Tuesday, October 23, 2012
Selamat Hari Raya Haji
Sunday, October 14, 2012
Saturday, October 13, 2012
Wednesday, September 26, 2012
Saturday, August 18, 2012
Selamat Hari Raya Aidilfitri
Tuesday, August 14, 2012
Tuesday, July 31, 2012
Tuesday, July 24, 2012
Sunday, July 22, 2012
Thursday, June 28, 2012
Sunday, June 24, 2012
Chuck Norris Introducing the Gracies in 1988
Since then, Chuck Norris has linked up with the Machados, and the UFAF uses John Will & Dave Meyer's BJJ syllabus for their association. You cannot get a black belt under Chuck Norris, unless you get a blue belt under the John Will/Dave Meyer BJJ system
Sunday, May 27, 2012
Two New Purples!
I also graded our professional full time comedian and part time doctor Jason to blue belt!
Thursday, May 3, 2012
Monday, April 30, 2012
BJJ Black Belt!
My BJJ Black Belt. What can I say? It took me 14 years to get here!
Being probably the only one in this region who is a "hobbyist" BJJ black belt (meaning I do not teach BJJ as my full time job, nor am I working in the fitness/gym or related industry), I think I'm ok with the time it took me to reach here.
Whats my secret? No secret actually. Just keep training, at my own pace, consistently. Consistency IMO is the key. One thing that I have emphasized, for myself especially, is to keep injury free. As a hobbyist, with my own business, a wife and two kids, I personally do not see the need to prove myself at my age in BJJ competitions nor in MMA. The chances of injury is too high, the rewards of success too negligible, and I have never been the type to go after fleeting and fickle fame and glory. It is more important to keep injury free, to continue growing even if it is at a slower pace.
Especially after the age of 30, where my body no longer recuperates the way it used to, and my stamina no longer is what it used to be (not that I had great stamina in the first place), I decided to try and train smarter. Thus, I started training with less ego, less reliance on strength, explosiveness, speed. More emphasis on structural strength, angles, timing, balance, weight distribution.
It is unfortunate, but the BJJ world is littered with thousands of blue to brown belts, who train too hard and had to quit due to crippling injuries. Even many of our legendary black belts we all know and admire are now saying that if they know now what they knew then, they would not roll so much and so hard, and rather drill more often.
It is perhaps with this viewpoint that my classes do not have this whole macho vibe. My classes are filled with working professionals, from doctors, lawyers, bankers etc who cannot afford to get injured. Of course, on the rare occasions injuries do happen due to accidents. But you won't see my class full of people with bandaged knees and broken fingers.
That is not to say my guys are not good. Its just that our priorities are different. We love BJJ, and love to train BJJ and to roll. However, we have no desire to be the next Mundial or UFC Champ. My guys do compete in the occasional competition, however it is clear the desire of a banker who trains BJJ for fun is different from a full time BJJ competitor who relies on wins to earn his/her next meal.
Perhaps it is due to my influence of training and being under John Will, who got his black belt when he was older, that I have this viewpoint. I can imagine if I trained under some 18 year old world champion, my view would be different. However, no matter how we admire the skills and the abilities of such young champions, they have not experienced living in the real world yet, and have not experienced for themselves the injuries that you get when you get older.
Thus the simple truth is, you cannot train a working adult, the same way you train teenagers. They/we cannot take such training without breaking down. Of course there will be exceptions, but you cannot take a reasonably fit 30 year old, put him through intensive olympic gymnastic training and try to get him to qualify for the olympics. Nor can you get a 35 year old man, put him in Barcelona's summer training camp, and expect him to be able to play for the first team when the next season starts. More likely than not, both these guys will be injured. There is no reason why BJJ would be any different. You cannot take a 30 year old man and put him through intensive BJJ training with promises of being Mundial World Champion. Furthermore, BJJ is a art with real submissions, the chances of injury if you go all out is higher than gymnastics or football.
I realize that perhaps my views will not be the most popular, as it goes against the fantasy of the martial arts. However, as someone who has attained my faixa preta, I can say with certainty that it is possible to achieve this without sacrificing your body.
