Blast From The Past 4 - My Most Favourite Match Ever.......

Was around 2000 and was an amateur Vale Tudo match (which is a contradiction in terms and quite funny when you think about it) as the phrase Mixed Martial Arts had not really been used at this point. The match took place at the inaugural amateur trials held by Lee Hasdale's Total Fight Forum and was against a Brazilian guy who's name I can never remember, might have been Pereira or maybe not. Anyway he was over here to help teach at the Anaconda BJJ club in London (which by the way, spawned some awesome competitors despite the fact that the instructor didn't have the best reputation but had some cool gloves)

At that time I was watching tons of Brazilian Vale Tudo stuff and thought that the Brazilians were the be all and end all of fighting, after all the guys I had been watching were some of the world's best, so to have the opportunity to fight one was awesome, there is just something about competing against someone from the home of the style you are doing.

The fight was up and down, we both landed strikes, got takedowns and had a roll around before the fight ended all too quickly. The fight was declared a draw.

I was real happy with my performance and thought that maybe us English had a future in BJJ after all.

Blast From The Past 3 - Marco Ruas

I remember watching UFC 7 seeing this big Brazilian dude smashing the hell out of everyone which really inspired me to try this 'Vale Tudo' as it was called then (more about that another time) to see how people performed under this extreme pressure. I was very fortunate that a little while later I heard Marco would be in this country so decided that whatever the cost we would have to go train with him.

Drove down to Worcester on the Sunday and got there late but just in time to see Marco guillotine a guy unconscious because the guy did not tap quickly enough. The seminar was brilliant and picked up some excellent Luta Livre anti –jiu Jitsu techniques that I still use today in no gi.

Hearing then that he would be in St Helens on the Friday we decided that we would have to make the trip over and get in another session with him. Arriving a little late again (it's a curse) I walked in first and Marco stopped the seminar, he made his way over and came to shake hands thanking me for travelling over. He started the seminar then stopped it abruptly again when Helen appeared doing the same with her.

The guys there must have wondered who the hell we were, 2 random people turn up and he stops the seminar for them, they never realised we were just 2 people who had trained with him previously and were bad timekeepers.

He got the seminar back on track and taught another excellent session.

Got to hang out with him afterwards and mess around getting some photos and stuff. He told me to get him in a rear naked choke so he bent down so I could reach around for the choke. Before the photo was taken he just said "can you breakfall?" I replied "sure" next thing I was launched over his shoulder with seionage from hell, as I hit the deck he dropped into a perfect arm bar just as the photo was taken.

The photo ended up in Combat magazine with Marco laughing his head off as he was arm barring me.

Absolutely awesome guy, so humble and friendly. It's a pity that he stopped coming over to the UK because I would have loved to train with him more.

Check this out the highlight reel

Blast From The Past 2 – Team Colosseum @ Kickers Interclub

1^st September 2002 was the first time I met the likes of Widge and Aaron as they came to compete along with Richie Westwell at our interclub in Bradford. I had heard good things about the Colosseum guys that thankfully turned out to be true.

This particular day was (I think) the initial appearance of Matt Thorpe (who recently started teaching an MMA class at Factory BJJ a member of Combat Base UK, check out the Factory website) who you know went on to much, much bigger and better things.

The interesting thing though is that Jennie Taylor, Matt's then girlfriend but now wife (I think) also competed that day.

Wonder if that has happened in UK MMA before that husband/wife or bf/gf have competed at the same event on the same day!!

Blast 1 - How cool is John Machado!!

October 6th 1999

Training with John Machado, at one point he was holding down a strong looking guy, the guy was thrashing around frantically trying to escape. John calmly reached over, took out a bottle of water and had a drink all the while the guy underneath is trying to escape. John casually puts the top back on the bottle, replaces it and carries on rolling without the guy even knowing what he had just done.

Everyone was laughing like crazy and the poor guy didn't know why.

My series of blasts from the past

As I am getting older and the old memory is going I thought I would put into words some of my memories from training over the years. The next bunch of blog posts are some of those memories.

Hope you enjoy

Scandanavian BJJ Open 17th and 18th October

Big congrats to James Nardone who took gold in his weight group and to Carl Fisher who got bronze in absolute division.

Calendar Of Events

Updated the Calendar Of Events, from local to international competition, something for everyone.

If you are interested in competing, let me know and we can find something suitable for you.

ADCC Barcelona Part 2

My predictions didn't turn out to be that great after all. Helen beat me as usual by predicting Mendes, Braulio, Xande, Jacare and Staack. Barral was invited after all so got to see 2 mundial champions against each other, the old & the new as Barral took on Saulo.

Having eventually settled for Cobrinha on the day, he got 2nd. Marcelo got 2nd, Braulio took 1st, Xande took 1st and Cyborg took 2nd too.

Drysdale got 2nd and Penny Thomas got 2nd too.

I seem to be able to pick 2nd places though.

Main thing is it was an awesome tourney, got some photos to post up when I get them sorted.

Roll on ADCC2011.

ADCC Barcelona 26th & 27th September

ADCC Barcelona

ADCC this weekend and probably the most stacked tourney so far, only really Romalo Barral & Roger Gracie missing from the world's best.

Follow the link & make your picks, see if you agree.

Men’s -67.9 kg Having to make 2 choices as I just can’t split Cobrinha and Mendes
Men’s -76.9kg Marcelo
Men’s -87.9kg Braulio
Men’s -98.9kg Xande
Men’s +99kg 'Cyborg'
Men's absolute tbc

Superfight Drysdale

Women’s -60kg Megumi Fuji
Women’s +60kg Penny Thomas
Women's absolute Lana Stefanac

Mainly obvious choices but a couple of outsiders.

Going to be an awesome tournament.

Check out the fighters on the web site, some great coverage of them on there.

New belts @ Combat Base Sept 2009

Congrats to 4 very well deserved new belts at our gym.

Ian “Mongoose” Jones promoted to purple belt
Wayne Murrie promoted to blue belt
Gaz Vause promoted to blue belt
Paul Keegans promoted to blue belt.