Interview

Hey everyone. I'm in Spain and I'm feeling great. My weight is good and I'm just getting ready to go to bed. Tomorrow is the weigh-ins and rules meeting. Here is an interview I did with OTM before I left, click interview. Talk to you soon.

The Moment Is Approaching!

Well, the work is done. I came back to Oklahoma to spend the weekend at home and refresh a little bit before the long trip to Europe. I feel great! I'm in the best shape of my life. My body, mind, and game feel great. My weight is exactly where it needs to be. Actually, this is the best I've felt in a long time. The training camp in San Diego was awesome and I can't wait to show what all the hard-work and sacrifice was for. Our last hard training session in San Diego on Thursday was a special day. We had Olympic silver medalist, Stephen Abas, work on our wrestling. I learned a few techniques that work perfectly into my game. Stephen is probably the most amazing wrestler I've ever had the pleasure to be on the mat with. Also, Saulo promoted Jake Mapes to black belt that day. Jake worked very hard to receive that promotion and it was a great note to leave on. All the black belts got suited up to congratulate Jake and the energy on the mat was very motivating. I take off to Spain on Wednesday. The next couple of days will be really light. Just a little bit of drilling to sweat and keep my weight down. I am starting to not feel sore anymore, which feels weird, because I've been sore everyday for over a month. I probably won't post again before I leave, so be sure to watch it on the internet and keep an eye out for me and the rest of the UNIJJ guys. I appreciate all the support and I will give you my thoughts when the competition is over.

The interview I did with the fightworks podcast just got released. If you would like to check that out, click here.

The pic at the top is at the end of our Thursday session, right before we put the gi's on and Jake got promoted. You will see me there in the back between Saulo & Xande. What a room huh? Eleven black belts (including Jake), Olympic silver medalist wrestler, 4 ADCC Champions, & 14 World BJJ black belt titles.

Last hard week of training for ADCC!

Well, the 2009 ADCC championships are almost here. This will be our last week of hard training and then it will be time to recover and make the trip to Spain. Monday, we focused again on long training rounds simulating overtimes and the need to score points, it was an awesome session. Today we were very privileged to have Olympic wrestling coach and all-around amazing person, Bob Anderson ("Coach"), run our training. I feel very luck to be able to say that I have had the opportunity to go through a training session ran by "Coach". We had an all out wrestling day and the room was filled with tough guys. At the end, "Coach" told us a few motivational stories and gave us a little sermon, it was very inspiring. I learned a few things today that will definitely help my game for ADCC.

A couple of other notes regarding ADCC. If you didn't know already, this year's ADCC will be streamed live over the internet. You can check out information regarding that here. Also, UNIJJ's good friend Caleb, from the fightworks podcast, stopped by last week to take a peak at our training. You can read a small article about his visit here. He took the time to speak with a few of us for his show. His interview with Saulo has been released and you can check that out here. I also spoke with Caleb and I'm sure he will have that interview on one of his upcoming episodes. Caleb does a great job on his podcast, I have been on there a few times and I always have a good time. If you are serious about BJJ (which I'm sure you are, otherwise you wouldn't be reading this) you should definitely subscribe.

Lastly, I want to thank all of those who took a moment to say hello to me at the US BJJ Nationals last weekend. I received quite a few compliments about my blog and the job I've been doing so far, and I just want to let you guys know that I really appreciate it. My objective for creating this blog is already being accomplished. It was really nice to be in that building and get to enjoy the competition and not have to focus on my own performance for once. It was a great tournament, especially considering it isn't one of the major events like Pan-Ams or Mundials. There were many great matches and top level competitors I was able to sit back and watch as a spectator. I had a some of my guys there competing as well and I was very proud of their performance. With 6 adult competitors we brought home 4 golds and 1 silver, including the blue belt absolute. The rest of the UNIJJ team did awesome as well, which led to UNIJJ taking the team title this year. Congrats guys!

Eyes on the Prize!

It has been a great week so far. Rader arrived here in San Diego on Sunday to join in on the ADCC training. We started off on Monday with another day of no-gi training in the morning and Maxwell conditioning in the afternoon. I recovered very well from the conditioning and my game feels sharp. Tuesday we jumped into the afternoon gi class to support all those competing at the Nationals this weekend. There was a great group there, which you see in the pic above. In case you didn't know, we will be taking a strong team into the Nationals, including an awesome black belt team which has Saulo and Rani competing to warm-up for Abu Dhabi. It felt good to do some gi and change things up a little bit. I have really only been doing no-gi, but I try to still train a little gi at least once a week. Diego Sanchez has jumped into our ADCC training to start his preparation for his next fight this December against BJ. He was there in the gi class as well. Tuesday night we were all treated to one of Saulo's world famous BBQ's, Saulo is also a black belt at grilling meat to perfection.