Furthermore, I believe my methods of teaching are improving all the time. I have been teaching BJJ for 10 years now (since 2002), and initially it took forever to train my first blue belt. Now I have trained my current batch of purples from white to purple in under 3 years! My blue belts take on average 1 year from white to blue recently.
But ultimately that is the goal, isn't it? Being able to train and progress in your BJJ abilities, while not getting injured and having lots of fun. Interestingly John Will once told me that for a class to really grow and progress, you have to get rid of the students that injure other students, or make the vibe of the class uncomfortable for other students. Even though that person may very well be your best student, ultimately your class succeeds when everyone improves
Otherwise, you will end up with a class where there are the few elite "champions" of the gym, and the rest are cannon fodder who never improve. Yes, there are plenty of sycophants who hang around "champion gyms", always showing up for photo day to be photographed with "champions" and like to claim to be part of the group. However, these are not the best people to have in your classes, as they neither improve, nor give your gym a good reputation. Ultimately most people in these types of gyms quit. No one likes to be the bottom of the ladder in a dog eat dog gym.
Currently, I believe I have just the right atmosphere at my club. There are plenty of purples and blues on the mats, and they are the right type of training partner, willing to play rather than smash. The lower belts have plenty of good training partners, who actually allow them to roll, rather than be trashed all the time. That allows them to grow at a tremendous pace.
You will notice that my post went from getting my black belt to instead my class and my students? Well ultimately your progress has alot to do with the atmosphere and the class you are in. Find the right class, where you won't get injured by idiots spazzing on you, and where egos are not a problem, and you will progress. The sky is the limit!
Train safe, train smart
Sam Wee
2012
Sunday, April 29, 2012
New Black Belt
Despite the humidity and heat, today's seminar was a great one, 3 hours of high quality coaching by John himself. From take downs, Z-guard, back mounts and sweeps. A couple of stuff John talked about that I love to take away from this seminar, "..don't be shy of looking silly or making mistakes, it's part of training and personal growth..."
We look forward to having John over again soon!
Thursday, April 5, 2012
Wednesday, April 4, 2012
Thursday, March 15, 2012
Tuesday, March 13, 2012
Thursday, March 8, 2012
Thursday, March 1, 2012
Personality and YOUR BJJ Game
Does your personality shape your BJJ game? I believe it does, and several things that I have been reading and questions by my students have compelled me to write this post.
Furthermore, there is an interview by Ryan Hall, master of the upside down guard, who has won multiple medals with his triangles, who suddenly believes in giving up the guard completely!
Lastly, I was hearing an interview with Renzo, who got offended when one of his students went to train at Rorion's gym and was turned down because they claimed that Renzo didn't teach the real Jiu Jitsu
Renzo Interview (audio interview)
He was also a bit pissed that Relson claimed Roger Gracie, although trained in Gracie Barra is the only one from there who practices pure Gracie Jiu Jitsu, because he only uses the conservative moves like Helio did, and none of the fancy new stuff.
Personality and your game
I watched this TED video on Youtube months ago, on personality and why some people will be conservative politically, and others liberal:
Though not directly relevant, the gist is that all of us are not born with a blank state. Some of us are more conservative, and others are more risk taking
This will be noticeable in your BJJ game as well, which was my answer to my students.
The risk takers are the ones whose main game is their open guard, and have a preference for armbars, triangles and oma platas.
On the other hand, the conservative BJJ players are the ones who prefer to be on top at all times, is very conservative positionally and would rather go for submissions that do not give up position like chokes, figure fours (americanas and kimuras) and ever wristlocks. Even if they do go for armbars, it would be when everything is fully secured, no room to escape. If they do have to go to their guard, it will be a closed guard, snug and tight.
This is especially noticeable at white belt and blue belt level. As this is the point where everyone starts building their game from scratch, and whatever they are comfortable with based on their personality, will become their A game.
As most BJJers hit purple belt, this is where they either round out their game or become extremely focused on their A game, and hide their weaknesses.
