I’ve been posting to Facebook and Twitter lately when I have stuff that’s not worth a whole blog post but it’s still worth sharing. You can follow me here:

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Wow… thanks to one of my instructors, Donald Park, for turning me on to this..

If you ask BJJ practitioners who the best female BJJ players are – most can only name Kyra Gracie or higher level belts in their gym or geographic area.

Ever since I watched her win the Pluma (tiniest) division AND the first Women’s Brown/Black Belt Open weight division at the 2007 Mundial, I have been a HUGE Michelle Nicolini fan.

Watching her videos make me want to get out on the mat and train as hard as I can as often as I can. She is so inspiring!

She may lose in this video but DAMN is this one of the most techincal exciting matches between two black belt ladies that I’ve ever seen.

And here are a few of Michelle winning…

Gawd I can be dense. Thank goodness for Chris in Australia… skimmed through her blog tonight and I think she’s got it right– replace the durn “self fabric” tie with cord!

Check out her instructions and illustration here.

Thanks Chris!

I’m writing an article for another publication (which I will link to here, eventually) on the process of learning BJJ. So, of course, that’s been on my mind while I have attended class and rolled the last few days.

I really wish more people would roll with me like Clayton and Mark did today. I have the memory span of a goldfish; every eight seconds it’s all new to me. Leslie often astonishes me with her detailed accounts of every roll during a class, often posted hours later, on her blog BJJ Grrl– whereas I apparently can’t follow the twists and turns of an individual match long enough to store them in RAM or whatever. As a result, it’s hard for me to learn efficiently from the rolls I get… I remember at best a couple highlights, which quickly fade by comparison of the next roll’s adrenaline.

Clayton is always a pleasure because he’ll do a fair amount of rolling, but when I make a stupid mistake or get stuck, he’ll stop and commentate, walk me through the proper response, suggest a workaround solution, etc. Mark, my buddy from Faixa Preta MMA, a Marcelo affiliate up near Dallas, came down this weekend and turns out he does things similarly. Mark’s a well-cooked 4 stripe blue, IMHO, and he had a lot of very helpful comments to make while rolling. What helped me the most, I think, were the “cheers”– the little “yeah” “good” “just right” kinds of things– that gave me the immediate feedback… the hints I was on the right track.

People give me googly eyes when I say I train seven days a week, but I don’t think it’s all quality training time. I think if I was able to train with people who gave feedback like Clayton’s and Mark’s, I’d be able to narrow down my focus and improve faster.

Wow. Thanks Can and Tom D. for pointing me at the Global Training Report website. Brilliant analysis and insight there, courtesy of Roberto Pedreira.

Been busy the last 2 weeks so not as much training as I would like. On the plus side Im now Archery leader qualified under GNAS. Archery and BJJ? why not. Im also now riding a motorbike, a brand spanking new Yamaha 125YBR. My first vehicle of any kind so have been trying to gets to grips with that. Lots of adventures already.

Had a great training session just gone, lots of stand up throwing practise and full stand up sparring. Recently remembered the strange grip seoi nage setup Micah at Novagen taught and I think Im gonna carry on working on that as I think it gives a nice option when I dont think the tomoe nage is a great idea. The grip relies on them gripping my lapel, I then grip their lapel over their arm on that same side with my other hand gripping their gripping arm sleeve. The throw then works with the same seio nage mechanics of stepping in and twisting, it bends their elbow up at abit of a funny angle which I think helps break down their defense.

Another move that Ive seen pop up recently is the reverse triangle, probaly due to Braulio pulling it off against Galvao. The setup Im liking is when they go for a single underleg pass and you slip the free leg under, grip the offending arm and then as they pass the leg link up the triangle while creating room with your hips. I find it harder to finish than a normal triangle though even with pulling the leg and rolling into a reverse mount position.

Cardio has dipped slightly from the break but am feeling alright. Have a private with Andy that Ive had since April! need to have a proper think about some stuff I need to work on and use it.

Thoughts for this post:
Listen to your instructer!, even if something is working well for you if he/she says its not good then listen!. It might work now but it will probaly cause issues for you later, something they can see but you might not.

Big congrats to Jude Samuel who won his first Pro mma fight!

Video link

On this edition of No Holds Barred, host Eddie Goldman continues chronicling the decline of American boxing by reviewing the fights of this past weekend and previewing the major fights coming up this week.

