Elements Fitness

We've moved!

2010-07-05T15:05:00.003+10:00

The Elements Fitness blog has now been amalgamated into the Elements Fitness mainsite over at http://elementsfitnessact.com.au .

There'll still be regular articles, recipes, rants and workouts posted just from a new and improved location. I've moved all your favourite articles across too so feel free to change your bookmarks.

You can check out the new diggs by clicking the link above.

Rant: The Conundrum of Kata.

2010-06-18T18:19:00.008+10:00

Kata has to be one of the most misused training tools in all of martial arts. If kata were a hammer a common sight at timbers yards would be someone attempting to saw through a plank of wood with it or simply attempting to eat it. Kata can be useful but it comes from a specific place and has a specific purpose by for the most part martial arts instructors try to use kata as some kind of all purpose band aid. To paraphrase Marc Denny “they’ve taken drills and tools warriors used to keep their skills sharp and try to use those tools to create warriors.”

Historically Martial Arts kata was a method to help warriors remember various useful combinations and strategies they had discovered and successfully employed. Kata was also used as an aide for teaching these strategies to other warriors. In a largely non literate society this form of ‘physical note taking’ makes a great deal of sense; even if you could write down and describe the techniques and strategies that you found to be useful, odds are these notes would be useless to the majority of other people.

Essentially this style of kata is a mnemonic device and this is where the modern day problem lies. Mnemonics work by first defining and practising whatever it is you want to remember and then assigning that thing a memory aid. This means that the order and quantity of your training matters; if you learn the kata first and the bunkai (the self defence application) second – as is standard in 95% + in traditional martial arts schools – you will mentally rehearse and improve on the kata every time you practice the bunkai and not the other way around.

The quantity, or rather the ratio, of the training is the other major issue. Ask yourself this: If you want to get good at something should you

A) Practise the task itself OR;
B) Practise the device you use to remember the task.

If you answered ‘B’ congratulations – you have what it takes to combine the worst elements of dance instruction, fraud and masturbation and sell it as self defence to people by capitalising on their fear and ignorance. Now go hit yourself in the face with a spatula.

Everybody else go get a blunt kitchen instrument of your choice but just hold it ready as you may decide you need a disciplinary whack just the same. We agree that it is more important to practise the task and not the mnemonic device for that task but if you think back to your own training what do train more often: your kata or the actual application for that kata?

Not all kata was created for the purpose of retaining and passing on useful techniques and strategies for fighting however. Some kata was designed to function as a sort of physical primer – A way of preparing the student to undergo training in the art and of familiarizing them with the basic tenants of the style. Sanchin Kata of the Goju styles of Karate is a prime example of a physical primer kata; Sanchin Kata introduces key concepts of Goju Karate like dynamic tension, grounded striking, fundamental punch block combinations and being able to tell which hand is your left and which hand is your right.

Basically, Kata is like medicine; it was created with a specific purpose and designed to be taken in specific dosages. But, like many medicinal drugs, it has been misused and now more often acts as a placebo which merely simulates the effect of real training and fools the impressionable into thinking they got the real deal.

Suffer on Saturday June 5 2010

2010-06-11T15:50:00.003+10:00

Warm Up
Jog 15m
10 Squats, Push ups, Sit ups
Jog 15m Knees to Chest
10 Lunges, Pull ups, Supermans
Jog 15 Heels to Butt

Workout
Thruster 3-2-1-2-3
Whatever you manage for 1 you must attempt for 2.

then

3 Rounds for Time
12 Bridging DB Bench Press
8 L-Hold Pull ups
60m Shuttle Run

OR

Bench Press 5x5
Rack Pull with 10 sec hold x 3
Knees to Elbows x 15

Cool Down
Single DB/KB Farmers Walk 8om x 3 each hand

Notes
Thruster - Ben & Toby 70kg, Jane 32.5kg, Justin Unrecorded
Bench, Pull & Run - Ben 5.10mins @ 40kg, Jane 7.16 @ 15kg, Toby unrecorded @ 40kg.

Suffer on Saturday May 29 2010

2010-06-04T16:40:00.003+10:00

Warm Up
10 Squats & Push Ups
15m Bearwalk
10 Sit ups & Pull ups
15m Monkey Jumps
10 Lunges & Supermans

Workout
Overhead Squat 3-2-1-2-3

then

15m Sprint Minute Ladder
1-5, 5-1, 1-5

OR

4 Rounds of

2 Hang Cleans
2 Front Squats
2 Jerks
2 Back Squats
Cycle through complex 3 times then
Rest 2 minutes

Cool Down
Floor Wipers x 25

Notes
OHS - Ben 75kg, Toby 65kg, Jane 22.5kg, Kirstin 22.5kg,
Sprints - Ben, Toby & Jane
Complex - Justin unrecorded, Kirstin 20kg.

Bite Sized Learning: Omelette

2010-06-03T15:24:00.004+10:00

Feeds 2 normal adults or 1 mass gain enthusiast.

What You’ll Need
Frying pan
Spatula
A bowl
A sharp knife
Fork

What You’ll Eat
5 or 6 Free Range Eggs
2 Rashers of Free Range Bacon
1 Garlic Clove
2 or 3 Button Mushrooms
1 teaspoon of Capers
2 Shallots
Olive Oil
Salt and Pepper to taste.

How you make it
First of all crack all the eggs into the bowl and beat them with a fork while telling them that they’ll never amount to anything until the yolks and whites are thoroughly mixed. Remove the rind from the bacon and then cut the bacon into small strips about one centremetre wide. Finely slice the shallots and dice the garlic and the mushrooms.

Splash a little olive oil into the frying pan and put it on a cook top that’s set with a temperature that’s on the high end of medium and add the sliced bacon. When the bacon is sizzling loudly add the garlic and the mushrooms and mix it all through the pan.

About half a minute after adding the mushrooms and garlic pour in the eggs and give the entire mixture a quick stir to try and distribute the egg, bacon and mushrooms equally across the pan. As the egg cooks you’ll notice the egg on the bottom will firm up faster than the egg on top; as the bottom of your omelette firms use your spatula to peel back the firm egg to allow the uncooked egg to come in contact with the hot frying pan. Repeat this several times on different sides of the omelette.

Sprinkle the capers evenly across the top of the omelette.

At this stage you have two options:

1. Carefully use the spatula to attempt to fold the omelette in half and then flip the now folded omelette back and forth a few times to finish cooking. Screw it up, accidently flick small piece of omelette onto significant other or curious household pet, swear and apologise, swear again and decide to use option two anyway.

2. Shove the whole thing – pan and all – under the grill for 30 seconds to finish cooking.

Once cooked use the spatula to cut the omelette in half and then serve. Add salt and pepper to taste.

Notes

WTF is Free Range Bacon?

Free Range Bacon is simply bacon made from a pig that was well treated when it was alive – good housing, a pasture to move about in and good natural food instead of bin scraps and low quality grains – and had reassuring noises made at it when they took it away to shoot it in the head.

The meat and fat from animals that were happy and healthy is much, much better for us than the meat and fat from animals that were brutally tortured for the majority of their lives. Even if you don’t care about the animals the health benefits still make ethical eating a worthwhile investment.

Suffer on Saturday May 15 2010

2010-05-15T19:10:00.004+10:00

Warm Up
Bearcrawl 15m
10 Squats, Push ups, Sit ups
Monkey Jump 15m
10 Lunges, Pull ups, Supermans
Sprint 50m

Workout
Weighted Pull up 3-2-1-2-3

then

AMRAP in 12 minutes of
5 DB Snatches (Left hand)
5 DB Snatches (Right hand)
10 Push Ups

*Complete at least 9 rounds or face Loser's Redemption*

OR

4 rounds of
1 x Hang Snatch
2 x Overhead Squats
3 x Snatches
4 X Kneeling Jumps
Rest

Loser's Redemption
5 Burpees for every round under 9 you score.

Cool Down
Dish Hold - Accumulate 1 minute.

Notes
Weighted Pull up - Jane and Katie Self Assisted, Ben 40kg, Jack 30kg, Andspleen 55kg, Justin 20kg
Snatch & Push Ups - Jane 10 rounds + 1 Snatch @7.5kg, Katie 10 rounds @7.5kg, Ben 12rounds + 8 Snatches @20kg, Andspleen 11 rounds @20kg, Jack 9 rounds + 3 Snatches @20kg.
Snatch progression - Justin 42.5kg, Daniel unrecorded.

News: Events BJJ Competition Report

2010-05-14T08:59:00.003+10:00

The Events Brazilian Jiu Jitsu Tournament was held on May 9 at the Five Docks Leisure Centre. It was the largest Events BJJ Tournament held so far with 6 mats running from 9am to 5pm and over 350 competitors.

The Elements Jiu Jitsu team did very well with 4 of our 9 competitors placing at the top of their divisions and everybody performing at a very high level. We did our best to capture as much as we could on film but were simply unable to get everything. Elias's first round win over the previous tournament champion, Adam's spectacular flying armbar attempt (he came so freakin' close to landing it) and Franks beautiful spin under sweep off a single leg takedown all went unrecorded. Despite missing these events - and many others - I've still managed to put together a highlight clip of the tournament. It's my first attempt at making one so please don't expect too much.

Gold Medal
Simon Le

Silver Medal
Darren Letcher
Damien Letcher

Bronze Medal
Ben Langford

Suffer on Saturday May 08 2010

2010-05-10T18:25:00.002+10:00

Warm Up
Jog around gym
10 Squats, Push ups & Sit ups
Run around gym
10 Lunges, Pull ups & Supermans
Sprint around gym

Workout
Weighted Dip 3-2-1-2-3
Whatever you manage for 1 attempt for 2 on your way back up.

then

"Pukie"
For time
21-15-9
Burpees
Pull ups

OR

5 rounds of
1 Shoulder press
2 Frontsquats
3 Thrusters
Rest

Cool Down
Wall Walk x 5 OR 10 second bridge hold x 5

Notes
Dips - Andspleen 45kg, Justin 17.5kg, Jane self assisted, Ayndri self assisted.
Pukie - Jane 8mins, Andspleen 8.30mins, Ayndri 9.31mins.
Press, Squat & Thrust - Justin 45kg.

Suffer on Saturday May 1 2010

2010-05-04T09:03:00.003+10:00

Warm Up
Jog 40m
10 Squats, Push ups, Sit ups
Run 40m
10 Lunges, Pull ups, Supermans
Sprint 40m

Workout
Frontsquat 3-2-1-2-3
Whatever weight you manage for 1 you must then attempt for 2.

then

Thruster minute ladder

OR

5 rounds of
3 Hang Cleans
5 Jerks
Rest

Cool Down
Knees to Elbows 3 sets of 8.

Notes
Frontsquat - Ben 95kg, Jane 35kg, Justin 90kg, Andspleen 90kg (terrible form), Ayndri 35kg, Daniel 85kg
Thrusters - Ben Failed @ 13 @ 30kg, Jane 11 complete @ 15kg, Andspleen 9 complete @ 30kg, Ayndri 11 complete @ 10kg, Daniel 9 complete @ 25kg.
Clean & Jerk - Justin 50kg.

News: Richard Norton BJJ Seminar May 23.

2010-04-27T09:01:00.004+10:00

Elements Fitness is proud to announce that we will be hosting a Brazilian Jiu Jitsu seminar run by none other than Richard Norton. Richard holds a 4th degree Blackbelt in BJJ under Jean Jacques Machado and has trained extensively in a variety of martial arts and is highly ranked in Zen Do Kai, Goju Ryu Karate and Muay Thai Kickboxing to name a few.

Richard is a fantastic coach and his seminars are top quality. Regardless of skill or rank you will always come away from his seminars having gained a ton of practical knowledge.

We are encouraging early registration so the sooner you pay the less this seminar will cost.

Where: Elements Fitness 55 Hefferan Street, Mitchell, ACT.

When: 23rd of May at 1pm.

How Much: If you pay before

May 7 $65
May 14 $85
May 21 $95
On the Day $110.

Come along and take advantage of this fantastic oppotunity. Richard always does an incredible job and you'll come away with more than your money's worth - guarenteed.

You can call 0402 581 977 to organise payment and bookings or you can pay via credit card right now by typing your name in the field and clicking the button below.

Suffer on Saturday April 24 2010

2010-04-25T13:52:00.004+10:00

Warm Up

8 Sit ups, Supermans & Pull ups

15m Bearcrawl + Backwards Walking Lunge

15m Walking Lunge + Backwards Bearcrawl

8 Sit ups, Supermans & Pull ups

Workout

Straight Leg Deadlifts 10-10-5-5

split with

Max Dips

then

For Reps:

5 rounds of 30 on: 20 off for each of

15m Shuttle Run

Leg Raises

OH Walking lunge (guys 15kg to 20kg plate, girls 10kg to 15kg plate)

5 rounds of

5 Pull ups

10 Wrestler's Rows

2 minutes rest

Cool Down

Dishhold 8 x 10 seconds.

Notes

SLDL - Ben 85kg, Jane 30kg, Bronwyn 35kg, Justin 70kg, Andspleen & Daniel 87.5kg with terrible form.

Run, Raise, Lunge - Ben & Daniel @ 20kg, Bronwyn & Justin @ 15kg.

Pull and Row - Andspleen @ unrecorded, Jane @ 10kg rows and assisted pulls.

How To Be Awesome

2010-04-24T16:34:00.002+10:00

I was originally going to call this piece 5 steps to accelerated learning but really what this article breaks down for you is how to be that guy that every else in the gym simply describes as “awesome.”

1. Be a Good Student
This should really go without saying but some people do seem to struggle with this so let me break it down for you:

• Attend class regularly
• Turn up on time
• Warm up properly
• Pay attention
• Focus when you’re drilling
• Work hard
• Have fun
• Leave your ego at the door

When you can do this your ability to learn – and thus your skill level – will skyrocket.

2. Watch what your coach does.
The majority of instructors are not coaches. The majority of instructors are in fact people who have trained in their art for a long – or not so long in some cases – time and have simply fallen into a teaching role. Some of them are Brazilian. As a result their ability to instruct is not so nearly developed as their ability to perform. This means that their descriptions are often either incomplete or inaccurate. In these cases it is very important to watch your coach very carefully and ask yourself the following questions:

• Does what they are saying match what they are doing?
• Are they doing something they are not saying?
• What smaller movements are they making to perform the larger movements?

3. Analyse what your coach says.
In addition to watching your coach very, very carefully you should listen with a critical ear to what they are saying. There are plenty of details in many techniques and positions that are virtually invisible to the naked eye – weight placement, direction of force and body tension to name a few – and a good coach should fill you in on these details when you are ready for them. You also need to make sure that whenever your coach is going through the hows and whys of a technique or strategy that what they’re saying is an explanation and not a justification.

4. Find out the crux of every technique.
Every technique has a make or break moment; a key movement or strategy that more often than not determines whether or not you will be successful. Identifying what this moment is comes with some extremely useful benefits:

• With new techniques you know where to direct the majority of your effort. This will increase your early success rate making it more likely you will become proficient at the technique.

• With techniques you are proficient in knowing the crux allows you to intelligently improve your execution of those techniques. You first make the crux movement as good as you can, then you work on those movements which directly lead to or support the crux movement and then work to improve those remaining movements. Wash, rinse, repeat.

• When you know the crux of multiple techniques the rate of transfer increases. That means getting better at one technique also makes you better at other techniques that share that same make or break moment. This will also help you build combinations.

5. Find out what each of your limbs is doing at each stage of every technique.
When you do this you are maximising the potential of your body to deliver the technique. If you don’t know what your right leg should be doing during a technique odds are it is not contributing as much as it could – it could even be actively working against the successful execution of the technique.

There you go – the 5 key principles to accelerating your training and getting the most you can out of each and every training session. If you can put these into practice pretty soon people will be pointing at you and saying “Awesome game. Simply awesome.”

Suffer on Saturday April 17 2010

2010-04-24T09:06:00.004+10:00

Warm up

8 Sit ups, Supermans & Pull ups

3 x 15m Bearcrawl & Backwards Walking Lunge

8 Sit ups, Supermans & Pull ups

Workout

Frontsquat 10-10-5-5

split with

Max Pull ups

then

3 rounds for time
cycle through Squats, Wrestler's rows & Straight Leg Deadlifts

10 reps

Rest

20 reps

Rest

30 reps

Rest

Use a 1:1 work:rest ratio.

5 rounds of

5 Pull ups

10 Dips

2 mins rest

Cool Down

L-hold 6 x 10 seconds.

Notes

Frontsquat - Ben 85kg, Toby 77.5kg, Jane 27.5kg.

Squat, Row & SLDL - Ben 12.55mins @ 25kg, Jane 13.48mins @ 10kg, Toby 13.53mins @ 25kg.

Suffer on Saturday April 10 2010

2010-04-13T11:02:00.002+10:00

Warm up
8 Sit ups, Supermans & Pull ups
15m Walking Lunge forwards + backwards
15m Bearcrawl forwards + backwards
8 Sit ups, Supermans & Pull ups

Workout
Bent Over Row 10-10-5-5
split with
Max Push ups

then

S.M.M.F
Tag Team Ladder
DB Overhead Squat 1 to 12, 12 to 1

OR

5 rounds of
Backsquat x 5
Pull ups x 10

Cool Down
Med Ball Sit ups - 4 x 8.

