The injury bug has me...

The injury bug has caught me lately. First I got a pretty nasty infection on my elbow which held me of the mats for two weeks. After that, I left Switzerland for a one week vacation at home in Austria. I arrived there with my girl on Saturday and on Monday I found myself in the hospital due to a imploded left lung. 

This stuff hospitalized me for almost two weeks and I am forbidden to do anything sport related for an other 4 weeks. But whats even worst, I am forbidden to fly for 8 weeks, which meant, that I had to cancel my trip to Toronto and NYC and thus my training at Marcelo Garcias Academy. But as I my dad always said, you have to get something positiv out of negative situations, I was resting in my hospital bed and came up with the idea of going to Brazil. 

After some further investigations, I am going to stay at Connection Rio for two weeks in February and most likely gonna train at Checkmat Copacabana (Fight Zone).

I am thinking about doing two to three training sessions per day, plus a one hour private with one of Ricardinho's Black Belts. I am surely pretty pumped about the whole thing and cain't wait to be back on the mats and start my preperations for Rio - Osss

Martial Arts Manga and a new BJJ Podcast

Surfing the internet, I have found a nice Martial Arts Manga which also envolves some BJJ Aspects.

You can find the manga under the following link All around Meguru Manga . I haven't had the time to start from the beginning, but hope I will find the time to do so in the near future.

Further more I have discovered a new BJJ related podcast which is called the "Just the Gi Top Podcast", they regularly interview current players and talk about their training regime. I am going to download the Gianni Grippo episode right now and I am quite curious about this podcast and what Gianni has to tell.

I personally caught up with Gianni at the CSA.dk and BJJGlobetrotter summer camp and also had the chance to roll with him for a bit. Surely I got crushed, but it was a super nice experience and I am still using one of his over under passes, which he showed in my open guard passing game. I am following Gianni since his purple belt days and hope to catch up with him again during my NYC stay and hope to get a private or two with him.

Special Offer from MGinAction

As I wrote in my last post, I will be going to New York for 7 days in October. I was thinking a lot about where I should train and If it is better to train at different academys, or just stay at one for the whole stay. 

I came up with the solution, that I will be "just" training at Marcelo Garcias Academy, which is situated at the chelsea district in Manhatten, cause I feel that this might give me better training as I would get by hopping around to different academys. Maybe they take you more seriouse if they see your not just there for one class but for some days. 

What concerns me a little bit is, that the ADCC in China will be right the weekend after my stay and alltough Marcelo is not competing, it is possible that he will join Bernardo Faria to go to China. Would be a real let down if I am there and he is not, allthough I quite confident, that his other instructors like Paul Schreiner will also provide superior training. 

Just in time, the MGinAction website is now offering the follwing:

I will get one week of training plus a one year membership for the MGinAction website for $220. Normally one week of training would be $150 dollars, so I am actually getting the membership for $70 which is pretty sweet deal which I can't resist. Also this might be good to review some of the tequniches they will show there.

I am back...

Sorry for not updating the blog lately, but I just didn't feel like doing it and didn't have to write much anyways. Never the less, I am going to change this blog a little bit and gonna write more about my training and preparation for the upcoming tournaments which will be following:

• IDM International German Championship in Neuried on the 19th of October 
• IBJJF Munich Open on the 10th of November
• IBJJF European Championship in January of next year

Currently I am recovering from an infection on my elbow and will be out of training until next wednesday, where I will do a last No-Gi sess before going on a one week vacation. After the vacation it will be full fledge training 6 times per week.

In addition to the five Gi and one No-Gi sessions per week, I will also boost my strengh and conditioning in the mornings. My conditioning programm will consist of the following: 

• swimming
• running 
• sprints/stairs
• BJJ related circuite trainig including Kettlebells, Swiss Ball (but more on that in a later post ;) 

Further more I am really looking forward to October, cause I will be in Toronto and New York for ten days and also plan to train quite a lot in those two towns. 

In Toronto I will train at Open Mat Mixed Martial Arts Academy and in New York at Marcelo Garcias Academy.

I also have to really keep a good diet after my holidays, so I can go down to feather weight as healthy as possible, with the goal of almost not having to cut any weight right before the comps. So this means I will also post a little bit about what I am eating and why. 

I hope you guys will enjoy what I am going to post and I am always happy about feedback. You can contact me on Twitter under BJJSebi... 

 

Caio Terra GI Seminar this sunday in Zürich

Hey guys, 

Caio Terra will be back for an other seminar in Zürich this time in the gi the upcoming sunday. For details check out the flyer below. 

