Eddie Kone BJJ Seminar!!

Had the pleasure of attending the Eddie Kone seminar in Rotherham again yesterday at the invite of Mark 'Monkey' Bottom; travelled over the M62 through the most horrendous weather with a few lads and took in an afternoon of black belt tuition.

Eddie started the seminar with a nice litle combo of taking the single leg, adding a few counters and 'what if's?' in as well, ending the first hour with us practising all the moves on our partners.

The second hour started on the ground and I was re introduced to a few long forgotten basics which will now be re introduced into my classes, nice one Eddie! Also included were a few neat little counters to arm bar defences and some nice little tips on defending the mount, sweeping your opponent off balance and gaining the upper hand.

The seminar ended with rolling and the obligatory group photo and another afternoon done and dusted!

Thanks to Eddie for coming up to teach and big shout out to the Rotherham Massive and to my main man Shukie Lok, nice to see you again!

Eddie should be back again in Rotherham in two weeks, with a few members from his affiliated club in Romania, so plenty to be getting on with in December!

Simon Hayes - Judoka 2nd Dan!!

My very good friend Simon Hayes from Carlson Gracie Revolution BJJ Team, attended the BJA Southern Area grading at the Budokwai in London at the weekend and passed his competitive grading for 2nd Dan. Simon won three fights by Ippon (Throw,Hold Down,Submission) and lost one. He also qualified for a line up for the third time, but sadly there was not enough bodies on the day, but got the points required anyway from the ippon's. Simon managed to score an ippon against a 2nd Dan who weighed 120K!!

Simon is one of the most inspiring and dedicated teachers in the UK and his work ethic is second to no none, putting people half his age to shame!

Congratulations Simon on an excellent achievement - OOOOOSSSS!!!!

Training with black belts

My good friend David Onuma, who has a great Blog under the name Combined Fighting Systems, which is at the top of my Links list, came up with a great post on the BJJ.eu forum (his user name is Malandro).

He asked us to name the black belts we have been fortunate to train with, be it in private, semi private and group training situations. This got me thinking about my times and travels since I started the BJJ path in 1999 and rattled a few names quick time. Once I'd had a few hours to think, names began to trickle down and on the last count my list has more than 50 names, albeit a few of the names weren't black belts at the time I trained with them, but are black belts today (who's counting lol).

The real number would be a lot larger had I remembered all the black belts that hit the mats WAY back in 1999 when I was training at the Machado academy in LA; I was a raw white belt at the time and remember the mats being packed with 20+ black belts in the evening class - now THAT would have been a list and a half!

The thread on the forum made me realise the huge number of black belts I have been fortunate enough to train with over the years and all have contributed in some part to my development as a BJJ coach and athlete and I thank them all on here for happy memories and awesome training sessions!

If you have a Bucket List, make sure you add 'Training with a BJJ Black Belt' on there and hunt one down and start to really improve your game - my list is as follows in no particular order (well it started with Machado BB and then GB BB's but then I started to remember all the other guys lol)............

John Machado
JJ Machado
Rigan Machado
Chris Haueter
Erik Paulson
Dan Inosanto
Howard Lui (HCK Kimonos owner)
John Will
Dave Meyer
Cindy Otsuma (purple)
Matt Thornton
Carlson Gracie
Carlos Gracie Jr
Escorrega
Sal
Lagarto
Ze Radiola
Braulio
Renzo Gracie
Roger Gracie
Mauricao Gomes
Gabriel Kitober
Sem
Victor Estima
Marcio Feitosa
Marcelo Yogui
Roger Brooking
Mario Sukata
Darren Currie
Helen Currie
Rick Young (Brown belt)
Karl Tanswell
Neil Owen (brown)
Scott Goddard (blue)
Marc Walder (brown)
Jude Samuels
Ben Poppleton
Gordihno
Cleber Lopes
Adriano Silva
Steve Campbell
Simon Hayes
Dickie Martin
Eddie Kone
John Kavanagh
Les Allen
Zaid Mirza
Thiago Alves
Remco Pardoel
Richard Bohlenius
Rickard Anderson
Eddie Bravo
Roberto Atalla
Gumby (purple belt OTM)
Elvis Sinosic
Patrick Chaput (Brussels, blue belt)

Who knows..... years down the line one day someone might add me on to their list!!

Lockflow.com rash guard and shorts review

As you are aware, I am the European Contributor to the US based website and the kind chaps across the pond sent me over their latest products, a rash guard and grapple shorts.

Read my tongue in cheek review at http://www.lockflow.com/article_view.php?id=5003