Notes
Row - Ben 62.5kg, Andspleen 62.5kg, Jane 30kg, Justin 45kg, Daniel 40kg
OHS - Ben & Andspleen 15kg, Jane 7.5kg
Backsquats & Pull ups - Justin 85kg, Daniel 85kg

Suffer on Saturday April 3 2010

2010-04-07T11:06:00.004+10:00

Warm Up
8 Sit ups, Supermans, Pull ups
4 x 15m Walking Lunge & Bearcrawl
8 Sit ups, Supermans, Pull ups

Workout
Shoulder Press 10-10-5-5
split with
Unweighted Bulgarian Split Squats x 15 each leg.

then

Tag Team Workout
AMRAP in 15mins of
P1:
30m shuttle run
10 Wrestlers Rows
10 Tuck Ups

P2: Wall Sit

OR

5 rounds of
Benchpress x 5
Pull ups x 10
2 minutes rest

Cool Down
Reverse Hyper 3 x 10

Notes
Shoulder Press - Ben 52.5kg, Shaun 60kg, Toby 45kg, Lindsay 15kg, Bron 20kg, Emily 20kg, Jane 15kg, Sam 40kg, Andspleen 45kg, Justin 40kg
Tag Team - Ben & Shaun 6 rounds @ 20kg, Toby & Andspleen 7 rounds @ 20kg, Bron & Emily 5 rounds @ 7.5kg, Jane & Lindsay 5 rounds @ 5kg.
Bench & Pull - Justin 50kg, Sam 55kg

Coaches Corner: Martial Arts and Inbreeding

2010-03-29T11:23:00.003+11:00

Every now and then I become concerned about how I teach the athletes at Elements Fitness Brazilian Jiu Jitsu. Actually, concerned isn’t the right word; I experience panic attacks—lasting anywhere between 20 minutes and a day—that my methods are denying the people who learn from me the chance to fulfill their potental.

The reason for this is that what I teach, and the way I teach it, is different from almost every other Jiu Jitsu school I’ve ever attended. Staple BJJ drills such as Basic Circuit are unknown at my acadamy, we never do more than 10 non-resisted reps in a row (in fact it’s rarely more than 6), closed guard represents less than a quarter of all the work we do on guard and techniques are regarded as the least important part of Jiu Jitsu. My training was not even remotely like this and I have never been to any other BJJ club—and I’ve been to quite a few—where they teach the same way I do.

That said, we seem to be getting excellent results. The athletes seem to be picking up the skills and concepts of BJJ extremely quickly; they fight for positions, flow in transitions and work for submissions and we can all defend attacks, make escapes and effect reversals.

So, what am I worried about?

My main concern is inbreeding.

All martial arts are inbred to a certain degree with some travelling further down the three thumbs and two noses route than others. The simple reason for this is that you are best at the things you practise the most and the thing you practise most is fighting against practioners of your own style in your own club. Like inbreeding in the animal kingdom, inbreeding in martial arts leads to defects, but instead of webbed hands and front buttocks, martial arts inbreeding leads to illusions of effectiveness.

If you never train with or fight against people from other clubs and styles it is extremely easy to overlook holes in your game or even massive deficiencies in your fighting ability. Look at the early days of the UFC or even Gracies in Action and you can see that the strikers featured had clearly never faced a grappler before and, as a result, were extremely vunerable to simple takedowns and submissions. Even in today’s generally better educated martial arts community there are serious problems when holes in your game are routinely not exploited by your training partners. You might even end up like these guys:

Fortunately it’s not too hard to minimise the effects of inbreeding.
• Have an open door policy; Train with other clubs and let other clubs train with you.
• Compete; Both within your style and in tournaments run by other similar styles.
• Attend seminars; Keep educating yourself, learn something new & experience different view points. See who agrees with you and who doesn’t.
• Hold cross training sessions; Think you can handle a boxer? What about a wrestler? Get some in who know the difference between fighting and pressure testing to find out.

All of these points are simple to put into practice and will certainly let you know if you need to dilute the gene pool a little. The best and easiest of these strategies though is having an open door policy: it costs nothing and benefits everyone involved. Implement it well and not only will you greatly expand your martial artist peer group—and thus the knowledge you can draw upon—you’ll also have a steady stream of visitors coming into your academy to train, some of whom will begin to train with you on a regular basis.

It’s because of these strategies that my stressouts usually don’t last very long. I’ll have a bit of a panic and then some of my athletes will enter a tournament or someone from another club will visit and we’ll be competitive, if not dominant, and I’ll feel better. At the very least I know that even if we are inbred the extra thumb only helps us squeeze the choke on tighter.

No Excuses.

2010-03-12T15:15:00.003+11:00

News: Open Mat on Canberra Day.

2010-03-07T14:02:00.002+11:00

There will be an open mat at Elements Fitness this Monday March 8 starting at ten thirty in the morning and continuing until we are physically unable to continue. Cost as usual is $5 and all non psychos are welcome.

Suffer on Saturday Febuary 20 2010

2010-02-26T16:01:00.005+11:00

Warm up

Walking lunge 15m

10 push ups & sit ups

Bearwalk 15m

10 pull ups & supermans

Run 15m

10 squats & leg raises

Workout

Shoulder Press 3-3-3

Handstand Hold 3 x max

then

10 rounds for time of

3 muscle ups

15 squats

Backsquat 5-5-5

Benchpress 3-3-3

Tuck ups 4 x 10

Cool Down

Reverse Hyper 4 x 8.

Notes

Shoulder Press - Ben & Andspleen 55kg (fail 60kg), Jane 25kg, Gill 27.5kg, Justin & Daniel 45kg.

Muscle Ups & Squats - Ben 12.27mins, Jane (subbed 5 pull ups for MU) 10.42mins, Andspleen Tapout at 12mins completed 2 rounds.

UFC 110 Predictions

2010-02-20T16:52:00.005+11:00

Thought I'd post some predictions for the upcoming UFC. Whether I do this for every event remains to be seen - If enough people like it or hate it then I might try it again. Disagree with me on my analysis? Let me know in the comments section.

Undercard

Chris Lytle vs. Brian Foster

This one should be a cracker as Chris Lytle has the unfortunate habit of taking his opponents on at whatever they are best at and Brian Foster likes to combine viscious ground and pound skills with a penchant for slugging it out.

Lytle, a former Golden Gloves winner and professional boxer, should definately outclass Foster in any kind of striking exchange but Foster’s superior wrestling skills and hyperactive pace will probably put Lytle on his back repeatedly throughout the bout. That said, Lytle’s proficiency at ground fighting should negate any attempts at causing serious damage on Foster’s part. I think - barring puncher’s luck - this should be an exciting bout that will go the distance and result in a unaminous decision to Foster.

Stephen Bonner vs. Krzysztof Soszynski

Team Quest up and comer Krzysztof Soszynski and Ultimate Fighter season 1 stand out Stephen Bonner face off in a match that has real potential to take the fight of the night award. Both fighters need a win; a decisive victory for Soszynski could catapult him out of the prelims and back into the main event and a loss for Bonner would mean three in a row which is never good for ongoing employment prospects in the UFC.

Soszynski has recently managed to convert his wrestling base into a powerful striking game a la Dan Hendersen which complements his already well established ground, pound and kimura routine. Bonner might upset him on this note though as Bonner is just about impossible to keep on the ground if he doesn’t want to be there – see his fight with Jon Jones - and has a chin capable of absorbing serious punishment without slowing down. Unfortunately Bonner lacks the power to outright stop Soszynski and often enters his fights with no clear plan of action; Soszynski, on the other hand, clearly comes into each fight knowing exactly what he wants to do, how he wants to do it and where he’s going to put his opponent’s arm in his trophy case.

This should all result in a hard fought battle with both fighters struggling to put away the other. Look for a split decision going Soszynski’s way.

Dollaway vs. Reljic & Te Huna vs. Pokrajak

To tell the truth I have no idea who any of these people are so your guess is as good as mine. Reljic is apparently returning after a serious lay off due to a back injury so this could affect his power and athleticism – if he hasn’t made the technical adjustments to compensate for this he could be in for a short evening.

I have heard the name Pokrajak before but only in the context of being smashed by Vladimir Matyushenko upon his UFC debut. Te Huna holds a similar skill set to Matyushenko and is a local boy so on the strength of that I’ll give the fight to him.

Main Card

Anthony Perosh vs. Mirko Cro Cop

Anthony Perosh was a last minute replacement for former IFL champ Ben Rothwell who withdrew from the fight due to illness. This will be a tough fight for Perosh to say the least; Cro Cop is an opponent who comes ready made to defeat ‘The Hippo’ on his home turf. Cro Cop’s savage striking ability, knockout power and formidable takedown defence culminate in what could be a very rough night for the Australian. However, should Perosh manage to take the fight to the ground his Jiu Jitsu skills far outstrip the Croat’s and could result in a submission win for the ADCC competitor. Unfortunately, takedown skills are by far the weakest part of Perosh’s game and at a weight of only a little over 100kg his size is far more suited to the light heavy weight division.

This fight mostly comes down to which Cro Cop shows up on the night; the Cro Cop of old could spell a short evening for the Australian but if Mirko’s recent performances are anything to go by Perosh could easily find his first UFC victory. Cro Cop has to know that this his last chance with the UFC though so expect him to come out looking to make a statement. I’m afraid I’m calling this one a knockout victory for the Croation Kickboxer.

Keith Jardine vs. Ryan Bader

The “Dean of Mean” will be Bader’s first real test in the UFC and represents quite a leap in threat level from his previous opponents. Jardine’s unorthodox yet effective striking ability pretty much guarentees that Bader will get knocked out if he is drawn into a striking match but if he continues his standard ground n’ pound approach he should win with little difficulty. Jardine just does not have the skills to avoid being dragged to the mat but he can punish Bader every time it happens with tight hooking punches coming from odd angles. As long as his discipline holds though Ryan “Darth” Bader should win this match with what I think will be a third round TKO victory.

Joe Stevenson vs. George Sotiropoulos

This is Sotiropoulos’ first foray into the main card and he will be facing a serious challenge coming up against tough lightweight division gate keeper Joe Stevenson. Sotiropoulos has so far gone 4 and 0 in the UFC dominating his opponents with his top jiu jitsu skills; he’ll be able to bring about a repeat performance provided he can put Stevenson on his back. Unfortunately for George, Stevenson is more than a match for him on the ground in all other areas and clearly outclasses George in both the striking and wrestling domains making it unlikely that he will end up underneath. “Big Daddy” should control the pace and direction of this fight from the outset but I doubt he’ll be able to finish his opponent - a dominating decision win for the American.

Michael Bisping vs. Wanderlei Silva

This fight has the potential to be really exciting or incredibly boring. Both of these fighters are coming off losses and are looking for rejuvination with a win. If both fighters come out looking to make a statement this will be a fast, action packed bout; if both fighters come out looking for a safe win expect to use the time to make a beer run. Silva is actually coming of 5 straight losses but his catchweight bout with Rich Franklin was a close fought battle and speaks well of his ability to fight at 185 – in fact rumours coming from his camp say that they weight drop has cost him none of his power and made him incredibably fast making the “Axe Murderer” a very scary proposition indeed. Bisping on the other hand was enjoying a solid string of victories before being dropped brutally by Dan Henderson; it’s his only loss at 185lbs but it’s a loss that’s got to stick in the mind. “The Count’s” stick and move approach to striking could frustrate Silva but the Englishman lacks the power to put him away. Standing and trading with Silva will spell certain death for Bisping whose best option is to take the Brazilian to the mat. His takedowns are slow and well telegraphed though and nothing Silva can’t handle. If these two fighters go at it expect to see Silva hunt down Bisping and score a brutal and possibly bloody victory by TKO in the second round.

Nogueira vs. Cain Velasquez

Velasquez is currently undefeated in the UFC and is looking to cement his place as a top heavyweight contender with a victory over the legendary Minotauro Nogueira. The outcome of this fight relys heavily on which version of Nogueira turns up: if it’s the staph infected, injury ridden fighter that came out against Frank Mir expect Velasquez to continue his unbeaten run toward the title. However, if it’s the grappling dynamo that fought Randy Couture then Velasquez has much to fear.

Velasquez has great takedown skills and possesses a serious size advantage making his striking and ground n’ pound games nastier than his rudimentry level of skill in those areas would otherwise indicate. Minotauro though has made a career out of surviving beatings and then smoothly and effiecently finishing his opponent with a well executed submission. Velasquez can’t outbox Nogueira and doesn’t want to be on the ground with him which won’t leave him much of an oppotunity to win.

Nogueira by submission in the first round.

Suffer on Saturday Febuary 13 2010

2010-02-13T15:57:00.005+11:00

Warm Up
10 squats, push ups, sit ups
8 lunges, pull ups, leg raises
4 wall squats & supermans

Workout
Bottom up Frontsquat 3-3-3
Top position 10 second lockout 1-1-1

then

AMRAP in 8 mins *Go Heavy*
3 Wrestler's Rows each arm
3 Straight leg deadlifts
3 Bent over rows
3 Push Presses

OR

Weighted Pull ups 5-5-5
Shoulder Press 3-3-3
Knees to Elbows 3 x 10

Cool Down
Inverted Hang - Accumulate 1 minute.

Notes
Frontsquat & Lockout - Ben 80kg & 120kg, Jane and Gillian 30kg & 40kg, Justin 65kg & 120kg.
Row, Dead, Bent, Press - Ben 6 + 4 Wrestler's Rows @ 40kg, Jane 5 + 4 Wrestler's Rows @ 20kg, Gill 5 rounds + 3 Bent Over Rows @ 15kg.

Suffer on Saturday Febuary 6 2010

2010-02-13T15:34:00.003+11:00

Warm up
10 squats, sit ups & push ups
4 DB swings, OH squats & straight leg deadlifts
10 lunges, leg raises & pull ups

Workout
Bench Press 3-3-3
Top Position 10 second lockout 1-1-1

then

5 rounds for time
5 push press
5 pull ups
10 kneeling jumps/frog jumps

OR

Frontsquat 3-3-3
Straight Leg Deadlifts 5-5-5
Ab Wheel Rollouts 3 x 10

Cool Down
L-hold - Accumulate 1 minute.

Notes
Bench and Lockout - Ben 87.5kg & 97.5kg, Jane 25kg & 30kg, Sam 60kg & 85kg, Justin 62.5kg & 85kg.
Press, Pull & Jump - Ben 6.14mins @ 40kg, Jane 8.32mins @ 20kg, Sam 10.08mins @ 35kg.
Squat, Dead & Roll - Justin 80kg & 60kg.

News: T-Shirt Competiton. Poll is now Open!

2010-02-08T16:55:00.004+11:00

Ok, so it took me way longer than I said it would and I have no real excuse but here are the top four contenders for the t-shirt competition. Remember, the most popular slogan will be printed onto Elements Jiu Jitsu t-shirts and whoever came up with that slogan will recieve one for free. Voting remains open until the 1st of March.

There were many contenders for the top three - so many in fact I ended up with a top four - but I considered these not only to be the best but the ones that people might actually be willing to wear in public.

Some special mentions are warrented though. Here are what amount to the runners up.

"Jiu Jits Who? Jiu Jits You!"

"It's where I get my Brazilian!"

"Married to the Mat" - A strong competitor till I disqualified it for being too accurate.

Results of the poll and the name of the winner will be posted March 5th.

Suffer on Saturday January 30 2010

2010-02-05T12:16:00.002+11:00

Warm Up
10 Lunges & Push Ups
5 Pull Ups & Supermans
15 Squats
5 Pull Ups & Supermans
10 Lunges & Push Ups

Workout
3 rounds
12 Backsquats
30 seconds rest
10 Pull Ups
30 seconds rest

then

15m Sprint ladder
1 to 5, 5 to 1, 1 to 5.

Cool Down
25 Tuck Ups
Pinch Plate Hold - Max Effort x 2.

Notes
Squats - Ben 75kg, Justin 55kg, Jane unrecorded.
Sprint Ladder - Ben & Jane.

Suffer on Saturday 23 Jan 2010

2010-01-24T10:30:00.003+11:00

Warm Up
Skipping 1 minute
10 Squats, Push ups, Sit ups
Skipping 1 minute
5 Pull ups, Bridges, Leg Raises
Skipping 1 minute

Workout
3 rounds
6 DB Shoulder Presses
6 DB Bridging Bench Presses
6 DB Wrestler's Rows
2 minutes rest

then

Kneeling Jump/Frog Jump Minute Ladder

Cool Down
GHD Sit Ups - 25 Reps

Notes
Press, Press & Row - Ben 40kg, Justin 35kg, Jane 10kg
Jump Ladder - Jane 11 complete rounds, Justin 13 complete rounds

Suffer on Saturday Jan 17 2010

2010-01-20T10:48:00.005+11:00

Warm Up
Skip 2 minutes
15 squats & sit ups
10 lunges & push ups
5 pull ups & leg raises

Workout
4 rounds of
8 DB Rack Squats
4 DB Straight Leg Deadlifts
30 seconds rest
12 Bridging DB Bench press
30 seconds rest

then

4 rounds, 1 minute each station
DB Thrusters (m=20kg, w=10kg) x 10
Pull ups x 8
Kneeling Jumps x 8
DB Jerks (m=40kg, w=20kg)x 8
Tuck ups x 10

OR

5 rounds for weight
Clean x 1
Frontsquat x 2
Jerk x 3
Rest as needed

Cool Down
Farmers Walk - Max Effort

Notes
Squat, SLDL & Bench - Ben 40kg, Toby 40kg, Andspleen 40kg, Chris 25kg, Jane 20kg, Justin 35kg
Clean, Squat & Jerk - Justin 40kg
Thrust, Pull, Jump, Jerk & Tuck - Ben, Toby, Andspleen, Jane - As Rx'd. Chris - lighter wieghts and incomplete rounds.

