What better way to round the week off, than with an Open Mat session with the guys :) The working week out here runs from Sunday to Thursday and the last training session of the week is sans gi. There is usually a coach taking the class, but tonight it was to be an Open Mat session and after a quick warm up, the rolling began.
Each roll was six minutes and my first roll was with a newbie, a local kid who's been training for two weeks, so we played some guard passing and I gave him a few tips on passing guard; second roll was with Higor Polonio, a black belt since the age of twenty two and is now twenty three. Twenty three and a black belt. His whole life ahead of him and a bad ass at such a young age, awesome!
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| Brand Tatami in the house! |
We always have a good roll together and tonight was no exception; we traded positions and I almost caught him with a kimura, but he wriggled out like a slippery politician whose been accused of fiddling his expenses. Very slippery indeed :)
Jiddu Bastos was up next, a great bear of a guy, who is very lithe and quick off the mark for such a big guy; we had a real war, slipping and sliding all over the mats together. I've been working with Jiddu at the schools and he's a real character, loud and funny and always with a smile on his face. Great guy.
Tiago Bravo was my next partner and a real bad ass; he won triple gold at the Asian Open the other week, in gi and no gi and an interview of Tiago is in the process. He's one of the most technical fighters I've rolled with out here, he really pushes you and lets you try a few moves out, before switching on and stepping up about eight gears and wipes me out double quick time.
MMA champion Flavio Serafin followed Tiago and out of the frying pan and into an industrial size furnace springs to mind to describe rolling with Serafin; a three stripe black belt and a fearsome MMA fighter and you've got the whole package and we had an enjoyable roll, well enjoyable for Flavio as he twisted me up this way and that and showed me a wicked submission from standing - can't wait to try that one out!
The session ended with a roll with Eduardo Belluomini, a Brazilian carved from granite, with huge arms and the strongest grip known to mankind; soon as he locked guard I was in deep trouble. He grabbed my wrist and I thought 'Oh dear' to myself and I was triangled in a nano second. This was going to be a long six minutes. In fact, it was a lot of fun, even though I got crushed like an over ripe tomato.
Another session ended. Rash guard soaking wet. Knee pads wringed out matside. Shorts steaming.
You know the kind of session - the best session!!
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| No Gi Open Mat - Al Ain Style |
An interesting footnot to this post - I was going home with two stripe black belt Bruno Fornari and we got talking about training. I will be interviewing Bruno real soon as he has some great tales to tell and he has been training since he was three years old and has thirty odd years in BJJ. His father is seventy nine years young and a black belt, his brother is a brown belt and Bruno commented on how he loves to train as he feels he is always learning something.
Always learning.
Listening to seasoned black belts talk like that just shows you how vast the scope is in learning jiu jitsu and listening to Bruno has made me want to get back on the mats ASAP.
So when you're in a rut, feeling like your motivation has gone for a Burton, think about how much you have left to learn. Then go and get your kimono and hit the mats.
Drill to win!!!!!!
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