Once again, in epic fashion this time, l am horribly late with an update to my blog.  Although, it's been almost two months since the event, I've put together a few pictures and commentary on the trip.

2011 FILA WORLD GRAPPLING CHAMPIONSHIPS - BELGRADE, SERBIA   

A few months ago I was fortunate enough to participate in the FILA World grappling Championships from 27 Sept - 02 Oct 2011.  Now, because so much time has passed, and the whole experience is just one massive blur in my already over crowded brain, I'm just going to post a few photos with a short ramble on each rather than trying to recall all of the events of the trip. 

The Canadian Team
Not only a group of wicked competitors, but also a great group of guys. 
From the bottom left: the Head Coach Brian Bird.  Brian is a BJJ black belt under the renown Roy Harris.  He is also the owner of BDB Martial Arts out of Calgary Alberta.  He is an outstanding coach with vast technically knowledge and experience, and coaches of some Canadian MMA notables such as Nick Ring and Sheila Bird (also Brian's wife).  Going down the line, we have Clay Davidson (110kg); Brice Willis (90kg); Brad Cardinal (70Kg) and the Assistant Coach Igor Vasiljavek.  Just a side note, a huge props to Igor, who just out of luck is originally from Serbia and was able to help us in every possible way.
Moving on to the top left we've got: Matt Bagshaw (65kg); John Lorou (60kg); Lenis (sorry, forgot his last name) the Canadian referee and my roomie for the trip; Benoit Sinave (80kg) and then myself.
A big thanks to the folks at Drako Impact Amour and Assassin for supplying our team with gear and uniforms.

Also, a strange point, if you look in the background there is a cut off image of a guys doing a flying armbar, but the other guy is wearing running shoes.







The Location: Belgrade Serbia

Here's a few pics of the city of Belgrade.  I figure it's probably similar to other parts of Eastern Europe/Balklands Area.  Some very nice areas and some areas with very old infrastructure...oh yeah, and everybody smokes. It's completely reminiscent of growing up in the eighties when you could smoke in malls, restaurants, every other public place.


Also weird, stray dogs.  I'm not at all used to seeing dogs just randomly roaming the streets.  He's a picture of this little guy having a snooze by the sidewalk, just weird.

Once again, my blog has completely crashed off of the rails of timelines.  This time it was due to a mechanical error with my CPU that left a weird smell of burning plastic near the power jack.  Through a combination of laziness and a ‘technical misunderstanding’ a few weeks turned into a few months, but eventually, and thanks to my extended warranty, it all got sorted out.

With that...

Grappler’s Quest – The Good…
Moving on to more recent news, last weekend myself and Matt Johnston competed in Grappler’s Quest Boston.  This was the second time that I participated in a Grappler’s Quest event.  The first was in 2009 at the UFC 100 Fan Expo in Las Vegas Nevada…an experience that saw nothing but emotionally devastating disaster on the mats (another story for another time). 

This trip however, proved to be a much more successful experience with both Matt and I managing to win first place in our respective No-Gi Advanced divisions.

Matt also took home first place for his Gi Purple belt division, and we made off like bandits with some cool looking samurai swords…and certificates.

Unfortunately, neither of us were able to place in the Absolute division.  Despite this, we each had, what I believe were, some excellent matches in a division that was stacked with some very high level talent that came with some very heavy weight…I mean 230lbs? You’ve got to be kidding me!? I’m tilting the scales at a whopping 163lbs right now.

Also, some of our matches were also filmed by Grappler’s Quest, so check online in a few weeks and maybe they'll be a few highlights.  You’ll definitely be impressed when you see Matt slam a BTT black belt on his chest with a sweet chest-to-chest suplex.

Grappler’s Quest - The Bad…
One thing I really did not enjoy about Grappler’s Quest were the wait times between matches and divisions.  Now, the event staff were awesome, and were very friendly, personable and hard working.  But because they waited for all No-Gi matches to end before they started the Gi divisions it led to some major delays.  At one point there were even five empty mats with refs and table workers ready, but no matches, and as a result we did not finish until 7:30 in the evening.  Worse of all, we were told to be at the event at 1100am, but didn’t actually start rolling until 230pm.  Now anyone who has done a long tournament will attest to how annoying a long wait is.  In fact, as the day drags on, you see an obvious change in demeanour and attitude of the competitors while they wait for their next match.  At first people are focused, warming up while they size up the other guys in their division.  Near the end, however, everyone just has the ‘I don’t care let’s get this over with’ look on their faces and just want to get the hell home.

