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 ;)

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.

My little Dojo

Yesterday I posted my training routine - and most of the things mentioned, if not done outside or at my regular dojo,are going down in my own little dojo at my flat - here is picture of my massive space I have ;)

all in all i have 9 square feet to use, which is enough for workouts, solo drills and swiss ball drills. Can't wait to receive my submission dummy from http://www.zebramats.com/ in the next days and get my drilling to another level. 

I will be reviewing this bad dude after I have used it for a while...