Playing Kinetic Chess

A blog to collect all of the new things that I learn in Brazilian Jiu Jitsu. Bits and pieces I pick up along the way.

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Hot

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broken

First day back to training in Australia and they had a grading, only to have the instructors ankle broken due to a guard pull. Just unlucky...

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Wrestling old school

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Mexico city

First training session in Mexico was with Renzo Gracie Jiu Jitsu, after asking how much for a week of training they said we only charge by the month but you can come as often as you like. After telling them I am from Australia and only here for the week they were happy to let me train for free. Thanks guys

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Apparently Machupicchu isn’t holding together as well as it used it. It’s been estimated that it originally had around 500 occupants so when the 2,500 visitors turn up each day, it has a negative impact on the site. It was said that perhaps there will be bridges in the future so you will be able to look at the site, but not actually walk on it.

Some of the more impressive parts were the axis of the world (last picture) and a reflection pool made for star gazing (first picture).

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our misty morning hike

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Posture

Posture is everything, good posture equals less effort.

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sweep from open guard standing

Start with both sleeves in each hand with you feet on their hip bones, transition your left foot to their right bicep and your right foot behind their left heel. Change your right hand to the opponents right sleeve and your left hand to their right pant cuff. Pull with your left hand and kick out with your right leg to sweep your opponent, stand and take knee ride.

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The view from our window at the hotel as lady luck would have it was one of the most beautiful things to behold, it would seem that I would be able to walk to Jiu Jitsu class. I walked over to the building that day to find out when training was on and found the doorway to go up to the top floor after asking a few Brazilians in my broken Portuguese. I arrived at the top floor around lunch time so I was lucky enough to catch them in the middle of the mma class. The club was run by Lauro Figueiroa a fourth degree black belt in BJJ who thankfully spoke English so I was at least able to understand what was being said. Sadly our time in Recife was only bound to be for a week and was over new years, so training was only going to be three lessons in total. I would loved to have been able to spend a month training with the guys there as they train hard and the skill level is good. Being one of the hottest times of the year I think I did well to keep up with the guys as I’m not used to the combined heat and humidity of Recife.

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Training with Tony De Souza in Ollantaytambo, Cusco

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Outdoors

Training in Ollantaytambo was the first time I have trained outdoors in Bjj, Tony is a pretty laid back coach and started off by some light chess style roll to see what I do then when we got into a slow roll would fix up my little mistakes. Very cool session.

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Chamo makes awesome sandwiches.

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Rancho training in cabulco Chile

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Training in Chile

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two months later

Two months of no real training, once in Paraguay with one of the instructors at a gym who's head instructor for Bjj is "the Koala". It was great to get back to Santiago, to at least to train at http://www.chilejiujitsu.cl/index.html after Bolivia as the altitude and actually finding a club was hard. So after training for three days in a row I feel like I've been hit by a train... nice

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360 gyms Argentina

Have had the pleasure to train at a couple of the 360 gyms in Argentina so far and have not been disappointed yet. My first session was in Mendoza at the gym only a block away from where we were staying as luck would have it. Raul the head coach was happy for me to come along and train but apologized from the start as the night was going to be take downs only as this was something the boys needed, would have loved to have rolled but after starting the session I realized that I hadn’t done a takedown since leaving Canberra. So the night was filled with variations of double leg pick ups, double leg with a spin and a variation on the fireman carry that I had done before but still don’t like. The session was a good reminder of the need to do more stand-up as my legs were like jelly the following day from all the pick ups. Sadly I was only in Mendoza for the night so I was only able to do the one session. On to Cordoba but luck was not on my side as the addresses on the internet for the gyms were incorrect and after walking for over an hour in search of a couple of gyms went home disappointed. I googled BJJ in Rosario while in Cordoba and found the location for the team 360 gym in Rosario and found that they had a session on the Wednesday at 2100 hours so thought we should be able to get there and find accommodation with time to spare to do a session. We got to Rosario by 1830 and found a hostel to lodge in by 1730, it seems they are busy this time of year. Tril started the night with a migraine so after her usual drug combo and laying her down to sleep I had half hour left to find the gym. The gym was an hours walk or a 15min drive so off to fina a cab, 10min later I found a cab with 15min to spare so I made it to the gym right on time.        Normally I like to check out a gym beforehand to make sure its ok or to simply see if they actually train BJJ as I have learned its not always the case.(the net is more often wrong than right) Anyway I walked into the gym with no time to spare and walked up to the front desk and asked if they had a BJJ class, the lady behind the counter replied yes and then asked if I would like to watch, I asked if I could train and her reply was no you can watch but not train. Why? Well she then said it costs to train, you will have to pay to train… So after paying 30 pesos off I went to train, why do some people have to make a simple transaction complicated. I am always happy to pay for a session, every instructor deserves to be paid for their time no matter how much they enjoy the job. Training consisted of a couple of variations on the bow and arrow choke which I do like and just a reminder of the dynamics around the move, then about 40mins of rolling. The class had about 5 brown belts and a heap of white belts that night so I enjoyed the combination of white, brown, white, brown till the end. Cabe one of the brown belts then pulled me aside after the class was over to show me a nice little Gi control from guard which I will have to try next time I roll. Cabe also gave me heaps of ideas for places to see on our travels into Paraguay. Ciao for now…

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Who wins when the guy standing passes out then knock's the guy out who's doing the triangle? Don't know who made the image but I like it...