6 Easy Steps to Becoming a Fighter

2010-01-16T15:43:00.005+11:00

Since The Ultimate Fighter burst onto our screens showering us in a mix of blood, sweat, tears, alcohol and other less seemly fluids everybody wants to be a fighter. People have been getting off the couch and into the gym so that they can punch, kick, throw, lock and strangle their way to the prestige of being a fighter. Well I’m here to tell you there’s another way – you don’t need to work hard to be a fighter, you just need to follow these 6 easy steps.

Do you wanna be a fucking fighter?

1. Only wear MMA branded t-shirts.
The first step to becoming a fighter is to tell everyone you meet that that’s exactly what you are and there’s no better way of doing that than a needlessly aggressive t-shirt. Pictures featuring blood, broken teeth, snapped limbs and Jesus in some kind of fightwear all add to your credibility. The slogan featured on the t-shirt is also important to take into consideration; remember, if it’s not unreasonably violent then it’s not worth wearing.

2. Refer to Eddie Bravo a least once per conversation.
Regardless of what a conversation is about a reference to Eddie Bravo will demonstrate that you have a superior knowledge of MMA, an awesome Rubber Guard and know that training in a gi has nothing to do with real fighting. Here are some easy ways of working him into the conversation:

“He might be a multiple BJJ world champion with a UFC title belt to his name but he could really benefit from working with Eddie Bravo; that man is a grappling genius.”

“That vicious murderer’s jailbreak was almost as good as Eddie Bravo’s.”

“That fight would have been over in the first round if he’d just known how to use crackhead control. He should smoke some pot and headover to 10th Planet to learn some real jiu jitsu.”

“Joe Rogan is right.”

3. Whenever you’re watching a grappling match say “They’re ok – but they wouldn’t last a second against me if strikes were allowed.”
Not only does this let people know that you’re a good enough grappler to judge the skill level of two complete strangers that you’ve only seen fight for a couple of moments it also shows that you are so impressively tough, fast and strong that you don’t need to develop technique, balance or timing.

4. Whenever you’re watching a boxing match say “They’re ok – but they wouldn’t last a second against me if grappling were allowed.”
Not only does this let people know that you’re a good enough striker to judge the skill level of two complete strangers that you’ve only seen fight for a couple of moments it also shows that you have such impressive technique, balance and timing that you don’t need to develop your toughness, speed or strength.

5. Get a tattoo.
Tough guys get tattoos and fighters are the toughest guys out there so anyone who wants to be considered a serious fighter has to get one. Don’t make the amateur mistake of getting a tattoo that might have some form of lasting personal meaning; the kind of tattoo you want should inspire the respect and fear of the bloke standing at the bar next to you. Skulls, flames and flaming skulls are all prime candidates. The absolute best tattoo to get is your own name – in large gothic letters of course – right across your belly; that way not only will everyone know you’re a fighter but that you can read upside down too.

Partial credit

6. Get a staph infection.
Staph and Ringworm are incredibly common ailments among fighters but Staph leaves a distinctive scar after its healed so that’s the one you want. Don’t make the amateur mistake of thinking you have to actually train regularly or fight to get a Staph infection; that route is for suckers. Staph is common anywhere there is sweat, body to body contact and a disregard for personal health; try sleeping with a few low grade prostitutes or repeatedly rubbing yourself against Spin class instructors.

There you have it, 6 easy to follow steps to becoming a fighter and you never even have to raise a sweat or step foot inside a gym. Now get out there and soak up all that respect and prestige a real fighter like you deserves and receives on a daily basis.

Suffer on Saturday January 2 2010

2010-01-07T12:02:00.003+11:00

Warm Up
Walking lunge 15m
Bearwalk 15m
10 squats, sit ups, push ups
Bearwalk 15m
Walking lunge 15m

Workout
4 sets, alternating exercises with 30 seconds rest between exercises
8 Bench Press
8 Pull ups

then

Partner Ladder
Spike Swing 1 to 20.

or

5 rounds of
2 x powerclean
2 x thruster
2 x backsquat
2 x behind the neck jerk
2 x straight leg deadlifts
2 mins rest

Cool Down
Reverse Hyper - 2 x 15.

News: New Classes at Elements Fitness

2010-01-04T11:43:00.003+11:00

There are two new classes starting at Elements Fitness in 2010; Kickstart Kickboxing Fitness which is an early morning group fitness class run by Grant Piper and a new martial arts program called Jits with Hits taught by the Elements Fitness head coach Ben Langford.

Kickstart Kickboxing Fitness

Jab, cross, hook and kick your way into the best shape of your life. Get that long, lean figure just like the athletes you admire without having to fight for it. In our Kickstart Kickboxing Fitness classes you get to train like a pro without ever having to step foot in a ring.These fitness classes run first thing in the morning before work and are guarenteed to wake you up and ‘kickstart’ your day.

Our Kickstart Kickboxing Fitness features a complete curriculum of focus pad drills, bag work and bodyweight exercises in order to enable anyone – novice or advanced – to become fighting fit. The Kickstart classes at Elements Fitness will help you achieve the lean, toned body you want whilst improving your self confidence, reducing stress and energising you throughout the day.

Other Physical Benefits Include:

• Improved Strength & Flexibility
• Better Cardiovascular Fitness
• Faster Reflexes
• Excellent Hand Eye Coordination

Classes are on now and your first class is free so there’s no excuse not come along and kickstart your day with Kickstart Kickboxing Fitness.

For times and prices click here.

Jits with Hits

The Jits with Hits program at Elements Fitness is designed to bridge the gap between martial arts training, ring fighting and real world self defence. It emphasises good technique, mobility and leverage over brute force allowing you to quickly overcome a stronger, larger opponent.

The Jits with Hits classes include training against empty hand, weapon and multiple opponent assaults and specialise in the utilisation of cloth to facilitate and defend against strikes and takedowns. We employ creative coaching solutions and safe training models for the seemless integration of standup, clinch and ground fighting skills.

Classes are designed to offer a fantastic workout and rapid, functional skill acquisition. In addition to real defensive and fighting skills other benefts include:

• Improved cardiovascular health
• Increase in core strength and muscle-tone
• Fat loss
• Increased flexibility and agility
• Better self-confidence
• Reduced Stress

All students are encouraged to help each other, work together, share techniques and experiment to ultimately express their own unique, individual style.

Jit with Hits classes are suitable for adults of all levels of fitness and ability and are designed so the experienced student refines their skills while the new student develops theirs.

So, whether you’re looking for an intense workout or unrivaled self-defense training, you'll love our program.

The basic training uniform is shorts, rash vest or singlet, gi top, belt and MMA style gloves.

Classes start on Wednesday January 13 2010.

For training times and prices click here.

Suffer on Saturday December 12 2009

2009-12-12T15:30:00.003+11:00

Warm Up
8 One handed DB Swings (left & right)
8 One handed DB Shoulder presses (left & right)
8 Goblet Squat
8 Straight Leg Deadlifts
8 Round the World each way
8 Power Cleans

Workout
Frontsquat - 3,3,3
Hang Clean and Jerk - 1,1,1,1,1

then

For time
50-40-30-20-10 reps of
Stationary DB lunges
Piston Presses
Sit Ups

Men use DBs totaling 33% of BW, Women use 25% of BW.

OR

Pull ups - 4 sets of 8
Dips - 4 sets of 8
Ab wheel roll out - 3 sets of 15.
1 minute rest between sets.

Cool Down
Reverse Hyper - 3 sets of 8.

Notes
Hang Clean & Jerk - Ben 70kg (caught 80kg but couldn't finish), Toby 70kg, Andspleen 65kg
Lunge, press and sit up - Ben 13.38mins, Toby 17.38mins, Andspleen 19.12mins, Jane Daniel & Sam tapped out at 20 minutes.
Pull, dip & roll - Kirstin & Justin.

News: Christmas Schedule

2009-12-11T16:49:00.002+11:00

Just a quick update - here's the schedule for Christmas 2009.

Sunday Dec 13: Closed.
Monday Dec 14 - Wednesday Dec 16: Normal Schedule.
Thursday Dec 17: Evening BJJ Canceled.
Friday Dec 18: Evening BJJ Canceled.
Saturday Dec 19 & Sunday Dec 20: Closed.
Monday Dec 21 - Wednesday Dec 23: Normal Schedule.
Thursday Dec 24 - January 1: All Classes Canceled. BJJ privates and personal training available.

Normal schedule will resume on Saturday January 2nd.

Just like last year we will be holding a number of BJJ open mats between Christmas and New Year. Notices for these will be posted on this blog, Facebook and sent via SMS.

Elements Jiu Jitsu T-Shirt Competition

2009-12-09T09:54:00.004+11:00

Elements Jiu Jitsu is running a competition to come up with a slogan for our t-shirts coming out in the new year. The winner will recieve the very first Elements Jiu Jitsu t-shirt absolutely FREE!

Here's how you enter:

1. Come up with a great slogan to go on our t-shirts.
2. Check your spelling. Sarah's an english teacher and notices these things.
3. Enter the competition by either posting your name and entry in the comments section of this post OR come into the gym and write down your name and entry on a piece of paper and put in the entry box.

You can enter as many times as you like with as many different slogans as you like. I'll decide on the top three entries and will put the final winner to the vote.

A couple of tips:

1. Funny rates higher than macho.
2. Be original.
3. All profanity will cause automatic disqualification.

Suffer on Saturday December 5 2009

2009-12-09T09:44:00.003+11:00

Warm up
8 One handed DB swings (left + right)
8 One handed DB Shoulder presses (left + right)
8 Goblet Squats
8 Straight Leg Deadlifts
8 Round the World (each direction)

Workout
Overhead Squat - 3,3,3
Hang Snatch - 1,1,1,1,1

then

5 rounds for time of
10 Wrestler's Rows
20 Sit ups
30 Squats

Cool Down
Farmer's Carry - Max Effort.

Notes
Hang Snatch - Ben 55kg, Toby 50kg, Jane 12.5kg
Row, Sit & Squat - Ben 9.36mins @ 12.5kg, Toby 10.41mins @ 12.5kg, Jane 11.14mins @ 7.5kg.

Fuhrer's Old School BJJ

2009-12-07T12:20:00.006+11:00

Suffer On Saturday November 28 2009

2009-12-02T11:56:00.002+11:00

Warm up
Skipping 1 minute
8 squats, push ups, sit ups
10 handstands
8 lunges, pull ups, supermans
Skipping 1 minute

Workout
Overhead lunge - 5 sets of 2. Max out.

then

AMRAP in 7 mins of
20 squats
10 push ups
5 leg raises
Sprint 60 meters

Cool Down
L - Hold - Max effort x 3.

Notes
OH Lunge - Emily 25kg, Kirstin 20kg, Jane 20kg, Sam 50kg
Squat, push, raise & run - Emily 4 + 20 squats, Kirstin 4 + 13 squats, Jane 3 + 6 push ups, Sam 3 + 9 push ups.

News: ISR Matrix Seminar This Weekend

2009-11-18T16:46:00.004+11:00

This weekend the 21st and 22nd of November 2009 Elements Fitness is hosting Canberra's first ISR Matrix course.

Please remember that because of this BJJ classes and Suffer on Saturday have been canceled for this weekend only. Classes will resume as normal on Monday.

Suffer on Saturday Nov 14 2009

2009-11-18T16:33:00.002+11:00

Warm Up
Farmers carry around the gym
Rack carry round the gym
4 forward rolls, backward rolls, cartwheels & handstands
Rack carry round gym
Farmers carry around the gym

Workout
Sotts Press - 1,1,1,1,1

then

Tag Team Workout
4 rounds for time
Pull up ladder 1 to 5 split with
Push Press ladder 1 to 5 @ 2x 20kg DB for guys, 2 x 10kg DB for girls.

OR

Weak point training
Swiss ball bench press - 4 sets of 5
Calf Raises with DBs in rack position - 3 sets of 12
Straight leg deadlifts - 3 sets of 10
1 min rest between sets

Cool Down
Planche Progression - Accumulate 1 minute.

Notes
Sotts - Ben 30kg, Andspleen 25kg, Dave 25kg, Toby 30kg, Emily 20kg, Daniel 30kg, Chris 25kg, Miles 20kg, Kirstin 20kgs, Justin 30kgs, Jane 15kgs
Tag Team - Ben & Toby 18.15mins, Kirstin & Emily 19.10mins, Miles & Andspleen 20.30mins

Coaches Corner: Asimov and Coaching

2009-11-16T16:50:00.003+11:00

Isaac Asimov was a highly acclaimed science fiction writer more notable for the brilliance of his ideas than the quality of his writing. His books variously explored the rise and fall of human societies, the role of artificial lifeforms within them and the consequences of space travel. Many of his ideas have been debated by parliaments and some – such as the Three Laws of Robotics – have actually been passed into law by a few forward looking countries.

The Three Laws of Robotics are among his most famous ideas and, in his books, are the governing rules that apply to the function of all robots regardless of type. These laws are:

A robot must
1. Not allow a human to come to harm.
2. Not allow itself to come to harm.
3. Obey all commands given to it by a human.

Each law is outranked by the previous one and are designed to protect humans from robots and allow robotic assimilation into existing human society.

So what the hell does this have to do with coaching?

Well a robot can be extremely useful and incredibly beneficial to have around but without the Three Laws a robot could be directionless, cause a great deal of damage and be more trouble than it’s worth. Comparatively, in the absence of any Laws of Coaching, the majority of coaches are directionless in their approach, cause a great deal of damage to the development of their athletes and are more trouble than they’re worth. A good coach however is an unfortunately rare but extremely useful and incredibly beneficial person to have around.

So with this in mind I have formulated the Three Laws of Coaching to try and make good coaching the norm rather than the exception. As with the robotic laws each law is outranked by the previous and should act as the governing rules to the function of all coaches regardless of type.

The Three Laws of Coaching

A coach must
1. Know their purpose
2. Do no harm
3. Develop the athlete

Know their purpose

A coach should do what they have been hired to do. It sounds simple but hardly anyone does it.
If you’re supposed to be teaching Jiu Jitsu then teach Jiu Jitsu and not boxing; if you’ve been hired to improve someone’s max strength levels then focus on improving their max strength and not their 5km run time; in short do what you’re supposed to be doing and not something else. A good coach knows what they’re supposed to be doing and then does precisely that. A bad coach doesn’t know what they’re supposed to be doing and does as much of it as they can.

Do no harm

Stolen outright from the Hippocratic oath this law applies to both the physical well being and the technical development of your athletes. Nothing will get you fired faster than injuring a team’s star player except possibly making them a bad player first. Some of you are probably thinking that this particular law is oddly placed at second but knowing what your purpose is as a coach comes first because if you’ve been hired to greatly improve a specific quality of an experienced athlete other qualities will probably suffer as a result – a powerlifting coach’s athletes’ marathon times will probably worsen as their lifts improve.

If someone comes to you and they get worse at what they’ve hired you to improve then you are a bad coach.

If someone comes to you and they are injured because of what you’ve instructed them to do then you are a bad coach.

I rarely have anyone disagree with me on any of the above statements so why is it that in the majority of martial arts schools the first few classes will leave you worse at fighting than when you first came in? Why is it that the majority of boot camps and fitness classes are more likely to get you injured than get you fit? We agree that it’s bad coaching so stop coaching badly.

And while I’m ranting...

If nine of your ten athletes are out injured and the one survivor is a world champion you’re still a bad coach.

If nine of your ten athletes are terrible and your tenth is a world champion you’re still a bad coach.

Develop the Athlete

Usually considered the primary roll of a coach developing the athlete is the third law of coaching because following the first two laws results in a safer more effective training environment. A coach who knows what they’re supposed to be doing and knows how to do it without hurting the athlete will bring more of their athletes to a higher level faster than a coach who doesn’t. Developing an athlete is different to just training an athlete. Coaches who develop their athletes have plans with short, middle and long term objectives specific to the goals of the athlete and constantly evaluate the effectiveness of their approach making modifications as neccessary. Coaches who simply train their athletes are stuck in the short term, have no specific goals, no evaluation process and typically react to the day to day ups and downs of the training process.

So there you have it - the Three Laws of Coaching, designed to protect from the actions of maliginant or ignorant coaches. It’s also possible to view these three laws as being levels of coaching expertise a coach who follows the first two laws is more expert than one who only follows the first and both of them are far more usefull than a coach who doesn’t follow them at all.

