Got to LEMMA around 5:00 pm ishy… tonnes of homies waiting outside…
Warmed up with Jared. Kid is a beast… I’m just waiting till he turns 19, 200 lbs, killer lol. Rolled with him for a few rounds.
Continued the warmup with one of Katrina’s little kids, a natural. Hope she sticks with it. Next I rolled with little Aiden who is big Steve’s son. If he sticks with it, seriously lol another future killer at our gym.
Rolled with Thor for a round fun fun…
Then a session with big Steve. Finished with what seemed like an eternity or 4 to 5 rounds with newer guy Kyle, who has a stripe from a club in Burlington Ontario… great stuff!!
Awesome stuff fun rounds with a lot of movement!!
A few of us then hit up some sushi… yep Sushi Station…
You bet managed to get in some rowing… did a 5 min warm up, then 5 sets of the 200 m… damn. Almost puked. Results below.
Got a really long warm-up round of rolling with one of the newer guys…
He had a new shiny new Fugi GI on… awesome… Chris? Tom? John? not even sure… so many new faces and white belts lately. Hope they stay.
Great movements by this kid, smaller so a lot more technique then you would normally expect in lieu of a bigger newer white belt.
Great long session, fantastic rolling and a great vibe!
He was completely the opposite of the meme below lol…
Great class… nice review of self-defense from our head Coach… I partnered with Trina.
Crazy though how when she asked me to partner with her, immediately after she stated, ” you don’t have to, if you don’t want yo, and that I understand…,” I immediately replied, “that its all good, white belts are human too,” then giggled.
Training with newbs help your game. Period…
Dumbing things down, making you have to articulate movements you never would have normally to someone that gets the technique, learning how to coach, so to speak…
All good homie! We learn and grow together.
There is a place for everyone OTM!
Got a chance to get some rowing in this morning… yep.
Still got it.
Been so busy lately… seriously, when I say busy… I’m busy.
But I still need to keep up with my rowing. Results below…
Thor ran the warm-up and also had us review the single legged x-sweep from a shin guard entry.
I’m still trying to get caught up on my gibberish…
All I have to say was wow… was I ever a headless chicken.
We hosted a Open/In house GI, Submission Only BJJ Tournament with IBJJF rules for uniform with illegal submission techniques that included slams, fish-hooks, eye-gauging, biting, any-slicers, heel-hooks, toe-holds, knee-bars, knee-reaping, neck-cranks, & small joint manipulation (finger locks). Having such a smaller pool of guys that train BJJ up here makes it harder to set up a bigger tournament. Let alone travelling to compete… 8 hour drive to Minneapolis, fight to Chicago, 18 hour drive to Toronto… in some cases $2000 to go win or lose, just for a shiny medal lol… so having a miniature in-house tournament makes sense, especially so some of the guys can gain some kind of experience if they chose to join the competition circuit. Experience is everything when competing, from the training required to the legalities of your GI, then the competition jitters. What a better way to gain some of that competing safely, cost efficiently inside your own house.
Our format consisted of a 6 min, round robin matches, with at least 4 matches for each competitor. 1st, 2nd, & 3rd place awards and then cash awards for absolute division only… noted that it wasn’t much, but it was something to encourage more guys to compete in the division. A win was worth 10 points, draw 5 points, and a loss 0 points. I included sudden death rounds in the event there was a tie in points for awards, competitors had to fight another fight to decide placement in a 6 min round in which by the way we only had 1. In the event that the fight for placement turned into a draw, there was to be sudden death rounds starting with a full back take, harness and hooks (first submission, or fastest combined of 3 escapes, or fastest of 3 combined submissions)… yes I ripped it off EBI and Submission Challenge. So Sorry…
We had 4 divisions which was tentative and based on the participants with the following:
Below to 155 lbs & All Woman Registered
156 to 175 lbs
176 to 205 lbs
206 lbs to over in Absolute Division Only, (anyone was allowed to register but they had to pay extra… We had 3 other guys enter… next time I hope there is more)
Weigh-ins with a GI from 8:00 am to 9:00 am, review of the rules and illegal techniques review 9:00 am to 10:00 am… everything was pending on the logistics and time. I ran 1 clock with 3 matches on the go. 3 refs including me, Travis with the videos, Jayden on the score keeping and clocks, Scotty a ref and Gary jumped in our listed competitors listed below.
