26/04/2020 - Zoom classes update, plus thoughts on the future of online BJJ

Article #25, by Can Sönmez
Class #1234
Artemis BJJ (my living room), Bristol, UK - 26/04/2020



Insomnia as usual, so I'll take the opportunity to chat about how the shift to online teaching only has been going for me here in Bristol. I've been doing it for a month now, as I have a housemate willing to be my uke. I've been using Zoom to teach group and private lessons since the lockdown got serious in the UK a month ago. Internet connection while streaming has stayed steady, which surprised me considering my wifi is pretty rubbish.

The recording function on Zoom is terrible: it's supposed to upload to Zoom's cloud storage, but so far has just resulted in unwatchable vids (though the quality while I'm initially streaming seems to be fine). I therefore record it on my phone instead, then upload that to unlisted YouTube links I can send to my students (as lots of them don't watch live, they prefer to check it out later, judging by the view numbers on the YouTube vids). The full vids are between 20 to 30 minutes long, though as my uke doesn't like to be on public footage, those are just for members. 😉

The main problem is naturally the lack of physical feedback. I have got a few sufficiently motivated students that have been doing Zoom private lessons and give good verbal feedback, plus I can see what they're doing and correct (thanks to the gallery view in Zoom), but most of them don't have a drilling partner, which unsurprisingly makes that a lot less useful. Interestingly, one of the most committed private lesson students is somebody who I hadn't often seen in my classes pre-lockdown: she usually goes to the nogi and women's class. I'll be curious to see if she will pop up in my classes when normal training resumes (I hope so, she's a good student, a promising blue belt).



I have modified how I teach a little as a result of the move to online-only. I demonstrate the technique for longer, also taking time to show it solo. In a normal class, I'd just teach one technique with one variation, then do a lot of drilling. With Zoom, I'll show multiple variations and some related techniques, plus anything else people ask about.

After that, I do solo drills (like shrimping, bridging, grilled chicken, turn to knees, back step etc), bunch of repetitions so people can follow along. The handy thing with that is I get a little work-out too: I have considered doing that section for longer (at the mo, isn't usually more than a few mins). So yeah, I need to ask if people want that solo drill section to be longer or not. I then finish up with stretching, which again is useful for me. That's something else I could potentially do for longer, as there isn't the same time constraint as in a 'normal' class.



I think that is one positive outcome of the lockdown. All sensible BJJ schools have now engaged with some kind of online training as a result, which is making everybody more familiar with the options available. That also means we are all getting a lot of hands-on experience with what works best online: the long-term repercussions for our sport could be significant, with a whole generation of BJJ teachers becoming very familiar with both the technology and pedagogy of teaching online.

Before lockdown, online training was something a few big names were able to use as an income stream, putting up technique videos relatively similar to what you get on a DVD. Now, I think that is going to open up, as so many of us are running full classes on Zoom, or recording full classes and uploading them. That experience and knowledge is still going to be there when the lockdown is lifted. In an ideal world, it will provide us all with a whole new potential income stream, or at least a way to increase the value of what we can offer to our students.



I was surprised when an ex-student of mine (who now lives in Australia) suggested she'd be interested in paying to just have private lessons, as I'd mentioned I was doing them for my current students. I'm not at a level yet where doing that separately would make sense, BUT it wouldn't be difficult to simply live stream my in-person classes (once those start up again). I could set up some low payment option for people like her, who have an interest in doing distance learning.

Though yeah, I'd need a wifi connection at the gym for that, probably. I could try the data on my phone, but I'm not sure my data package is beefy enough to handle repeated live streaming. It's something I've considered in the past, but the experience of Zoom classes has done a lot of clarify the idea for me. Watch this space! 😁

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Article - Ten Years Of Blogging

Article #24, by Can Sönmez

My first ever blog post, written ten years ago today (shortly before I flew to Asia, hence the pic), didn't start in a blog. It was in a forum thread over on the now defunct Tung-Fu. I had a habit of cross-posting on multiple forums (2004 is also when I first got up the nerve to post on Bullshido, which would later prove a very important site for me), so a few months down the line, the same content popped up again on another forum no longer with us, Cyberkwoon. That had the rather uninspired name of 'Slidey's Training Diary', though it wasn't as bad as the original name for this website. When I transferred the posts from that thread into a new-fangled thing called a blog (around 2005), I dubbed it 'The Slideyhouse'. Yeah, I'm glad I didn't stick with that name too. ;)

From what I remember, there were few BJJ blogs on the web in 2004. In my own Cyberkwoon thread-log, I focused on MMA and some of the various other martial arts I did back then, as I had not started BJJ yet. Global Training Report is probably the longest running BJJ online journal, dating back to before the millenium (here's how it looked in 2002. rec.martial-arts is possibly the only older BJJ-related site, its archive boasting treasures such as contemporary responses to UFC II). Stephan Kesting's GrappleArts was a great resource in 2004, which it remains in 2014. The mighty Meerkatsu was active that year too, still teaching traditional jujitsu at Imperial alongside his BJJ training. I was in esteemed company when I moved over to Blogspot in 2005: a certain Danish blue belt, who had already begun trotting some of the globe, started a photoblog here.