Everybody is welcome and there will also be some Shoyoroll Gear available from our friends of BJJTeamBasel as well as some Acai bowls. 

 

Hope to see you on mats on sunday!!

Been promoted to blue belt and new goals

Hey everybody, 

It has been a long time since my last post and I am happy to tell you guys, that I have been finally promoted to blue belt after 2,5 years of sometimes less but in the last month more and consistent training. The blue belt was given to me by Christian Graugart who organized the CSA Summer Camp at his gym in Denmark. 

As I was allready registred for the IBJJF Rome Open at Adult/White/Feather, I now swichted up to Master/Blue/Light so I dont have to cut the missing 4 kg in the next two weeks ;). I see this tournament as good experience for me, to have my first IBJJF tourney in my pocket and see how things are done there. I don't expect to much success as I am pretty new at this belt level, but I am definitly looking forward to the good experience this will give me. 

Further more, I am going to change this blog a little bit and tell you guys more about my training etc. 

My next big goal will be the IBJJF European Open next year!

Doing Interviews... stepping up blogging again...

I recently also started to write for the new and upcoming website BJJ.EU which as site dedicated to European BJJ News and articles. The site also has a forum running so you might wanna check that out if you need some help or have a question. 

I focused mostly on doing interviews with European BJJ players and doing some info posts about tournaments which I participated in so far you can check out the following interviews: 

A journey to jiu-jitsu greatness with Thomas "Mastwo Oyarzun"

Living the dream with Stuart Cooper

No Ape Shit with Daniel "The Raspberry Ape" Strauss

I have ligned up and also sent out questions to the following guys:

• Luciana Machado - Owner of MKimonos
• Rob Staples - Instructor at Gracie Barra Chanel Islands
• Nic Greogoriades - founder of jiu-jitsu Brotherhood
• Oliver Geddes - guess I dont need to tell you who he is...

This is also why I slowed down my posting frequency over here, but I want to step it up again and get back to regularly posting mainly about my training. I am currently preparing for some big Tournaments over here in Europe which will be the Naga in Mai, IBJJF Rome Open in June and the Grapplers Quest Amsterdam in August. You can also expect some post from the CSA/BJJ Globetrotter summer camp in June - which is going to be a blast... 

I will also do some Gi Reviews in the near future as I bought me some new gis to satisfy my gi addiction ;)

so you wanna train like in the 80s??

I have got a pretty simple solution for - just listen to the Blood Bros. mixtapes of DSJ and DJA...

I guess this discussion is pretty old by now, but what music are you listening to while sparring or drilling? There are some people that are more on the relaxed reggae/rap side of things, including myself and than there are the metal guys, who like it loud and hard.

But I got something new for you - why not listen to some good old 80s action movie soundtracks and go ape shit??

Sounds not to weird to you? Than you definitely got to check out the Blood Bros Mix Tapes 1-3 which you can find on Soundcloud. My personal favorite is the second one:

Blood Bros Heaven2Hell

download it --> listen to it --> train to it

But be carful, there will be some weird looks exchanged at your local gym when you turn it on first, but those weird looks will turn into bright smiles TRUST ME!
BJJSebi

Supplements and Nutrition

I lately started to put some more thinking and personal research into the matter of nutrition and which supplements to take. I read on several forums, that it might be a good idea to take some fish oil in combination with Glucsamine and MSM, there for I searched the net a little bit, to find some studies that actually proof the benefits of taking these supplements. Also my girlfriend was saying that this stuff doesn't work and is only marketing and yadi yadi yada…

So after some research, I stumbled upon the following studies:

http://bjjlegends.com/bjj/jiujitsu/item/1036-joint-supplementation-for-the-bjj-athlete

http://www.charlespoliquin.com/ArticlesMultimedia/Articles/Article/964/Five_Reasons_Fish_Oil_Will_Make_You_Stronger_Leane.aspx

and decided to give it a go and order some stuff. At the moment I am taking the following supplements

• Omega 3 salmon fish oil capsules (2 capsules 2 times per day )
• Joint X with Glucosamin, MSM and Gelatine (2 capsules 2 times per day )
• Super Mulit Vitamine (1 capsules 2 times per day )

I have to admit, that I really feel the benefit of these supplements, as I am not that worn out after a hard training sessions and that my muscles and joints aren't that stiff and in pain. I also did my regular Kettlebells session yesterday and don't feel that shitty today…

Further more I always try to take some protein right after training, at it is commonly said that you have a window of maximum 45 minutes to get the protein back into your system. At  the moment, I am taking the XTFC FX4 Acai Protein Shake powder with water.