Katrina Jones
Scott Hall
Kole Trenholm
Michael Hinsperger
Nathan Hatton
Damien Valdock
Juneau Barnett
Hilling Ezack
Jared Maki
Alex Wawia
Alex Pecchia
Travis Snell
Philippe Jecker
Colin Gilbert
Morgan Frazer
Justin Sillman
Jesse MacDougal
Winston Loh
Mitch Bulmer
Marc Perrier
Tyson Rybak
Kevin Smith
From getting the guys weighed in, to reffing… thank god for Travis, Scotty, Gary, Jayden, and even Hassan for the help… no way could this ever only take one person.
I’ll be honest I tried to put myself in the matches… with the amount of guys and the way it worked out. It would have made no sense considering the even playing field of guys in the brackets…
22 guys and everyone worked their but off in their matches… great stuff guys.
Next time it will be bigger!!
Competition is always good… helps you grow, its just a format for you to practice, especially in front of your peers.
The matches that were put together below…
Results below!
I’m hoping to put up all the videos of the matches at some point… quite a lot lol… not even sure if that’s feasible. Maybe just a DVD and then get everyone a copy??
Any who… peace out, I still have to catch up on the other days of training!!
BUSY BUSY… trying to keep up with everything… monkey getting sick, wife getting sick…
Got to LEMMA around 5:30 pm on Friday, rolled for an eternity with Big Steve, then with Clint Hollet a visiting black belt from Calgary under Gracie Barra.
Have been a little stressed out on the preparation of the in house tournament, which by the way was opened up to other local gyms… no one wanted in.
Oh well… next time. Bad timing I guess.
Bought some new GI’s… at least to me lol… a SYR Xcomp, purple from my Homie Morgo, then a SYR Absolute which I had delivered to the border. Got Morgo to grab it during his travelling… Went to the gym with no GI, assuming he would drop them off… no dice lol had to borrow Tony’s GI hahahaha.
The roll with big Steve was straight up was like with a typical with a bigger white belt, he worked for a takedown, I got smashed, then I had to work my way out of bad positioning… wished he would have tried to pull guard sometimes.
Working off your back is key, especially when your opponent is bigger then you and you get put on your back…
Fighting tooth and nail for the top position can be an inefficient way to burn up energy, maybe its just when rolling with me… the target lol.
lol…
I guess it could also be the intrigue that sometimes I’m smaller and that the 50 to 75 lbs I sometimes give up to the bigger guys, its more efficient for him to work for the top… not sure… game development, I guess.
Either way, its always a great way for me to warm up by struggling on the bottom with a bigger guy on top and me gasping for air… lol
Big Steve has improved since his first time OTM, a lot of growth, it was a fun roll… he just needs to open up his game and try using different strategies, like pulling guard and setting up attacks from there…
The rolling with the Black Belt from Gracie Barra was awesome.
Dude was in full control, used a guard that I’m definitely not too familiar with.
A full body x guard, which was interesting.
His pressure passing was on point!
Felt the whole time he was trying to set me up for specific things, but changed it up in mid transition which was just lovely… lol
I definitely was just a pawn today while rolling with him lol… He was just toying with me.
Dave ran the class and got us to warm up with duck under’s, single legs, then a double leg. He had us rep it out 10 times each. I first partnered with Josh initially then with Philippe when he came in… he then got us to rep out this takedown sequences for a few rounds for minutes at a time as hard as we could.
My foot was banged up soo, I went as hard as I could lol…
More banged after big boy Philippe stomped on it.
Even taped it up hah!!
