New Technique Video!

Here you go guys, as promised. Hope you like it. Leave a comment.

One of my most memorable matches

The 2008 Pan-Ams was my first gi tournament I did after winning the Mundials in 2007. I was considered one of the favorites for the absolute and the favorite for my weight class. Going in to the tournament I had a few difficult things to overcome. I got cut in training the week before and had to get stitches. I went in to the tournament without doing any live training for over a week. Also, the gi I was going to wear was illegal and I didn't find out until the day before I was going to compete. So I had to get a new gi and I didn't have enough time to put any patches on it. These were little things that just annoyed me, I still had every intention of having an excellent performance, particularly in the absolute. The absolute is one area where I still haven't shown my true potential. After winning the Mundials in 07, I really wanted to win my first absolute title. Well, I put an extreme amount of pressure on myself and just ended up not performing. My first match in the absolute was against Octavio Souza. I knew he was a dangerous opponent, but for some reason my head wasn't in the match. I got off to a slow start and ended up down 6-0 within the first couple of minutes. I woke up and tried to come back, but I just didn't have enough time. I lost 6-2. This was heartbreaking for me. I had won the Pan-Ams twice before and I really wanted to win the absolute and not only did I not win, but I didn't even make it past the first round. I was a world champion and I lost in the first round, this was unacceptable! The rest of that day all I did was think about how I let my own mind affect my performance. To be the best, you can't have any doubts or inconsistencies. I couldn't sleep that night, I was so upset. The only thing that was keeping me from going crazy, was that I would have a chance to make up for it the next day. I told myself that I was going to let go of all of the pressure and just open my game up for my weight class. I started off well, submitting 2 opponents to get to the final against Tussa. Tussa is a very game opponent. We had competed against each other a couple of times before that & I knew that he was going to come after me. I started the match feeling good, getting my game going and then I fell right into his triangle. It was very tight! I started to think that this could be it and then I had a long conversation with myself. If I tapped it would've destroyed my tournament performance. Lose in the first round in the absolute and come back the next day to get submitted, it would've been awful. I made an agreement with myself to hold out and go to sleep if I had too. This was my test to make up for the weekend. If I could make it out of this triangle, maybe I could come back and win and show everyone how determined I am. I could have a great comeback, if I could just escape. I knew I had good triangle defense and I just had to withstand his leg strength for a little while. I was stuck in that triangle for nearly 4 minutes! When I finally escaped, I was very dizzy. I got my senses back together and then I felt myself go into the "Zone". The only thing that was on my mind was to win! I have felt so focused on only a few other occasions. I gave everything I had to come back and win that match. After it was over, I was so exhausted and weak. I was also very very hot and my mouth was unbelievably dry. That triangle took so much energy out of me. In the end, I was very proud. I felt like I had proved something to myself and I will never forget how it felt to win that match. It was a very special moment for me. Here is the video:





I will post another technique video in the next few days explaining the sweep I used at then end to win. Stay tuned!

Very Proud Moment as an Instructor

I started teaching BJJ along with my father when I was about 18 years old. I love to teach and I take a lot of pride in my students. It is very important to me that they receive the best instruction possible to help them achieve their goals and go far in BJJ. Over the last 5 years we have worked very hard to develop a strong competition team. We've had a few very talented people train with us and do very well in competition, but unfortunately there is always things that come up in life and some have had to move or just couldn't dedicate as much time to BJJ as they used to. We still have a few high level competitors training at our main school in OKC and a very nice stable of up & comers that will be making waves in the next few years. There has been one person who has stayed with us during all this time and pretty much grown up in the academy, that is Justin Rader. Rader has been training with us since he was a teenager, wrestling half the year and training BJJ the other half. He has an incredible work ethic and over the last few years his work has really started to pay off. He won the Pan Ams and Worlds as a purple belt and he has medaled in both as a brown belt. Without the gi, he has already faced off against some of the best in his weight class, beating quite a few of them and always putting on a show regardless. Well, this week Rader received his invitation to compete with the best in the world at the 2009 ADCC World Championships. This makes Rader my first student to send to ADCC and it is even more special because we will both be competing alongside each other. That means that our school out here in the middle of the country has produced two ADCC competitors. I am very proud of my school and I look forward to watching more and more of my students rise up the levels of competition and make it to the top. Rader has a very good game for ADCC and he is very capable of pulling off some upsets. Keep your eyes on the Oklahoma boys!

