Daily Submission

A little late on this one but better late then never. Rolled no-gi last thursday. Prior to class I spent about 20 minutes working on my shot. I don't get to drill it enough. The speed is coming back now I need to start training it with a partner. Technique wise we worked off the arm drag in butterfly guard. The first technique was the armdrag to the back. It can be seen here:



Incidently, the guy being demoed on is Stephan Kesting who, like my coach Adam, is a Marcus Soares Black Belt. His stuff is great, check out grapplearts.tv for more.

Then we worked a simple counter. When he arm drags, we post that arm and hope over to the other side, landing in side control.

Next was a re-drag counter, which ended up with the guy on top taking his partners back. Tough to explain. Basically, as he tries to take your back, you re-drag his arm and slip behind him. I can't explain it more because I still suck at it.

So on to rolling. Rolled with this dude Dan, who I don't really know. I think he started at the gym during my absence and he comes on different days then me. So basically, I had no idea what to expect. He was pretty good. I had my wrestling shoes on since I was practicing my shot earlier and I somewhat made a transition back to wrestler. Not a bad thing really as I almost never rely on my wrestling. He was good. His half guard was sick. I have posted on my half guard phase and how I focused on it exclusively for like a month. I have a pretty decent handle on it. He was on another level. Sweep me twice with it, even though I saw it coming. Hit a nice flower sweep on me, which is difficult because I have a pretty good base. Tapped me a few times, once with a darce.

I felt I did OK. I got his back once, passed his guard once. I really had to focus on my defensive game. Spent a lot of time on the bottom in a front head and arm. I hit my spin out (armspin) once but he stuff all the rest of my tricks. My peek outs were good but not good enough. I managed to shut down his darce attempts for a long time before he finally hit it.

But the bottom line was I got my butt kicked. I felt a little better after talking to Adam. I had asked if Gavin one of our senior Blues was up for his purple any time soon. He said after Dan. As far as he was concerned he was a purple already, he was just waiting on Marcus. So I got beat by a (almost) purple belt. No shame in that.

Daily Submission

Was sparring tonight and I think Crazy Monkey Defense is finally clicking for me. For the first round I was really focusing on keeping the CM structure tight and cycling my elbows. I think I got hit like three times. Once I started to realize how safe I was, I let my offensive open up. I got crowd him and I landed some real solid combinations.

One thing my partner mentioned was that I was, in effect, elbowing his hands. He could feel them through the 14 ounce gloves we were using.

For the jits practice, I got to work a little X guard which I don't do that often. We worked of a butterfly sweep where the guy posts his leg to prevent the sweep. You transition to X guard and sweep him back, then moving to side control. I will try to post a video of it a little later. It is a slick little sweep and I found it pretty simple.

I am a celebrity!!

Ok, I am not even a minor, failed reality show contestant level, celebrity but I did find my name popping up on fighter profile sites the other day. Here I am at MMA core
http://www.mma-core.com/fighters/_Tony_Manifold?fid=109647
and Sherdog
http://www.sherdog.com/fighter/Tony-Manifold-29259

And here is a little 16 second clip from the fight they mention

UFC 102

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.

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).

Armegeddon FC

Off to watch the fights tonight. Good luck Zuma crew. Report tomorrow.

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.