This stuff actually tastes pretty decent and is a pleasure to sip down after a hard training session. Never the less I recently stumbled over a blog post form the Raspberry Ape Daniel Strauss, where he is stating that protein alone won't do the job as a pre workout shake.

http://raspberryape.blogspot.co.uk/2013/01/post-workout-shakes.html

In his first post he didn't really say why, but promised to give a little more insight in one of his following posts…

Generally I try to get my diet a little healthier then I used to, which is also paying of if you ask me. Normally I start the day with a high protein bowl of mixed berries with cottage cheeses (for the receipt go to one of my earlier posts) in the forenoon I will eat a fruits (banana or apple), for lunch I keep it simple with a turkey sandwich on wheat bread or some eggs. In the afternoon again fruits and in the evening chicken or beef in various forms. At the moment I'm also high on the Acai bowl and try to eat one per day (you can also find a receipt for that in one of my previous posts)

As I am taking training and competition a little more serious this year, I feel like this will greatly help me and my body to conquer the challenges which will be on my path…

The BJJ Globetrotters

Hi everybody, its been a while since my last post and I have to admit, that I haven't been doing to much over christmas and new year. But all of this to really recover my body and get rid of the little itches here and there and to start full blast into a year full of jits 2013!

As mentioned in my last post I had joined the CSA Winter Camp of Christian Graugart also known as the BJJ Globetrotter. Latly he has now released his on BJJ Team which is also affiliated to the IBJJF. But this team is a little bit different to the normal teams which you can see on the points outlined below:

 The members of the team share a common set of values:

• We don't pay each other any affiliation fees
• We wear any patches we like on our gis
• We are free to represent any (or no) team in competition
• We encourage training with anyone regardless of affiliation
• We are willing to promote anyone who deserves it—members or not
• We arrange camps, seminars and visit each other for training and fun
• We believe everyone is equal both on and off the mats
• We strive to enjoy life, people and the world through Brazilian Jiu Jitsu

On the Homepage BJJ Globetrotters you can find all affiliated clubs and individual members, where I am also a member now. I think this idea super fantastics because it exactly shows the values I stand for in my training. As you might know I train with Alliance in Frankfurt and Enomoto Dojo here in Zürich – which might change as we have a really nice project coming up which surprisingly just came up the same day as the BJJ Globetrotter thing. As I see it, the BJJ Stars are really alining for me to start this year and everything is set to reach my overall goals for this year which will be gaining my  blue belt and compete in as many GI comps as possible and win the IBJJF Italian Open in June.

So have a good start into the year everybody and as Kurt would say it – NOW GO TRAIN!!!!

CSA BJJ and MMA Camp report

Almost three weeks ago me and a buddy of mine attended the CSA.dk BJJ and MMA Camp in Copenhagen for 5 days. We also met there with two friends of mine from Finland and I want to thank them for the nice time we spend there.

The main trainer was Christian Graugart also well known in the BJJ Community as the BJJ Globetrotter who also recently published his book in a Kindle and Print version. I allready bought myself the Kindle version and read through the first 100 pages. What I can say so far is, that it is well worth the read and a must for every BJJ and Grappling enthusiast. From my point of view there are not enough books like that, that not only focus on techniques but also display a little bit the lifestyle of BJJ and Grappling. One other which comes into mind, in this segment is the "Cauliflower Chronicles" of which I wrote in previous posts on this blog.

So back to the camp itself, me an my buddy arrived on Wednesday in the morning right before the training started of. On Wednesday the training was done by Robson Barbossa a Black Belt from Checkmate who lives in Sweden, who is also the one who gave Christian his black belt. On this day there were four 1,5 hour sessions on the plan with Robson, I ended up doing three of them as I was a bit tired in the afternoon due to the fact that I had to get up at four in the morning. Further more, the training was pretty brutal and consisted almost only of sparring in various forms. We did a lot of guard passes and what was funny, that Robson represented exactly the checkmate mind set, which is, never pull guard or even go to full guard yourself…