Technique Video

Hey everyone. I shot this quick technique video for you guys to check out. It is a basic triangle set up from spider guard with a little extra trick to deal with the knee in the middle. I started using this when I was a purple belt. Hope you guys like it.

Heavyweight with a small man's game

When I first started to train Jiu-Jitsu I was about 13 years old. I was pretty tall for my age, but of course I was just a kid and I didn't have any strength yet. I always trained with adults, so I developed my guard and all the survival skills I could, including my flexibility. My best weapon was the triangle. My game developed a lot as I got older and continued to grow. By the time I was 16 I had added a lot of hook sweeps to my game using my big feet and when I got on top my favorite submission was the kimura. I weighed a lot for my age since I was tall, about 185 lbs. at 16, so the grown men my weight were always a lot stronger than me. I kept in my mind the essence of BJJ was that technique could beat strength and I always relied upon my technique. I looked for the technical solutions to any problem I ran into. As I got older, I got stronger, but my game was virtually the same and my mindset was always the same. Until I was a black belt, I always pulled guard looked for the sub or swept and then looked for the sub on top. My mindset was to always keep moving, never use too much strength or energy on one position, if it wasn't there I would move on to the next attack. This was good and bad. It was good because I developed a good and versatile guard & I had a lot different submissions that I liked to use. It was bad because I wasn't good at imposing my will, I would often lose to stallers or people who could slow the game down, or if I went against someone who was a little smaller, I would try to play at their speed and sometimes pay for it. Since I became a black belt I have worked hard to develop a better overall game, including more takedowns, better top pressure, and the ability to impose my will. I still feel good when I go against the bigger or stronger guys, it is like I am a little kid all over again. However, I still have the urge to move a lot and never force a technique, just like a small guy. I sometimes wonder what if I was 150 lbs. and how my game would match up with the best lightweights and featherweights in the world. I have had the pleasure of going against the best featherweight of this decade, Rubens "Cobrinha" Charles, on two different occasions. Because of the style of my game, I would prefer to be his size instead of 50 lbs heavier, as weird as that sounds. It is very hard to get inside the guard of someone that small and get control of their hips when you are so long and have so much space for them to work with. Along with a great guard, Cobrinha also has excellent balance and good pressure on top, all this accompanied with his athleticism and speed make him a very difficult match for any heavyweight. There is also the David vs Goliath thing, where everybody wants the smaller guy to win. Cobrinha has a lot of fans, myself included, and I can understand why they would want him to beat me, so you kind of have to be the bad guy. I won our first match with two sweeps to one, getting my last sweep with just seconds left on the time. Our second match, Cobrinha was able to play his guard first and get ahead on the score and I lost by one sweep. I should have tried to slow him down more and use my strength, but I resorted back to old habits and I tried to play a beautiful, technical game. It was still a good experience and I give a lot of props to Cobrinha, he has beautiful Jiu-Jitsu. Maybe one day I will have a son who will be a lightweight and I can see how a smaller version of myself does.

No Time Limit Training

Last week Xande Ribeiro was here in OKC for 5 days for a seminar. We had the best training sessions that we've had all year during his stay here. Due to injuries and scheduling conflicts, Xande and I weren't able to get many training sessions in this year. I was very happy to have him here in OKC all to myself for some great training. We trained twice without the gi and once with the gi, we even did some boxing and MMA training as well. Our training sessions were very long and technical. We trained for nearly an hour each time. No stopwatch or timer, just slap the hands and go. This is great for many reasons. It eliminates the strategizing that comes with trying to win a 10 minute match. It is all about the chess game, my jiu-jitsu vs your jiu-jitsu. We had some great rolls and I learned a lot. It was very revitalizing to have that kind of great training, a great way to kick off my preparation for ADCC. If you only train rounds, I highly recommend you to grab that great training partner who you have the best battles with and just train for at least 30 minutes straight. Open mat is perfect for this. There is no stalling or waiting for time to end. Don't stop to catch your breath, test your jiu-jitsu when you are tired and in the worst positions. I promise it will help make you much better and probably open your eyes to a few areas where you could improve.