It’s finally mine. The blue belt, the symbol indicating that I know just a tad more than nothing about this art that has verily taken over my life. Though my official training has been somewhere in the realm of a year and a half, I’ve been waiting years to achieve this. Now that it’s out of the way I can forget about milestones, titles, and symbols for a while and concentrate on just improving my skills. This belt is going to see me through arguably the most important stage in my BJJ career, and it’s not going anywhere for a while.
Category Archives: Media
Grapplers Quest – March 24th & 25th, 2012
As a four-stripe white belt for a couple of months now, the threat of a blue belt has been floating ominously over my head. I know you’re thinking, “Is this guy nuts? Blue belt isn’t something to fear, it’s an accomplishment!” While I don’t disagree, as it’s something I’ve been wanting for the past 6 years or so, at the same time receiving my blue belt would put the kibosh on gi competition for me for a while. Let’s face it – I’m no BJJ prodigy, and I only get about 4.5 hours a week to practice, on average. There’s no way as a newly-anointed blue belt I would be able to compete in a gi division with people who may have had their blue belts for 1-3 years already (and likely on the verge of receiving their purple belts). I don’t fancy the idea of sandbagging either. So I knew I had to compete at least one last time as a white belt, and I would have to do it soon.
Filed under Competition, Gi, Media, No-Gi, Videos
2011 RGA Promotions Ceremony
Last Wednesday, July 13th, was the belt promotions ceremony at RGA. This is an event that occurs once a year, with lots of promotions being granted to worthy students. For the most part only belts are bestowed at this ceremony — the only ones who receive stripes are black belts, for obvious reasons. The event brings in lots of guests and visitors, including prominent figures from the sport. Naturally, the event is hosted by Prof. Renzo Gracie himself.
This year’s event awarded somewhere around 120 belts, give or take 20. I was really happy to see some folks I train with get the promotions they deserved. They had the opportunity to shake the hands of some 20 or so black belts under Renzo Gracie, including the renowned John Danaher and Roger Gracie. Prof. Roger Gracie flew in from London, and awarded one of his students his black belt at the ceremony. Among the black belts who received stripes were Jose "Zed" Chierghini, Magno Gama, and John Danaher (who wore a full gi uniform, pants included, to everyone’s surprise), all of whom are instructors at RGA. Prof. Renzo likes keeping people’s spirits high, and didn’t hesitate to share some great (read: funny) stories of his history with his star pupils.
Overall the event was great fun. Congratulations to everyone who got promoted!
Oh and I almost forgot the most important part: there was free food! Courtesy of The Meatball Shoppe, which I coincidentally tried out for the first time the Saturday before the event. Will definitely stop by there again. One of the owners trains at RGA, but I haven’t had a chance to express how impressed I was with the food yet.
Pics from the event to come soon, as soon as one of my fellow students gets a chance to send them to me! up now:
Here is a video from the black belt speeches during the event. Prof. Zed’s was particularly entertaining:
Remember: A black belt is a white belt who never quits.
Filed under Media, Pictures, Promotions, Videos
Out of the Frying Pan, Into the Fire
So I’ve complained before that training in the outer small mat room is akin to running a 10k in a sauna. Well, if I thought that was hard, last night’s instructor had something worse in store for the white belt class. Continue reading
One Step Closer
Had a feeling this was going to happen, though I’d sort of decided I didn’t want it to happen this week. Maybe that’s the secret: once you decide you don’t want something, you get it. Some variant of Murphy’s Law? I’ve decided: I don’t want to be a billionaire.
Got Me Some Swag
In anticipation of the no-gi seminar that was this past Sunday and the tournament coming up on Saturday, I ordered/bought some gear last week. And here it is:
I’m really happy with my purchases so far. The shorts I bought off NJFightShop.com, and although they were back-ordered, once they got them in I had them within 1 day! Will definitely order from these guys again.
The rashguard is the white belt top for no-gi at RGA, and I personally think the design is totally badass. It’s also rather comfortable, made of a mesh with small holes that let the sweat out so I end class surprisingly drier than with other rashguards. Now my sweat is my opponent’s problem. Muwahahahaha!
Ok, so now for class yesterday:
Typical warm up. Osoto-gari and hip toss for takedowns. About 20 minutes of King of the Hill. Fun as always, even if I wasn’t doing great. I blame the mouthguard, still not used to that, though it’s getting better 🙂 I started on bottom. Neither my opponent nor I could get an advantage. After playing stalemate for about 5 minutes, the instructor stood us up and put us both at the end of the line. On my next turn I passed guard, which put me on bottom. I got spider guard on my next opponent and went for the sweep, but couldn’t land it and got passed. For my next opponent I almost had his back, but he was much shorter than me so my center of gravity was very high on his back. I got swept and passed.
Technique for the day was the key lock or Americana from across-side position. This was followed by side control training.
After class one of my friends went over the spider guard sweep with me. The trick is to fake my opponent into thinking I’m pushing him away from me. Then when he pushes back at me, I have to use his momentum to roll him over. Got to drill this, I really like this sweep and want to get it right.
Filed under Gi, Joint locks, Log, Media, Pictures, Side control