On the next day, we started out with a de la riva sweep session which was one of the topics that I asked for, so I was pretty pumped. Christian showed us the basic application of the De la riva Guard and some sweeps that work for him. After midday, we did the Stiff arm escape, which is a pretty nice move to get some off you when get your guard passed and your opponent lands in side control. It looks pretty simple but is damn effective. The nice thing is, that yesterday, I was able to apply the stiff arm escape as well as a de la riva sweep in no-gi sparring at my home Dojo which is the Enomoto Dojo of Yasubey and Felipe Enomoto. The third session of the day was the guard passing session, we drilled basically two open guard passes when you are standing yourself. I have to admit, that the trainings were a little bit easier than the ones from Robson and I was quite happy about that fact as otherwise my body wouldnt been able to coop with the massive amount of training. I also decided not to attend the sparring sessions and only go for the open mat on Friday as I wanted to safe my energy for the actual trainings. In the evening there was one more class, which was the no-gi guillotine held by Kari Gunnarsson a brown belt of Christian. I only set on the side and watched this class…

On Friday we started out with a spider guard class, also a topic which was on my wish list. Christian also showed us there the basic applications and little hints on how apply your foods properly, than we were going over some basic sweeps and a transition to the omoplata. After this session there was only one more which was the Open Mat. Due to the fact, that the Swedish Open were just around the corner the mat was packed with students from various academies which led to a proper sparring session.

On Saturday there was a little competition to be held for the guys from CSA and the participants of the camp. As soon as the brackets were released I knew how this was going to play out as I was matched up with some tough tough white belts from Moldavia. I was pretty certain, that this two guys were going to get there blue belts on this day and as I sparred with them before I knew my chances were slim to none to submit these guys. I didn't know the fourth guy in my bracket and I set my goal to win against this dude and make the third place an gather my first medal. As you can see in the picture below it worked out as planned and I submitted the buy via Kimura from guard…

In the afternoon Christian took us out to visit Copenhagen and showed us around town. Although the weather was a little depressing as most of the time over there I found Copenhagen to be a nice little town ;)

In the evening we met up to go for a all you can eat Spareribs session which ended in having some drinks in various bars around town. I don't know why, but I think my last beer was old or something as I had severe headache in the morning, but I was sure it didn't came from to much drinking…

On Sunday there was only one more session which was called "Fancy shit" and Christian showed us some nice little moves and so the camp ended and me and Lukas went back home to Switzerland. All in all the camp was pretty great and Christian is a real good teacher, he told me one interesting thing about my game after we rolled with each other. He told me, that I need to relax a little more and don't be to serious and always think about that I want to win and nothing else. Certainly he was right, as I was not gonna win against him, so the best thing to do would be just to have fun and think move per move…

Thirsty for Jiu Jitsu Podcasts

As my interest in Jiu-Jitsu grew, I started to stumble upon some podcasts related to Jiu Jitsu. If I remember right, the first podcast I discovered was the one from Stephan Kesting at grapplearts.com – at that time he updated his podcasts on a regular basis, which is not the case anymore. I haven't heard of new podcast from him since a long time. So than I though okay, there must be more out there to allay my bloodthirst for more Jiu-Jitsu information and to pass my time during the long rides back and forth to Frankfurt.

So the dark Jiu-Jitsu shadows were gracious to me and I found the Fightworks podcast. Damn I though and had to rub my eyes, have I finally discovered the whole grail of Jiu-Jitsu podcastisem? Jup it seemed like I did… With more than 250 podcast up an ready for grabs, I started downloading and burning Cd's like a mad man.  But as time passed by the Fightworks podcast didn't upload the weekly dose of Jiu-Jitsu goodness and I had to move on look for other sources…

And I got quite lucky again and as Jiu-Jitsu was booming like never before, some new podcast germinated on the net. The first one I found was the InsideBJJ podcast and I was a listener from almost day one. If i am right, the first episode I listened to was Episode 3 with Crosley Gracie and I was immediately hooked to InsideBJJ. This podcast was a little different than to what I was used to, drawn to the fact, that they weren't just interviewing the respective persons but also were going back an forth on each other before and after the the actual interview. I have to admit, that pretty funny stuff was and is being said during this banter sessions. Never the less the actual interviews were top notch and the persons appearing on their podcast have been the creme de la creme of the BJJ and MMA Scene.

But as m thirst couldn't be sated by just one podcast, I searched a little more and found the OpenMatRadio Podcast, which seem to appear almost at the same time as the InsideBJJ Podcast. This also is a great source for well structured interviews with top players out of the BJJ scene and as with the InsideBJJ Podcast, I was hooked from day one. They are more on the serious side of things and so their podcasts aren't as long as the one from InsideBJJ, but with this two my thirst was almost sated.

