guess I'm with the big guys. So they put us into subgroups from there, 1/2/3. I get a number, that makes no sense to me, and randomly assign myself the number two with the help of some other people.

What comes next is a "pass, sweep, submit" kind of game. Their guys are pretty tough, and the women too from what I was able to see from a distance. I had some back and forth matches, some victories, and some defeats. I felt pretty good overall considering the being worn out from traveling.

The next round of things was Gunnar going around the room and picking the people who were up for promotion. I was sufficiently tired from our previous set of sparring, and looking around I could tell that I was not the only one. There also was not a set time limit to this according to one of the guys I asked. It stopped when they said it stopped. 

So we lined up in a big snake around the room. There had to be 100 people there. It started with the biggest folks first (my group), followed by the medium, and then the small. I had a few rounds against some of the folks who were up for promo, and they all felt solid. This wasn't just white belts looking for blue, it was also seasoned blue belts looking to be purple. After a few rounds of this I was sweating pretty bad and decided to go grab some water, which is when the promotions started. Someone would get turned on their side or inverted and Gunnar would run up behind them, belt in hand, swinging for the fences (or their asses rather). With a loud CLACK on their rears, they were not a new blue or purple belt. 

I'll be at the technique class tomorrow, and will write more then. It's after midnight here now, and I need to get some sleep!

Master Caique's Academy in Lomita California

I was looking for another place to hit up in L.A. and noticed an interesting name that sounded familiar, but couldn't figure out why. I found the Caique Academy by searching for Brazilian Jiu Jitsu on Google Maps. Two things stood out immediately about Master Caique:
1. In 1982, Elias became one of only eight non-Gracies ever to receive his black belt directly from Helio Gracie.
2. In March 2009, he was awarded a 7th degree red-and-black belt by Rickson Gracie.

I was pretty convinced that since Master Caique was awarded his red and black belt from Rickson that he knew my instructor, Rodrigo Vaghi. I called out to the Academy explaining that I was in town for work and was from Rodrigo's school. I was invited out to train with the Caique team. I came out to the smaller (than the Gracie Academy" Academy located in Lomita, greeted by one of the brown belts who I found out to be one of the sons (Thomaz) of Master Caique. On the mat conducting instruction was Master Caiques other son, Pedro. Both of the sons are extremely nice people, very open, welcoming, and warm.

After filling out the normal waivers and information and paying the drop in fee, Thomaz shows me the locker room and lets me know I need to wear one of their academy uniforms and that he's going to run out and get one for me. Abour 5 minutes pass, I wonder out into the lobby/mat area, only to run into an older Brazilian man who sees me and approaches me. "Hello, I'm Master Caique". Wow, that was not expected. I introduce myself, the Master asks where I train and I inform him that I am a Rodrigo faixa azul. The Masters eyes light up "Rodrigo! He's a very good friend of mine, I've known him since he was a child! You are welcome here anytime, and you can wear Rodrigo's uniforms as long as they are in white." Very welcoming.

Master Caique was also going to be teaching class this night. Much like the Gracie Academy, Master Caique is big on the self defence aspect of Brazilian Jiu Jitsu. Warmups consisted of light/medium stretching, then jumping right into different drills ranging from standing punch blocks, keeping an attacker at a distance with a hip kick (kicking the knee on the street), being rushed and getting the clinch for a take down, and take down drills. Master Caique and his sons are always watching your technique, if you're doing it wrong they are there to correct you. Even knowing that I was only going to be there for the week (Master Caique requested that I train with his academy for the week, who's going to say no to that?) they paid a lot of attention to me, like I was one of their students. Again, I don't have my notes from the class in front of me, so I won't really be talking about any technique in this post.

Not only were Master Caique and his sons very welcoming, their academy as a whole was. People kept asking me who I was, where I trained, etc. It was nice of them to get to know the new person. This is something that we have been working on at my home academy, making people feel more welcome no matter how long they are there for or how long they have trained.

