Interesting Article about Jiu Jitsu and the Art of War

Admittedly I’ve only read a few passages from the Art of War, but the author of the article has applied a number of concept from Sun Tzu’s text to Brazilian jiu jitsu.

Check it out! 

Happy Friday: Fall Edition

Happy Friday everyone!

Nothing too interesting is going on here, other than lots of training and a craving to dump pumpkin puree into all my food, drink, etc. Fall is here, yay! The weather is pretty nice now, but remember winter is coming, which means the mat rooms are going to get colder and 2013 tournaments will (obviously) come and go.

Anyone planning on fitting in a few more tournaments before the end of the year? Maybe a thanksgiving one, possibly a Christmas/holiday roll? It’s still way too early to think about that in my opinion, but who knows- someone may already have it planned out.

Let me know, otherwise have a great weekend everyone!

 

 

Kettlebell Group Class Teaching Course

For anyone that’s interested, our academy holds group kettlebell classes, and will be holding a course on how to teach/hold a group class, as well as common errors people make when they first start.

Check out Maxercise.com for more details, or email me at thatclassybroad at the gmail for more information.

Update: sorry, some experience working with kettlebells is required.

Jiu Jitsu and Reduction of Risk for Breast Cancer

I know I should wait until October, aka Breast Cancer Awareness month, to share this but I’m too jazzed about two things in regards to this subject.

First, there have been some articles published, such as the one I have linked, suggesting that about 3.8 hours of exercise a week is enough for young women to possibly reduce their risk for breast cancer. Another article suggests post-menopausal women should exercise at least 3 times a week to reduce their risk. So, in addition to the great benefits you are receiving through attending jiu jitsu class, you can also add that one to the list. And I feel just one more reason why women of any age should start jiu jitsu: learn some cool sweeps and techniques, become a part of a great community and reduce your risk of developing breast cancer. Sounds like a win-win situation to me.

Second, you can find said articles by going to scholar.google.com, which I just found out about and I am super excited! I had no idea this part of google existed!

…Ok, I think I’m done nerding out for the moment.

Check the articles out and have a great day everyone!

BJJ Training Camp- with Photos!

our training camp this past weekend was full of some good hard jiu jitsu training sessions, along with some other activities to keep us limber and in shape. Pretty much all the photos are courtesy of Coach and teammate Maggie, so let’s get to it!

We started off the camp with some joint mobility exercises, because you know, it was Saturday morning, and it was a good way to warm up the joints. An added bonus, we had a black belt from one of our fellow Ribeiro affiliate schools, Ben Eaton join us: hooray!

Next came different stations which included body weight exercises and other sorts of activities.

 

multiple training sessions,

Team lunches,

more drills and training sessions:

Even some hot yoga, a visit from a chiropractor and a Sunday morning run across the Ben Franklin Bridge with the teammates who were crazy enough to do it.

All in all we put in a lot of hard work, and it was a pretty fun weekend 🙂

 

Weekend Training Wrap Up and The Perils of Over-Exercising

Good morning everyone- our jiu jitsu training camp went great, and I will have photos and such for everyone tomorrow, but for now I want to share this article about “Crossfit’s Dirty Little Secret” and apparently the repeated cases of rhabdomyolysis-the irreparable destruction of muscle cells that can have catastrophic results. Real talk, this could theoretically happen in most if not all sports, but the mindset of making Personal Records, or PR’s I think makes Crossfit participants more susceptible to this condition. There’s a note on the side of the article, pointing out that this is not something that happens to “newbies who do too much”, but rather this condition happens more frequently to the seasoned athlete, which I’m sort of surprised, but I can kind of see how that could happen- an insistence to make a PR, ignoring your body and the warning signs that you need to stop which can lead to trouble.

Anyway, check it out and let me know what you think!

Happy Friday: iOS 7 Edition

Happy Friday everyone- the temporary ban/mandatory rest is lifted, and the training weekend will begin this evening I believe.

Also, I updated my phone to iOS 7: there are some pretty nifty features to it, my biggest complaint at the moment is that it takes forever for the software to register whatever’s put into the keypad: passcodes, text, etc. Ah well, I’m sure that will sort itself out.

I will report on Monday as to how the training camp went: in the meantime, have a great weekend everyone!

Banned from the Gym

…Just for today as a mandatory rest day decreed by our coach, imposed on all competitors before the training camp this weekend.

Hooray for attention grabbing, somewhat misleading titles! 😉

So please, make an effort to especially enjoy class or training today/tonight, with the knowledge there there is a group of grapplers out there twiddling their thumbs this evening, not allowed to train.

Anyway, have a great day everyone!

Jiu Jitsu Training Camp!

This weekend the gym is holding an all-weekend training camp for competitors, in preparation for upcoming tournaments. I think it’s going to be filled with a lot of hard work, but overall a lot of fun. The entire weekend has been planned out not only for training sessions, but also some strength & conditioning, yoga, and some other stuff.

Admittedly there’s a running session that I’m not particularly looking forward to, but overall I’m excited for this weekend as odd as that sounds. Anyone else do these at their academy? Just an entire weekend, or week of a training camp? Let me know, and if there is anything in particular you guys do during the camp.

Otherwise, have a great Wednesday everyone!

 

Jiu Jitsu & Practicing a Technique: “Fast” Doesn’t Always Mean “Good”

Let me present a hypothetical situation to you: you are coaching a teenager on how to parallel park. They sort of know the basics, but the concept is still fairly familiar to them: what would you tell them- to take their time, make sure to check and ensure they have positioned themselves to where they want to be and successfully park the car, or would you tell them to grip the wheel as hard as possible and go as fast as they can- hey, their car and possibly surrounding ones may have a few scratches and dents, but the car is more or less in the space.

Obviously you would tell them to take their time, and this is sound advice that needs to be applied to drilling a new technique as well. Just like we talked about practicing with awareness and work on not zoning out while drilling certain techniques, this is another common problem- we are so certain that we have the concepts of a new skill down pat that we quickly move through the motions, which means there is a greater chance for mistakes and the omission of certain details, that sometimes can make the difference between a well executed move, and feeling like you are grinding it out.

I’m not  saying you should be in perpetual slow motion- as funny as that would look. Instead I would recommend finding a rhythm, to smoothly go from one step to the other, in a way for you to smoothly and relatively efficiently go through the technique. Repetition leads to muscle memory, which can lead success when you recognize the opportunity to execute what you have been drilling.

Anyway, those are my two cents on the matter- have a great day everyone!