After some weeks and month, I found a third podcast, which is part of the Fight Fans Radio and is called BJJ Addict Radio. They didn't seem to have like the top notch guest in the past, but are also catching up with  Gianni Grippo and Victor Estima being their last guest. I really enjoy listening to their podcast and I am curious to see what they will provide in the future…

So my ranking for audio podcasts at the moment is the following:

1. InsideBJJ
2. OpenMatRadio.com
3. FightFansRadio
4. TheFightworksPodcast
5. GrappleArts

Within of my next posts, I will go over some of the video Podcasts out there... Have a good time until than and train, train, train

 

CSA BJJ and Grappling Camp

This Wednesday a good friend and I will take off to Copenhagen to join the BJJ and Grappling Camp of BJJ Globetrotter Christian Graugart at his CSA Gym. I have to say, that I am really really pumped for this camp and from what I can say now, the organization was pretty top notch. We got a detailed description of everything in relation to the camp two weeks ago and yesterday they released the actual training plan. We were asked in the mail about the topics we want to train during the camp and I was more than happy to see that both topics which i wanted (Spider & De la riva Guard) have been chosen.  Further more we will go over some guard passing stuff, stiffarm escape, guillotine and some other stuff. Further more there will be seminar day on Wednesday with Robson Barbosa and a BJJ competition on Saturday.

The Camp is not only for BJJ and Grappling but also Muay Thai, MMA and Crossfit courses which be held. So maybe I am gonna drop into some MMA beginners class or something like that. But I guess this will all depend on how my body will react to 17 hours of BJJ and Grappling training and 6 hours of sparring in five days. Also a good friend from Finland which is a purple belt and his girlfriend will join the camp which is pretty nice and will lead to ongoing BJJ and Grappling related talks outside of the actual trainings...

I will keep you updated regularly on the progress of the camp…

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...

Vacation and Training in Lisbao

So I am back from my Vacation in Portugal and I have to say, that it was a blast. I went there with my fiance mainly to visit Lisboa and go to the beach for some days. My finance was so nice to grant me two days of BJJ training during our 7 day stay. So as stated in my last post, I contacted Sergio Vita who has his Vita Team Jiu Jitsu in Cascais and he warmly welcomed me at his academy. The nice thing was, that a buddy of mine, which I first met when he attended the Ryan Hall Seminar I organized in Zürich currently lives the dream in Cascais. He is currently a purple belt training with Alliance in Finland and it was really nice to talk jits with him and get an other perspective on certain things.

One of the first things is that I am probably  gonna rethink my current training structure, but I will wright on that when the time is right to do so…

So the first training I attend was a little unusual, normally training starts at 20:30 from Monday to Friday, but this time on Wednesday Vita was showing the guys from the local rugby team some single and double leg takedowns and afterwards, some of the guys from Vitas were put on their backs and the rugby guys lined up to do some sparring. If the rugby guys passed they Vita guys had to change and if the Vita guys submitted the rugby guys have to change. It was nice to see the power of Jiu-Jitsu as not one of the Vita guys had to change during the whole session, which lasted a good twenty 20-30 minutes.

Afterwards there was no technical training but we got directly to sparring. First up I sparred with my buddy and he definitely let me work some things, as I got submitted only once ;). Next up I went against a Two Strip white belt which I handled pretty well. Next up after sitting out due to fatigue (man having 7 min rounds in this warm environment, really fucked me up) and talked a little bit with Vita and he paired me up with one blue belt and I knew that this guy was probably on the upper end of the blue belts and the look of my buddy also confirmed my impression. Never the less, I only got armbared two times and cross chocked once ;)

On Friday of that week I wanted to schedule a private with Vita, which unfortunately didn't happen due to some miscommunication, but I will be back next year and take the chance to do a private with him. But after all we had a pretty good alternative Program, we went surfing to Guincho. I have never surfed before only body boarded and it was such a perfect day and after some teaching by my buddy on the main moves, we just went into the water and as you can see below i did catch some waves on my first day. I wish I would have the chance to surf more, but around here, wake-boarding is the only thing to do in the summer…

 

Somehow Lisboa felt a lot like Brazil not only due to language but I also found a place (thanks to my buddy) which is called "Feel Rio" where you can get Acai and a lot of different shakes, so who needs Brazil when you got Lisboa ;)

Off to Portugal to do "some" training and holidays

so I just wanna give a little update, as I am heading to Portugal with my girlfriend tomorrow. Main focus for this trip is holidays but I will also train at the Vita Jiu-Jitsu Club in Cascais at least two times. I have a BJJ buddy who trains there and I allready contacted the head coach Sergio Vita who was more than nice and told me to come and train with them.