We discuss the biggest fight of this past weekend, where Koki Kameda captured the IBF flyweight title from Daisuke Naito with a clear-cut unanimous decision in Saitama, Japan. We also discuss the knockout victory by IBF super middleweight champion Lucian Bute of Librado Andrade and the controversial draw between Joan Guzman and Ali Funeka in Quebec City, Quebec, Canada. This coming week will see fights this Wednesday involving Bernard Hopkins against Enrique Ornelas in Philadelphia and Roy Jones Jr. against Danny Green in Sydney, Australia, which is supposed to build up for a decade-late Hopkins-Jones rematch next year. We bemoan the fact that the December 4 fight between noted women fighters Holly Holm and Melissa Hernandez in Albuquerque, New Mexico, has not received much attention. And we discuss the fight Saturday, December 5, between WBO cruiserweight champion Marco Huck and challenger Ola Afolabi in Germany.

We move on to preview the biggest fight scheduled for next weekend, which will again take place outside the U.S. It will involve WBA light welterweight champion Amir Khan of England (21-1, 15 KOs), now trained by Freddie Roach, defending his belt against Dmitriy Salita (30-0-1, 16 KOs), originally from Ukraine and now living in Brooklyn. This fight, which takes place at the Metro Radio Arena in Newcastle, UK, will be on UK pay-per-view, but will not be televised in the U.S.

At a recent New York news conference, we spoke with Dmitriy Salita and his longtime trainer, Jimmy O’Pharrow, who first taught him how to box at the Starrett City Gym in Brooklyn. A confident but respectful Dmitriy Salita predicted victory in this fight. Just as Amir Khan, who is a Muslim, is doing, Dmitriy Salita, who is a Jew, refrained from making this fight into anything other than a sporting contest.

And we close with what HBO is showing instead in the U.S. this Saturday, December 5, a middleweight fight in Atlantic City between Paul Williams (37-1, 27 KOs) and WBC super welterweight champion Sergio Martinez (44-1-2, 24 KOs), who is moving up in weight for this fight.

That is a snapshot of the sorry state of American boxing, along with a preview of the biggest fight in the world this weekend, all on No Holds Barred.

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

Make sure to visit the official boxing forum for No Holds Barred, the MySpace Boxing Forum.

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.

American Top Team. Whether you’re a beginner or a champion, train with the champions in Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, boxing, wrestling, grappling, and mixed martial arts at American Top Team. Check out their web site at http://americantopteam.com/.

GRACIEMAG, the most reliable source of information on Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu. GRACIEMAG represents Jiu-Jitsu philosophy and features news, profiles, history, photos, videos, and tips and secrets of the mother of all martial arts. Published since 1996 in Brazil, GRACIEMAG: The Jiu-Jitsu Lifestyle, is in both English and Portuguese, and is also online at GRACIEMAG.com.

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

Thanks, Eddie Goldman
EddieGoldman.com

I went to the class at Unit2 yesterday only to find out that the Friday 11:30 AM BJJ class had been cancelled.  The kick boxing coach was there, however, and offered to roll no gi with me until his class started.  We trained for about 25 minutes, and I noticed incorporating some of the half guard techniques I had learned in my private with John earlier this month.  Specifically grabbing deep around the hip when I get an underhook and shrinking/hiding my bottom arm and hand.  He kept getting a chin strap when I had him in half guard, and I found myself really having to work to disengage.

After we rolled, I asked for his one minute critique and picked up a few concepts I haven’t really incorporated.  These included setting up two related submissions (like an armbar and a triangle or a choke and a triangle) so that if a person defends one, they have to give up the other.  He also pointed out that I will sometimes “over defend” a submission attempt, which is the chess equivalent of sending a queen across the board to save a pawn.    Good stuff – - – and I need to work on both these areas.

Today I went to the designated open mat at Unit2 and was surprised that only one other person showed up.  He wanted to work on positional training from being in cross side, as well as being in guard.  I’m really poor at holding someone in cross side and need to work my sweeps from the guard.  I also drilled the de la riva sweep we learned yesterday.  After positional training and drilling techniques for about 30 minutes, we trained for 15 minutes.

This was a shorter training day for me because Frank and I had matinée tickets for the orchestra, followed by dinner with friends.  We’re now settling in at home to watch the GA – GA Tech game.  Life is good.