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Joe Battaglia, writting for FloGrappling:
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I’m a bit late to the party, but Luke Thomas recently interviewed Eddie Cummings. You can listen to the audio below or read a partial transcript here.
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Update 2: I completed my predictions with the actual results. Correct predictions are in green, wrong result but on the podium are orange and flat-out wrong predictions are red. Actual results are in italics.
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Six month into a huge plateau, I have now come to terms with it. The first weeks were the hardest; frustration and doubt came creeping in and I was focusing on my failures. But after some time, I just accepted things as they are. I’ll spend longer at blue belt then expected, so what? Enjoy the journey.
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Another dash to London, another academy visit. I dropped by Fight Factory in London this time, another checkmat affiliate supervised by Luiz Ribeiro.
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The first black belt to ever teach me jiu-jitsu is a student of Ricardo De La Riva and even three years later I’m still finding bits of wisdom in what I was taught that day. To say that I feel close to the DLR school of BJJ would be an understatement as I consider my closed guard and DLR guard corner stones of my game, so you can imagine how much I was looking forward to the seminar with the real Ricardo De La Riva.
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Scramble has always been a brand on my radar but for whatever reason it took me lot of time to actually investigate their products. Maybe seeing rather plain-looking spats priced at 60€ gave me the impression that they were too pricey to warrant attention — and it is expensive apparel. It also happens to be very high quality one.
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A dumbfounded look is the usual reaction to the first mention of É Nóis, a BJJ brand that seems to make it’s way to the mainstream at a snail’s pace. But impressing your local gi addict is not the only reason why you should consider them for your next buy.
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Metamoris 6 happened this week-end and I think the fights were great. The 20 minutes, sub only format still works exceedingly well and as time goes on I believe the match ups make more and more sense.
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I’ve been visiting my girlfriend in London for the last six month on a regular basis but only made it to BJJ there two weeks ago. Usual plane schedules make me land late on saturday mornings and take off early on monday — the training session dead spot, sort of. So when I eventually had a friday night to monday night stay, I jumped on the occasion.
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February to April seems to be a hard time for me since after effectively not writing during that period last year, it looks like the same thing happened this year too. Except I also took a break from BJJ.
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I suppose it’s a bit telling that I write this month’s log on the 26th when I usually update them during the whole month: motivation has been slightly down. The lack of success in the areas I’m trying to improve and some overall tiredness made me skip my 2 first classes… ever. i usually don’t even think about going to class, I just do. But this week I skipped one to stay home and play Don’t Starve, and another one the next week just to get some rest. I feel a bit guilty about it but at the same time it was relaxing.
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Twenty-four hours to come up with a t-shirt design you’d like to wear. High quality shirt gets produced for free. What would you do?
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Landing some good things in the middle of a plateau.
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Tonight was Valentin’s last training with us. He’s moving to Australia early January for six month but he has no ties in Strasbourg anymore so who knows when we’ll see him again. Farewells to teammates are always emotional and this got me thinking.
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Not much going on this november. Helping with competition preparation and struggling with pretty much anything.
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I’m not a big fan of birthdays. I don’t particularly enjoy giving presents and neither do I enjoy receiving them. But I do use the occasion every year for a little introspection just before going to sleep, and that I enjoy. Introversion for the win.
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Remember the Keenan Cornelius seminar? Joao’s kinda the same caliber so one could expect the same kind of experience, right? Nope, not at all.
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Back from the camp in Copenhagen, i’m feeling very notable improvements to my game. I’m having success on the techincal and mental sides for the first half of the month, before slowly falling into a slump.
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Here’s my review of the Gameness Elite. It was given to me as a good-bye gift from working colleagues in Troyes in David is to blame for the choice. I’ve been using it on a regular basis for over a year now.
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After nine month of faithfull service (I started this blog on january 29th), the time had come for a slight redesign. 90% of the web is text and for sure 90% of this journal as well, so the whole design relies on solid typography. I kept it that way but got rid of Cousine, the monospaced font I used. The newcomer is Merriweather; I was already using the sans version for the menu but decided to go full Merriweather after seeing Matthew Palmers blog. Merriweather has the old-school, very scholar style that initally drew me to a monospaced font, but it’s more elegant and calls a little less for attention.