Dave then had us work on some side control escapes with the re-under hook, then countering your opponent when he whizzer’s while in the dog fight position, by grabbing his belt and diving in under to grab the leg for a reversal, then if when your opponent post an arm, you work for a quick knee tap sweep, and pass the guard.
Rolling:(3 mins, 1 min breaks)
1. Philippe
2. Big Willy
3. Josh Daluca
4. Random new white belt with brown curly hair, and using the Sambo belt of shame
5. Random new white belt with a very used Karate GI
You don’t know who you are… but you will learn!
Guess all white belts have to go through this.
Yes I went in to row today… results below… G is feeling better. Definitely had to chug some coffee before I went to LEMMA
Not bad for a 37 year old man currently parental leave with his 9 month lol…
After being away for little, with G being sick and the miniature vacation. All that driving… yes 15 hours to Windsor taking the US route, 3 hours to Kitchener, 5 hours to Sudbury, then 10 hours back to Tbay.
All I gotta say is Chicago sucks… Minneapolis, Michigan, and Wisconsin are simple drives.
Oh Detroit also gets a 5 thumbs down…. man. a third of your life sepnt on the highway waiting to drive 5 km…
WTF. Driving in Toronto was like that… what a waste. would rather be training BJJ…. thank god for BJJ, lol…
Thank god! It would help with the traffic congestions… get out and roll!! OSSS
Yep went in to work to do a few things… will be doing that for the a couple days.
Things keep piling up on the desk lol.
Parental leave eh?? Lol
On a better note… Me and the monkey went into open mat for 1 pm!
Cute pic of my homie the Albino Rhino hanging with G star!!
Rolled with Veal, which seemed like an eternity… kinda was lol… great warm up, though. 25 to 30 mins of rolling.
Baby needed some attention… then rolled with the Albino Rhino for another eternity lol.
Baby needed more attention.
Left the gym at roughly 3pm… yep great time! great rolling!
Happy Thanks Giving day Weekend everyone… yes still behind from last Thurs. lol
Good luck to all the IBJJF competitors today in Toronto today… wished I could have timed it better with our time away.
On a better note my little buddies teeth has somewhat finally sprouted lol… yep horrible nights but hey… teeth.
Steak soon for him…
This trip has been good and bad…
Good as in the family and friends we got to see…
Bad as in the ones we missed due to lack of time…
Better when i picked up these bags of coarse dried pepper flakes for traditional Kimchi… oh and Kimchi. BOOOOOOOM Shakalaka
We shall catch you next time… timing.
Always fighting for time.
Wished there was 48 hours in a day. No dice however…
Holy cow last Thursday… patients, its all about patients.
Kids got energy I tell you… Energy.
I don’t envy our head coach…
I’ve had the pleasure quite a few times to fill in and help out but wow…
19 kids that night lol… quick clip below.
Lessons can be learned observing kids move and grapple, very natural. Things we avoid or learn not to do while growing up.
Watched these kids work on back taking… ridiculously flawless in attempts, the fluidity, the flow we all work on immensely to emulate the sensitivity of what a seasoned competition black belt has.
NATURAL GRAPPLERS I tell you…
Any who had these homies warm-up with some standard BJJ movements, some drilling with arm bar and kimura movements, knee flag wrestling, and the take back take back… fun fun. Got help from Scotty to hotty, Katrina, Juneau, and even Erin. All I can say is wow. Without the help how do you keep these homies in check lol… the future of BJJ.
Ossss!
Just sticking with it will make us be…
We are who we are…
Life gets in the way sometimes…
But we have to continually try to train and strive for the best…
The struggle to make ourselves better…
BJJ does this, at least for me, that is…
#thestruggleisreal
#BJJ4LIFE
#BJJfourlifeMORE Time OTM I guess.
Haven’t trained since last Thursday… weird… crazy… the anxiety… the itch. Yes I brought my GI, in the chance that I could sneak out…
Yeah sneak out… haven’t had a real opportunity yet.
However, plenty of time to prepare on our LEMMA In-house BJJ Tournament
BJJFourLife... #BJJ4LIFE 
You must be logged in to post a comment.