Here is the link to his homepage: Vita Team BJJ 

Here is the link to the blog of my buddy, which is pretty sweet: http://webjiujitsu.blogspot.de/

I also got myself the quotes for private sessions and they are pretty sweet in comparison to what I have to pay in Switzerland. One private hour is EUR 50 and it lasts for 1,5 hours. They also have some pretty sweet deals if you take more privates - damn pitty I won't be able to do more over there - I will let you know how the training and the private went. 

see ya...

New training plan and drilling...

A few weeks ago I posted my personal training schedule, but I felt, that I am not doing enough Jits through the week. So mainly there where three options for me to get my number of hours per week up:

1. Join an other Jiu-Jitsu Club in addition to my current
2. Drill with my dummy
3. Get a training partner to doing additional drilling session on our off days

After some considerations and contact with one of my training partners, who is currently a blue belt and also wants to step up his game, we came up with the following idea. As I am myself always found that some of the fundamentals where missing and he also wants to go over them, we are now starting to drill the "Gracie Combatives". For those who don't know what the "Gracie Combatives" are, this is Program consisting of 36 lectures of the basic and intermediate moves one should know if he wants to reach blue belt. Below you can see the "Gracie Combatives" tree chart were the techniques you will learn through the course are listed:

Further more besides drilling the "Gracie Combatives" we also give each other the chances to do drills or practice techniques which we pick up during class or somewhere else. At the end of every session we are going to make a light rolling (which is pretty new for me) drawn to the fact, that I am training at the Enomoto Dojo which is a MMA Gym and people are going pretty hard during the sparring sessions. All in all this what my new training plan looks like:

Though this is only valid, when I am here in Switzerland, as one week of the month i am in Frankfurt and my schedule will look a little different. I am currently working out a plan for Frankfurt as well, which includes finding a gym where I can train BJJ at least two times per week. I allready found a place where I can drop in to train crossfit once week.

I am really certain, that this new schedule will help me to reach my goals, now it is all in my hands to strictly follow it.

Acai baby...

For a long time a have been looking to get some proper Acai in Switzerland and/or Germany. I got to taste a little of it through my protein powder from XTFC which tastes pretty great for a protein shake. During the Braulia Estima Summer camp I also had the chance to taste the coco nut water with acai from Vita Coco which also tasted allright. For sure like most of you I heard numerous stories of how good it is and that everybody who went to Brasil was swarming about that stuff.

So as I am recently one week per month in Frankfurt for working purposes and I searched the Internet and found the following provider of frozen Acai Pads - Fine Fruites Club. A few days ago I ordered myself a couple of Acai and some Mango and Maracuja pads. Yesterday the pads where finally delivered after two days, in a box with dry ice, so it was no problem to get the pads delivered to my office and put them into the fridge in the evening.

For my first smoothy I didnt go to nuts and just went with the proposal from the distributor for a Acai smoothy:

• 1 Pad of Acai
• 1 Pad of Mango
• 150 ml Orange Juice
• 2 table spoons of Honey

I really have to say that this stuff is just great and I am looking forward to experimenting with it and mix some new things to it.

For sure I am going to try the famous Rener Gracie Acia Bowl soon – here is Video of that sweet bastard

Dean "The Boggieman" Lister Seminar

Yesterday three of my training partners and one of our trainers went to the Dean Lister Seminar which was held near. St. Gallen Switzerland.

The Seminar began with some warmup routines. What was really nice, that Dean made us do almost the same warmups as we do in our Dojo. The thing is, that Dean Lister and the master of my trainers booth trained at Rickson Gracies in San Diego and I guess that is why the warmups where almost identical.

The Seminar than started with a sneeky armbar from the north south position, than we went over some americanas from the Kesa Gatame postion as well as a reverse triangle from that position. Last but not least we did Leglock. I mean come on, it was a Dean Lister seminar, so leglocks had to be. We started at the rather infamous 50/50 Position and first did the kneebar from there, which could easily be changed to the dangerous heelhook. The technical part of the seminar than ended with a footlock from the 50/50 position.

After that we were allowed to ask questions about techniques and what ever else would interest us. Below you can see Dean perform a triangle escape.

All in all the seminar was really good, as it were quite basically but sneeky moves. Dean is an al around nice and funny guy.