Focusing Hard on BJJ

Another week down here in beautiful Rio de Janiero, it's hard to believe that we are coming up on six months in Rio already. The time has flown by, I have a had a great time training, hitting the beach, and exploring what Rio offers. While I still trained striking and wrestling the main focus this week was training in the kimono.

After a great CR Gringo Class taught by Dennis.

Week in Training

Monday mornings wrestling class we reviewed and added some technique to shot defense. In addition to the normal defense of sprawling, whizzering, and working to go behind, we spend time focusing on using motion and hand positioning from blocking their opponents initial attack. We then broke into groups of four and did rotations. Monday afternoon was Gringo Class taught by Dennis. Dennis runs a great class with heavy emphasis on hard drilling and hard rolling. We started with guard passing drills, performing a number of movements and sequences to help create more flow in our passing. Dennis then showed a couple of ways to pass the spider guard. We then moved into live situational sparring. To start Dennis had one guy shoot takedown entries for 30 seconds non-stop, after 30 seconds the guy would finish his takedown and then we would spar from open guard. After 2 and a half minutes the cycle would be repeated, and then again it was the other guys turn. I was working with Nabas, a great purple belt from Jordan who is the CR house manager for HQ and Premiere. Nabas is incredibly technical and flexible and offers a good style to counteract by grinding game. Our roll was filled with scrambles and positional changes with both of us battling hard. The free training went good as well, there are some great grapplers in the houses right now and the level of training is high.

Some of our guests L to R Kim, Arild, and Stefan drilling in the apartment.

On Tuesday's striking training we focused on muay thai. The team has a new muay thai instructor. Both him and his son have spent years in the sport and have excellent technique. Almost as exciting is that his son speaks good English. While I can grasp general concepts and some details in Portuguese, it is nice to be coached and corrected in English. I could really focus on the details and ask questions as they came up. My flow and mixing of punches to kicks is getting better, but I still really need to work on the idea of using my hips more and kicking “through” my opponent.

Wednesday and Thursday were filled with grappling of various sorts. We had another excellent Gringo Class with Dennis, covering rolling loop choke and specific training from the sprawl position. Like Monday the training consisted of 2 cycles each person of 30 seconds continuous sprawls and then 2 and a half minutes of sparring from the sprawl position. On both Wednesday and Thursday I got some great nogi work in with Dennis. He was doing a technique shoot for a BJJ magazine and wanted to sharpen it up so on both days we spent an hour + drilling. For anyone staying at CR if you have the opportunity to be taught by or work with Dennis do so. His techniques are incredibly solid and he thinks about little details most people over look. He also has the great ability to see the areas in peoples games where improvement can be made and help you to correct them. Thursday also had a great wrestling session covering countering kicks with takedowns and wrestling against the cage.

Chilling out in between rolls during an academy visit. Photo by bjjpix.com

On Friday I woke up feeling great, I'm talking the best I have felt in a long time. In striking during the footwork drills I felt light on my feet and was cutting good angles. During the pad work (both boxing and muay thai) I was moving good, keeping good distance, and snapping my punches and kicks. After my rounds I talked with Jean Pierre, the boxing coach about my striking and some concepts to work on.

After striking I went down to the beach with Nicole and had a quick swim in the ocean. From there I went back to the apartment grabbed my kimono and nogi stuff, had a quick coffee from the bakery down stairs and headed off to Gringo Class. The drilling was fast paced, and flowed good, we spent time doing guard replacement and sit-out drills, and then repped out the techniques we learned throughout the week. Dennis showed the roll through anaconda choke from a front headlock, which works hand in hand with the rolling loop choke he had shown earlier in the week. We then moved into specific training. First we did the takedown to open guard training that we did on Monday, then we switched and did the 30 second sprawl and turtle cycle we did on Wednesday. I worked with Arild during the specific training; he is a talented grappler who is continually on the move/offense. It made for great training because we worked at a high speed the entire time with neither of us letting up. To finish a couple of us were placed in the center of the mat for eight minutes with fresh people working in every two minutes. I was tired physically, but mentally I felt determined. I continually rolled hard and didn't have time to think about things only act and react. As a result I hit some beautiful sweeps and reversals as well as offensively advance positions. Dennis really encouraged me to push the pace during the cycles and rolling, never allowing me to slow down and think. As a competitor, having an instructor there who is pushing me mentally and physically is phenomenal. It really helps to bring out the best not only in myself but everyone else as well. After the class Hwyel (who is the creator of BJJHacks.com Check it out for awesome videos) showed me a very smooth way to take the back that fed right into a flower sweep if my opponent defends.

Nicole and I at the Lapa Arches

After the class Nabas, Dennis and I changed into our nogi gear for the technique photo shoot. I was an interesting experience and cool to see how much work and detail goes into capturing the technique photo series for a magazine. You take a look at something in the magazine and you don't really think about how the photos have to capture the angles and flow, from step to step, to capture the details of a technique.

The weekend was, as always, a nice and relaxing way to round out the week. My time consisted of drilling some technique, eating good food, watching UFC with friends, and relaxing at the beach. Life in Rio consists training hard, playing hard, and enjoying life---and that's what it's all about.