Sparring was like any other sparring session. Although, if I remember correctly, the Caique academy split the classes up with 30 minutes of warmups/self defense, 30 minutes of technique (again, nothing flashy), and then 30 minutes of sparring. I had some battles with a couple of their students, one guy looked to be on the verge of a purple belt by the looks of his very worn 4 stripe blue belt, another guy was a large 325 pound two stripe blue belt. The larger blue belt looked to spar with me anytime he could, and I rather enjoy taking on the "titans". My philosophy with large opponents is that if I can handle them putting their weight on me, and smashing me, then I can handle any pressure from anyone else. Another thing I like to think about is if I can get out from under a large heavy pressure opponent, then the average sized person isn't going to be a problem for me.

I also had a chance to spar with Master Caique's eldest son, Pedro, who I believe is a three stripe black belt. I have a bit of weight on Pedro, and we started off doing situational sparring from the mount position. I let my ego get the best of me thinking I knew a thing or two and outweighed Pedro, and that I should be able to hold him down no problem. Nope. Pedro had me reversed in about 10 seconds of the match starting. No strength at all. I couldn't even FEEL the man moving. I got another shot after a few minutes, same story. I don't recall going against Pedro from a neutral position, but I'm pretty positive it would have ended just as quickly for me.

A trip to the Gracie Academy in Torrance

When my manager asked me if I wanted to travel to Los Angeles for a couple of weeks I had to try my hardest to contain my excitement. Essentially you're going to pay for me to go to LA and work, but in my off time I get to train at some awesome academies. And that's exactly what I did.

I went first to Kron Gracie's academy. My Professor, Rodrigo Vaghi, knows Kron and Kron's father (The legendary Rickson Gracie) very well. It seemed to be a given that I would have to stop in at least once or twice during my trip to show respect. I had sent numerous emails, left many voice mails, and none of them were returned. Why am I even bringing this up? Well, that's easy. It's all too often I've dropped in at an academy only to find out their fees are too high, that I can't wear a certain colour of uniform, or that I can't wear my Team Vaghi patches into their academy. This is a very rare thing, but it's the reason I have uniforms that are blank. Well, I show up with my white gi that has Team Vaghi patches, go through the waiver signing, giving my info, and as I'm getting ready to pay the drop in fee (something like $50-60) the front desk guy says "Oh, and by the way, you can't wear another academy's uniform in here". I take a deep breath, look at the gentleman and ask "Are you positive about that?", to which he replies "absolutely". I thank him for his time but state that "I will respectfully have to decline" and promptly walked out.

I was a bit upset about the whole thing. But at the end of the day I may not have ended up at the Gracie Academy or at Master Caique's school (that will be in the next post).

So what's a trip to LA without hitting the Gracie Academy in Torrance? Well, if you're an avid BJJ player the trip wouldn't be complete without a visit. The Gracie Academy gets a lot of flack concerning their Gracie Combatives training, and even more for their Gracie University online training. In a nutshell, I would recommend anyone who is against the Gracie Academy to go and check it out in person.

I took the trip out to the Academy on a day after work. It was a bit of a drive, about an hour to and from my hotel. The place is very easy to find, even more so with GPS. I was only able to see one parking lot, which was right in front of the school, and wasn't overly large (20-25 car slots). If I remember correctly there was off street parking out front also. The Academy doesn't look very large from the outside. It's not until you walk in that you realize the place is actually pretty damn big. The front lobby was exceptionally nice, Bubba Gracie was there to greet me, a nice "pro shop" of different Gracie gear, and most of all...the museum! Yes, there is a Gracie JJ museum inside the Gracie Academy. As far as I know, anyone can walk in and check it out for free (worth doing).

So I sign the paperwork, pay the drop in fee (I believe it was $40 also for the day), change into my home academy white gi, and go out to stretch. Walking into the mat room is pretty interesting. There are 1 of 2 private training rooms you will pass by on your way to the main room. The main mat room is pretty large, I'd say you could have 100 people rolling pretty easily during a class and be safe.

