Rough night for me last night. Not one of the guys I wanted to win came out on top. Damien Maia was a particular disappointment. I was really looking forward to a great fight between those two. Randy Couture and Mintauro was a great fight and I was really worried about that fight because I hate it when fading legends fight. I hate seeing guys on the tail end of their careers getting beat badly. Luckily, that didn't happen to either of them Nog took the win but Couture was competive and even looked like he was going to pull it off at times.
Unfourtunately, it looks like he did too well. At 46 Randy is starting to show his age but he just signed a new 6 fight deal through 2012. That would put him at 49. I hope he quits before he does perment damage to himself.
On the other hand, how good is his jiu jitsu. He escaped a lot of position against one of the best MMA BJJ guys. I was seriously impressed.
Sunday, August 30, 2009
Sunday, August 23, 2009
Armegeddon FC recap
Last night I went and watched the first edition of Armegeddon Fighting Championships. Two guys from my gym fought on the card (although we were supposed to have about 4). Both Gavin Niel and Nick Driedger won their respective fights. Gavin won a one sided decision and Nick finished his opponent by ground and pound in the first round. Zuma was well represented in the crowd as both fighters probably got the biggest appaulse of the event.
We had 12 fights with only one going the distance so it was a very large card. Fighters ranged from first fighter newbies to journeymen fighters and there was decent action from start to finish. There was only one disappointment. The teammates of Duncan Wilson, embarassed him with their actions. In the section next too me there was a whole row of people wearing "Team Wilson" shirts. When Duncan Wilson was stopped after a valiant effort against a larger man, his team took acception with the call. The Ref was John Alessio and very, very experienced fighter who knows a thing or two about the fight game but they didn't like it. They threw their beer at the security gaurds and one guy jumped the glass the seperated his section from the floor seats and then tussled with the security guards. The ones that stayed the rest of the guard continued to make asses of themselves. I feel bad for Duncan Wilson because not only did he lose but that kind of action from your team will not help you get more fights.
For a fight by fight recap of the event check out MMARingReport (that is where I got the photos).
Saturday, August 22, 2009
Tuesday, August 18, 2009
First Grappling tournament video
I posted about my experience at the Submission Series in Vancouver last July. You can find it here. I now have a video of my first match which I have posted below. This was in the 200 lbs and under intermediate no gi division. I was about 187 and this was my first sub grappling event. I am the guy in the white t-shirt.
Video page
I have labeled all the video's on my page with the video tag so you can go directly to them by following this link:
http://tonyssubmissions.blogspot.com/search/label/video
http://tonyssubmissions.blogspot.com/search/label/video
Daily Submission
So I had a hellasious work out last night. There was not a lot of new tecniques becing taught because we have a bunch of guys fighting on Saturday (check out http://armageddonfc.com/ for more info). However we did a lot of pad work and really pushed the pace. By the end of the Muay thai portion I was sucking wind pretty hard and sweating enough to save a small african village from a drought.
The BJJ portion focuse on a couple of butterfly guard passes. One of them was the pass described here: http://tonyssubmissions.blogspot.com/2008/04/daily-submission_14.html . The other one was dceptively simple. Reach over his back with one hand and grab the gi. With the other hand (right in this case) reach under his legs and grip the far side gi by the ankle. Post your right leg up and pull his legs to your right as you pull him in with the left. You end up o Knee on belly. Pretty simple and effective.
It was a rough roll last night because I was so tired. I rolled with a guy who was probably about 20 pounds lighter than me and I admit that I bullied him around with my size a bit. I tried to stay technical but when i get tired I wrestle rather than focus on BJJ. Another thing I noticed is that when I am tired, I can be tapped just by smothering my mouth and nose. At one point I was working a double underhook pass and he triangled my head. Normally, I just slowly work to shuck his legs off and get the pass but I guess I was really hurt for air so I ended up tapping for lack of oxygen. Other than that it was a good roll, I had some good submission chances and a couple of nice sweeps and passes. As I get in better grappling shape again, I am sure I will get up to snuff.