But when two purple belt or higher grapple with someone of equal level as them, their A game comes out again.
Ryan Hall's Change of Heart
This is how I interpret Ryan Hall's BJJ midlife crisis as well.
Firstly, I do agree with him that top game is best if both players are equal. However, I am not certain if it is the best for HIM
He is obviously a superior player, with a high risk taking style. But by changing his game may not be suitable for him, as he might not have the attributes for it, but more importantly, he may not have the personality for it.
He might end up a mediocre black belt who specialises on a top game that doesn't suit his personality.
On the other hand, it might very well be that like most of us, we were liberal politically as a uni student, but grew more conservative as years go by, and this really is the style that would suit him after all.
Who knows, but he is a top notch competitor, and I for one am curious to see his transformation, for better or worse.
What about the World Class BJJers then?
Yes there are BJJers who are world class, but apparently have no preference. They can do it all, like Rickson, Rigan, Jean Jacques, Roger, Marcelo Garcia etc. How do you explain that? On the other hand there are other world class BJJers who only specialize and play a limited and "safe" game, the ones that fight like Helio ie Rorion, Royce etc.
First and foremost, most of us are not Gracies. We havent' been training since we were kids, and will probably only have one game all the way to black belt. These guys have been doing BJJ since before they could walk.
Thus we only live ONE lifetime doing BJJ, while these guys have lived several lifetimes worth of BJJ by now. They have built their game, broke it down and reinvented it many times over, while we are still working on our first game.
But how come some of these legends are so versatile but yet remain world class in all games and positions, while others only specialize in a very limited way? I believe this can be explained by looking back at the history of the different gyms and their philosophies
History and Style of the Gyms
I believe that the original game that was thought by Helio and his brothers is the exact way Royce and Rorion fights. The style is very safe, very conservative. It is said that Helio doesn't have all the fancy guards, only a closed guard!
Then Carlson came along and started emphasizing on strength and endurance on top of technique. His gym split from Helio's and he went out on his own developing his own champions. His philosophy of Jiu Jitsu continues today through his students in the Brazilian Top Team and American Top Team.
Then came Rolls Gracie. He was the first that went cross training with wrestlers, samboists, judokas etc. He was the first to introduce the triangle to BJJ and the first to start playing with the open guard. His influence cannot be understated.
The people who were thought by him and influenced by him include Rickson, the Machados, Carlos Gracie Jr, Jacare (founder of Alliance), Mauricio Gomez (father of Roger Gracie) etc.
When he died, his school was continued by Carlos Gracie Jr and Gracie Barra was born.
Thus Roll's influence and philosophy of Jiu Jitsu can be seen by their variedness of their students
From Gracie Barra, you have all 5 Machado Brothers, Renzo, Ralph, Pe De Pano, Roleta, Nino Schembri, Ricardo Almeida, Braulio Estima and Roger Gracie
From Alliance you have Fabio Gurgel, Cobrinha , Leo Vieira and Marcelo Garcia
From Rickson you get his own guys and Royler's guys through Gracie Humaita.
Of course these are all great champions, many of them are so varied and they are known by certain aspects of their game.
But there are some, like Rickson, Rigan, Jean Jacques, Renzo, Roger etc who seem to transcend games based on personality. This is again, because they have experienced many lifetimes of Jiu Jitsu. They no longer have a conservative game, nor a risk taking game. Its all the same to them.
But for the rest of us mere mortals, we make do with the best we can that hopefully fits our personality type.
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This article was written in 2009. Since I am moving my blog to this one, I thought it best to move some articles that I still agree with as I continue evolving.
Wednesday, February 29, 2012
Saturday, February 18, 2012
Thursday, February 16, 2012
Monday, February 13, 2012
Sunday, February 12, 2012
The Pleasures of Drowning
Nice article on BJJ by the author Sam Harris:
The Pleasures of Drowning
Excerpts:
... a similar form of self-deception can be found in most martial artists, because almost all training occurs with some degree of partner compliance: Students tend to trade stereotyped attacks in a predictable sequence, stopping to reset before repeating the drill. This staccato pattern of practice, while inevitable when learning a technique for the first time, can become a mere pantomime of combat that does little to prepare a person for real encounters with violence.