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Some overall thoughts about the camp, what I liked, didn't like and learned.
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I’m among the first ones to complain when there’s something wrong, so let’s give credit where credit is due: IBJJF made the nogi worlds stream available for free, with the again excellent Dan Lukeheart on comments. It’s all on youtube so I can watch it on my TV. Really awesome.
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A tale of a competition in which our hero picks the wrong fight and faces the consequences. Also, rolling with blackbelts. Lots of black belts.
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Passing the guard in under a second: now possible, with some jedi mind tricks. Luiz Lyra demonstrates an attack sequence from the closed guard and Oli Geddes shows the infamous dogbar.
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Pressure passing through the half guard by Daniel Bertina, a turtle defense by Daniel Marques. A primer on leglocks by David George in the afternoon, and the Keenan Cornelius seminar!
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A new closed guard attacking system by Daniel Bertina in the morning, then triangle defenses from Christian. David George kicks off the afternoon with DLR attacks against combat base and Oli ends the day with a primer on x-guard.
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Daniel Bertina shows some easy improvements to very common situations. Christian Graugart demonstrates a no-go position and Inghtor Vladimarsson explains how to retain the mount. The day ends with Oli Geddes presenting a tripod passing system and Kari Gunnarsson a sprawl/pass.
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Entries to the DLR guard by David George and a kimura-grip based system by Oli Geddes.
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12 September
Last months explorations was quite dense because I came of a one month break, but since I’ll have less to say this month I’m reverting to the old exploration format.
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I used to keep a notebook about my training but it’s a bit inconsistent so I’ll try to keep track of everything here instead.
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After two month of doubts and uncertainties, the cloud of dust dissipates over The Great Strasbourg BJJ Schism. Whenever there is more than one BJJ club in a city, it is almost a law that drama will happen. This summer, I witnessed the split here in Strasbourg and I’m pretty sure we’re headed straight into some drama.
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A review of the VHTS G2 Gi, after a couple of month using it. Disclaimer & shit.
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David Sirlin is a game designer and former profesionnal Street Fighter player. He wrote a fundamental article called Playing To Win that was so successfull he eventually wrote a whole book on the subject. You can read it for free on his website but — and I’m going to spoil the review right here — it’s so good that you should buy the hardcover. Especially if you like the introductory article.
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I went to Hamburg for the week-end recently and used the opportunity to train there. I found a BJJ Globetrotter there who trains at Gracie Barra Hamburg, so that’s where I went.
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Training stopped mid-july at my academy and during the last weeks we were free to do whatever we wanted. There are times when I have a huge list of things I want to try — unfortunately this was not one of them. I ended up just rolling for fun. I tried to focus a bit on thinking ahead and anticipating what my partners would do but I still find that very hard. I may be abble to predict things but it takes me so much focus I can’t do anything else. Basically I can predict how I get submitted.
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So… yeah. Paradigm. That’s a word mostly used in science papers. A paradigm is a way to conceive and area, a thinking model, a framework. BJJ education mostly conforms to a paradigm:
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As I already mentionned, I’m very interested in alternative ways to learn jiu-jitsu — or rather I’m discontent with the way we learn it today. It reminds me of highschool. I wrote a big ass draft about that 6 month ago, but when I read it now it sounds like stating obvious things so I’ll keep that part short.
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I registred for the BJJ Globetrotters Fall Camp! Because of financial issues I didn’t travel for 2 years now and I really miss it. But I still couldn’t afford a huge trip and had no one to come with me so a BJJ holliday has been on my mind for a couple of month now. I initially wanted to go to Portugal for a summer camp but couldn’t find one this year, so Copenhagen it is!
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In what has to be one of my most ironic moves so far, I joined the BJJ Globetrotters, a firmly non-political community — for political reasons.
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Valentin is one of the training partners I appreciate a lot. He is a blue belt and has been since I know him. Very athletic but despite that technically *extremely* clean -- his moves look like coming out of a textbook. Valentin has also been tooling me for a very long time, exploiting every weakness in my guard to pass, get my back and choke me.
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I’ll by reviewing some gis soon and need a generic disclaimer I can link to, so here it is.
