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…