LOTS OF PEOPLE ON SATURDAY

SATURDAY, 18 OCTOBER 2014. My blue belt, Ethan, who now resides in Virginia because of his naval service, returned and participated in Saturday's classes. It is great to have him home, and we all look forward to his attendance over the next three weeks. We had a full house for Saturday morning's class. Ten people showed up for BJJ & judo at 8:00 a.m. I must admit that I am impressed with their dedication and desire to learn and train. For once, there was actually an excuse if a group rolled into another area while practicing. We had a "rainbow" of belts, with me (black), Nick (brown), Jason (purple), John J. (blue), Ethan (blue), Josh (white, 3-stripes), JG (white, 3-stripes), Paige (white, 3-stripes), Kyle (white, 1-stripe), and Tony (white, 1-stripe, though he is an ikkyu in judo). I covered various ways to defend against the americana and reviewed how to properly do the cross-collar choke from mount. In judo, it was a free-for-all with usage of the crash pad. Each participant (me, Nick, Ethan, Tony, Paige) worked the throw(s) that crossed their mind. We did not randori in judo.

SATURDAY, 27 SEPTEMBER 2014 BJJ & JUDO

At 8 a.m., we started BJJ. It consisted of me, Jason, John, JG, and Josh M. Yes, I was the odd man out since my name does not start with a J. I taught how to attack the turtle position, leading to an armbar and/or sweep from the attack. I also provided instruction on the turtle guard and how to recover to turtle position from there. Since my family was out of town, I had nothing to do that afternoon, so I had a pure judo class with Kyle and Paige. We covered o-uchi-gari and had a few rounds of randori to fill out the class.

SATURDAY, 13 SEPTEMBER 2014

We were missing a BJJ brown belt and a BJJ blue belt, along with one white belt with competition aspirations for 27 September, but otherwise, we had a fairly full house (7 people) for an 8 a.m. class. I revisited a half-guard passing option and worked on teaching the finer details of applying pressure from side control. We then worked on moving efficiently and effectively from side control to kesa gatame, and from kesa gatame to side control. We then had a 20 minute round robin rolling session. For judo, we worked on ippon seio nage as the "throw of the day," though when we moved to the crash pad, each student had the option to use whatever throw they wanted on their opponent. We also did randori, permitting Kyle S. to have five 3-minute sessions for his upcoming tournament in Orlando on Saturday, 20 September.

JUDO TOURNAMENT (FOR THOSE INTERESTED)

FLORIDA YUDANSHAKAI STATE CHAMPIONSHIPS The tournament will be held on Saturday, 20 September 2014. ADDRESS: 5211 Hernandes Drive, Orlando, Florida 32808 (Boys & Girls Club of Central Florida). OPENING CEREMONIES: 11:00 A.M. CHECK-IN: 8:00 A.M. to 10:00 A.M. ENTRY FEE: $35.00 – Adults/Junior LATE ENTRY FEE: $ 50.00 Additional information can be found on www.orlandojudo.com

NO LONGER ASSOCIATE BJJ INSTRUCTOR FOR COMBAT ATHLETIX

As of this past Friday, 15 August, I resigned my position as the associate BJJ instructor at Smiley's Combat Athletix. James Smiley is still a great friend of mine (we had lunch today, in fact), and there is no ill will between the two of us. He and I will continue to support the growth of Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu in the Jacksonville area.

SATURDAY, 16 AUGUST 2014 BJJ

Our class time was moved back to 1:30 p.m. because AFR was testing their students for promotions. We had a full house, at least for us, with nine people in attendance, including one of Kyle's friends (Shane T.) who is a blue belt that trains Gracie Combatives in Mandarin. I covered how to properly do the seatbelt from the back and the basic methodology behind the clock choke. I asked Nick to teach the bow-and-arrow choke as a modification of the clock choke and also to show basics of the spider guard. We skipped judo and ended up rolling for nearly an hour. All in all, it was a good class.

SATURDAY BJJ & JUDO

SATURDAY, 26 JULY 2014 BJJ on Saturday morning consisted of me, Jason C. (purple belt), John J. (blue belt), David S. (blue belt), Kyle S. (white belt), and Jonathan G. (white belt). Our out of town visitor was Allen T., a blue belt residing in Nebraska who has visited numerous times over the years. The main topic during the class was escaping side control by manipulating the opponent's elbow and forcing him to create space in the process. We would either roll the opponent over or scoot under and take the back. In judo, we added a person but lost Allen (he retired from judo due to collected injuries). It was "flavor of the day" for throws, with each student using their repertoire while we practiced on the crash pad. Unfortunately, Allen left his belt behind at the academy. I'm not saying that anything bad happened to his belt, but I am not saying that his belt was returned completely unharmed (he came and met me on Sunday and I returned it).

CARLOS GRACIE, SR. SAYS

SATURDAY BJJ

SATURDAY, 12 JULY 2014 Saturday's class consisted of a lot of people. We had a "rainbow" of BJJ belts, meaning that all of the ranks from white through black were represented. So, we had one black belt (me), one brown belt (Nick), one purple belt (Jason), two blue belts (John J. and David), and three white belts (J.G., Kyle, and Josh). For a small, non-advertised academy, I find that to be very successful. It is even more telling when you consider that we start at 8:00 a.m., so the dedication of the guys to get up and participate is incredible. The main theme of Saturday's class was working from half-guard and not being stuck. I taught a back take, how to get full guard on someone through lifting the lower body, and things to do to keep the opponent from applying crushing pressure.