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I attended another seminar at my old academy two weeks ago, but I have to say this one lacked the systemic approach that David Pierre-Louis usually has when teaching (even though he was the one teaching this time too). We went through a couple of different positions but there was no clear progression this time. There are a couple of usefull tips that I was able to take away but there was no eye-opening moment.
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I purchased and read The Black Belt Blueprint by Nicolas Gregoriades about a month ago and thought I might as well write a review. I heard of it through Kit Dale’s facebook page and the description seemed attractive enough:
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90% of techniques shown in classes and seminars are from a very specific position, which is most likely not related at all to the current problems I’m having in my own BJJ game.
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I have been promoted to blue belt! Now that it has been a couple of days, I’d like to take some time and reflect on it.
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I had almost no success with the reverse omoplata, partly because I had a hard time isolating the arm, partly because people just don’t turtle too much around here. I’ll save it for another time.
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My last post was almost a month ago… and I did not get promoted! :D
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Soooo… last night, one of my friends got promoted to 4th stripe white belt and the instructors said there would be more promotions in the upcoming days. I currently stand at 3 stripes but despite having a pretty bad night yesterday I had the upperhand against the friend who got promoted, as I usually do when we roll together. This and other hints that were dropped here and there during the last weeks make me think that I may get promoted to blue belt.
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Aside from the seminar this week-end, I got to roll with a couple of new people which is always interresting. I was mostly looking forward to rolling with the buddies from my old academy but that unfortunately didn’t happen. The only one I could roll with is my friend David (not Pierre-Louis this time), in nogi. David is the one who introduced me to bjj; he trains about four 4 times a week in two or three academies, one of them being an hour drive away. He used to be a notch ahead of me, and rightfully so — he has a lot more martial arts background than i do (almost anyone has), he had trained for 6 month before I started and was basically feeding himself on jiu jitsu videos. He litterally has 3 ipad screens full of bjj apps.
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This week-end I went to my old academy in Troyes to attend a seminar. It was taught by the David Pierre-Louis, the professor they are affiliated to. He’s a black belt under DeLaRiva, one of the most successfull french grapplers but above all a great teacher. I remember all of his lessons very well and he might be the reason why I feel so comfortable in the DeLaRiva guard.
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I’m not saying I mastered open guard or anything, but it has become pretty decent. I’ve had several people tell mee how hard I was to pass, some top blue belts still smash pass it but overall it’s holding up steady. So I started playing passer against other white belts… and it’s fun!
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I’ve already rambled about the similarities I see between BJJ and chess but there is a core difference that makes BJJ a much harder game. In chess, you only need to master theory — the act of moving a pawn is not a challenge. In bjj, you can have a great understanding of some conceptual theory but if you can’t execute the move properly theory alone will never be enough.
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Inspired by The Life Changing Benefits Of Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu
BJJ had some profound changes on me too, but the most impressive change I’ve seen happened these last months. At the begiing of the year, a new guy came into the gym. He’s about 1m70, around 110 kilos (and not of muscle) and in his late 30s. He has a bit of a shriek voice and was very shy at first. He’d never invite anyone to spare or even drill with him, he was apologizing every 5 seconds for no particular reason. If all his previous life was like this, I’m pretty sure he was a favorite pick for bullys.
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As I mentionned, I have been working on my open guard game for a couple of months now. I have a solid closed guard game, but during my first competitions I found that if I am unable to pull guard, I’m worthless. And better opponents don’t walk straight into your guard.
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We jiu-jitsu guys like to compare our art to chess, but most of my friends are more familiar with video games than thousand year old board games. So when I need to describe bjj, I usually start with “it’s pretty much like starcreft”. But I’ve never looked into it much deeper than that, so here we go.
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To some extent, jiu-jitsu is about solving problems — you have a goal, but something blocks you and you have to find a way to get past that obstacle. Usually that obstacle wears a gi.
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My record so far, just for the sake of it: I’m 4-3 with the gi and 2-1 in no-gi — half of those wins by submission.
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Yesterday I competed in a major minor tournament. Minor because the level wasn’t going to be very high — major because it was my first this season and my first under the flag of my new academy. There are some key moments I need to remember, so I’ll write them down.
