An awesome short video put together by a buddy of mine for the up coming Oregon Sub League season. You can catch me throwing my favorite throw, Osoto Gari, at the :07 mark and again at the :26 mark where I throw my opponent with Kata Guruma. Awesome video and even better editing.
Monthly Archives: February 2013
IBJJF San Francisco International Open: Results and Lessons.
I recently fought in the 2013 IBJJF SF International Open and it was a great experience. I fought in the Adult, Purple, 195# Middle Heavy weight class and ended up placing third. Anyway, my recent trip to the Bay Area was a massive success, here’s what happened.
Day 1:
Myself and two of my buddies, Shawn and Evan, leave PDX on a rainy, cold, windy day. It was the perfect day to LEAVE Portland. The airplane ride was especially awesome as I set next to the lead singers of Acoustic Minds, who were headed to do a show in Hollywood, CA. I ended up getting a free voucher for Chipotle, and everyone seemed to be happy to be headed to California. We end up practicing at the always welcoming One World Jiu Jitsu Academy. It was so awesome to see all my One World familia again, and if they are reading this, I loved it. I was still 7#’s over, so I had an orange and some almonds for dinner.
Day 2:
The day before the competition. A morning practice was scheduled at AKA Sunnyvale and it did not fail to impress. It was an open mat type of practice but the vibe was more than that. The air was filled with gameness, humble hearts, and technique. I cut my rolls short and stretch while Evan and Shawn continue to roll. We end the day watching some Tosh.O and playing on our phones. 1.5#’s over.
Day 3:
We leave earlier than expected and make it up to San Francisco in good time. Parking is easy and we enter the pretty empty Kezar Pavilion, noticing that blue belts are already fighting. THEY ACTUALLY STATED EARLY?! My buddy Jacob Bell gets called first and ends up closing out his division with an excellent fought tournament and a second place medal in he Adult, Purple. 141.5# Feather weight class. Evan ends up losing his match on points, but gaining valuable experience in the mean time. Shawn had the time of his life. We leave the tournament after seeing friends in a happy mood. We eat cheesecake at the Cheesecake Factory and forget about calories.
Day 4:
Our last day in sunny San Jose and we make the most of it. We eat burritos at the World Famous Iguana’s. We spent the day at an Army Surplus store and visiting various dude stores. We end the night with another solid practice at AKA Sunnyvale. Go home to shower and fly out of SJC. The plane is quiet and I talk about religion with a total stranger for 1 hours and 45 minutes. We are back in the Northwest.
All and all, this Bay Area trip was a blast. Can’t wait to do it all again.
First, Destroyer Submission Grappling. Then, Hollywood.
Today was a big day for myself and my brother. The video that I shot for Destroyer Submission Grappling‘s contest not only made it on to the most prestigious grappling blog known to man, but it also WON. AMAZING RIGHT? I want to thank my brother, my girlfriend (who filmed the video), everyone at Portland Judo, and my clothing and gi sponsor, OSS Gear. With out these people, the video would have never been shot. I’ll snap a photo of my prize pack once I get it. So pumped!
Hidehiko Yoshida Shows Some Stuff
Hidehiko Yoshida
Hidehiko Yoshida is a living legend in judo. He’s an Olympic and World Championship gold medalist and he’s probably been in the game longer than you’ve been alive. The embedding option was not available for this video, but click on the link below to watch it. Two of my favorite techniques are covered in the devastating Osoto Gari and the vicious Sode Guruma Jime. Study up and show some love for Yoshida.
Watch as Hidehiko Yoshida Shows Some Stuff.
Sotiropoulos and I
Earlier this week I had the privilege to train and drill with current UFC Fighter George Sotiropoulos. George is a jiu jitsu black belt and currently fights in the UFC at the lightweight/welterweight division. I first met George at a Strikeforce showing at a Buffalo Wild Wings roughly a year ago. I handed him my Portland Judo business card and invited him to come and train with us whenever he was in Portland. Fast forward to about a year later and I get a phone call and voice mail message from George explaining that he had recently rediscovered my business card and was looking to train. I was pretty pumped and after some planning we finally met, trained, and drilled with each other. It was awesome. Check out George as he emerges victorious over Joe Lauzon with a stunning Kimura finish.