SATURDAY BJJ & JUDO

SATURDAY, 5 JULY 2014 This past Saturday was a large class at AFR. Though my brown belt was MIA at work, my purple belt, two blue belts, and three white belts were in attendance, which made a total of seven participants overall. That is a good number for an 8:00 a.m. class, plus it gave even numbers for students to partner up. The focus of the BJJ class was dealing with the Bravo lockdown, which I showed a few ways to escape. In judo, there were only four participants (me, Jason C., John J., and Kyle S.) since one student went to the beach, another went to brunch with his in-laws, and the third did not participate. Sasae tsuri-komi-ashi is still the flavor of the month, though I worked on ko-uchi-gari to tomoe nage.

SATURDAY BJJ & JUDO

SATURDAY, 14 JUNE 2014 This past weekend's class consisted of me, Jason C., and John J. We worked closely on a series of attacks from guard, focusing on same side and cross armbars while drilling both for a long period of time. In judo, we actually started with a round-robin randori. Each of us went for a total of 12 minutes, with four three-minute rounds, two rounds against each person. When randori was finished, we took out the crash pad and worked on sasae tsuri komi ashi and sumi gaeshi.

SATURDAY BJJ

SATURDAY, 7 JUNE 2014 Today's class was small, consisting of me, Jason C., and John J. We worked on "prevention and triage" for Ezequiel choke attempts from mount, a couple of modified mount escapes (trap and arm/trap a leg, and an odd swim-like escape to get to half-guard), and a couple of odds and ends at the very end of class that we will revisit at a future date in greater depth. Of course, we spent a long period of time in round-robin randori with each other.

TUESDAY BJJ & NO-GI

TUESDAY, 3 JUNE 2014 In the no-gi class, we went over a transition in guard to achieve a kimura, a standing guard pass, and a double-under smash pass. In judo, we went over sasae-tsuri-komi-ashi while standing. Moving to the ground, went over an armbar from the opponent's back and also three gi chokes from the opponent's back.

SATURDAY BJJ

SATURDAY, 31 MAY 2014 Practice consisted of me, Jason C., and John J. We covered the 10th Planet "Electric Chair" so we would have some experience with performing the lockdown and the elementary sweeps from the position. The main part of the class dealt with ways of breaking the lockdown position and dealing with the "Electric Chair" when someone attempts (or successfully achieves) the position. We then had a round robin rolling session.

WEDNESDAY BJJ

WEDNESDAY, 28 MAY 2014 Class today consisted of an hour and a half rolling session with me, Nick, Jason, and John. I grappled with Jason and John. I also focused on getting John to use his weight to apply pressure more forcefully during practices. If he gets really good at that, I think I will wish that I had not encouraged him to do so.

MONDAY JUDO AND BJJ

MONDAY, 26 MAY 2014 It was me, Jason, and John today (Nick had to work). We worked for a long time on sasae tsuri komi ashi, and then Jason and I worked on a combination technique that incorporated sasae to o-soto-gari. The crash pad makes life a lot easier. When we finished, we rotated and had a BJJ session of live rolling. All in all, it went well.

SATURDAY BJJ

SATURDAY, 24 MAY 2014 This past Saturday consisted of me, Nick, Jason, John, and Kyle. It was a question and answer session, along with a spirited rolling session, that lasted about 2 hours.

SATURDAY BJJ & JUDO

SATURDAY, 17 MAY 2014 We had all five belt ranks represented on the mat this morning. Well, except for coral and red, but how often do you see those? We went over a sweep and a guard pass, and spent a good amount of time live rolling. Jason, Kyle, and I practiced judo; the others sat very close by and ran their mouths. Regardless, the three of us worked on o-uchi-gari, both static and with movement. Jason and I randoried for about 20 minutes, with each of us securing takedowns of varying degrees.

FRIDAY NIGHT BJJ & JUDO

FRIDAY, 16 MAY 2014 On Friday, 17 May, we had a quiet party at my home for the Wolfpack Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu group. Nick N., Jason C., John J., Kyle S., and I watched Animal House and talked Jiu-Jitsu for a few hours.

"PROMOTIONS" ON THURSDAY, 15 MAY

Nicholas N. received the second stripe on his brown belt and I received the white "instructor tips" on my black belt this past week from Charles Dos Anjos.

FIRST PRACTICE OF THE NEW YEAR

SATURDAY, 4 JANUARY 2014

Today marked the first practice session of 2014 for me and the crew, and also the first practice at the new AFR facility.  I have to say that the practice area is fantastic.  It is approximately 4000 sq. ft. of contiguous mat space, so we sould have 3-4 standing judo randori sessions, and probably 10 BJJ grounds sessions, going on simultaneously.

For BJJ, it was me, Kyle, and Jason.  We worked on headlock escapes on the ground.  We were not working on escaping kesa gatame, but escaping pure headlocks where the opponent does not have an arm.  I figure that we should work on something "simple" like that since the idiots on the street might just grab onto our heads and not let go.

For judo, Tony M. and Robert P. joined in with our "non-professional" group of aspiring judoka. We will have to use each other to see what we are doing right and wrong, and we will have to drill the throws relentlessly.

We went over a modified o-soto-gari, sasae-tsuri-komi-ashi, and ko-uchi-gari.  The crash pad helped tremendously, of course, since we could throw.  We did not randori.

GOT TO PRACTICE WITH ETHAN DURING THE HOLIDAY

I just wanted to say that Ethan E., my blue-belt Navy student who now resides in Virginia, practiced with us while he was down here for the Christmas break.

It was very neat having a black belt (me), a brown belt (Nick), a purple belt (Jason), and a blue belt (Ethan) that I "created" on the mat at the same time. 

Kris

WE MOVED WITH AFR AGAIN

WEDNESDAY, 1 JANUARY 2014

Here we are in 2014 and AFR has another new location.  Yes, Jason and I helped them move out of their "new" location, which had its opening on 23 September, on 20 December. 

The new location is:

1045 Blanding Blvd., Suite 209, Orange Park, FL, 32065