Today was back to ADCC training. Besides for the addition of Diego Sanchez to the training, we had a few other guests such as Daniel Aguiar, Megaton, and Andy Wang. Today we did a lot of wrestling and rounds, around an hour non stop. We focused a lot on being prepared for overtime without any rest between rounds. Tomorrow, we will be back to training in the morning and doing our last conditioning session with Steve Maxwell in the afternoon. With the event being around 2 weeks away, we will stop our conditioning circuits and focus only on long and hard training sessions next week.

The energy in the training has been awesome, with everybody really giving 100%. It has been an incredible training camp so far and I feel so lucky to be a part of such a great team. Check out the pic at the top of Tuesday's gi class. Black belts included: Leo Santos, Rani, Rodrigo Pinheiro, Xande, Saulo, Steve Maxwell, myself, Joao Faria, and Cadu Francis. Brown belts included: Justin Rader, Jake Mapes, and Diego Sanchez.

Maxwell Conditioning, Friday Sept 4th

Here is a little clip of what one of our circuits looked like yesterday morning. It was me, Saulo, Xande, Kron, and Rani with Steve Maxwell and his instruments of pain. We did a 12 minute warm-up with the kettle bells, then we did two 10 minute circuits. The clip you will see is the first circuit. The feeling you get when we are finished with one of Steve's work-outs is amazing. He really pushes you to just the right point. Enjoy!

Here is the other circuit:

Diaper Seminar!

No, your eyes are not fooling you, you read that right. This evening at the University of Jiu-Jitsu, there was a diaper seminar! Some of you may not know, but Xande Ribeiro will be a father very soon (within the next 6 weeks). So, this evening there was a special class at UNIJJ, where all the participants brought a package of diapers for the father to be. In return the participants were treated to instruction from Saulo & Xande Ribeiro (head instructors at UNIJJ), as well as myself and Rani Yahya. We each took turns demonstrating a position, breaking down all the fine details, and at the end of the night we enjoyed some Acai, Pao de Queijo, refreshments, and socializing. There was about 45 participants, so needless to say, there was a pretty good sized stack of diapers. Xande is stocked up, for his daughter Victoria, now he just needs to learn how to use them. There was a great vibe and energy there tonight. It was nice to put the gi on and kind of have a chill environment on the mat, instead of all the hardcore no-gi training we have been doing.

If you are ever in the San Diego area, I would highly recommend stopping by the University of Jiu-Jitsu. Not only do you get world class instruction from Saulo & Xande Ribeiro on a regular basis, but there are plenty of other high level competitors who get on the mat to teach and train with the students there. All the students are very cool and down to earth, and they all have solid bjj. The school has really started to come into its own and that will be shown next weekend at the Nationals.

For information about the University of Jiu-Jitsu, click here

Getting ready for War!

Today kicked off our training camp for ADCC. I arrived in San Diego last Thursday. Xande and I did some training on Friday, and Saturday I did a very tough conditioning circuit. Then we chilled out the rest of the weekend, to be well rested for today. Xande got the UFC and we enjoyed some great fights Saturday night. Minotauro vs Randy was incredible and it was very inspiring to watch two veterans of their caliber leave it all in the cage. Minotauro's jiu-jitsu was great and his boxing was sharp. The only disappointing part of the night was watching Demian get knocked out without having a chance to clinch with Nate. I'm sure it will only make Demian stronger for next time.

Anyway, back to the subject of today's training. This morning we did our no-gi training. It was Xande, Rani, Cadu Francis, Jake Mapes, & myself. We started with a lot of drilling. We drilled take downs and positions on the ground for about 30 minutes. Then we did three, ten minute rounds of training. At the end, we finished off with a lot of sprawls and shots. Later in the afternoon the real pain kicked off. Steve Maxwell is here to coordinate our conditioning. Xande, Saulo, & I had an incredible session with Steve. We warmed up for 12 minutes with the kettle bells, getting our bodies warm and loose. After that we did a 15 minute circuit for two rounds, totalling 30 minutes. The circuit had 14 different stations and included just about every form of body movement and power that u could think of. There was sprinting on the airdyne, kettle bell snatches and swings, Hindu push-ups, jump rope, pull-ups, picking up a 100 lb medicine ball, Bulgarian bag, and a few other things. It was an awesome work out! One thing is for sure, we will be in shape. Can't wait.