Where’d You Get That Belt From?!
I visit a lot of gyms and a lot of people ask me where I got my belt from. So much so, that I decided to film a short vlog to review my belt. The good people over at Kataaro were kind enough to make my belt and did a superb job. Check out the video below for all the details!
Killer Ezekiel Choke!
Prof. Ben Baxter is considered one of the toughest black belts in the Pacific Northwest and his techniques are second to none. Watch as he goes over one of his favorite combinations. I already know what I’ll be working on for the next upcoming months…
5.5 Things For Minor Injuries
Injuries are bound to happen while training in any contact sport. So it comes down to not if we will get injured, but when. I guess you can toss “How severely?” in to the mix too. I recently sustained a fairly gruesome finger injury myself due to training and even 3 months later my grips are not the same. Although I attended college for over 5 years, I am not a doctor, so take my 5 steps to injury relief with a grain of salt. Anything that involves internal bleeding, bone breaking, dislocating, or the brain, stop reading and call 911!
1. If the injury is a soft tissue injury, meaning a muscle, ligament, tendon, sprain, or bruise, the first thing you should to do is REST. Resting does a ton of good things for your body. First, it makes sure that the injury sustained suffers no further damage. Second, resting will allow the pain to eventually subside. Lastly, resting will put you on the path to recovery much quicker than ignoring the injury and allowing it to become nagging.
Fun Things to do While Resting:
A. Check out my most popular post! Now with over 1,000 views!
B. Watch this video. Drool.
C. Learn this move.
2. Now that you’re resting, let’s move on to the second step, which is to ICE the injury. Icing does two great things for you. First, it reduces the body’s natural inflammatory response to sustaining a soft tissue injury. Secondly, it keeps the swelling to a minimum. Too much swelling can cause excessive pain and slow down the blood flow to the injured area. Ice your injury 15-20 minutes per hour alternating between icing and non-icing periods to avoid skin damage. A good ice bag, bucket or cup of ice water, or my favorite, a frozen bag of blueberries all make excellent icing devices.
3. Applying COMPRESSION to the injury helps further reduce swelling to the injured area. Reducing swelling is very crucial because excessive swelling may delay healing. Sorry I couldn’t find a funny video for compression…
4. ELEVATING the injury will further help reduce swelling to the area. For best results, elevate the injured area above the heart. So if you severely sprained your right ring finger attempting to execute a sit-up sweep, be prepared to sit at your desk with your right hand above your head for 15 to 20 minutes at a time. Which I did.
*The method described above is better known as RICE. The next one and a half steps are things that I feel help the healing process exponentially.
5. MENTAL toughness should not be overlooked. Just because you are laid up with an injury, for whatever period of time it may be, does not mean that you cannot practice.
A. In the day and age of YouTube, millions of videos are at your fingertips. Utilize the injury down time to learn a new move or study some more film of your favorite grappler.
B. Take this time to remember what it feels like to not be able to train. Let yourself get hungry, bask in this feeling. As hard as it sounds, remember the feeling of NOT training so that when you are finally able to train once again, you realize what a special feeling it is.
C. STAY POSITIVE. “The only disability in life is a bad attitude”.
Oregon’s Finest
I just want to preface this post by saying that both of the fighters in the video below are awesome. I have the honor to train with both of these guys on a consistent basis and I’m glad to call them my friends. With that being said, as soon as this super fight was announced, all of Portland, OR. was a buzz. It featured recently promoted SBGi product John Diggins versus one of Megaton‘s finest products in Ben Baxter. This highly anticipated match took place at the 2013 Ground Warrior Submission Tournament in Oregon. Grab some beef jerky and watch this battle.
Finishing, Again
A few posts ago I wrote about the Finish. Basically, the main idea of that post was to emphasize the importance of the finish and that finishing your opponent is the goal when training. While perusing the wonderful world of YouTube I stumbled upon some awesome words of wisdom from jiu jitsu virtuoso Dave Camarillo. Dave goes on to show a very cool drill and a very interesting thought process along the way. Check it out.
andynewazalife 