Scandinavian Open 17-18th October 2009!

Well, I have gone past the point of no return today and registered for Peter Blackwell's Scandinavian Open BJJ extravaganza, which will be held in Stockholm in October; I will be entering Purple Belt Senior 1, in the -88.3 bracket which is held on the Saturday and the Open weight the following day.

I will be training and preparing hard for this event and I aim to share as much of the training process as possible with you all, drawing upon areas from my sport science degree such as event preparation, sport psychology, diet and nutrition as well as my own thoughts on training week by week.

That's the aim; I want to make it as readable and enjoyable as possible and hopefully serve to motivate and educate others who wish to step onto the competition ladder, together with the more seasoned competitors, hopefully they can identify with me on the training process.

The flights have been booked and I will be spending a few days with my sponsors down in Wales prior travelling to Stockholm, leaving via Stansted with the Fight Factory crew; we will be staying at the Welcome Hotel in the city centre, close to the venue and hopefully meeting up with other UK players, plus of course in true Fighting Photographer style, I will be covering the event (and my time out there) for all the usual media outlets.

Feel free to post comments on here (and support lol), as I will be putting links on the BJJ.eu and Cagewarriors forums.

See you on the mats!

Combat Base Pontefract tonight!

Made the journey over to the Combat Base HQ to have my first session with Darren Currie as a newly minted black belt, bringing a long my student Chris Arrigonie. Had a very hot and sweaty session with a thorough warm up from brown belt Rob Lawlor, before going over the Ezekiel choke technique from a few positions, before rounding the class of with a spot of guard passing and sparring.


Most enjoyable session great to see Darren with the well deserved black belt round his waist and his new Fancy Dan Lucky Gi; will be back again next all well and good.

Roy Dean UK Seminar!

Stephen Greenaway recently organised a week long seminar with BJJ black belt and good friend, Roy Dean at the K3 Martial Arts Academy in Poole, Dorset. Sadly I was unable to attend any of the sessions, but Stephen has sent me up a report and a few photos from the classes and seminars. Most of you will be aware I have reviewed all of Roy's DVD's and we both share our links on our repsective Blogs and share our information on all things related to BJJ. You can find Roy's website in my Links section, which has more write ups from his UK adventures, www.roydeanacademy.com . Enjoy the write up and pix!

Roy Dean Seminar 2009 -

Location Poole Dorset / K3 Martial Arts Academy

Article By Stephen Greenaway

I had been looking forward to this trip since February when Roy mentioned that he would like to come over a hold a seminar for our club. Of course there would be no way I would miss out on an opportunity like this so I starting making arrangements straight away, before he changed his mind! ;-)

I was nervous but at the same time excited waiting at the airport, “what could go wrong” were we at the right terminal, is it the correct day! Being a seminar host is fun but stressful, to my delight I saw Roy, Rick and Glen come round the corner at arrivals I knew all was good.

Wednesday nights class was fun! I had an hours private with Roy were he pointed out a number of areas that would suit my game plus a few side control strategies which I feel, for me were very important techniques for my game.

After the Private Roy started regular class with some basic techniques to see what sort of level my students were at, I’m pleased to say he was very impressed. We always drill basics as much as possible as I feel this is the key to creating a solid foundation. After about an hour of technique Roy rolled with all my students to assess their ability.

For most of them this was the first time they had ever rolled with a Black Belt and it was fun to see their facial expressions whilst they were being effortlessly flipped around. It was great to have them experience that sort of level.

We had a day off of training on Thursday and took the guys around London, Rick Ellis one of Roy’s advanced Blue Belts was in the process of making a documentary about his journey to Purple Belt so the camera was rolling quite a bit. The weather held up and it turned out to be a very enjoyable and tiring day out.

Friday’s evening session theme was on Counters, how to defend arm locks and leg locks. This was especially helpful to me as I feel this was one of my weaker areas. We finished with some open mat, I didn’t want to do too much, as we had 8 hours of training over the following two days. Paul Laver who will be going for his Blue Belt in September also had a private hour before the class working on some of his demonstration requirements, for when he travels out to Roy’s academy in September.

Saturday seminar day, we covered a lot of techniques. We started with single leg takedowns and different variations depending on what our partner did, this again is an area that I feel I need to focus on and I feel these techniques will form a big part of my takedown game. The second and third hour we focused on Rear mount & starting techniques from the knees and again lots of material that was new to me and very applicable to my game.

For an in depth summary on the whole seminar check out Slidey’s training log at http://slideyfoot.blogspot.com/

Sunday’s seminar main emphasis was on entries to arm locks from side control and Guard passing. Both areas I feel are my strongest so I found lots of little things that will tighten up my technique. We finished the day with stripe promotions for my White belt students, Roy spoke to each student individually, guiding them on their strengths and giving them specific areas on which to focus. Next year we should hopefully have our first Blue Belts.

On the Sunday night we took Roy, Rick and Glen to a nice Indian restaurant. Roy thought it would be a good idea to order the Chile Tikka masala. Warnings were not heeded! This thing was “hot” very hot and i think Roy sweated more eating this than he did when rolling with the entire club on Wednesday, like a true warrior though he managed to finish! We all finished the night with a few beverages in the hot tub!

On reflection I really don’t think the week could have gone any smoother, everyone had a great time and I was very pleased with all my student’s progress. An enormous thank you to Roy Rick and Glen for such a wonderful week.

Cant wait for next year.

New black belt at Combat Base UK!!!

Received a message from Helen Currie informing members that husband Darren received his black belt from Chris Haueter on Friday at the open mat at his new club in San Pedro, CA.

An awesome achievement and IIANM this is the first husband and wife black belt duo in the UK and perhaps further afield as well.

On behalf of myself and Combat Base UK members a HUGE well done to Darren, not before time, a major achievement for Darren and another step forward for UK BJJ.