Suffer On Saturday November 7 2009

2009-11-08T13:40:00.003+11:00

Warm Up
Bear Crawl around the gym
8 push ups, sit ups, squats
4 forward rolls, backward rolls, cartwheels and handstands
8 pull ups, supermans, lunges
Farmers walk around gym

Workout
Turkish Get Up - Heavy single in 4 reps. Complete reps on the left then do right.

then

"The Fast 55"
For time do
20-15-10-10 reps of
Squats
Push ups
Leg raises

OR

DB Bench on Swiss Ball - 3 sets of 5
BB Straight Leg Deadlift - 3 sets of 5
Plate pull 30kg X 3
Strict 1 minute rest between exercises.

Cool Down
Accumulate 1 minute in a Handstand

Notes
TGU - Ben 32.5kg, Andspleen 35kg, Jane 10kg, Emily 12.5kg, Justin 20kg, Katie 7.5kg
Fast 55 - Ben 3.24mins, Andspleen 4.02mins, Jane 5.56mins, Emily 9.39mins
Weakpoint training - Katie & Justin.

Suffer on Saturday October 2009

2009-11-02T16:45:00.003+11:00

Warm Up
1 minute skipping
8 squats, push ups, sit ups
3 forward rolls, 3 backward rolls, 3 handstands
8 lunges, pull ups, supermans
1 minute skipping

Workout
3 rounds at steady pace
12 DB squats
8 straight leg deadlifts
8 lunges
12 calf raises
2 minutes rest

then

6 rounds for time
5 DB shoulder presses (left)
5 Db shoulder presses (right)
10 Burpees

OR

Tag Team: 4 rounds
30 meter 70kg plate drag
10 GHD Sit ups

Cool Down
Inverted Hang/Back Lever - Accumulate 1 minute.

Notes
Press & Burp - Kirstin 10:40mins @ 7.5kg, Daniel 12:29mins @ 12.5kg, Toby 11:30mins @ 17.5kg, Sam 13:31mins @ 15kg, Jane 16mins @ 7.5kg, Andspleen 26:33mins @ 20kg.
Drag & Sit up - Ben & Justin

Seminar: ISR Matrix PM 2 Day Course

2009-10-30T14:32:00.005+11:00

Elements Fitness is proud to announce that we are hosting Canberra’s first ever ISR Matrix Physical Management course on the 21st and 22nd of November.

For those unfamiliar with the ISR Matrix ISR stands for Intercept, Stablise and Resolve and is a self defence and physical management system designed to enable the easy and rapid controll of a fully resisting opponent. Designed by BJJ black belt and founder of One Dragon Martial Arts, Luis Gutierrez, the ISR Matrix has been rapidly adopted by Police and security services across the world.

You can read what the Response Australia Magazine had to say about it here.

Having trained in the fundementals of the system for a number of years I can personally vouche for its effectiveness – in competition, self defence and security work – and easy integration into the Brazilian Jiu Jitsu skill set.

The instructor, Dave Pauli, has been a qualified ISR Matrix Workplace Trainer and the official Australian Representative since 2008. In early 2009, after acting as an Assistant Instructor for several courses, he was certified as an ISR Matrix Field Instructor - one of only several in the world and the only one outside North America.

The course costs $299 for two days intensive training and will cover the foundational skills of the system in a way that will be sure to leave you confident not only of the effectiveness of the techniques but also also your ability to perform them. Elements Jiu Jitsu memebers should be sure to contact me before paying to find out how to take advantage of a special deal I’ve arranged on your behalf.

ISR Matrix Physical Management Foundations Course
When: 21 – 22 November 2009
Where: Elements Fitness 55 Heffernan St. Mitchell ACT
What Time: Course runs all day Saturday & Sunday. Starts 10.30am Saturday and ends 5pm Sunday.
How Much: $299 Click Here to Register Now!

Rant: Stop Arguing and Go Train.

2009-10-29T11:35:00.003+11:00

Martial Arts people have to be some of the weirdest, most obsessive people on the planet. I know, I’m one of them. No other activity, with the exception of religion, seems to generate the level of fanaticism found in practitioners of the martial arts.

We argue about which style is the most practical, the most effective and which is the best for the ring, the cage and the street. We argue about which style that was the first to do something, the best at doing something and who did that thing most recently. Even within a style there are arguments about who has the better philosophy, which techniques are best, whose training clothes are better and whether you are ‘really’ doing that style at all.

These aren’t civil, reasonable, well thought out discussion style arguments either; these are full on hysterical, screaming hissy fits that best resemble a combination of two pre-schoolers fighting over a toy and a meeting of NATO after receiving a threat of nuclear terrorism. Threats, insults and unintelligible racial slurs are all par for the course during these increasingly bizarre debates.

What the hell is wrong with us – and by us I mean the martial arts community as a whole – that we feel the need to do this? Think about it and let me know if you can come up with a reasonable answer. Other activities don’t lead to this bullshit. Do you think badminton players argue like us? Do they get in raging flame wars on internet forums about whether indoor or outdoor badminton is ‘real’ badminton? Do chess players threaten to force pieces up each others noses over whether the Spanish Defence is better than the Opening Gambit? Have you ever seen two crochet enthusiasts throwdown and duel with their hooks on YouTube to avenge a slur on their teacher?

I’m not against reasonable discussion; as intelligent human beings we have a responsibility to question what we are told, test what we believe, hold each other accountable to our statements, call out frauds and prove assertions. What I am against is the bigoted, petulant, unthinking espousal of views delivered in the kind of language that would make a merchant sailor blush. The martial arts is supposed to be the ultimate vehicle for killing the ego and disciplining mind and body but these arguments are good evidence to the contrary.

Suffer on Saturday October 10 2009

2009-10-15T11:33:00.003+11:00

Warm Up
20 star jumps
8 push ups, sits, lunges
20 empty hand swings
8 pull ups, supermans, lunges
20 star jumps

Workout
"Absolution"
1 min per station, 10 secs to rotate
3 rounds for Reps of

OH DB Lunges
Turkish Sit ups
Knees to Elbows
DB Twists
Skipping or Aerodyne sprint

then

6 rounds for time of
5 Handstand Push ups or DB shoulder press
4 Push ups
3 Burpees

Cool Down
Reverse Hypers - 3 sets of 10.

Notes
Push, push & Burp - Ben HSPU 7.09mins, Emily 10kg DBs 12.41mins, Jane obar x 2 & 7.5kg DBs x 4 8mins, Alex 7.5kg DBs 5.48mins, Matt 12.5kg DBs 10.15mins, Ian 15kg DBs 10.28mins.

Review: Wildcat MMA Shorts

2009-10-02T13:46:00.003+10:00

The Wildcat MMA shorts are John Will’s first offering from what I am hoping will be a substantial line of mma fightwear. I recently acquired a pair at the Australasia Machado Championships but I must admit I bought them largely as a matter of convienance as I was in desperate need of more training clothes and not really able to wait for my previously preferred brand of Sprawl to deliver some shorts from America. I say previously because – although Sprawl shorts are excellent – the Wildcat MMA shorts exceeded my expectations and have become my brand of choice.

The shorts are well made with solid stitching throughout so they are able to take the abuse that heavy and frequent training inflicts. They also feature the usual combination elastic, drawstring and velco waistband, a flex panel in the groin and a small slit of the outside of the leg to allow easy movement and are made of a light but tough polyester. The cut is different from the usual fight short design and it can feel a little weird when you first start wearing them but, as far as I can tell, the different design makes no practical difference when fighting or training.

On the aesthetic side of things I quite like the colour and design of the shorts and I especially like the absence of tough guy bullshit that is becoming more prevalent in the industry. You know the “kick me in the balls cause they’re made of steel” type motto that has put me off more otherwise good brands than I care to mention.

I can’t say that these shorts are better than those put out by Sprawl or Nogi but they are definitely as good and different enough that you, like me, may come to prefer them not through issues of quality but simply because of the feel and the fit. Wildcat MMA shorts can be purchased here.

Lessons From a Champion

2009-09-21T15:42:00.003+10:00

Suffer on Saturday September 5 2009

2009-09-19T10:20:00.003+10:00

Warm up
8 Squats, Sit ups, Push ups
Farmers Walk
6 Lunges, Supermans, Pull ups
Bear Crawl
4 Frog Jumps, Tuck ups, Clapping push ups

Workout
Kneeling Jump - 7 sets of 1.

then

"The Big 55"
For time do 10-9-8-7-6-5-4-3-2-1 reps of
Goblet squats
Wrestler's Rows
Straight Leg Deadlifts
Mountain Climbers (Do reps on both legs)
Leg Raises

Cool Down
Back Extensions - 3 sets of 8.

Notes
Kneeling Jump - Ben 55kg, Jane 20kg, Sam 32.5kg, Justin 32.5kg, Barb 22.5kg
The Big 55 - Ben 13.08mins, Jane 15.55mins, Sam 21.40mins

Resolve Now

2009-09-17T18:53:00.002+10:00

New Year resolutions tend to annoy me a little bit. New Year’s Eve is a night where typically even the most reserved of people tend to eat too much, get mind blowingly drunk, wear tintsle and attempt to dance when they really, really shouldn’t. New Year’s Day, on the other hand, is the day where people resolve to start improving themsleves by reading more, drinking less and getting their butts into the gym regularly.

I’m sorry but when someone who’s swaying slightly with the effort to stay upright, covered in glitter, gesturing with a deep fried hotdog and swigging out of the bottle of schnapps tells me that tomorrow’s the day when they’ll turn it all around, I just can’t bring myself to believe it. At that point I’m more inclined to think that tomorrow’s the day when they’ll have a hang over and a strong case of indigestion.

Here’s a better idea: Why don’t we resolove to have achieved something by New Year?

As of today there is exactly 15 weeks till New Year’s Day. That’s enough time to knuckle down and get yourself a bikini body, develop a killer armbar or memorise the wittisims of Mark Twain and be ready to be unleash them on January first.

Whatever you decide to do, don’t keep it secret; get it out there - post it on this blog, tell your friends, tell your family and be accountable. The more people who know what you’re gunning for the more people you’ll have to tell if you fail.

So with that in mind here’s what I’m resolving to have achieved by January first:
· My running escape will become a high percentage move.
· My two on one forklift pass will be a primary low guard pass.
· My Z-guard will be smooth and full integrated.
· I will grade in Judo.

Post your resolutions to comments.

Suffer on Saturday Aug 22 2009

2009-08-26T15:45:00.002+10:00

Don't be this guy.

Warm Up
Farmers Walk round gym
8 push ups, sit ups & squats
Rack Carry round gym
8 pull ups, supermans & lunges
Waiters Walk round gym

Workout
Weighted Pull ups - 7 sets of 1

then

For time:
2 rounds of
6 kneeling jumps
2 15m shuttle runs
2 rounds of
8 DB swings
2 15m shuttle runs
2 rounds of
10 thrusters
2 shuttle runs

OR

4 rounds of
6 Frontsquats
4 kneeling jumps
90 seconds rest

Cool Down
GHD Sit ups - 2 sets of 10.

Notes
Pull ups - Ben 40kg, Toby 40kg, Isik 25kg, Sam 20kg, Justin 22.5kg, Jane Box, Daniel 5kg.
Jump, Swing, Thrust & Run - Ben 4.02mins @ 20kg, Toby 4.09mins @ 20kg, Isik 4.31mins @ 15kg, Sam 5.09mins @ 17.5kg, Jane 5.31mins 12.5kg
Squat & Jump - Justin 65kg, Daniel 65kg.

Suffer on Saturday Aug 15 2009

2009-08-22T09:36:00.002+10:00

Warm Up
Bear Crawl round gym
8 push ups, sit ups, squats
Waiters Walk round gym
8 pull ups, leg raises, lunges
Run round gym

Workout
Bench Press - 4 sets of 2

then

4 rounds for time
12 DB Hang clean & Jerk
15 Tuck ups
20 Push ups

OR

Every minute, on the minute, for 12 minutes
Hang clean + 2 Frontsquats + Jerk
Go Heavy.

Cool Down
Reverse Hyper - 3 sets of 8.

Notes
Bench - Ben 95kg, Jane 25kg, Toby 70kg, Justin 67.5kg, Sam 52.5kg.
Clean, tuck and push - Ben 11.41mins @ 40kg, Jane 13.49mins @ 15kg, Sam 15.46mins @ 25kg.
Clean, Squat, Jerk - Justin 50kg, Toby 60kg.

Coaches Corner: Repetition, Repetition

2009-08-18T18:54:00.001+10:00

Mas Oyama did hundreds of repetitions of his art’s fundamental strikes each day; the great Kimura records completing hundreds of thousands of hours of Uchi Komi, practising his throws at multiple dojos, against trees, lampposts and anything else that could withstand his strength; Hatsumi writes of being woken in the middle of the night to practice breakfalls; High 5 won’t shut the fuck up.

High repetition unresisted technique drilling – AKA “Dead patterns” training – is beginning to acquire something of a dirty reputation in the martial arts world and with good reason: it’s a whore. Dead pattern training sold itself to the martial arts community years ago without telling anyone about the diseases it carries and it’s only recently that some of these arts have been brave enough to go and see a doctor and ask what the burning sensation means.

High repetition unresisted drilling can lead to a whole host of problems for the aspiring martial artist especially if realistic sparring is also absent from the training regimen. An athlete cannot focus on the correct execution of the technique for dozens – let alone hundreds or thousands – of repetitions and even if they could motor coordination begins to break down somewhere between the 5th and 20th rep – meaning you end up practising a less efficient version of the technique or a different technique altogether – depending on the level familiarity the athlete has with the skill. Those are the best case scenarios; less conscientious athletes start cutting corners in the technical execution of the skill, become lazy with things like hand positioning, weight distribution and posture, lose the connection between the skill and sparring/fighting and some even get so bored they quit practising the martial arts and take up a career in mime.

In the opening paragraph I listed some legendary martial artists who are almost equally famed for their rigorous training as they are for their fighting prowess and while some would argue that their training – their dead pattern training – is what made them who they are I would say rather that it was their commitment to their art and their desire to excell; and if they had had access to the coaching methods of today then they could have been greater still.

Unresisted drilling does have its place though. It is essential in the early stages of acquiring a new skill and if used intelligently it will definitely continue to contribute to the long term development of any martial artist. It’s just that, like most whores, unresisted drilling doesn’t get treated properly; people just use it because it’s cheap and it’s easy and if you close your eyes it almost feels like the real thing.

Suffer on Saturday Aug 1 2009

2009-08-09T14:10:00.002+10:00

Warm up
Standard BW circuit

Workout
Weighted Pull ups - 3 sets of 5

then

Single hand DB swing ladder
1 rep = 1 swing from each hand

Cool Down
Straight Leg Dead lifts - 3 sets of 8.

Notes
Pull ups - Toby 15kg, Justin 5kg, Jane unweighted
Swings - Toby failed @ 10 @ 20kg, Justin completed 11 @ 17.5kg, Jane failed @ 10 @ 10kg.

Statistical Analysis: Training Times

2009-08-07T11:36:00.005+10:00

He's nine hundred years old; that's why he's a master.

According to online polls the typical Brazilian Jiu Jitsu student attends three 1.5 hour classes a week. This has led me to conduct the following analysis.

Average Time spent training BJJ 216 hours a year

Average Time spent training strength and conditioning for bjj 144 hours a year

Average Time spent competing in BJJ 30 minutes a year

Average Time spent watching BJJ videos on Youtube 512 hours a year

On average it takes 10,000 hours of practice to master a skill or activity. Based on this the average practitioner will master Jiu Jitsu after 46 years and master Youtube in 20.

News: Events BJJ Competition Report.

2009-08-05T11:59:00.004+10:00

Elements Jiu Jitsu sent its first ever team to compete in the Events BJJ tournament in Sydney on Sunday August 2nd. The team did extremely well with 6 of our 10 competitors placing at the top of their divisions and with everybody doing themselves and the gym proud. Some highlights of the day include David O’Brian’s complete domination of his division with his strong combination of the Shoulder of Justice and the Prybar; 6 year old Elias Murray’s determination and incredible back controll; Sarah Langford’s spectacular guillotine of her first opponent (unfortunately later declared a highly contestable no contest) and Damian Letcher’s lightening fast armbar victory of 32 seconds.

Gold medalists
Damian Letcher
Barbera Whiddon
David O’Brien
Elias Murray

Silver Medalists
Ben Langford

Bronze Medalists
Darren Letcher

Suffer on Saturday July 25 2009

2009-08-05T08:59:00.003+10:00

Warm Up

30 secs skipping

6 push ups

6 sit ups

6 squats

30 secs skipping

6 lunges

6 supermans

6 pull ups

30 secs skipping

Workout

45 secs work, 90 secs rest of

Bench Press - 3 sets

Bulgarian Split Squats - 2 sets each leg

then

AMRAP in 6 minutes of

8 wrestler's rows

30 meter sprint

10 tuck ups

Cool Down

Accumulate 1 minute in back lever progression.

Notes

Row, Sprint, Tuck - Jane 4 rounds + 8 rows, Justin 4 rounds + 5 rows, Toby 5 rounds, Drew 3 rounds, Tall Paul 4 rounds + 8 rows, Barb 5 rounds, Ben 6 rounds.

Sport & Martial Arts: Structure & Culture.