As you can see, it's a pretty large area. While I was there I tried out a couple of the Gracie Combatives classes. Part of the curriculum for the Gracie students is that they much take the 36 lessons of Gracie Combatives twice before they are allowed into the "Master Cycle" classes. From what I've seen, the Master Cycle is pretty much like an advanced blue belt and above class anywhere else I've been.

The classes start up with a light warmup consisting of jogging, skipping, "picking up change" (or changing levels while running), some yoga like techniques at the end of the warmup. One thing I did notice during the combatives classes is the extreme focus on self defense, which I rather enjoyed. It's interesting to have someone in my guard throwing punches at me, it means I need to change away from what I would normally do in order to protect myself from being hurt or knocked out. The combatives classes, for a blue belt that has never taken one of these classes before, was a bit odd. I don't know their nomenclature for certain moves and positions, but picked it up pretty easily with the help of one of the instructors (T-City), and even Rener gave me advice as he was walking around.

The night that I went for one of the Master Cycle classes, I thought Rener would be teaching. Towards the start of the class I see Ronda Rousey peek her head around a corner and then Rener disappeared. I looked at my training partner and said "Was that Ronda?" "Yeah, she used to train with the regular class on Thursdays, but Rener want's to train her privately." The class was pretty normal for the most part, showing a position and ever so slightly adding more and more to it as the class went on. Another thing I noticed is that the position/move pretty much stays the same for the week. So folks on Mondays are getting the same instruction as folks on Thursdays. There was also nothing flashy, it was all very basic things and small changes to those basic things. I don't have my notes of the class with me, so I won't be covering what I learned during class here.

After class I wanted to purchase a gi, because they only like white gis at the Academy. I was hanging out in the lobby and T-City walks by and tells me I'd have to wait until the next day to buy anything because the desk person was gone for the night. I ask if it would be possible to get a picture with Rener and I'm told "Oh yeah, follow me". We walk towards one of the private lesson rooms, which Ronda, her training partner, and a guy whose face I couldn't see are in. T-City tells Rener I'd like a picture, and I throw in "if it's not too much to ask, can we include Ronda?" Rener says "Yeahhh! For sure! Hey Ronda, this is Michael and he would like a picture with us." Ronda is all for it, introductions go around, and I finally see the guys face who had his back to me. It's none other than UFC Vet (and former Vaghi Teammate) Jake Ellenberger. Jake and I shoot the shit for a minute, then we line up for the photo:

(T-City, Rener, Jake, Me, ?, Ronda)


I did get the opportunity to roll with Rener. I've got nothing but good things to say about the experience. The man is truly talented. I never once felt comfortable during our six minute roll. It's rarely that I feel as though I can't pull something out to surprise someone. He was constantly 3-4 moves ahead of me, like a spider spinning a deadly web. As we finish the round out, Rener says "Well, how was it?" "Man, that was fantastic, I wish I would have had that on video!" Rener laughs, looks at me and says "Naahh, we will keep it between you and me!"

Things are shaping up pretty good!

When I was originally thinking about this trip I had high expectations to travel to MANY different countries in Europe. Reality has finally set in and I've realized I won't be able to travel to as many countries as I originally wanted to. I have received invitations to a few different gyms within the same country and I will have to pick and choose where I go train within each country. The countries in question are mainly the U.K., Estonia, and the Netherlands.

In terms of Western Europe, I believe I have enough places to visit. I do still need to find a gym in Italy as I plan on going there to compete in the IBJJF Rome International Open.

Planning wise, I'm attempting to fit the Western half of Europe in the first three weeks of travel and Eastern/Northern Europe in the last three weeks of travel. I may have to may some adjustments and circle back up through the middle Western/Eastern parts before hitting the far east of the area, and then head up North to finish things out.

Since the last update I have added in Germany, Switzerland, and Hungary. All places I was really hoping to make contacts in.

Iceland	Reykjavik
Ireland	Dublin
Wales	Swansea
Wales	Abertillery
England	Birmingham
England	London
Netherlands	Maastrict
Netherlands	Amsterdam
Belgium	Leuven
Germany	Berlin
Switzerland	Schlieren
Austria	Vienna
Hungary	Pecs
Latvia	Riga
Estonia	Tartu
Estonia	Tallinn
Finland	Helsinki
Sweden	Malmo
Denmark	Copenhagen

Cities and Countries highlighted in green are highly probable. Cities/Countries in yellow have a lower probability and will be subject to further planning.