Oh, and not at any fault of the tournament or its staff, I saw one of the most blatant examples of cheating in my grappling career, followed by one of the biggest douche-bag examples of poor sportsmanship that I have ever seen, involving a ref and a girlfriend getting shoved…I’ll save this one for another time.

The Ugly…well actually it’s not ugly and has nothing to do with rolling, it’s about organic food!

More so a great organic food store! One more item before I sign off, if you are ever in Boston, or the States for that matter, then check out the grocery store called Whole Foods.  It is an all organic food market that sells fresh organic produce.  The store also sells organic free-range seafood and meats (for all you non vegetarians out there) and has a lovely deli and bakery.  Of course, they also have a wide selection of vegan and gluten free products all at some very competitive prices – so check it out some time, you won’t be disappointed (hopefully someone from the Whole Foods franchise reads this and offers me a sponsorship for this advertisement).

Anyhow, that's all for now thanks for reading, check back sometime next Sunday for my update.

Alex

Here’s a quick update for April. It is a little late, but not by much.

First off, what is with the weather? A snow storm in April?

Anyhow, I recently started to learn how to play ice hockey... that's right, ice hockey.  Now, it has been a long time since I have attempted to play the game.  I did play a when I was a kid, I am Canadian after all, and I did play a little as an adult, almost a decade ago.  However, in no way would I consider myself as proficient in the sport.  This year I decided to enter a 3-on-3 hockey tournament for the Relay for Life campaign, a very worthy cause that raises money for cancer awareness and research.  Rather than approaching things with my usual blind foolishness, I  decided to practice over the course of a few weeks leading up to the event.  One of my friends from the gym, who is an avid player, also came out to helped me with my skills.  To sum it up, I am a decent skater but as I previously mentioned, still in no way proficient with any of the major aspects of the game, such as passing, shooting and stick handling, essentially all of the skills required for a decent hockey player.  I must say though, that I really enjoyed myself, so much that I decided to keep with it, and I've been playing regularly since the tournament ended a few weeks ago.  The crappy thing is that most people I play with have been on the ice since they were young and are capable of skating circles around me, probably with the same kind of painful ease that is experienced when a black belt rolls with a white belt.  Regardless of the sport (Yes BJJ Mafia I have once again referred to BJJ as a sport), I believe that a common lesson is that it is always important to take it slow and ease into a training regime when you are starting a new activity, or more importantly, if you come back after a long break.  I tell this to people all the time - don’t push it on your first day, no matter how good of shape you think you are in.  If your body is not used to the activity it will require a period of adjustment, and overdoing it has the potential to result in serious injury.  Every gym has the same iconic BJJ story of some guy who comes in for the first time, thinking he can handle it, only to end up puking his guts out after his first or second round on the mats (I think that tale goes right beside the one about the big steroid guy's first day, in which, he gets tapped out by a little nerdy kid).  So my best advice to anyone new or coming back from a layoff is to remember that it is okay to roll a little less or take a round off here or there.  The worst you can do is push it for no reason, next thing you know you’ve got a pulled muscle and you can barely walk let alone skate or roll…damn you hockey!

Changing topics, I need to give a long over due shout out to the guys in my Muay Thai class.  For the last few months they worked very had in preparation for an exhibition Muay Thai match.  Everyone really put in a solid effort and their skills were looking very sharp.  Unfortunately the event was cancelled at the last minute, but despite this, they all deserve recognition for their hard work and determination.  Also a big thank you to the rest of the class for helping them get with their training.

Also some of the guys in the BJJ class just wrapped up another successful trip to Windsor NS, for the annual Abhaya Open Grappling Championships.  This is a tournament that we have attended since it began, and one that we have always done very well in.  This year was no different, and everyone that attended did great.  The trip began with a full out blizzard the night before we planned on leaving.  Again, I will express my displeasure for the local weather, you would have thought that it was January with all of the snow that we had.  Now, due to the freak event of nature we had we completely missed the first day of the tournament. However, my friend Travis did manage to make it down (only took seven hours) and he managed to pull off a first place finish in his division…nice work!