2009-08-01T09:47:00.004+10:00

Fundamentally sport is about competing, in some form, on a level playing field; sport requires adherence to a particular rule set to make it possible to see who is best at a particular game or task. Sport is fair. Martial arts on the other hand are about dealing with unfair situations: your opposition can have the advantage physically, numerically, situationally or possibly all three.

Typically sport can be viewed as some form of hierarchal competition where an individual, team, state or even nation aims to improve their standing in some regard. Don’t mistake me for some Freudian misfit; I’m not talking about sexual practices or establishing dominance over a pack but rather a way through which one can raise the value of their stock in their political arena, community, peer group or even their own self esteem.

That is to say, there is a strong social aspect to sport; an aspect which is influentional enough to create conventions within sport which are not—strictly speaking—a part of the rules. What do I mean by this? I mean that regardless of how much more freedom the rules allow, people agree on a particular way of doing things and then compete at that.

Some historical examples
· the kick and chase game in Rugby Union
· the full throw to achieve Ippon in Judo
· the head/torso movement oriented game in boxing.

Despite the fact the rules of each of the above sports allow many, many more permutations in game play the social conventions of the day dictated that each of the above examples was the primary structure used in each of these sports to achieve the victory and people would compete to see who was better at utilising that structure.

This often leads to people into a circular reasoning mindset. First we assume that because something is the most common way of doing something that it is also the best way of doing something. This can lead to statements like, “We don’t see pick ups in Judo because they don’t work. We know they don’t work because we don’t see them in Judo”.

However, each of the above structures has been tested and supplanted by new and different structures. Structures introduced to the sport by those willing to go against convention in order to gain advantage. The All Blacks introduced the running game to Union, the Soviets integrated pick ups and fall backs to submission into Judo, and Prince Naseem shocked the boxing world with his use of unmatched leads and and angular footwork. Each of these new structures was initially completely dominant over the previous and ended up either supplanting or being being integrated into the accepted way of doing things. These new structures were used to gain what was—essentially—an unfair advantage over opponents.

This unfair advantage is exactly what a good martial arts practioner is constantly seeking. If I compete against my opponent at some kind of equal task then the stronger & faster fighter will most likely prevail. But if my structure gives me a head start then their physical and/or numerical advantages could be negated or, better yet, be reversed.

Suffer on Saturday July 18

2009-07-22T15:09:00.004+10:00

Warm Up

Twice through

8 Plate presses

8 OH lunge

8 Round the world

8 Crescent Lifts

8 Plate Clean

Use the same weight bumper plate for all lifts.

Workout

3 sets of 40 seconds work, 90 seconds rest of

Push Press

Pull Up

then

4 rounds for time of

15 Squats

10 Push ups

5 Burpees

Cool Down

Accumulate 1 minute in a L-hold.

Notes

Squat, Push, Burpee - Ben 3.43mins, Barb 4.23mins, Justin 4.55mins, Toby 5.17mins, Jane 5.37mins.

Suffer on Saturday July 11 2009

2009-07-22T15:00:00.003+10:00

Warm Up
1 min skipping
10 Push ups
1 Bear Crawl round the gym
10 sit ups
1 Farmers Carry around gym
10 squats
1 min skipping

Workout
35 seconds work, 90 seconds rest of

Bulgarian Split Squats - 2 sets each leg
Bench Press - 3 sets

then

For time
15-9-6-3
Squats
Pull ups
Sit ups

Cool Down
Accumulate 1 minute in a handstand.

Notes
Squat, Pull, Sit - Ben 3.35mins, Katie 5.37mins, Justin 4.43mins, Daniel 4.58mins, Jane 4.31mins, Andspleen 4.03mins.

Bite Sized Learning: The Plan

2009-07-20T15:35:00.006+10:00

I’ve received a few questions recently on what my specific recommendations are for a healthy diet and addressing it here is a lot easier than answering everyone individually. I must point out that although I have studied nutrition fairly extensively at university and in my own time I am not a qualified nutritionist, dietician etc. These recommendations are the result of my own research and experience and you follow them at your own risk. These points don’t necessarily apply to everyone; if you have a specific health problem then you may have specific dietary needs. That said, it is my experience that most people experience health and performance improvements when they stick to the following guidelines.

The Elements Fitness Diet Recommendations

2 grams of protein per kilo of lean bodyweight (or 1 gram per pound of bodyweight if you prefer) per day. This means that if you weigh 70kg at 10% body fat you should consume 126 grams of protein per day.

Protein should be consumed at every meal.

Eat 5 to 6 meals a day.

Carbohydrate consumption should be kept moderately low and made up primarily of fruit and leafy green vegetables. Potatoes, rice, pasta, bread and most grains should be avoided.

Mono unsaturated fats such as nuts and olives should be regularly consumed as a part of meals (except post workout) and snacks.

Fruit and oats should predominately be eaten in the morning and vegetables in the afternoon and evening.

Calorie consumption adaptations should be made to accommodate goals such as weight loss or mass gain. These adaptations should be made primarily – although not entirely depending on your exact goals - through the greater or lesser consumption of fat.

A meal should be consumed within 20 minutes of working out and should be made up of 20 to 30 grams of protein and 30 to 40 grams of carbohydrate. No fat should be a part of this post workout meal.

3 to 6 fish oil tablets a day.

A good multivitamin is a good idea for hard working athletes but hardly necessary for everyone.

Generally 80% compliance is what we’re looking for.

Suffer on Saturday July 4 2009

2009-07-04T15:46:00.005+10:00

Warm Up
Go around the gym once doing a
Bear Crawl
2 handed Farmers carry
Walking lunge
2 handed Waiters Walk
Crab walk

Workout
3 sets of 30 seconds work; 90 seconds rest of
Deadlift @ BW (guys) or 1/2 BW (girls)
Dips
Athlete must remain under load the entire work interval.

Blur the line when you train...

then

3 rounds for time
20 squats
20 push ups
20 sit ups
20 supermans
200 skips

Nature already does.

Cool Down

Accumulate 1 minute in a L-Hold.

Notes

Squat, push, sit, super & skip - Ben 10:29mins, Justin 13:23mins, Andrew 15:03mins (1/2 skip reps), Katie 14:52mins, Sam 15:54mins (1/2 skip reps), Jane 15:31mins (1/2 skip reps), Emily 18:56mins.

They're Coming...

2009-07-02T12:08:00.001+10:00

The Machado Nationals are coming!

Melbourne, September 12 2009

Be Ready.

Jiu Jitsu Phrase Book: A Handy Reference.

2009-06-25T14:02:00.003+10:00

Good Advice

Phrases Common to Advanced and Intermediate Students

“Hey my friend, don’t hurt me ok?” (said with Brazilian accent) – I am unusually good and will toy with you for the next ten minutes.

“(Insert name here) didn’t get me” – I spent the entire match under mount holding my own collar and made no attempt to escape.

“Let’s go slow” – I will use all my speed and strength the moment I think I’m in trouble.

“How much do you weigh?” – I’m embarrassed that I couldn’t beat you.

“Try not to use your strength advantage” (jokingly said to a female training partner just before rolling) – I’m afraid you’re going to beat me despite my size, strength and male genitalia.

“Training with the gi is the only way to go” – I’m no good without a gi.

“The gi is outdated and no use if you want to be an effective modern grappler” – I’m no good in a gi.

Phrases Common to Beginers

“I’m pretty well rounded” – I have a yellow belt in three different styles of Tae Kwon Do.

“It all changes when you add strikes” – I think I’m a better fighter than the string of losses to people half my weight suggests I am.

“No, I’ve never done any Jiu Jitsu before” – Ten years of judo and wrestling don’t count right?

5 Fast Tips to Kickstart your BJJ Journey.

2009-06-23T12:28:00.005+10:00

This is just a quick bit of advice that I wish I'd been given - meaning advice I wish I had actually followed - when I was just starting Brazilian Jiu Jitsu.

As a coach I find myself saying the following to almost every new student who walks through the door to my gym and those that actually attempt to put it into practice are those who - without fail - advance the quickest.

Have a goal in mind.
A lot of beginners have trouble knowing what to do when they first start rolling; they’re yet to develop enough skills to put together a game and they have nothing specific to work on as they are working on everything. My advice is this: decide before you start rolling where you want to get to (mount, back control, side control, guard) and how you want to get there (sweep, passing guard, shoot).For your first few lessons just try and get to a point where you can execute what you just learnt in class. Although I’m not saying you’ll be successful straight away this will give your roll some immediate purpose beyond just trying to stop your training partner doing what they want to do.

Where ever possible put your hands on your opponent and not on the ground.
This is an especially important point when you are in someone’s guard but it makes a fairly good general principle. When we are on top putting our hands on our opponent puts more of our weight on them and increases the likelihood of controlling them, when we are underneath putting our hands on our opponent – note: on not around or pushing – creates a barrier between us and them making it easier to defend and create space. When we put our hands on the ground we lose these benefits and give our opponent opportunities to escape, control and submit us.

Use your entire body.
Because we are so used to doing everything with our hands, when we first start Jiu Jitsu our inclination is to continue doing exactly that. Only using our hands though is severely limiting; if you are using your hands to pin your opponent you will lose control of them the moment we try to do anything else but if our knees and hips our controlling our opponent our hands are free to attack and set up transitions. We must learn to use all parts of our body including our head, shoulders, elbows, knees, hips and feet to control and attack our opponent to be at our most effective.

Always move yourself.
Trying to move your opponent is a tiring, often dangerous manoeuvre which frequently requires you to be the bigger and stronger competitor. Jiu Jitsu is an art that allows a smaller weaker person to overcome a large aggressive opponent so our techniques must not be reliant upon physical strength. When training it is important to always try and move yourself into the correct position rather than trying to shift your opponent. This saves energy, is low risk and will work against anyone regardless of their size and strength.

Slow Down.
Doing a technique fast doesn’t make it more effective; doing something correctly makes it more effective. Going fast results in increased fatigue and the increased probability that you won’t notice the mistakes you are making. Going fast also means that you’re more likely to be moving in a wild uncontrolled manner which increases the risk of injury for both your training partner and you. There is no surer way of annoying the person you’re training with than poking them in the eye several times and remember that you’re just starting so chances are they’re better than you.

So there you go, five fast tips to kickstart your BJJ journey. It's important to remember that these principles aren't just for beginners but are for everybody. If you're having trouble with a particular technique or game just refer back to this list and generally you can find where your problems lie.

Suffer on Saturday June 20 2009

2009-06-22T16:30:00.002+10:00

Planche photo courtesy of Beastskills

Warm up

Bear Crawl Soccer

Workout

Clean - 7 sets of 1.

then

7 rounds for time of

3 straight leg deadlifts

4 walking lunges

5 rack squats

10 sit ups

Go as heavy as possible using DBs.

Cool Down

Planche Progression - Accumulate 1 minute at your level.

Notes

Clean - Toby 77.5kg, Paul 65kg, Emily 45kg, Andspleen 75kg, Andrew R 65kg, Daniel 62.5kg.

Lift, Lunge, Squat & Sit up - Toby 6.55mins @40kg, Paul 7.52mins @35kg, Emily 8.01mins @20kg, Andspleen 8.01mins @40kg, Andrew R 7.48mins @40kg, Daniel 7.46mins @35kg.

Blue, Purple, Brown.

2009-06-18T12:06:00.004+10:00

A couple of years ago the video of Jimmy DaSilva’s purple belt test/demonstration spread round the internet like a virus and is frequently held up as a fantastic example of someone executing Jiu Jitsu technique with a high level of efficiency and precision.

Jimmy’s instructor, Roy Dean - seen wearing a black gi in the demonstration -, is a uniquely credentialed BJJ coach. In addition to receiving his BJJ Black belt from Professor Roy Harris, Roy Dean also holds black belts in Seibukan Jiu Jitsu, Aikido and Judo; the last being awarded by the Kodaokan itself. His particular brand of Jiu Jitsu reflects all these influences and thus there is more of an emphasis on leg locks, wrist locks and takedowns then you would find at a standard BJJ academy. Strong, smooth technique execution and flowing attack combinations are also typical of his style and go some way to betraying his classical roots.

It’s now two years on from that original test and Jimmy DaSilva is now facing the exam for brown belt. Despite the high level exhibited in the first video Jimmy has clearly continued to improve and take his game to a new level.

Suffer on Saturday June 13 2009

2009-06-15T15:39:00.003+10:00

Warm Up
Dodge Ball

Workout
Thruster - 2 sets of 2 then 4 sets of 1.

then

AMRAP in 8 mins

5 Bent over rows
8 stationary lunges (4 each leg)
5 Burpees

Cool Down
L-Hold - 8 sets of 10 seconds.

Note
Thruster - Ben 80kgs, Toby 72.5kg, Paul 70kg, Emily 25kg, Andspleen 60kg, Chris O 40kg, Chris 60kg, Daniel 40kg, Sam 40kg, Sarah 25kg.
Row, Lunge & Burpee - Ben 8+4 rows, Toby 5+3 burpees, Emily 4+8 lunges, Andspleen 6, Paul 5, Chris O 6+5 rows, Chris 4, Daniel 4+8 lunges, Sam 4+8 lunges.

Google for Self Defence

2009-06-13T10:04:00.005+10:00

Alternatives to the martial arts for self defence; a google survey.
Search “X for self defence”

Dog 5
Cat 3
Bird 1
Banana 1
Music 4
Fashion 2
Dancing 235
Drinking 1
Sex 1
Google 1
Blog 1
Suicide 1

Suffer on Saturday June 9 2009

2009-06-12T18:38:00.004+10:00

Warm Up

MMA Circuit

Workout

Hang Snatch + Snatch - 7 sets of 1 + 1

DB Hang Snatch + OHS + Snatch - 4 sets of 1 + 1 + 1 each side.

then

5 rounds for time of

3 shoulder Presses

4 Push Presses

20 squats

Cool Down

Accumulate 3 mins in either a freestanding or wall supported handstand.

Notes

Press, press & squat - Ben 4.25mins @40kg, Toby 4.39mins @35kg, Justin 5.26mins @35kg, Jane 5.48mins @15kg, Andrew 8.38mins @ 35kg, Emily 6.32mins @15kg

Legs really burnt after this one.

Statistical Analysis

2009-06-07T22:01:00.003+10:00

Review: The Pyjama Game by Mark Law

2009-06-03T17:29:00.006+10:00

The Pyjama Game by Mark Law recounts his own late entry, age 50, into and through the art of Judo as well as the trek of Judo itself through history. The author himself is trained as a journalist and has worked for both The Times and The Daily Telegraph in London and this comes through strongly in his writing; he writes with authority on topics on which he knows little, his editorials exhibit uninformed opinions and his ability to recount facts in an interesting and fresh way is well developed.

While Mark’s story has the potential to draw you in it ends up being intensely boring as the author tries way too hard to show his difficulties in learning and participating in this technical and physically demanding sport. Understatement would have sucked us in faster than a million dollar hooker but his overdone approach leaves us limp and uninspired.

The Pyjama Game has some of the worst opening chapters of any book I have ever read but if you can struggle through this the history itself is well written and covers not only the requisite exploits of Kano, Kimura and Geesink but also covers other Judo luminaries as Yukio Tani, Yamashita, Inoue and Douillet. Mark is very inclusive in his approach and as a result covers lesser known but no less important figures as Tani Tamura, Karen Briggs, Neil Adams and Ronaldo Valdivie. He looks at the rise of the Soviet system, the integration of western coaching and training methods, the impact of the Olympics, television and the changes they wrought on the art.

These portions of the novel are offset by the terrible section on mixed martial arts, the bizarre predilection with writing sound effects and EDIT the rest of the sentence has been edited due to Mark Law's threat of legal action and my apathy to do anything about it. He states that the now removed comments could have damaged his reputation as a factual author. Mark, you imply that a westener can generate more strength in their upper body than they can in their hips, you say that there are only four techniques in boxing, you seem to have selectively forgotten that judo did have a representative in the early UFC and he lost, you describe and suggest the reader try an exercise which would - in my opinion - apply a shearing force to the knee joint and you write sound effects outside of a comic book setting; if you have a reputation, I suspect it's not a good one. EDIT Follow his advice on technique acquisition and physical conditioning if you dare and are terminally stupid. A few reviewers have praised Mark for actually citing sources – an uncommon occurrence in martial arts history books – but any points he earns for this are immediately taken away for citing web pages. If High Schoolers know it’s foolish then a supposedly well educated journalist should know it’s foolish.

This book had the potential to be truly fantastic but has had to settle for being merely mediocre. A strong editor – or possibly some kind of dog trainer – would have served Mark well. A few smacks with a rolled up newspaper to the nose would have quickly trained Mark out of leaving his little messes throughout the text and could possibly have resulted in something that you don't lock in the spare room when guests come round. Perhaps I am being overly harsh as, despite every criticism I have made, ultimately I enjoyed this book enough to read it more than just the once. I guess what I’m trying to strain out like an uncomfortable kidney stone is a recommendation: read it and you may be pleasantly surprised to find yourself liking it but don’t blame me if it just ends up being very expensive kindling.

Suffer on Saturday May 16 2009

2009-05-30T09:50:00.004+10:00

Warm up
Obstacle Course
1 x bearwalk
1 x duckwalk
1 x weighted bearwalk
1 x weighted duckwalk
then
10 x shoulder dislocates

Workout
Overhead Squat - 3 sets of 3 and then 3 sets of 2.

then

For time
50 Turkish Get ups with snatch to change hands

Turkish Get ups under way.