Another problem is that many combative techniques are too dangerous to perform realistically (e.g., gouging the eyes, striking the groin). As result, students are merely left to imagine that these weapons decisively end a fight whenever deployed in earnest. Reports from the real world suggest otherwise.
These concerns make BJJ and other grappling arts unique in two ways: BJJ can be safely practiced under conditions of 100 percent resistance and, therefore, any doubts or illusions about its effectiveness can be removed. Striking-based arts can also be performed under full resistance, of course, but not safely—because getting repeatedly hit in the head is bad for your health. And, whatever the intensity of training, it is difficult to remove uncertainty from the striker’s art: Not even a professional boxer can be sure what will happen if he hits an assailant squarely on the jaw with a closed fist. The other man might fall to the ground unconscious, or he might not—and without gloves, the boxer might break his hand on the first punch. By contrast, even a novice at BJJ knows beyond any doubt what will happen if he correctly applies a triangle choke. It is a remarkable property of grappling that the distance between theory and reality can be fully bridged...
Thursday, February 2, 2012
Motivation in BJJ
What keeps you going in BJJ? This question applies to both how you keep yourself motivated instant by instant on the mat, and also long term, how and why do you keep doing BJJ in the long run?
On the mats, when you roll, how do you keep going? Some people use anger to motivate themselves, some get an adranaline rush while grappling from both aggression or fear. Some thrive on the competition, love making their partner cry uncle, others on the mental and physical challenges that BJJ presents you with.
The reason this is important is because this will effect the long term longivity of this art to the individual. For many of us who are not full time martial artists, who have jobs and intend to or already have families, our motivations change over time.
If you rely on aggression, on anger, on competition, on needing to prove yourself the alpha dog on the mats, these fires WILL dim when you get married, when you have children, when you face other family or personal changes that require more of your attention.
If you are seriously injured, this will determine whether or not you will return to the mats after your injury, or decide its not worth it. When you get older, and you don't heal as fast, whether or not you are willing to day after day roll with younger, fitter, stronger and possibly more technical guys who are gunning for your tap.
Whatever your answer is, will determine how you train, why you train, whether or not you'll invest in any particular training or direction, and ultimately whether you will continue training the rest of your life.
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This article was written in 2009. Since I am moving my blog to this one, I thought it best to move some articles that I still agree with as I continue evolving.
Saturday, January 28, 2012
Spanking New Purples
Congratulations to our two new purple belts Tjun and Ton. Something is wrong with my camera phone as their belts look blue here, but they're my spanking new purple belts, which brings up my total number of purple belts I've graded to 8.
These guys to me are remarkable, as they achieved their purples in roughly 3 years training total, and they are not your typical young and strong competition guys, but rather normal working guys, who train BJJ as a hobby. But ultimately, intelligence, technique and time on the mat shows through, and their prowess speaks for themselves.
Congratulations guys!
Wednesday, January 11, 2012
BJJ Seminar by John Will
Date: April 29, 2012 (Sunday)Time: 1PM - 4PM (3 hours)
Venue: Allied Gym Combat Sport
Instructor: John Will
Cost: RM370 per person
RM320 per person early bird price (payment by end of Jan)
John Will's background includes training in amateur wrestling, Goju Kai Karate and Taekwondo, training with Benny Urquidez, Gene LeBell, Pete Cunningham, Rorion Gracie and Rickson Gracie and the Machado brothers and teaching Shootfighting. During a trip to India, John Will trained in the art of Vajra Mushti under the Jyesthimalla clan in Gujarat, India. Will is also credited with publishing a rare first-hand account of the ancient Indian martial art in western media.
John Will is noted for taking several overseas martial arts training trips each year, and has been doing so since 1975; including training in Indonesia, Thailand, Hong Kong, Japan, the U.S. and Brazil. Currently John Will is the Australian national director of Machado Brazilian Jiu Jitsu in Australia. The organization is the largest in the Australasian region (with over 70 member schools) and is known as BJJ Australasia. He teaches BJJ, as well as Shootfighting, at his Black Belt Studios in Geelong.