As I said in a previous post, I just started training again full time due to taking off a bit of time due to illness and injuries. The biggest thing I always notice regardless of if it's a week or a month is that my cardio and timing are always off. From a self defense perspective, I don't feel that this matter much as most criminals do not normally participate in martial arts. On the other hand when grappling with someone of a similar skill level it means I'm at a bit of a disadvantage. And that disadvantage has been playing right into my fellow blue belts hands. I feel that a lot of people who take time off and come back to training get really depressed or down on themselves because people they used to beat easily may give them a difficult roll or beat them all together. Worst case scenario they may quit all together. I believe it's healthy for all of us to remember, and remind our training partners, that mat time is the great equalizer. Taking a month off of training gives your training partners an extra month of time to get better, while you are staying at the same skill level. I say do not worry about it, or them, and just:

Still looking for more locations!

It was pretty hectic last month, with the holidays looming and lots of work to do at both work and home. Unfortunately I was not able to train much last month due to the fungus and injury from deadlifting. But, everything is good to go. My apologies.

My friend from Riga informed me that the wedding won't take place until August, which will free me up to plan around other things. My new plan is to hit the IBJJF Rome Open while out in Europe.

My list of countries/gyms to visit has not grown much since my last post. In fact, I believe I've only added Estonia and Iceland to the list. In any case, here is what I have so far:

England	London	Roger Gracie BJJ
England	Birmingham	Gracie Barra Birmingham
Wales	Swansea	Gracie Barra Swansea
Austria	Vienna	Gracie Barra Vienna
Latvia	Riga	Jujutsu.lv
Finland	Helsinki	Gold Team Finland
Denmark	Copenhagen	csa.dk
Belgium	Leuven	Brasa Leuven
Sweden	Malmo	Fightzone
Netherlands	Maastrict	GB Maastrict
Wales	Abertillery	Pedro Bessa BJJ
Ireland	Dublin	Straight Blast Gym
Estonia	Tallinn	3D Gym (SBG Affiliate)
Iceland	Reykjavik	Mjolnir

 Not a bad list, but I'd like to add some more countries in the South and the East of the continent.  I'm not looking for any more gyms in and around the UK or Ireland, as I'd like to explore as many places as possible during my time there.


In other news, our gym had a Happy New Years open mat last night to start 2014 off right.It felt great getting back onto the mat after a bit over a month being off it (and getting fat and lazy). We had a visiting Brown, a couple of purples, a bunch of seasoned blues, and a white belt on the mat. My first roll of the night was with one of our more seasoned and older purples (and bigger). When this gentleman is in the top position, you're not going anywhere. I tend to try to keep the top position as much as possible by using speed and my lankiness to my advantage.

During the roll I managed to grab top position and work into side control and pretty much halt all of his escape attempts. For me, keeping a larger opponent on their back from side control typically isn't a huge issue, it's keeping mount. And that's exactly what I went for. Now, I'm 200#, our "Big Purple" is somewhere around 300#, when he shrimps from mount you're moving with him (my knees don't even touch the floor). I've learned to kind of body surf some of our bigger blues with pretty good effectiveness by keeping my heels on their hips and smothering/smashing with my upper body, also maintaining base with my arms. Big Purple is a bit to explosive for that, I felt myself almost swept a few times, I was in danger.

My initial thoughts were to posture up from his mount and attempt to capture one of his arms for an armbar. That failed, and I knew he was coming to smother me. My next line of offense and defence was to block his hip with one leg and shoot for the triangle from failed armbar. I felt pretty confident going into the execution only to have my confidence shattered by having Big Purple grab a hold of my legs and rag doll me out of position. My thoughts at this point were "DEFENSE DEFENSE TURTLE", and then the bell rang.

It was a good night over all, lots of good strong rolls all around.

  (I'm in the back right moving into X-Guard)