Cool Down
Straight leg Deadlifts - 4 sets of 5.

Notes
OHS - Sarah 10kg, Ben 70kg, Jane 10kg, Toby 60kg, Justin 40kg
TGU - Cut off due to time Sarah 20@5kg 12.18mins, Ben 50@20kg 15.30mins, Jane 24@5kg 15.30mins, Toby 25@12.5kg 18.30mins, Justin 32@15kg 15.30mins.

Secret Techniques and Darwin

2009-05-29T10:46:00.006+10:00

Over the years I’ve been exposed to a fair number of martial arts and a number of them have taught me at least some of their ‘secret’ techniques. On each of these occassions I was sworn to secrecy and, while no blood oaths were involved, the instructors really meant that I should tell no one outside the club – and on one occassion, no one outside the class – about these techniques and tactics. Each of these people believed that the worth of these techniques was so great that they could only be taught to people who had proved their worth by regularly paying their monthly training fees on time. So what makes these secret techniques so valuable? The reasons were long and numerous but to make things easy I’ve provided a short summary below:

1. Your opponent is less likely to recognise the technique you are using and thus will be less likely to be able to counter it.
2. Errr... See point one.

Secret techniques don't always work this well.

But here’s the kicker: secrets techniques aren’t a good thing. Even if they work, secret techniques only win you your next fight.

“Great,” you might say, “That’s a win right? My secrets (now revealed) let me beat my opponent and save myself. That has to be a good thing.”

It is.

Kind of.

It’s a win for you but a loss for your art.

If a technique is kept secret it has limited uses and applications – a secret technique is only a secret as long as nobody uses it. More importantly, when a technique is kept hidden it never gets the chance to evolve. People never get to work out counters and no one will ever be able to provide intelligent opposition. Why is this important?

It makes the technique better.

Think of the triangle choke. Originally the choke was performed with our body in line with our opponent’s, we grabbed the foot of the leg that we had chopped down on their neck and pulled on it to tighten the choke before yanking down on their head to secure the finish.

Now we finish with our body almost at a right angle to our opponent, we grab our shin instead of our foot and gable grip behind our own knee to finish.

The basic principles of the choke have remained the same but how those principles are executed has changed. How did these changes come about? Through Exposure and Adaptation. We began finishing our choke at an angle when people started backing out and/or forcing their second hand back in between our legs; we started grabbing our shin instead of our foot when people started posturing out of triangle attacks and gable gripping behind our knee came in response to stacking and spinning escape attempts. This evolutionary process has resulted in a more efficient triangle: it’s tighter, faster to finish and harder to counter. In fact it is generally more effective against those people who know all of the counters listed above and against those people who know none of them but are still trying to put a fist through your head. But this triangle choke only came about due to having to find ways to cope with the various counters that were developed to fight that original triangle choke technique. This triangle is better than the original triangle and the art of Jiu Jitsu is better for it.

It doesn’t matter how superior your art is, if it stops evolving then other fighting arts that have continued to adapt will quickly catch up and surpass yours. The technique that allowed someone to succesfully defend themself against an unarmed peasant yesterday may not work so well against the juiced up footballer tomorrow.

Suffer on Saturday May 9 2009

2009-05-11T12:23:00.005+10:00

Bear Crawls are great for developing hip, shoulder and mid line stability; increase joint strength in the wrists, elbows and knees; are an elementary building block of the handstand and plache and deliver a solid conditioning bang into the bargain.

Warm Up
Bear Crawl Soccer

Workout

Front Squat – Heavy single in 5 reps.
90% X 2 X 1
80% X 3 X 1

Then

For Reps
45 seconds work, 30 seconds rest of
15m Shuttle Run
Sit ups

Perform 16 alternating rounds (20 mins)

Cool Down
Weighted Back Extension – 4 sets of 8.

Notes
Front squat – Ben 95kg, Toby 95kg, Paul 80kg, Justin 85kg, Andspleen 60kg, Andrew 60kg, Jane 32.5kg, Emily 15kg.

Suffer on Saturday May 2 2009

2009-05-06T16:13:00.002+10:00

Dan John doing what he does.

The Big 55 is a workout that was created by Dan John for building up the general attributes of large groups of athletes. The original workout was comprised of the Front Squat, Bench Press, Pullups, Box Jumps and Deadlifts but has been successfully employed us in a number of different variations to meet our changing goals and needs.

Warm Up
Dodge Ball

Workout
Bridging Bench Press - 5 sets of 3.

then

"The Big 55" (variation)

For time do
10-9-8-7-6-5-4-3-2-1 of
Goblet Squats
Wrestler's Rows
Straight Leg Deadlifts
Mountain Climbers (do reps on both legs)
Leg Raises

Cool Down
Back Extensions x 25

Notes
Bench - Ben 87.5kg, Andrew 85kg, Justin 65kg, Paul 75kg, Jane 20kg
Big 55 - Ben 12.52mins, Andrew 13.45mins, Justin 14.30mins, Paul 15.45mins, Jane 16.50mins

News: Monday Lunch BJJ Class

2009-04-29T12:22:00.003+10:00

Just a quick note to let everyone know that as of the 4th of May lunchtime BJJ classes are starting on Mondays. Like the other lunchtime sessions they run from 12.30 to 1.30 and are either gi or no gi depending on your preference. Lunchtime classes cost either $10 on a casual basis or $80 a month.

We're also considering starting a competition team training session. If you're interested let me know.

Hope to see you all there.

Suffer on Saturday April 25 2009

2009-04-26T09:46:00.001+10:00

The amount of stress the human body can handle is simply staggering. Training, almost regardless of intensity and volume, rarely even comes close to overwhelming what our bodies are capable of. The next time you want to quit in a workout it is important to realise that it's not that you have to stop it's that you want to stop. Only a very small percentage of the population ever come close to pushing the true limits of their physical capabilities.

Not as tough as you and me.

Warm up

Twice through obstacle course bear crawling, duck walking and wheelbarrow walking.

Workout

Overhead walking lunge - 4 sets of 8.

Straight leg deadlifts - 3 sets of 12.

One minute rest between sets.

then

AMRAP in 15 minutes of

5 frog jumps

10 push ups

15 tuck ups

Cool Down

30 Russian twists with med ball

Notes

OH Lunge & SLDL - Ben 20kg & 40kg, Adam 12.5kg & 25kg, Toby 15kg & 30kg, Andspleen 15kg & 40kg, Justin 15kg & 35kg, Jane 7.5kg and 15kg, Drew 10kg & 25kg.

Jump, Push & Tuck - Ben 21, Adam 18, Toby 11, Andspleen 14, Justin 12, Jane 10, Drew 6.

Capoeira Knockouts

2009-04-15T09:21:00.004+10:00

I have to admit that, despite its martial roots, I rarely think of Capoeira in terms of being a functional fighting art; usually when I think of Capoeira I think of awesome tricks, Brazilian music and bright white pants. In fact, even though I'm pretty sure this scene is from a movie, whenever I think of Capoeira being used in a self defence or MMA situation I envision it going down something like this:

However, that just proves how wrong I can be. Primarily it is the training method and not the art itself that dictates effectiveness; train for functionality using appropriate methods and you'll be effective; train for show and that's what you'll be able to do - put on a show. Below is someone who has trained Capoeira as a fighting art rather than as a dance art. Sure, it's a bit flashy but it clearly works. Just ask the other guy.

Suffer on Saturday April 11 2009

2009-04-14T15:51:00.004+10:00

The Birthday Boy enjoying his workout.

Warm up

10 squats

10 sit ups

10 push ups

Bag carry around gym

Bag drag around gym

OH sloshpipe carry around gym

Workout

Backsquat - 3 sets of 8 supersetted with

Dips - 3 sets of 8.

then

"Justin"

4 rounds for time of

25 kneeling jumps

25 clapping push ups

25 tuck ups

25 rock n' rolls

Notes

"Justin" - Ben 26.57mins, Paul 29.48mins (subbed frog jumps), Toby 31.05mins, Jane 32.40mins (subbed 15 reps and frog jumps), Justin 34.44mins.

Getting Fit for BJJ

2009-04-08T18:31:00.003+10:00

If you’ve hung around internet grappling forums for any length of time you have, without a doubt, encountered a post entitled something like ‘getting fit for BJJ’. It’s a common question, the demands of fighting are intense and frequently unlike anything else the athlete has previously experienced, and it certainly deserves a better answer than the customary “just roll dude”. So here are 5 quick tips on getting fit for BJJ.

1. Do Complexes
Complexes are made up of a series of exercises performed with a barbell, dumbells or kettlebells executed without setting the weight down and with no rest between them. They’re a fantastic tool which with just a little variation can be used to achieve a variety of goals. At lighter weights and higher reps they’re fantastic for conditioning and fat loss and at heavier weights and lower reps they can be used effectively for practical strength and mass gains. My preferred set up is 5 rounds for time but using 8 reps per exercise and allowing one minutes rest between rounds for conditioning purposes and using 3 reps per exercise and allowing 3 minutes rest between rounds for strength and mass gains. Scale back your ego when first getting into complexes as they’re always harder than they seem; Randy Couture with a lean muscular bodyweight of 100kg uses just 40kg and odds are you’re not nearly as strong or as fit as he is. Here are a couple of my favorite sequences:

A.
Team Quest Barbell Circuit
Bent over row
Upright row
Shoulder press
Bent knee good morning
Standing lunge left side
Standing lunge right side
Back Squat
Thruster
Straight leg deadlift

B.
Hang Snatch
Overhead Squat
Back Squat
Behind the neck Push Jerk
Snatch

2. Interval Training
Interval Training consists of multiple all out efforts at an exercise for a set time seperated by short rests. An example of this would be sprinting for 30 seconds, resting for 30 seconds and repeating this 6 six times in total. This kind of training more accurately reflects the conditioning demands of a grappling match than traditional cardio training, works the anaerobic and aerobic energy systems and improves your ability to recover. Don’t limit your exercise selection when designing your interval workouts as practically any compound movement will do. Try some of these out:

A.
10 rounds of 45 seconds work; 30 seconds rest of Kettlebell Swings

B.
Tabata Squats
6 to 8 rounds of 20 seconds work; 10 seconds rest of unweighted squats

C.
5 rounds of 30 seconds work: 1 minute rest of sprints on the track or rower.

3. Workouts done “for time”.
This style of workout prepares you for continous high intensity work which can allow you to quickly overwhelm your opponent or survive someone trying to quickly overwhelm you. Ideally these workouts should be short duration, full body and mixed modality – that is involve weight lifting, body weight and ‘cardio’ exercises – in order to get the biggest conditioning bang. The purpose is to get through the work as quickly as possible without sacrificing form. Ideally these should take more than 5 minutes and less than 10.

A.
3 rounds for time of
20 Push Presses
15 Burpees
10 Pull ups

B.
For time
25 Thrusters
25 Pull ups
25 Power Cleans
25 Dips

4. Use the Gymnastic Rings
Even the simplist routines performed on gymnastic rings help develop tremendous upper body strength and a vice like grip. Work through a variety of pulls, pushes, holds and rolls and you’ll work your back, arms, chest, abs and lats. Ring work also teaches you how to apply force through entire ranges of motion and at a variety of angles which is of huge importance to a grappler. Try these out:

A.
Pull up
Skin the Cat/Back Lever
Pull through to Candle
Tuck Hold/Front Lever
Drop to pull up

B.
Muscle Up
L-hold
Drop to Candle
Drop to Pull up
Swing to Candle
Skin the Cat

5. Yoga/Ginastica Natural
This last one is aimed more at aiding your recovery from an intense Jiu Jitsu class than improving your physical attributes. A series of stretches and static holds can dramatically increase your abilty to bounce back after a hard session and get you training again sooner. While Yoga and Ginastica are usually perscribed for developing flexibility, high degrees of flexibilty are not neccessary and hyperflexicity just makes you prone to injury. Provided you are reasonably mobile and don’t suffer from super tight hips and shoulders specifically improving flexibilty is not a neccessary task for BJJ.

There you go; five quick tips designed to improve your fitness on and off the mat. I hope you notice that i haven’t recomended specific exercises so much as different methods of exercising. Yes, the exercises you choose to do are important but so is the way you choose to perform them. Of course, the best way to exercise is to stop posting questions on internet forums and get out there and train.

Judo Comp Video

2009-04-08T11:29:00.004+10:00

Due to incessant nagging here is the video of my third match at the Judo tournament last week.

News: Judo Comp Results

2009-04-03T10:49:00.003+11:00

For those of you who are interested here's a photo of me recieving the plaque for second place in under 71kg division at the Marist Judo Comp - I'm the guy in blue with the whitebelt on; for the record, I wasn't trying to trick anyone I've just never graded in Judo. It was a well run event as always with lots of nice people and some fantastic Judo on display.

I would personally like to congratulate the winner of the under 88kg division who, although quite new to competition, took out all of his matches through sheer determination and spirit. Well done.

Will post video footage of my fights on Youtube over the weekend.

Suffer on Saturday March 28 2009

2009-03-30T16:20:00.003+11:00

Shoulder stability and core strength are frequently two of the most lacking areas in an athlete's development. Shoulder problems are becoming more and more common in many sports - even those that don't feature repetitive throwing motions - and core strength had come to mean either crunches or mucking about on swiss balls. Putting weight overhead can go a long way to fixing both these issues; when supporting weight overhead the shoulder is forced to work in a variety of planes and the core must remain engaged or the athlete will be crushed.

Warm up
Gym Ball

Workout
Dual DB Hang Snatch + Snatch - 7 sets of 2+1 reps.

then

4 rounds for time

21 squats
15 push ups
9 pull ups

Cool Down
Russian Twist X 20.

Notes
Snatch complex totals - Ben 40kg, Paul 35kg, Justin 35kg, AndSpleen 35kg, Jane 15kg
Squat, push & pull - Ben 5.20mins, Paul 6.12mins, Just 6.40mins, AndSpleen 4.54mins (maybe - both he and the judge thought he missed something but didn't know what), Jane 7.08mins.

Grading

2009-03-28T10:36:00.003+11:00

Congratulations to Rowan Parr, Grant Piper, Drew Mewburn and Darren and Damo Letcher who all recieved their first stripe on Thursday. Everyone put in a strong performance in what was an intense and technically demanding training session starting with some standing locks from the purple belt syllabus (just to be difficult) and ending with some tournament style sparring with the rest of the class looking on.

The first stripe is perhaps the most important grade in Jiu Jitsu before black belt; first stripe marks the point where an athlete realises that it’s not the person with the best tricks, coolest moves or strongest magic that wins but that whoever has the best balance, leverage and positioning will prevail. All other grades between here and black belt just signify a deepening understanding of these principles.

News: Upcoming Comp

2009-03-24T18:11:00.003+11:00

On March 29 Marist Judo Club is holding one of their regular 'mini' comps. These competitions are friendly, local affairs and a good way to get some competition experience without having to travel far or put much on the line. They're usually in a round robin format giving you more than one fight and only cost about $10 (I think, bring a little more in case I'm wrong). It's lots of fun, you don't even have to be a part of the Judo Federation to take part, so I encourage everyone to come and watch or, better yet, take part this Sunday.

Where: Marist College, Marr St Pearce.

When: 10am.

How much: Last time it was $10. It may have gone up slightly. Spectators were free.

If you want to enter feel free to speak to me or email me before hand for any other information you want.

See you guys there.

Suffer on Saturday March 21 2009

2009-03-21T15:54:00.004+11:00

The Tabata protocol is classically 6 to 8 rounds of pain; 6 to 8 rounds all out effort of 20 seconds work followed by 10 seconds rest resulting in fat loss, better recovery, excellent conditioning and a lingering urge to be sick. It sucks but the alternative always seems to be worse.

Warm up
10 squats
10 push ups
10 lunges
10 pull ups

Workout
Jerk - 5 sets of 2
Plate Clean - 3 sets of 3

then

12 rounds Tabata interval alternating between

Burpees
DB Swings

Cool Down
Back 2 Back Med Ball Twist Pass 10 each direction.

Notes
Jerk - Paul 40kg, Jane 20kg, Justin 62.5kg, Ben 80kg.

10 Tips for Continuous Improvement in BJJ

2009-03-19T11:52:00.003+11:00

Getting better at Brazilian Jiu Jitsu all the time can be a hard ask for some people. Most practictioners typically feel like their skills are skyrocketing or they feel like they’ll never improve again. So here are 10 easy tips to help you through the hard times and ensure your game continually improves:

1. Come to Training
It is extremely difficult to improve at Jiu Jitsu without regular attendance at training. There is simply so much to learn that your rate of progress, especially in the early days, is almost solely dictated by how often you come to training. Even later on, when you have learnt the majority of movements and techniques, the refinement process requires a multitude of different drilling partners and the guidance of a skilled instructor; both of whom are most easily found at training.

2. Train Gi and No Gi
Despite what Rorian Gracie and Eddie Bravo have told you one training garment is not inherently better than the other – they are simply different and help develop a different set of skills. If you only train in the gi training without the gi will cause your attacking skills to improve, introduce you to a new set of grips, controls and set ups and allow you to practice new techniques in what is generally a more forgiving environment. If you are solely a no gi player putting on the gi will force your defensive and escaping skills to another level, improve your base and balance and increase your knowledge of leverage.

