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.