The BJJ portion focuse on a couple of butterfly guard passes. One of them was the pass described here: http://tonyssubmissions.blogspot.com/2008/04/daily-submission_14.html . The other one was dceptively simple. Reach over his back with one hand and grab the gi. With the other hand (right in this case) reach under his legs and grip the far side gi by the ankle. Post your right leg up and pull his legs to your right as you pull him in with the left. You end up o Knee on belly. Pretty simple and effective.
It was a rough roll last night because I was so tired. I rolled with a guy who was probably about 20 pounds lighter than me and I admit that I bullied him around with my size a bit. I tried to stay technical but when i get tired I wrestle rather than focus on BJJ. Another thing I noticed is that when I am tired, I can be tapped just by smothering my mouth and nose. At one point I was working a double underhook pass and he triangled my head. Normally, I just slowly work to shuck his legs off and get the pass but I guess I was really hurt for air so I ended up tapping for lack of oxygen. Other than that it was a good roll, I had some good submission chances and a couple of nice sweeps and passes. As I get in better grappling shape again, I am sure I will get up to snuff.
Sunday, August 16, 2009
Daily Technique
Normally in my technique posts I post a video but in this case I will post a link to the Sherdog.com striking forum. I have a thread there that is consolidating all the info I can find on fighting southpaw, or left handed. I fight southy ever though I am a right hander for a couple of reasons. One being that I wrestle and grapple right foot forward and the other being various injuries make it harder for me to fight orthodox, or right handed.
Fighting Southpaw
Take a look and I would love to here of any other resources.
Fighting Southpaw
Take a look and I would love to here of any other resources.
Thursday, August 13, 2009
Daily Submission
I just came back from getting my ass beat and I feel great. I only kickboxed today because both the BJJ and kickboxing classes were at the same time and I am still babying my shoulder a bit. After warm up we worked a series that I had a lot of trouble with for two reason which I will go over in a minute. The series went cross, hook, cross, parry a jab while throwing a jab, cross, hook, cross, slip a cross, hook cross. I had two problems, the first is that it is a little awkward for a southpaw so it took some getting used to. The second is that I suck at slipping punches. I am more of a rocky then a sweatpea. So although I had a hard time with it, it was a very valuable drill for me.
We spar later and I went against this dude Dustin. Dustin is a true heavyweight and I am at best a super middle weight. He had like 8-10 inches on me and a good 50 pounds. It was like matching mickey ward fight Wlad Klitscho. I got hit a lot. It was a good exercise for me to work my CMD guard and practice slipping his punches. Once I got his timing down, I was more successful and landed a few good punches including a solid right hook to the jaw. But I definately got my ass beat.
I think it is important to get beat down once in a while in training. It keeps you humble, it prepares you for things get bad and it is better then getting beat down for real.
"It's only after we've lost everything that we're free to do anything"
Tyler Durden
We spar later and I went against this dude Dustin. Dustin is a true heavyweight and I am at best a super middle weight. He had like 8-10 inches on me and a good 50 pounds. It was like matching mickey ward fight Wlad Klitscho. I got hit a lot. It was a good exercise for me to work my CMD guard and practice slipping his punches. Once I got his timing down, I was more successful and landed a few good punches including a solid right hook to the jaw. But I definately got my ass beat.
I think it is important to get beat down once in a while in training. It keeps you humble, it prepares you for things get bad and it is better then getting beat down for real.
"It's only after we've lost everything that we're free to do anything"
Tyler Durden
Tuesday, August 11, 2009
It has been so long!!!
God it has been so long since I posted anything because frankly, I wasn't training. I re-injured my shoulder and the rehab has been brutal. I had blown my rotator cuff about two years ago and it was not diagnosed so when I re-injured it they had to fix all that damage as well.