3. Write things down
I found this one especially useful whenever I felt I was plateauing. Writing down what you learnt at training, what worked for you and what you got caught in whilst rolling causes you to mentally rehearse and analyse what you did. In effect, it causes you to practice everything you did at training again and look at things from new and original angles. The best time to write things down is the day after training; if you were to make your records on the same day as training you lose some of the training effect as what was covered is still fresh in your memory and you won’t have to think as hard about what you did. It doesn’t matter if you never look at what you’ve written ever again – it’s the act of writing the records that is helpful not the records themselves.

4. Challenge yourself
In order to improve, you have to make a deliberate decision to better your game. When you first begin BJJ you are always ‘working on something’ as they are still developing the skills to be able to survive a class and roll against their team mates. Once a certain level of fundamental skill has been reached it is possible to hold your own against a range of people without improving your skills; you essentially start camping out at your current level, ignoring your weaknesses and focusing on your strengths. Avoid this mindset at all costs if your desire is to continue your Jiu Jitsu development. The people who get see continuous improvement are the ones who continually work to eliminate their weaknesses and develop new strengths. In short they challenge themselves. This can take a number of forms from trying to pull of particular move whilst sparring, limiting the techniques they’ll employ against particular to starting in their weakest position each roll.

5. Take some privates
A private session or two with your instructor can be a great way to get past a plateau, fix a problem you keep encountering whilst rolling or even just find out what position and techniques would be best for you to work on next. A one on one session allows your instructor to focus exclusively on what you need and want without the distraction of a class. Privates can lead to some very fast improvements in your game – and in some cases an entirely new game – and are frequently an underused tool in a grappler’s development.

6. Work the fundamentals
I recently wrote an article on why the fundamentals are important in any athletic endeavour but I will quickly go over the most salient point—from an athlete’s point of view—again here. Your knowledge of and ability to execute the fundamentals, more than any other factor, predicts the likelihood of your success or failure in any given match. Fundamental techniques help you in more situations than non fundamental techniques. So, if you are looking for continuous general improvement a better guard pass will help you out more often than a Neto roll to back control from on top of half guard.

7. Compete
Ronaldo De Souza (AKA “Jacare”) famously said that one competition is worth three months of training and I completely agree with him. Not only does preparing for a competition sharpen your existing techniques, develop you escape routes and help give you a grappling game plan the competition itself exposes you to different people and styles of Jiu Jitsu. You’ll be able to test yourself against people who don’t know your favourite techniques but you’ll know nothing about them either. Competing exposes weaknesses and causes you to reflect on and assess your game in a way that rolling with your team mates cannot.

8. Have fun
Playing is the most natural and effective way of learning. On nature documentaries you don’t see tiger cubs lining up practicing paw strikes, you see them playing in ways that closely mimic their real hunting and fighting. Having fun and playing are two necessary ingredients to continued technical development. When we play we are more willing to explore new scenarios and try new techniques; when we are having fun we are more likely to remember and be able to reproduce what we are doing. Play is the creative medium and this is forgotten all too often in our training.

9. Work hard
This might seem to directly contradict what I just wrote above but work is just as necessary as play when it comes to our improvement. Work helps our play remain productive and practical. Working helps us play at a higher level and the better we play the better we learn. Work and play must be balanced to produce the best results – too much work and our creativity dries up, our ability to learn drops and our development staggers to a halt. Too much play and our productivity disappear, our creativity stagnates and development once again falls away.

10. Come to training
I’ve put this on here twice deliberately and not just because I couldn’t think of anything else to write. Consistently coming to training makes a huge difference to your development. Apart from the fact the majority of the above tips aren’t actually possible unless you’ve been attending class, weak, sporadic attendance leads to weak, sporadic development. Marcelo Garcia, Saulo Riberio, Dustin Hazelett and Dave Meyer all got their black belt in less than 5 years and the thing they all have in common is the commitment to training.

Suffer on Saturday March 14 2009

2009-03-16T13:48:00.004+11:00

Kneeling Jumps, though slightly unusual, are a fantastic and under utilised exercise. In addition to being a great preparatory movement for more complex power movements such as the Snatch and the Clean there is, I believe, no other exercise that as effectively develops hip drive as the Kneeling Jump.

Warm up
Gymnastics

Workout
Kneeling Jump - 7 sets of 1. Add weight each round.
Clashing pushup - 5 sets of 3.

then

AMRAP in 6 mins of
12 squats
9 pull ups
6 sit ups

Cool Down
Romanian Deadlift - 3 sets of 5.

Notes
Kneeling Jumps - Ben 42.5kg, Paul 10kg, Andrew 20kg, Justin 22.5kg, Toby ?, Jane (Frog jump) 15kg.
Squat, Pull & Sit up - Ben 6 rounds + 12 squats, Toby 3 rounds, Justin 5 rounds, Andrew 6 rounds, Paul 4 rounds, Jane 4 rounds.

Coaches Corner: Fun-Duh-Mentals

2009-03-10T13:29:00.004+11:00

I’ve never met a coach, in any sport, that has not talked about the importance of good fundamentals. I’ve also never met a coach who says that it’s the amount of flashy, complicated techniques and moves that a player knows that determines how good they’ll be at their chosen sport. But when I look around I see the majority of martial arts instructors talking about fundamentals and teaching nothing but complicated flash.

In this article I will, for the most part, be referring to the fundamentals of Brazilian Jiu Jitsu but my major points can be easily transferred to any martial art or sport with just a little bit of translation.

So why are fundamentals important? The simple answer is that, more than anything else, improving your fundamentals improves your ability to fight. Think about it, a better hip escape is useful in any number of situations but a better inverted omaplata is useful in only one. Also, in Jiu Jitsu at least, fundamentals are consistent across all categories; this means that the technique is performed essentially the same regardless of whether you are in a sport BJJ, MMA, self defence or Vale Tudo scenario. In other words, a good coach wants to develop their athletes’ ability to a high level in the most time-efficient manner possible and teaching good fundamentals is the best way of doing that.

Having accepted that fundamentals are important; exactly which techniques and movements are fundamental and which ones aren’t? If you asked 5 different BJJ instructors to write down the fundamentals you would end up with no two lists agreeing; sure there would be some crossover but each list would deviate, most likely substantially, from the others. The main reason for this is that most martial arts instructors are not coaches—yes, there is a difference—and as such teach their game their style rather than the art itself. For example Royce Gracie students, like Royce, typically take a defensive, low risk, opportunistic approach to Jiu Jitsu, whereas Mario Sperry‘s students, like Sperry, take an aggressive, top game oriented approach. Both instructors teach the art of Jiu Jitsu but exhibit radically different styles from one another and have passed these styles onto their students. This is the most common way of teaching in the martial arts industry and it is not particularly good. Your style is suited to your body and personality and you frequently end up teaching a wide spectrum of people who differ from you both physically and mentally.

Fundamentals must transcend style; coaches need to teach the fundamentals of the art and not the fundamentals of their game. Matt Thornton very succinctly – and accurately – defines a technique as being fundamental if it meets two criteria:

1. It is something that every blackbelt has to know.
2. It is something that everyone performs essentially the same way.

For instance, the knee elbow escape from mount is a fundamental – Marcelo Garcia, Frank Mir and Rickson Gracie all know and perform this move the same way despite their radically different physiques and games – but the Electric Chair sweep is not a fundamental as not all black belts know it and those that do execute it differently from one another. This isn’t to say that non fundamental moves are useless, far from it, but that these moves are specific to style and situation and as such won’t be as useful to everyone in the room. For example, in the past two weeks I’ve accidently put three people to sleep and tapped a number of others with the Von Flue choke; this technique has obviously been successful and useful for me but as it arises largely as a result of my game (aggressive, dynamic) and bodytype (shortarse) it is far from being classed as a fundamental.

At our gym we spend 90% of our training time developing our fundamentals and 10% exploring other techniques. As a result our athletes have experienced rapid progress and exhibit a variety of games. This variety of games leads to even more progress as a top fighter who only has to get their game to work against other top fighters is not nearly as dangerous as a top fighter who is successful against guard players, leg lockers, arm hunters, rubber guarders, back control freaks and top fighters.

So, to recap, it is important not just to talk about the fundamentals but also actually teach and train them.

ADCC South Pacific Trials Report

2009-03-09T14:40:00.005+11:00

Sunday March 8 saw the 2009 Abu Dhabi Combat Club Submission grappling south pacific trials take place in Sydney. It was an extremely well run event with none of the displays of bad sportmanship - from atheletes or coaches - which so often blight these tournaments.

A knowledgable crowd watched as the competitors fought to qualify for the most prestigious grappling tournament in the world. Some of the day's highlights include Canberra's very own Denis Roberts taking out the over 99kg division - winning the final with a twister - the under 76kg final between Dave Hart and Rodney Ellis, the semi final which featured a clash between judo and wrestling in the form of Priscus Fogagnolo and Igor Praposchchikov and Ben Powers' victory when his opponent - either through stress or throat pressure - vomited into his own mouth and decided enough was enough.

Congratulations go out to all the competitors and organisers who made this such a great day.

Here are the final results:

Under 65kg – David Marinakis
66-76kg – Rodney Ellis
77-87kg – Igor Praporshchikov
88-98kg – Anthony Perosh
99kg and Over – Denis Roberts

Royce Gracie Seminar

2009-03-01T18:36:00.004+11:00

Canberra recently had the honour of hosting a Jiu Jitsu seminar presented by UFC legend Royce Gracie. Royce was the Gracie family’s pick as representative back when the UFC first sprang into existance in 1993 when there were no weight classes, no rules and no cross training. The early days of the UFC really were about style vs. style with karate-ka, kickboxers, jiu jitsu practictioners, boxers and shoot wrestlers all competing to prove that their way was the best way. Royce Gracie shocked the martial arts world when he—a compartively dimunutive gi-clad Brazilian—demonstrated the efficacy of his family’s Jiu Jitsu by dominating the competition throughout the first five tournaments. On his way to victory he defeated UFC luminaries Ken Shamrock, Keith Hackney, Kimo Leopoldo, Pat Smith and Dan Severn.

Royce’s Canberra seminar focused on a topic not commonly taught at seminars: Jiu Jitsu. Mostly seminars focus on Jiu Jitsu for something – Jiu Jitsu for sport, Jiu Jitsu for MMA or Jiu Jitsu for self defence. Royce simply taught the art of Jiu Jitsu. He covered a variety of techniques, each building on the last, including chokes, locks, strikes and escapes. Those who have been studying BJJ for a while would describe what was being shown as “old school Jiu Jitsu” but it was no less effective for it. On the down side some of the techniques shown, particullarly the escapes, ended in a stall or a stalemate—waiting for your opponent to get bored and give up is not a good self defence or competitive practice—and as a result I felt they were lacking in conclusion. Also, the material covered was quite basic and while this is often a great opportunity for the more experienced students in the room to pick up subtle nuances previously missed, Royce tended not to delve into the minor, and occassionally major, technical aspects of what he was showing. Royce demonstrated effective, fundemental Jiu Jitsu very much in line with his physical and philosophical fighting style.

It was fantastic to have someone the calibre of Royce Gracie visit Canberra and share his knowledge and skills with the wider martial arts community. Canberra is not usually a part of the seminar circuit but hopefully the impressive turnout and Royce’s willingness to teach here will set a precedent for others.

As Royce paved the way for Brazilian Jiu Jitsu in the UFC hopefully he has paved the way for such world class coaches as Jean-Jacques Machado, Luis Gutierrez and Roy Dean to visit Australia and come to Canberra.

Suffer on Saturday Feb 21 2009

2009-02-23T12:21:00.002+11:00

The question "How much do you bench?" bugs the hell out of me and not because, as I can can hear you thinking it, my bench isn't very good. It annoys me because what people really mean when they ask that is "How strong are you?" and the bench press is about as representative of someone's overall strength as the Jerry Springer show is of North American art. A big bench number is occasionally indicactive of a person with superior upper body strength but it more frequently indicates how much time that person has spent lying on their back in a gym wearing a baseball cap and being helped by their 'spotter' to lift a weight that is way too heavy for them whilst being told "It's all you bro." The squat and the deadlift however, properly performed, are great exercises for measuring someone's athletic development in ways that matter; the ability to pick up heavy things and carry them is functional strength expressed. They're full body, hard to cheat exercises and even modest numbers in them mean more than a big bench ever will.

Warm up

All across the mat

Lunges

Bearwalk

Kanga jumps

Cartwheels

Handstand walk

Workout

Squat - 3 sets of 6

Deadlift - 3 sets of 6

Strict one minute rest between sets.

then

"Charlie Foxtrot"

For time

8 sets of one of the following with 10 seconds rest between sets.

Dips x 8

Pull ups x 8

Muscle ups x 3

Handstand push ups x 6

Bridging bench press x 8

Cool Down

Accumulate one minute in a dish hold.

Notes

Charlie Foxtrot: Sarah (dips) 5.15mins, Ben (HSPU) 5.36mins, Paul (Bridging bench) 7.20mins, Jane (dips) 7.42mins, Andrew (dips) 7.46mins, Justin (bridging bench) unable to finsih, Daniel (dips) unable to finish.

General Specific

2009-02-20T15:34:00.004+11:00

A few years ago world famous cyclist Lance Armstrong entered the New York marathon and despite only ever having run 25km in one session previously he completed the 42km marathon in just less than 3 hours, meaning he averaged 4 mins 15secs per kilometre. This is doubly impressive as Armstrong didn’t start with the elite runners but with the hordes of casual participants making it impossible for him to achieve a race pace until the crowd had thinned a few kms into the course.

In case you haven’t heard of him Lance Armstrong is a cancer survivor, cycling world champion, Olympic bronze medallist, seven time Tour de France winner and the reigning champion of the best-ever-cameo-in-a-movie competition. He has one of the highest recorded VO2 max – aerobic capacity – scores and ranks firmly amongst the best endurance athletes ever to grace the earth.

The particularly interesting thing about Armstrong’s entry into the New York marathon – for me at least – was that Runner’s World magazine predicted that given his VO2 max Armstrong would achieve a time of 2 hours and 1 minute. Why was he 59 minutes over the predicted time? Was Lance taking it easy or were the writers at Runner’s World just making stuff up?

Neither. The mistake was to look solely at the VO2 max results and not take into account that Armstrong is used to competing at long distance on a bike and not on his feet. Lance had adapted specifically to the demands of long distance cycling and while this prepared his cardiovascular system for running a marathon his body was unused to the structural stresses of running. To put it another way, they checked out his engine but forgot to look at his chassis. Cardio vascularly Armstrong held up fine and wasn’t even all that out of breath when he finished the race but he was suffering terribly from shin splints, sore hips and many other impact related injuries.

Exercise is specific; your body adapts exactly to the stresses placed upon it. Doing bicep curls will not improve your 400m sprint time or pretty much anything else except your ability to do bicep curls. If you’re having trouble understanding what I’m saying, try thinking of it like this: if you fall and graze your knee your body forms a scab over the graze and not anywhere else. Just as your body adapts specifically to the stress of the cut it will adapt specifically to the stress of exercise. If you want to get better at running you need to run, there is no better training for jumping than jumping and I guarantee that the clean & jerk is best improved by cleaning & jerking.

However, as coach extraordinaire Dan John points out, specificity works but at a price. If all you did was clean & jerk every day you would get very, very good at that lift or you would get crushed. Unless you are incredibly well blessed by genetics you can only handle so much sport specific training without injury or decrease in performance. Swimmers and cyclists are two groups that really need to learn this so if you participate in either of these sports please startle whoever else is around by loudly shouting “More is not the same as better.”

So if exercise is specific, and you can only train specifically for your sport so much of the time, how do you train enough to see improvement? This is where the principle of ‘transfer’ saves the day. Transfer is the effect where improvements in strength/power/endurance in one movement lead to improvements in strength/power/endurance in another similar movement. Specificity still applies however, so the more specific the training movement the more specific the transfer effect will be. For example, a bicep curl might improve your ability to move a can of baked beans from your hip to your shoulder but it won’t make it any easier for you to pull yourself onto a ledge despite the fact both these movements involve the bicep muscles. The exercises that exhibit the most amount of transfer are:

* compound movements (movements which occur around more than one joint).

* movements which require you to support your own bodyweight.

* movements which involve moving your body rather than just an external weight.

Obviously exercises that meet all three criteria have a greater degree of transfer than those exercises that only fit two, one or none of the points. For example a squat fits all three criteria, an upright row two of the criteria (you support your own body weight and it is a compound movement), a bench press one of the criteria (it is a compound movement) and a preacher curl none of the criteria.

So to get the most out of training and to reduce the risk of injury you should make sure you train to improve both your general physical preparedness and your sport specific conditioning. Your general preperation training should be made up mostly of exercises that have a high degree of transfer so that it is more likely to benefit you regardless of your sport and your sport specific training should be as specific as possible to get the best possible results from your workouts when you are out competing.