Along with partner David Meyer (based in San Francisco), Will founded BJJ America and to date, more than 600 schools throughout the USA, utilize the professional BJJ Curriculum that Will designed and authored in 2000. More recently, he has tailor-designed various curriculi for several notable martial arts organizations including Chuck Norris's UFAF (United Fighting Arts Federation).
John teaches distilled, accelerated learning-based defensive tactics programs to various law enforcement and military agencies; including the Australian Federal Police, the Australian Defence Forces, the Marine Corps at Quantico in Virginia, USA .. and many others. He is renowned for his ability to tailor-design both the tactical package and the delivery methodology to go with it. His highly innovative teaching methodologies have earned him a reputation as a Supercoach; and it is in this capacity as a trainer of trainers that he obtains much of his employment. To date, he is the only non military SME (subject matter expert) that the Australian military has employed to design and teach their MUC (Military Unarmed Combat) package.
John is a self published author, with 4 instructional books directed at the Brazilian Jiu Jitsu and Self-defence market. His first 3 books are purely BJJ orientated and cover: Fundamentals, The Guard and advanced attacks & escapes. His 4th Instructional Book is "Fight ~ Logic" a book that covers Johns passion for all aspects of the self defence game, from Pre-Fight scenarios right through to taking the fight to the ground and conclusion.
John's recent writing focus has been the penning of his autobiography, which is to be released as a 3 part series entitled Rogue Black Belt. As with his instructional Books, John is publishing these works himself and selling them via his websites and through his extensive network of Martial Arts friends and practitioners.
- Book 1: Rogue Black Belt: Fear & the Engine focuses on John's early years growing up in Australia and the path that led him to the Martial Arts and onto Bali and his Silat World Championship win in 1982.
- Book 2: Rogue Black Belt: Challenge & Ownership continues the story after the Bali years and through the forming of Blitz Magazine in Australia and his subsequent travels to India, Thailand, Japan, the USA and Brazil, where he interacts with some of Martial Arts' biggest legends and most famous practitioners, leading to his discovery of Brazilian Jiu Jitsu.
- Book 3: Rogue Black Belt: Passion & Purpose will take John's story from his fledgling BJJ and Defensive Tactics teachings to the full blown instructor of instructors of today.
Notable students
- Elvis Sinosic - UFC Fighter
- Anthony Perosh - UFC Fighter
- Brian Johnson - NAGA Champion
- Stacey Cartwright - Abu Dhabi Winner
- Maryanne Mullahy - Mundials Gold Medallist
- Melissa Will - Panams Gold Medallist
- Steven Perceval - BJJ Black belt - CFC head referee and an appointed referee for UFC 110 Sydney Australia (Acer Arena)
- Frank Monea - Martial Arts Hall of Fame - 1999
- Daniel Digby - BJJ Brown Belt - Industry of Combat New Zealand Welterweight Title Holder
Sunday, January 8, 2012
Monday, January 2, 2012
BJJ and Injuries
Injuries are part and parcel of doing Brazilian Jiu Jitsu simply because of all the dynamic sparring we do, and the realistic damage the submissions we do can cause.
In BJJ, I would divide the injuries to minor and major injuries. The minor injuries like sore fingers from mat burn, gripping too hard, bruises all over your body or even cauliflower ears are common. They are minor and in some cases easily preventable (for example by wearing earguards and mouthguards and other protective gear, or learning how to grip).
I will focus more on the major injuries that will require time off the mats, or even surgery. Major injuries are the main reason serious BJJ exponents never last to black belt, or won't be practicing BJJ till their old age.
Unless you partner someone malicious and out to hurt you, nearly all major injuries are by and large mostly caused by accident. However that is not to say that most of these cannot be prevented, and seriously most of it is down to the instructor, and the culture of the gym set by the instructor
The most obvious and common way is that the instructors must teach and enforce the principle that you should take care of your training partner while grappling, and that you should respect the tap. Respecting the tap means letting go of the submission the moment your partner taps, not letting go when you think your partner should tap or only when they feel pain.
