That’s halloween for the guy on the bottom.

Do I need to say anything else?

Erik Paulson will be holding seminar at Master St’James Black Belt Academy on the 16th December 2008. The seminar will start at 6pm and will finish at about 10pm. It will be broken into two parts Striking and Combat Submission Wrestling.

Erik Paulson is a world class Mixed Martial Arts Competitior and Coach. He is the first American to win the World Light-Heavy Weight Shooto Title in Japan – a title he defended for 5 years.

He currently runs the CSW Training Center in Fullerton, California where he trains MMA fighters such as Josh Barnett, Renato ‘Babalu’ Sobral, Cub Swanson and many others. He is closely affiliated with Sean Sherk and Brock Lesnar of theMinnesota Martial Arts Academy.

This is a nice highlight of some of Erik’s career

We will be starting MMA Classes from the 4th November 2008 8.00 – 9.00pm
If you are interested please speak to Tom.
You will need Gloves (10oz and MMA), Shin Pads, Groin guard and gum shield

This morning I woke up and was still in a dream…remembering it…trying to make it last…holding on to the experience.
Haven’t had that in a while…waking up…ready to make the most of the day…thinking about this day and every day as one moment passing…one life…one day…each one it’s own group of individual moments. Each day, one day. This life, one life. One chance to learn as much as possible. Remembering how much fun it is to learn…to be a student…the joy of learning just to learn.

On this edition of No Holds Barred, host Eddie Goldman continues our discussions about the fastest-growing sport in America, roller derby, and the dumbest sport in America, mixed martial arts, and their interrelationship.

This past Saturday, October 25, the Gotham Girls Roller Derby held their 2008 season championship bout at Hunter College in New York. In an upset and a surprising rout, the former league champions, the Queens of Pain, toppled the defending champions, the Bronx Gridlock, by a score of 161-113.

After the game, we spoke with Haulin’ Cass, a blocker for Queens, about their victory, and what is coming up in the post-season.

The Gotham Girls All-Stars are ranked number one in the East by the Women’s Flat Track Derby Association (WFTDA), and will be competing in the 2008 WFTDA Championship Tournament, November 14-16, in Portland, Oregon.

Next, we discuss some of the e-mails we received regarding our last show, which was entitled, “Has Mixed Martial Arts Become the Dumbest Sport in America?” We answered in the affirmative, and we got an overwhelmingly positive response from many people who have grown disgusted with the present direction of MMA in general, and UFC in particular.

The No Holds Barred theme song is called “The Heist”, by musician Ian Carpenter.

No Holds Barred is free to listen to and is sponsored by:

BJJMart.com, your premier source for all Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu gear, videos, books, and much more.

Gladiator Magazine, for in-depth coverage of Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, submission grappling, and MMA, as well as lifestyle articles on surfing, cars, movies, and more. Gladiator Magazine is available at any major bookstore and online at BJJMart.com or Jiu Jitsu Pro Gear.

Wrestling 411, providing coverage of the sport of wrestling on TV, the Internet, and radio. Wrestling 411 is produced by Media Sports Productions, whose sole mission is the marketing and promotion of the sport of wrestling.

FightBeat.com, for news, results, interviews, and free exclusive videos from the worlds of boxing and mixed martial arts.

Thanks, Eddie Goldman
EddieGoldman.com

Rickson Gracie gave an interview to Sultatame (Brazilian magazine) after a seminar and these are some of the more remarkable quotes from it:

About the current BJJ in the world:

“As a teacher I always like to give a full view of jiu jitsu to all my students. From self defense, to competition and no-gi techniques. If you get too focused on a helicopter sweep or on the x-guard and spend years training only that, you will find a lot of trouble without the gi or in an mma fight.”

About food:

“Nutrition is the beginning of our health. We are what we eat.”

About the use of BJJ in MMA:

“Jiu jitsu is MMA. Since the beginning our main concern was always to put jiu jitsu to the test and that’s where mma came from. We were always open to challenge matches, since the time of the capoeira fighters, to boxers, street fighters and now with the MMA/UFC.”

Final message to the readers:

“It is only with a lot of training and dedication that we can achieve something. A brave man, a real fighter is not measured by how many times he fall, but how many times he stand up. Always be ready to fight, to win and to forgive when necessary. Good luck and train hard!”

Rickson once said he admires Nino Schembri for “how he looks at positions in new ways”. (He also might not have said that. The quote is probably inaccurate since I read it years ago and can’t find the source any more.)

That idea stuck with me. As a beginner at the time it struck me, “How many ways can you think about a position? When is mount not just mount? When is guard not guard?” Those questions have become a kind of mind-clearing Zen koan. It opened me up to thinking…

This is a technique from Gracie Barra Clearwater’s website. My instructor Eduardo and I made this tutorial for the reverse omoplata. I’m putting it up here since I’m referencing it Rethinking Position.

If the crucifix is underused, then the reverse (or inverted) omoplata is almost unknown or at least considered an exotic novelty. Hopefully, this instruction will help change that.

A possible reason for this is that one of the hardest parts of the reverse omoplata is simply having faith in it. When most people are taught it, they blow it off …

On this edition of No Holds Barred, host Eddie Goldman discusses the devolution of mixed martial arts into becoming one of the dumbest, if not the dumbest, sports in America.

Among the issues raised in this no holds barred commentary are how this sport was once a brilliant laboratory and school where discussion of technique was the order of the day, the imitation of the vulgar fake pro “wrestling” by UFC, the hatred of grappling by EliteXC which eventually led to the self-destruction of that company, the preposterous idea by Affliction of a creating a “reality” show to find an opponent for top heavyweight and pound-for-pound MMA fighter Fedor Emelianenko, the continued reliance on the technologically obsolete pay-per-view television model, and more.

The No Holds Barred theme song is called “The Heist”, by musician Ian Carpenter.

No Holds Barred is free to listen to and is sponsored by:

BJJMart.com, your premier source for all Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu gear, videos, books, and much more.

Gladiator Magazine, for in-depth coverage of Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, submission grappling, and MMA, as well as lifestyle articles on surfing, cars, movies, and more. Gladiator Magazine is available at any major bookstore and online at BJJMart.com or Jiu Jitsu Pro Gear.

Wrestling 411, providing coverage of the sport of wrestling on TV, the Internet, and radio. Wrestling 411 is produced by Media Sports Productions, whose sole mission is the marketing and promotion of the sport of wrestling.

FightBeat.com, for news, results, interviews, and free exclusive videos from the worlds of boxing and mixed martial arts.

Thanks, Eddie Goldman
EddieGoldman.com