Oct 18/15 LEMMA Sub & GI Only In-House Tournament

I’m still trying to get caught up on my gibberish…

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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.
  1. Katrina Jones
  2. Scott Hall
  3. Kole Trenholm
  4. Michael Hinsperger
  5. Nathan Hatton
  6. Damien Valdock
  7. Juneau Barnett
  8. Hilling Ezack
  9. Jared Maki
  10. Alex Wawia
  11. Alex Pecchia
  12. Travis Snell
  13. Philippe Jecker
  14. Colin Gilbert
  15. Morgan Frazer
  16. Justin Sillman
  17. Jesse MacDougal
  18. Winston Loh
  19. Mitch Bulmer
  20. Marc Perrier
  21. Tyson Rybak
  22. 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…

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 Results below!

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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!!

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Fri Oct 16/15 Open Mat

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.

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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.

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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

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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

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I definitely was just a pawn today while rolling with him lol… He was just toying with me.

Caught a quick clip of us rolling below…

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Great night of rolling!!

Osss

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Oct 14/15 5:30 pm BJJ

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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.

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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

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You don’t know who you are… but you will learn!

Guess all white belts have to go through this.

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Yes I went in to row today… results below… G is feeling better. Definitely had to chug some coffee before I went to LEMMA

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Not bad for a 37 year old man currently parental leave with his 9 month lol…

Hahahaha… see yall next time!!

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Mon Oct 12/15, Thanksgiving 1:00 pm Open Mat

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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

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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

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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!!

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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!

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Sun Sept 27/15 11am BJJ

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Got to LEMMA on Sunday around 9:30 am…

Kathy was in to lift…

Me rowed. yep 2, 4 km sessions. Did alright…

Will be adding 200 m sprints, with 1 min rest, tabata sets, and the 30s on 30s off to mix things up…

Results BELOW

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We warmed up with running around, bear crawls, lunges, then a bunch of chaining drills… video clip below.

We then reviewed a few wonderful paper cutter choke variations… fantastic.!!

Then we rolled…

Rolling: (5 min, 30 sec breaks)

  1. Scott Hall
  2. Big Red
  3. Scotty too Hotty
  4. Travis Duncan
  5. Colin the beast

Boy did the guys put the pedal on me lol… rough rough hah!! Unfortunately, I forgot to record all the sets… only got the last one in which was hard as well.

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All you gotta do is show up… someone will push you. You will learn something!!

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Sun Sept 20/15 11 am BJJ

As you can see… I’ve been procrastinating.

Well not really lol… baba has been keeping me busy.

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Got to LEMMA around 9:30 am on Sunday. Yes sir, me rowed…

2 sessions of 4 km… great day and a few calories burned.

Results below…

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Quite a few guys showed up this morning… summer must be ending lol.

Newer white belts Kevin, Cole, Scotty Hall and Travis were in attendance. Hassan, Brittany, Justin St Amand, Scotty too hotty, and Nathan were as well…

Felt kinda bad… called Cole Kyle… ooops

Big up to the new faces for a Sunday showing.

I know its hard to come on an early Sunday to train BJJ.

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Hard work will pay off!!

Quick clip of our warm-up below…

Somebody requested drilling with chained techniques… coaching is cool. Feedback is even cooler when it will improve the quality of the class. This I do love… chaining takedowns, passing the guard to full on submission attack… love.

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So I got the homies to do a bunch… 2 mins for each chain, then alternate. First, was the X-pass, knee on belly, then spinning arm-bar. Second, was the knee slice pass, to kesa gatame, straight arm lock on the near side arm, to a kimura on the far side arm while stepping over to sit on the face, then possibly attacking wrist, or arm-bar if choosing so. Lastly, was a deep hip throw, with a belt or under hook grip to attack the far side arm again.

I threw all that into the warm-up lol.

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Technique… we continued to review the 96 choke, as well as the Brazilian Neck Tie from the 96 choke fun fun…

Quick clip below…

We then rolled. 5 min rounds…

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Rolling:
1. Shat Hatton
2. Scotty too Hotty
3. Hassan
4. White belt Travis
5. Justin St Amand
6. Shat Hatton

Quick clip of us rolling below…

Great rolling…a few faces I haven’t seen all summer…

Don’t blame you, summer is summer…

Always great to take a break!

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Bunch of newer faces too… great to have you.

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Hope to see you back!

OSSU!

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Thurs Sept 17/15 8:30 am BJJ

Yep kiddo puked on his Gi lol…oh well.

Could have been worse.

Got to the gym around 8:30 am…

The fitness guys were in doing their thing.

About 4 or 6 of then doing some kind of tabata variation of exercises.

Thor was in at roughly the same time, discussed the leg locks and flow sequence I wanted to review. Scotty arrived shortly after.

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We drilled a leg lock sequence from a straight ankle lock, to an achilles slicer, a toe hold cork screw, a heel hook, a toe hold, then switched the leg to the reaping side. Applied the same techniques, then switched to the other side again, this time applying the same techniques with one foot spreading your opponents legs and hold it in place so they don’t roll out.

I feel at a loss with leg locks… so many wholes, however yet opportunities.

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Very important to protect your own legs. The leg knot…

A nice reference for positioning the saddle…

A nice reference for heel hooks…

Below is a reference to other leg locks from Jason Scully I eventually want to get a handle on…

We drilled for 5 mins each the sequences then we worked on the Estima lock for about 5 mins each… pretty much a toe hold or straight foot lock depending on where you place the foot.

Great reference below…

After drilling the Estima Lock, we rolled. 3 min rounds. Shark tank style since there was only 3 of us lol.

