Metamoris PRO

Yesterday the first Event of the Metamoris Pro Series was being held in San Diego, as I was stuck in traffic here in Switzerland I couldn't make it in person and had to watch the live stream they offered… So to start it off, if you haven't heard of the Metamoris Pro, I guess you are not to much in to Jiu-Jitsu as it properly was the biggest super fight event ever held on planet earth. There were six fights with the Creme de la Creme of the current BJJ scene as you can see below:

1. Jeff Glover vs. Caio Terra
2. Kayron Gracie vs. Rafael Lovato
3. Kron Gracie vs. Otavio Sousa
4. Dean "The Boogyman" Lister va. Xande Ribeiro
5. Andre Galvao vs. Ryron Gracie
6. Roger Gracie vs. Buchecha

The rules of this event were a time limit of 20 minutes for all fights and there where no points or advantages as only submissions counted. If there was no submission after 20 minutes the match was considered a draw. To start things off the event started about 1,5 hours later than it was scheduled, which was a bit shitty, as in Europe it was quite late in the night and some of us have to work in the morning just like me. Never the less the Event started off with a boom as Jeff Glover and Caio Terra showed a really really nice and smooth roll. The match was going back and forth and Glover was somewhat playing defensive all the time and Caio looked quite frustrating during the process but than finally managed to armbar Glover from a sneeky sitting triangle. The next two matches also got ended by submission and I was thinking okay this submission format definitely pays off. The next three fights although, did go for the full twenty minutes but even there was no submission the fights were really a blast with Dean Lister escaping a deep locked armbar of Xande where you saw why Dean is called the Boogyman. The match between Galvao and Ryron Gracie was the expected grind match, with Ryron mostly on his back defending the attacks of Galvao. Although it was four in the morning it definitely payed of to stay up, as the last match between Roger and Buchecha was a blast with some fantastic sweeps from Buchecha and an almost finish via armbar only seconds remaining on the clock. Roger showed big hard after close to 20 minutes by escaping this deep armbar.

The only thing I found a little disturbing was this "Gracie Jiu-Jitsu" praising thing, I mean if you looked at the fight card, it was obvious that there were a lot of Gracies involved in the fights not really surprising if you know that Ralek Gracie was on of the organizers of the event. But the video at the mid time break was a little to much, I mean come on who of the viewers wants to go and learn at Gracie University. I defnitily think, that they didnt had a realy clue what the target group of this event was. In my opinion it was the hard core jiu-jitsu Fan and not a casual UFC fan or a person completely new to Jiu-Jitsu. I think this was also displayed from the people which were watching the event live. The venue was really big and set up well but I guess, that there weren't more than a fourth of the seats occupied. I have read today, that the live stream drew 8'000 viewers which is quite big I think and so I am going to stop the Gracie banter here ;)

I am definitely looking forward to further Metamoris Pro Events and they announced, that they will do two events per year and I am quite curiouse who will be the next competitors and if there will be a lot of Gracies on the card again…

Leo Nogueira Seminar at Alliance Frankfurt

I havent been writing since I came back from Portugal as not to much has been happing lately but never the less, the last weekend was quite fun in terms of BJJ. As I am now in Frankfurt often for working purposes and as my fiance is living there, I contacted Alliance Jiu-Jitsu Frankfurt to evaluate the possibility to drop in there when I am in Frankfurt. I have to say, that I got welcomed pretty nice and to start off I joined a Seminar week with Leo Nogueira from Alliance. If you dont know who Leo is, check out the link below - this guy is a real beast. 


LEO NOGUEIRA

So I joined the two days weekend seminar on Saturday and Sunday, each lasting for three hours. What was really nice, that we did a lot of Open Guard stuff during this two days, which is what I am working on at the moment anyways. In addition to that, we did some set ups from guard for back takes and sweeps from the armbar out of full guard. I found the teaching style of Leo a little different than what I have experienced during other seminars. On the first day we did a lot of techniques, and when I say a lot I mean a lot ;). He is also not the guy to repeat the moves over and over, mostly he showed the move two times and than it was our time to try it out. Don't get me wrong his explanations were clear like crystal water and I found him to be a really good teacher. But without my new app I would not been able to remember all the techniques and especially the details that he showed. So speaking of the app I am currently using the following: 


JIU JITSU LOG

The guy who programmed the app, put it out for free so it was a no brainer to me, that I am going to try it out and I have to say, for a bascial notebook it is really okay as you can organize your notes in folders and you don't have to carry around a heavy notebook. So never the less at each break I set down and wrote down all what I could remember and as I said, it was a lot of techniques as you can see below:

• Back Take from full guard
• Three sweep variations from armbar out of the guard
• X-Guard entry from open guard on standing opponent
• Sweep from open guard on standing opponent
• Omoplata set up from open guard on standing opponent
• Three variations from the Omoplata set up to sweep the opponent
• Open guard to sit up guard
• Sweep from sit up guard
• Open guard pass
• Take the back from turtle guard
• Open guard to back take

What was also pretty new to me, were the sparring sessions after the technical training. We did ten minute rounds, yes TEN MINUTE rounds of sparring, which I had never done before. This showed me clearly, that I definitly have to work on my cardio what so ever. I was pretty worked after three rounds... and so was the guy in the photo below

 
On Tuesday I than attended the "normal" training led by Leo, which was supposed to be a 1,5 hours and what I found really nice, that Leo actually did 1,5 hours of technique and afterwards 30 to 40 minutes of specific training (from bottom --> escaping mount and from top --> submit from mount). What I also have to say, that the level of guys training at Alliance Frankfurt is amazing. There were like 5 brown belts, a huge number of purples and blues and some white belts including your humble whitebelltiness himself as you can see below

 
 So I am really looking forward to training and learning from the guys at Alliance Frankfurt...