Suffer on Saturday Feb 14 2009

2009-02-16T12:35:00.007+11:00

Heavy metabolic conditioning sessions - or Short Fast Loud workouts as Sarah insists on calling them - rank amoung the most effective GPP protocols around today. For those of you who don't know heavy metabolic conditioning sessions are short duration - less than 10 minutes - ideally consist of 2 or more compound movements and a 'cardio' movement executed at high intensity with at least one of these movements performed under a heavy load.

This kind of workout results in a hefty neural and hormonal response - good for strength and muscle gains - and delivers a whopping amount of Excess Post exercise Oxygen Consumption (EPOC) which is excellent for fat loss. Thanks to the short duration they can be performed several times a week without too much risk of overtraining and can be varied enough to remain interesting and effective. The only downsides are that they are probably the least pleasant exercise regeime to use and they can be difficult for novice athletes to perform unsupervised.

Warm up

Dodge Ball

Workout

One handed DB swings - 3 sets of 6 each side

One handed DB thrusters - 3 sets of 6 each side

Strict one minute rest between sets.

then

4 rounds for time

12 DB rack squats (go heavy)

6 weighted pull ups

3 burpees

Cool Down

2 rounds of

8 side to side bridges

8 tuck ups.

Notes

Swings & Thrusters: Ben 20kg, Justin 20kg, Andrew 20kg, Paul 17.5kg, Sarah 10kg, Jane 7.5kg

Squats, Pull ups and Burpees: Ben 8.53mins @ 40kg + 20kg, Justin 7.54mins @ 40kg(1) 35kg(1) 30kg (2) + 0, Andrew 10.24mins @ 30kg + 20kg, Paul 6.59mins @ 30kg + 0, Sarah 6.42mins @ 20kg + 0, Jane 6.55mins @ 15kg + 0.

Suffer on Saturday Feb 7 2009

2009-02-09T15:56:00.005+11:00

We all get injured at one time or another; whether we've sprained a wrist, stubbed a toe or broken an arm we've all experienced an injury that has taken us away from our sport. In fact, the better you get at your sport the more likely it is that you will recieve an injury that will take out of the game for a little while. The trick is not to let it get you down. In the majority of cases, even if your injury prevents you from playing your sport, your injury will not prevent you from training for your sport. The key to making this work is that little used ability called common sense. While a sprinter with a broken foot clearly cannot do running drills they are more than able to develop their core and upper body's strength and power. This will help improve their performance so that when they do return to the track they feel they have lost less and may even eclipse their past performances. Find something that will help improve your performance and let you recover; don't do something that will further agravate your injury in the name of continued development as both the injury and your development will worsen as a result.

Warm Up
'Walk of the Animals'
Bear walk
Crab walk
Lizard walk
Inch Worm
Duck Walk
Bunny Hop
Kanga Leap

Workout
Resisted Push Ups - 3 sets of 6.
Bent Over Rows - 3 sets of 6.
Strict 1 minute rest between sets.

then

AMRAP in 8 minutes of

4 Muscle ups/Pull ups
6 Straight Leg Deadlifts
8 Knees to Elbows

Cool Down
Wheel barrow walk across mats.

Notes
Muscle up, Deadlift & K2E: Ben (muscle ups) 3 rounds + 3 M.U @ 40kg SDL, Justin (pull ups + 10kg) 4 rounds + 4 SDL @ 35kg SDL, Paul (pull ups) 4 rounds @ 30kg SDL, Jane (pull ups) 4 rounds + 4 pull ups @ 20kg SDL, Matt (pull ups)4 rounds + 6 SDL @ 30kg SDL, Sarah (pull ups) 3 rounds + 4 K2E @ 20kg SDL, Alex (pull ups) 5 rounds + 6 SDLs @ 15kg SDL.

On Ignorance, Scams and Fat Guys in Pyjamas.

2009-02-04T16:22:00.005+11:00

A little while ago I posted an article on the journey of martial artist and in it I went over my ideas on the different types of martial arts practitioner including the hobbyist, athlete and artist. I recently realised that I had neglected to mention a very common and important category: The martial fraud.

Every industry has people who prefer to fake it rather than make it but the martial arts industry does seem to attract these shyster moths like a very bright, rich and gullible flame. Maybe it’s the quasi religious origins of many of the eastern styles or the fact that even the stuff that isn’t total bullshit can look more than a little like black magic that makes martial arts particully prone to this problem but we really do cop more than our fair share.

What I’m saying is you don’t get this problem in badminton.

I should say that the majority of martial arts fraudsters aren’t knowingly deceiving you or deliberately ripping you off; they have just never seriously tested their skills or questioned what they were taught.This is one of the most prevalent problems in the industry; people teaching techniques for self defence or for competition when they truely have no idea whether or not those techniques are actually effective.

I should also point out that I have no problem with styles which are not combatively effective as long as they are sold as such. If a tai chi instructor tells me that I should come to their class because it’s a great form of meditation or fun or some nice light exercise then that’s fine. Hell, I’d probably even recommend them to other people for precisely those reasons. However, if they tell me that taking their class will improve my ability to defend myself or that tai chi will be usefull in the cage then I’m going to be asking some rather pointed questions.

This brings us to the more sinister – the person looking to deliberately mislead and rip you off. The scams can take all kinds of shapes and forms from merely claiming ranks and honours they don’t have to professing to mystical powers and skills. Being involved in the martial arts can be a cult like experience at the best of times often featuring charismatic or revered teachers, enforced hierarchies and a zealot like faith in their art. And those are the good ones. If you don’t think that the almost all martial arts are cult like let me ask a single question: “Do you think soccer players argue with volleyball players about whose sport is the best?”

Even a mediocre con artist can have a field day in this environment. All it takes is a splash of fear, a pinch of mysticism and light sprinkling of reverence and you have an easy formula for separating people from their money.

I’ve been a part of the martial arts world for a while now and, as a result, have come across my own fair share of con jobs. Here a few of my favourites that either I have personally experienced or have heard from reputable sources:

A blind Hapkido instructor capable of ‘seeing’ auras.

A Dim Mak expert who claimed he could cause another person to lose control of their bowels with a single touch.

Ninjas.

A BJJ instructor who constantly and repeatedly hinted that he was a spy ala James Bond and Jack Bristo.

No touch knock out ki masters.

I’ll let you guess which ones I personally experienced. My favourite example of all is the following video. Note the instructor is personable, tells stories of facing extreme physical danger and has a high rank and title. Not trying to be rude but I should also point out that his students are not what you would describe as either physically able or socially apt making it more likely that they would fall for his mummery, not because this makes them more credulous but because they are more likely to want it to be real.

Bonus points if you can spot the season 1 TUF star.

Suffer on Saturday Jan 31 2009

2009-01-31T12:57:00.005+11:00

Basic gymnastics movements often play a part in our workouts, most frequently as part of the warm up. When I say gymnastics I don't mean anything particularly fancy, just the foundation tumbling skills such as forward and backward rolls, bear walks, cartwheels, handstands and the easier combinations there of. Why do we include gymnastics in our warm ups? Well, in addition to being a great way of raising core body temperature and increasing blood flow, tumbling increases the dynamic flexibility of a multitude of joints, develops agility and coordination and works your body in ways not encountered in more common approaches to physical training.

Warm up
Obstacle Course x 4.

Workout
L - Hold Pull up - 6 sets of 3

then

DB Complex
5 rounds for time of
8 Wrestlers Rows
8 Power Cleans
8 Push Presses
8 Rack Squats
Rest one minute

Cool Down
Straight Leg Deadlifts - 3 sets of 10

Notes
L-Hold Pull Up: Ben 17.5kg, Toby 12.5kg, Justin 5kg, All others unweighted.
Row, Clean, Press & Squat: Ben 12.5kg 10.21mins, Justin 10kg 11.02mins, Sarah 5kg (round 1 @ 7.5kg) 11.17mins, Jane 5kg 13.28mins, Toby 12.5kg 13.45mins, Paul 10kg 13.50mins.

R.I.P Helio Gracie 1913 - 2009.

2009-01-30T09:27:00.003+11:00

Helio Gracie died the morning of 29th of January 2009 at his home in Itaipaiva, a small town in Rio De Janeiro, Brazil.

Helio, along with his brothers, effectively created Brazilian Jiu Jitsu after adapting the teachings of Judo and Jiu Jitsu master Mitsuyo Maeda. He famously fought all comers to test and further refine his style. His last official Vale Tudo match was at 62 years old against the much younger and heavier Waldemar Santana; the match lasted 3 hours and 40 minutes before Helio lost via TKO due to exhaustion and strikes. He continued to train well into his ninties reportedly telling his training partners that if he thought they were going easy on him he would hurt them.

Helio is survived by his second wife, Vera, and his sons, Royce, Royler, Rickson, Rorion, Rolker, Relson, Robin and his daughters Rerika and Ricci.

UFC 77: Unacceptable.

2009-01-28T16:57:00.001+11:00

UFC ANOTHER GREAT FIGHT

Bite Sized Learning: Second Course.

2009-01-27T11:00:00.004+11:00

One of the most important aspects of good nutrition is simply being aware of what you are eating. Knowing what you are putting into your body is important for anyone even vaguely serious about maintaining good health and vital for anyone interested in improving their performance in their sport and training.

This lack of knowledge comes in two main flavours:

1. Unconscious snacking.
2. Not knowing what is actually going into your mouth.

Pay attention to what you eat.

Knowing what you are eating these days can be difficult. People are consuming more and more pre packaged and processed foods many of which have longer ingredients lists and more misleading labels than ever before. That’s the advantage of eating real foods; only one thing goes into an apple and I hope you all know what it is. Real foods will always be superior to packaged and processed meals but I know that enough people like the convenience and taste of some of these processed foods enough to try and integrate them into a healthy diet so I’ll try and offer a few tips about how to go about this. The first and most important tip is to read the nutritional information panel and then not believe a single a word on the packaging about what those numbers mean. In Australia the statistics on the nutrition panel must be accurately portray the average nutritional breakdown of the meal for both a standard serve and per 100g. For instance, on average Homebrand White Bread contains 26.9g of carbohydrate per serve (2 slices) and 44.8g of carbohydrate per 100g. By law this information must be reasonably accurate, however any claims on the packaging about whether or not that amount of carbohydrate is high or low, healthy or unhealthy have very few rules regulating what they can say and most of those rules are unenforceable. While few of these labels dare to outright lie, many deliberately mislead. Here are a few of my favourites:

· “Light” or “Lite” – gives the impression that the fat content has been lightened when it in fact refers to colour and/or texture. Commonly found on oil, butter and margarine products. You know, things made entirely from fat.

· “No Added Sugar” – generally stuck on products which are made almost entirely from sugar in the first place. Commonly found on fruit juices whose primary ingredients are water and a type of naturally occurring sugar called fructose.

· “High Fibre” – technically products need to have at least 3g of fibre per 100g serving to be able to display this but, of course, this is a self regulated rule. Also, 3g of fibre per 100g is bugger all; a medium sized apple has about 5g, 100g of broccoli has 6g and 100g serving or lentils 7.2g.

· “High in Iron/Calcium/Magnesium etc.” – My absolute favourite new marketing ploy is the addition of this label to products which would normally have absolutely none of the proposed vitamin or mineral. And the weird thing is that they’re not lying, they have pumped the product (generally bread) full of whatever they say it’s now high in but they use a cheap and non absorbable form of the vitamin or mineral in question.

The nutrition panel is really the only thing on packaged food that you can trust. My advice is to ignore all the advertising, the labels, the anthropomorphised creatures and just read the panel. If you don’t know what all those numbers mean I will be covering that in a later module but, in the mean time, I guess you have some study to do.

Unconscious snacking is probably the more insidious of the two as it can be hard to address habits which you are, at least partially, unaware. I’m not suggesting that you snack in your sleep or that you exhibit some kind of Memento style memory loss but rather that you simply don’t pay attention to what you are doing. People eat when they’re bored, working, upset or tired and mostly they eat more for something to do then because they are hungry. In these circumstances sustainance and enjoyment are no longer the primary goals of eating which means most people pay little or no attention to what they are shovelling into their pie holes. The way to combat this is to try and be conscious of why you are eating rather than trying to be conscious of what you are eating. Yes, as stated above, knowing what we are eating is important but knowing why you are eating can often take care of both problems at once.

It is impossible – unless you are really, really lucky – to follow any kind of eating plan if you don’t know what your diet consists of. People frequently speak of the need to make changes to their diet but mostly the first thing that needs to change is their awareness. If you don’t know what you’ve been eating how do you know if you’re getting enough protein? Or if you are consuming too much sugar? So work out why you are eating and put some effort into finding out what you are eating and effecting possitive changes to your diet will so much easier.

Suffer on Saturday Jan 17 2009

2009-01-19T09:14:00.009+11:00

The Overhead Squat is a fantastic exercise for increasing athleticism. In addition to being one of the fundemental building blocks of the Snatch, the Overhead Squat develops flexibilitly, core and shoulder stability, leg and lower back strength and full body tension. This results in increased power and strength performances in the field/track/cage as well as in a reduction of injury.

Warm Up

Dodge Ball

Workout

Overhead Squat - 6 sets of 3.

then

For time do

20 squats

50 Leg Raises

20 Squats

50 Wrestlers Rows

20 Squats

50 Sit Ups

20 Squats

50 Piston Presses

20 Squats

Cool Down

Straight Leg Deadlift - 4 sets of 8.

Notes

OHS: Ben 62.5kg (aimed to get heavy but stay fast), Toby 57.5kg, Justin 40kg, Jane 10kg DB, Paul 10kg DB, Sarah 10kg DB, Gillian 7.5kg DB.

Squat, raise, row, sit up & press: Ben 12:01mins, Justin 15:16mins, Toby 15:23mins, Jane 15:29mins, Gillian untimed, Paul 20.25mins.

Invisible Jiu Jitsu

2009-01-17T19:58:00.002+11:00

In a recent interview Rickson Gracie let it be known that he has returned to Brazil to live and has begun conducting a series of seminars which focus on what he calls “Invisible Jiu Jitsu.” This is, as far as I can tell, the first extended interview Rickson has given in over 3 years and while many topics were covered, the concept Invisible Jiu Jitsu is what truly captured my attention.

For those of you who have been living under a rock for the past ten years, Rickson is the son of Helio Gracie, he holds a 7th degree black belt in BJJ and has a rumoured 400 + combined wins in Jiu Jitsu, Wrestling, Sambo and Vale Tudo matches. He held the middle weight and open weight World Jiu Jitsu titles for two decades and also has a professional Mixed Martial Arts record of 11-0. He is regarded as a legend in Brazilian Jiu Jitsu circles and is often held up to be the epitome of technical skill and fighting spirit.

Invisible Jiu Jitsu was only lightly touched upon during the interview but, as far as I understand it, I took Rickson to mean that the most important parts of Jiu Jitsu are the bits you can’t see. There are, I think, three main categories that Invisible Jiu Jitsu covers:

1. Things about you that you can’t see.
2. Things about your opponent that you can’t see.
3. Things about your technique that you can’t see.

Things About You That You Can’t See
Balance and leverage are things that cannot be seen but play a vital role in the successful execution of any technique. Being balanced is a fundamental part of grappling – or fighting in general for that matter – and being the slightest bit unbalanced dramatically increases the amount of effort required to perform any technique and leaves you disproportionally vulnerable to your opponent’s attacks. Leverage is what makes Jiu Jitsu work; the greater your leverage the more effective your Jiu Jitsu. Your use of leverage determines how well you can control and attack your opponents limbs, the amount of strength needed to execute a technique and whether or not you will able to defeat a larger, stronger opponent.

Things About Your Opponent You Can’t See
‘Feeling’ is an important aspect of BJJ in a number of ways. The most straight forward application of ‘feeling’ is that you are frequently unable to see what your opponent is doing – Are they blocking my hip? Are their legs flat? Is their chin tucked? – and must work out what’s going on purely by feel. An application of ‘feeling’ that is considered less often, but is no less important, is determining the state of your opponent. Working out whether they are tense or relaxed, balanced or unstable, even where they are strong and weak can only be done by ‘feeling’ your opponent (not like that you gutter snipe).

Things About Your Technique You Can’t See
The single biggest factor that holds back your technique development is the mistake that you don’t know you are making. This problem – termed ‘unconscious ignorance’ in skill acquisition terms – is best remedied by listening to what your coach says you are doing wrong then – and this is where most people fail – actually doing what they say. If you are convinced that despite what your coach says you are in fact doing the right thing tell them your reasons and if your coach knows their stuff they should be able to explain why you should do it their way. If they can’t, don’t just assume that you’re right, do some research and bloody well find out for certain.

There you go; a brief explanation of my understanding of the main concepts of Invisible Jiu Jitsu. I hope you understand that this article is made up of my thoughts and my words, not Rickson Gracie’s. Rickson, through both an unwillingness to discuss the finer points of his ideas in such a public forum and due to language difficulties, is a little unclear on what exactly Invisible Jiu Jitsu is. That being the case I think it is best to leave you with something that is not an interpretation or an extrapolation but with something that is all Rickson.

"It is only with a lot of training and dedication that we can achieve something. A brave man, a real fighter is not measured by how many times he fall, but how many times he stand up. Always be ready to fight, to win and to forgive when necessary. Good luck and train hard!"
- Rickson Gracie.

If you wish to hear the interview with Rickson you can find it here.