Another common way to avoid injuries in the gym by the instructor is by banning certain moves that are too dangerous to be used in active sparring. Sure, they should teach you those moves, to recognise them and learn how to apply and defend against them. But there are some submissions that does not give you enough time to tap, or causes injury before pain is felt. Moves like heel hooks and neck cranks IMO cannot be used in a dynamic spar without eventually causing a serious injury.
However, in recent times, more and more injuries are caused by the very nature of the training. In this, I mean the gyms who are overly competitive, train conditioning for hours, and roll till they puke. It is not wrong to train hard, and it is not wrong to be competitive. However, it becomes a problem when the training and mindset is overboard and there starts to be too many injuries. I have met so many people in person and on the net who have had to retire because they broke their necks, have to fuse their spines or their knees too damaged to continue training.
Let me add a caveat, that choice of gym depends on your motivation and ambition. If you are intending to be a full time professional MMA fighter, or full time world champion BJJ competitor, perhaps these gyms are better suited to take you towards your ambitions faster (that is not to say the other more gentler gyms wouldn't). Be aware too that many a professional MMA fighter and BJJ competitor get seriously injured too.
From Bas Rutten's interview at mmafanhouse:
You’re actually younger than Randy Couture. Is there any chance that you could fight again?
No, there’s not. My knees are a mess. I have no cartilage in both my kneecaps. Zero. Bone on bone. It’s really bad. There’s nothing they can do, except surgeries, until that stem cell stuff. People think a knee replacement, but you can’t do a knee replacement. You can have the best surgeons on the planet, which I already went to, and they say, “Bas, it’s a really bad problem.” …I can’t do any ground work anymore. If I bike, I have to have a bike with a high seat. I can’t run at all. If I jog half a mile, I can’t walk for five days. It’s so bad sometimes when I walk down my driveway I walk backwards.Do you think that 10, 20, 30 years from now, we’re going to see a lot of former MMA fighters with serious, long-term injuries?
No. Everybody is training smarter. I have so much explosive power that what happened with me is my training scraped my kneecaps up. People like Randy Couture are training smarter. If you train smart, you’re OK. I was a maniac. I went balls-out every training.
On the other hand, if you are a doing BJJ on a part time basis, meaning you have a full time job, and intend not to be injured so that you can go to work, and you intend to practice BJJ your whole life, then perhaps you may need to reconsider your intensity of training.
Many of these gyms are run by champion BJJers and market themselves as hardcore gyms. The instructors think that such training made them champions, it should work for their students too. However, many of these BJJ champions became champions in their 20s. Oft times, now that they are instructors in their own gyms, their students by and large are not kids in their 20s. If their students are 30 and above, and their training is too intense, look out for the injury rates there.
Furthermore, I put it out there that generally, most champions are champions not purely because of hard work alone, they are genetically gifted too. For example, the average Brazilian Top Team champion is strong as hell, and while it is no doubt they produce many champions, the same type of training will cripple the average person.
Hardcore and balls to the wall training have their place. For example if you are training for a competition, you should increase the intensity of the sparring and training to peak for the competition. But you cannot train like that year in and year out and throughout your BJJ career. And even if you do train for competitions, principles such as respecting the tap and protecting your partner should still be followed.
How do you identify such gyms that will cause you injury? Well, first and foremost how do you feel training there? Do you feel as if every practice spar is a fight to the death? Is the instructor and are the students constantly injured? Do they allow moves like heel hook and neck cranks during regular sparring?
The Machado's have a saying, that you "Play Jiu Jitsu, not fight Jiu Jitsu". Jiu Jitsu should be about having fun. BJJ should be fun. You should feel no bother about tapping than if you conceded a point in a game in a sport, or you lose playing a video game.
Lastly, here are some well respected Black Belts, on the same topic:
Pedro Sauer
Keith Owen
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This article was written in 2009. Since I am moving my blog to this one, I thought it best to move some articles that I still agree with as I continue evolving.
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