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 ;)

2nd Day addon Braulio Estima Summer Camp

so trough the antibiotics I got at the hospital, my infection got way better and I will be back training at the beginning of next week. 

Never the less, one thing I forgotten to mention, that on the second day of the Braulio Estima Summer Camp, there were also some promotions going on – I mean what could be better, than receiving your belt from Braulio Estima. He handed out one blue, one purple, one brown and also one black belt. You can find more information on here

Gracie Barra Channel Islands

It was great to see these promotions and also the feelings attached, especially for the higher belts - I mean, come on, everybody especially as a white belt, dreams of the day receveing your black - and it was somehow emotional to see such things happen, after years of blood, sweat, tears an commitment - allthough i knew Rob at that moment only for a few hours, I could imagine the effort he put in to get to this level .