So I got back to training at Zuma last night. I got say, I love that gym. Between my injury and my military training I had been there once in 10 months. But I walked in and it was like coming home. A great enviroment to go along with Adam's top notch instruction. The fighters at the gym have been doing awesome, Sarah Kaufmann has had two fights for strikeforce and won both. There is talk of a 135 women's title in the works for her. She also got her Purple belt from Marcus Soares. Alot of the other guys have been doing well in MMA, Diego Wilson is currently 4-0, Gavin niel is still doing well as are a bunch of others.
So I doubled up on my first day back. I did some Muay thai prior to BJJ. The main focus was on a lead hook, cross combo. From an othrodox stance, you stepped to you right, dug a lead shovel hook hard in to the belly and followed with the right cross. The step put you at an angle that let you hit hard from a position where he couldn't hit you. For me because I fight southy it didn't work as well, I ended up stepping into a right handers power. I think i will work it stepping to the right (my lead leg) and digging the shovel hook into the kidney's and then follow up with the straight left.
I also had a chance to spar which I haven't done in a long time. It went well. I have been working on fighting from a Crazy monkey Defense structure. I found I had good succes with it when I stayed focused on keeping the hands high and moving, staying in the hunch back posture and keeping my elbows on my ribs. More time under pressure will help but it was a positive first experience.
The BJJ clas was pretty relaxed, we worked on a couple of half guard sweeps that I have talked about before in this blog, then just shot the shit for awhile before rolling.
Rolling went well, I was obviously out of practice and you could see it in my movement. I was slow moving my hips and I had trouble with some sweeps. My opponent was bigger than me and had good posture. I found him leaning way back a few times so I used one of my old standbys and used my feet on his hips to push him back then scramble to a double leg and take side control. I haven't used that in a while so it was good to see it was still there. Got mount fairly easily as usual but still have trouble finishing. I find with the bigger guys, when I try to hard to finish I get rolled.
More work for me.
So I got back to training at Zuma last night. I got say, I love that gym. Between my injury and my military training I had been there once in 10 months. But I walked in and it was like coming home. A great enviroment to go along with Adam's top notch instruction. The fighters at the gym have been doing awesome, Sarah Kaufmann has had two fights for strikeforce and won both. There is talk of a 135 women's title in the works for her. She also got her Purple belt from Marcus Soares. Alot of the other guys have been doing well in MMA, Diego Wilson is currently 4-0, Gavin niel is still doing well as are a bunch of others.
So I doubled up on my first day back. I did some Muay thai prior to BJJ. The main focus was on a lead hook, cross combo. From an othrodox stance, you stepped to you right, dug a lead shovel hook hard in to the belly and followed with the right cross. The step put you at an angle that let you hit hard from a position where he couldn't hit you. For me because I fight southy it didn't work as well, I ended up stepping into a right handers power. I think i will work it stepping to the right (my lead leg) and digging the shovel hook into the kidney's and then follow up with the straight left.
I also had a chance to spar which I haven't done in a long time. It went well. I have been working on fighting from a Crazy monkey Defense structure. I found I had good succes with it when I stayed focused on keeping the hands high and moving, staying in the hunch back posture and keeping my elbows on my ribs. More time under pressure will help but it was a positive first experience.
The BJJ clas was pretty relaxed, we worked on a couple of half guard sweeps that I have talked about before in this blog, then just shot the shit for awhile before rolling.
Rolling went well, I was obviously out of practice and you could see it in my movement. I was slow moving my hips and I had trouble with some sweeps. My opponent was bigger than me and had good posture. I found him leaning way back a few times so I used one of my old standbys and used my feet on his hips to push him back then scramble to a double leg and take side control. I haven't used that in a while so it was good to see it was still there. Got mount fairly easily as usual but still have trouble finishing. I find with the bigger guys, when I try to hard to finish I get rolled.
More work for me.
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