Rounds: (3 mins, 15 sec Break)

  1. Myself & Thor
  2. Thor & Scotty
  3. Scotty & Me
  4. Myself & Thor
  5. Thor & Scotty
  6. Scotty & Myself
  7. Myself & Thor
  8. Thor & Scotty

Then the baby cried… lol sooo that concluded my short rolling session lol…

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Wed Sept 16/15 5:30 pm BJJ

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Awesomeness some homies OTM ready to scrap…

Wait only Trina and Katrina here…

Mitch came in pretty much when I arrived at 5:30 pm.

Josh and Mike working on clinch and wall cage MMA stuff.

Morgo and Scotty leaving from the early training sessions prior.

I got to roll with my buddy Mitch.

Wow his defence has improved significantly… awesome. Rolled and played around with him till class started. I mainly just focused on countering his passing with sweeps, arm drags and his attacking nature. Kid is fast, resilient, strong, a natural ability to move out of a troubled position, and he can scramble… love it. His fighting tooth and nail out of chokes is typical a white belt spaz kill joy thing, but his temperament is calm and collective even while in a horribly troubled tight position.

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Quite enjoyable to roll with for a white belt… 18? Maybe 20? years of age… not as spazzy as most beginners.

Class started at 6:30 pm head Coach Matt set us up with a decent warm-up. Running around the mat, forward shoulder rolls, backward shoulder rolls, shrimping, butterfly butt scooting with a partner, then following your partner walking backwards with hooks. Great warm-up.

Veal was in for the technique. He got us to review the technique we worked on last week from a flattened out butterfly. A knee tap counter, and then a over hook with a cross lapel grip finish with a knee pressure straight arm lock or an omaplata…

Video below for further reference… entries were obviously different, Veal showed it from butterfly, but the finish is similar… and you can see the omaplata, from the failed arm-bar attempt if you think about it…

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After technique, Veal then got everyone to roll… 4 min rounds, no submissions. Just spit them out and continue. Even take risks, work on things you never would normally do. Be fast quick and to work with your partner… Sounds like flow rolling. What do you know… my favorite kind lol… easy on the body, and you can be technical.

Told Veal that 4 mins is dah bomb. The no submissions is cool and that the guys needs to learn how to flow, from one submission to the next and these kinda rounds will really help in the development of their BJJ.

He explained that, there’s big issues with that and this provides the opportunity to take chances because people will shelf their egos some what when there’s are no submissions involved.

I told him that I absolutely agreed… that grinding is cool, but there are always other options then spending 2 mins to rework a failed arm-bar.

Seeing opportunity in a failure will makes us grow.

Rolled with Jesse, Mitch, Nathan, and Big Willy… boy was I f-n drained…

Yes I did some conditioning earlier in the day…

Results below…

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Woooo!

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Great class… I love it when I don’t have to coach.

I can just focus on training!!

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Mon Sept 14/15 6:30 pm BJJ

Bomb digity…

Got to LEMMA around… 5:45 pm.

Some of the boys be rolling… some of them real hard lol

Homeboy big Willy was in… stole this like I steal other peoples memes lol Seemed fitting.

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Haven’t seen him out… since like January or December. Yep… huge return from a really long hiatus, glad he is back.

Rolled with ma daddy long legged buddy Travis, focusing on transitioning. Fun fun…

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My lower back felt real good today, especially with all the stretches and rolling out I’ve been doing while my kid is doing tummy time… I pushed my transitioning a little to see how fast and smoothly I could execute them… no I didn’t land shit, but my transitioning made me feel like I was a Super Saiyan God!!!

Diesel had us warming up with a leg drag pass with no stapling of the bottom thigh… partnered with Tyler.

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I love drilling… HINT HINT HINT

Diesel then got us to review some X-guard sweeps… love them.
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Straight up love them.

Rolling: (3 min, rounds)
1. Tyler
2. Mitch
3. Daluca
4. Mitch

Had a discussion with Veal over the weekend about the 3 min rounds…
His explanation that sometimes you need shorter ones too, makes sense. He explained that with the 3 minute short rounds, it will help you close out a match, if you are down, as well as help keep a steady pace. With the intensity of shorter rounds and the 30 seconds rest, it makes you maintain your higher heart rate while constantly having to adjust to the different styles with very little time to adapt.

Makes total sense for preparation with a competition styled rolling format, especially when you have the right amount of bodies OTM.

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Overall great class, great peeps, great vibes…

Caught these homies below in discussions of my secret triangle escape while I was leaving… Yes Thor first step, is to become an Ewok.

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Peace and Shaka… lol

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Sun Sept 13/15 11 am BJJ

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Video my buddy Travis did during our drill session in the morning using his drone and GoPro below…

Got to LEMMA around 9:30 am… you bet me got some rowing in. Hit some better then last time marks. 2 sets, 20 mins goals, of 4 km… slowly getting better.

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Warm-up consisted of arm bars, kimuras, Marcelotines, omaplata’s, triangles, hip-bump sweeps, spinning arm-bars from side control, & then loop chokes from the front head lock. They had to complete these exercises going 2 mins straight each, then alternate with only 30 sec breaks in between.

Clips below…

Then we reviewed some techniques I ripped off of Jiu-jitsu Magazine… yep. A 96 Choke, which is an oldschool Judo choke and the Brazilian Neck tie all starting from side control…

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Yep always learning and evolving…

After technique we then did a bunch of positional sparring…

Escaping or submission while having back control or your back controlled.

2 mins, alternated, then switched partners until everyone was with everyone. Yep, a lot of rounds in…

Quick clip below…

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Then of course the circle of thank you for choking the F-outa moi…

Great class big turn out… Katrina, Travis, Big Red, Hatton, Scotty, St Amand, Brittany, Marco and Colin were in attendance.

BJJ would be nothing without good teammates!!

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OSSS!!

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