Fortunately, the no-gi event the next day proved to be worth the delay in travel.  Everyone had some very hard fought matches, and as you can see from this photo, all of the guys managed to come home with some well deserved hardware.  Great work to Matt, Johnny and Travis.

Although, the overall turn out was a little smaller than last year, there were still some quality competitors and very entertaining matches to watch.  A big thanks to the Jon Foster and the Abhaya crew for running another great tournament.

Anyhow, that's all for now, I've got some COD Black Ops to play.

Thanks for reading, I've enjoyed writing.

Alex

So after moving this blog around from place to place I've finally found a permanent spot for it on the new website.  I'm going to give a big shout out to my tech savvy eleven year old niece who introduced me to Google Sites.  It is surprisingly easy to use, and is an inexpensive way to create a cool website (there is my advertisement for the folks at Google).

I'll kick things off with a picture from our recent belt promotions that were held a few weeks ago.  Although, I can never get everyone out at once for a group picture, and it came out kind of blurry, I still think that it is a nice photo.  First of all, congrats to everyone on the new belts and stripes, you should be very proud of your achievements and all of the hard work that went in to them. 
Now, I'm not going to derail this post by turning it into a lengthy discussion on the standards of belt promotions, because to be frank, there are none.  I fully acknowledge that this statement will probably infuriate a few BJJ snobs out there, but it is somewhat true.  If you think about it, there is no single body that governs BJJ belt testing. Granted there is the International Brazilian Jiu Jitsu Federation (IBJJF), but not everyone follows them, nor is there some form of grand BJJ law that says you have to.  So in reality, belt standards simply differ from every different organization, association, school, and more importantly, the individual instructors.  Some instructors use a formalized curriculum and test while others do not.  Some instructors use stripes and some do not.  Personally I don't get wrapped up in comparing the standards of different schools.  It's a waste of time that could be better spent on training.  As an instructor I just try to form a standard based on my own beliefs and experiences, and do my best to assist my students in the development of their skills and goals.  Similar to many other things in life, sometimes it works out well and sometimes it does not, but hey, nobody' s perfect and at least I can say that I tried.  
I once read a very interesting internet post by a very famous BJJ practitioner saying that belt promotions are important because not only do they show the instructor's confidence in the student's development, but also the student's trust in the instructor.  By accepting the belt, the student shows that he believes in the instructor's judgment and skills as a coach.  I agree with this observation, and as an instructor I feel that although it is gratifying to have people thank me for helping them develop their skills, it is equally important to thank them for allowing me to be part of that development in the first place. 
More importantly though, regardless of the different, and often conflicting, schools of thought on the matter, promotions (whether it be belts or stripes) are a good way to recognize and award people for their hard work and performance, and we had a group of guys who were painfully overdue for some well deserved recognition. So again, kudos to everyone who's been coming out and putting in time on the mats, it's definitely been paying off, and it's great to see more colour in the gym.  Keep up the hard work.


Also, here's a picture from back in January when we travelled to Rhode Island USA to attend NAGA New England.  Again, I want to give some over due props to my friends Matt and Branden.  Matt dominated his way through the No-gi intermediate and the Gi blue belt div.  Branden didn't place but rolled some hard matches and gained some valuable experience in his first tournament.  I think it's important to remember that although loosing can be a kick to the junk, the experience of just showing up and rolling in front of a crowd still provides a very valuable lesson.  Anyhow, great work to both guys.  Also, as a side note, I maintained my dress policy and we all wore shirt and tie when we travelled across the boarder, to which I will add, we had no problems crossing.  So now, due to the success of that one crossing, I will set this policy in stone - shirt and tie for every cross boarder tournament road trip.

Well, that's all I have for now.  This post is a little shorter than usual because I've been massively distracted by Call of Duty Black Ops over the last week and I haven't had much time to think about writing.  I won't set any concrete time lines for my next update because I can never keep to them, but I'll shoot for about every two weeks.

Thanks for reading

Alex