'The Slideyhouse' thankfully became 'Slidey's Training Log' not long after its birth, stripped of the ungainly clumps of logos that filled up the left hand side (I had gotten a bit overexcited when I initially learned how to embed images). 2006 is when the site really got going, once I started training in Brazilian jiu jitsu late that year: here's how the site looked back in 2007, the same year I started my rather neglected technique summary. Two years along, I was finally convinced to shift to a custom domain, resulting in another name change: 'slideyfoot | bjj resources' (I soon added '.com').

2006 was a good year for BJJ blogs. That's when Andre Anderson hit the blogosphere with this, along with the blogger I think of as the Godfather of BJJ Blogging, Aesopian. Matt has inspired me in many ways: for example, the title layout for my post-2009 site was based on his old blog title, aesopian.com | brazilian jiu-jitsu. The following year was pretty good too, with a Roger Gracie brown belt called Nicolas Gregoriades sharing his thoughts here (some of which have recently become part of his new book), while Christian Graugart had gone from a Danish blue belt to a Danish purple belt blogging at ShogunHQ. He'd do something even more impressive when he set off as the BJJ Globetrotter in 2011, later binding those experiences in a print volume.

Today, the BJJ blogosphere is enormous: I've currently got over 600 blogs in my blog index. The contribution of women has been especially powerful, and I'm not just saying that because I'm an ardent feminist. Georgette, one of several bloggers I've now had the immense pleasure of meeting in person, started her blog in 2006, like me pre-BJJ (handily for this article, last week she wrote a retrospective post about her training). MegJitsu, the blogger I most look up to, kicked off her superb blog in 2008 (I think originally on blogspot, later migrating to WordPress) with this post. Fellow fantasy/sci-fi fan Julia put on a white belt and started typing in 2010, gradually becoming one of the top bloggers in BJJ with an incredible knack for generating discussion.

Following a journey from the start (or more commonly, near the start) is a special thrill I've experienced with a few blogs. Sadly, many of them have fallen by the wayside, digital tumbleweeds rolling across their neglected RSS feeds. Fortunately, some - like Julia and another of my favourite bloggers, GroundWork editor Megan, who shifted from Posterous to Blogger - have managed to stay the course. Others have even surprised themselves by their longevity, like Shark Girl, who only intended to stay in BJJ a scant four months. I'm very pleased that she is still with us, three years later. Even though I know most blogs won't last, I always feel the same excitement when I encounter a new, well-written and engaging blog.

Appropriately, that first ever blog post I mentioned at the start of this article was written during my initial stint in Bristol. The objective back then was to share my thoughts on different schools, geared towards the kind of audience there was on Cyberkwoon and Tung Fu. By 2006, the intention had changed: I wanted to list somebody's training in BJJ from the beginning. That's still the goal today, though it has gradually become more about providing resources to help people along the way.

Having moved many, many times since 2004, heading all around the UK, it's strange that ten years and around a million page views later, I am back in Bristol. It's even stranger that last month, I co-founded a BJJ club of my own, Artemis BJJ (naturally, our school has its own blog). I look forward to seeing what the next ten years of blogging brings: thanks to everyone who has willingly suffered through my online rambling over the past decade! :D

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Interview: Mauricio Gomes on the Development of Competition

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Back in December, Rolls Gracie black belt Mauricio Motta Gomes was down at Gracie Barra Bristol to teach a master class, just before the submission only competition. I was able to grab a few minutes to speak with him: I'll be splitting the results into four parts over the next month or so, discussing his son Roger Gracie, teaching around the world and belt tests, among other topics. First up, Mauricio shares some of his thoughts on competition.

slideyfoot.com: If you had to pick one thing that marked Rolls Gracie as special, what would it be?

Mauricio Gomes: He was quick in his submissions. He was the type of the guy that would teach us a position, it was new for us. To show how that thing was effective, he would tell us "ok, now I am going to show how good this is, and I'm going to roll with all of you, and I'm going to get you all in the same thing." So, we knew what he was going to do, but we couldn't avoid it. He would still get us all.

Plus, he would always try to add in whatever another martial art could bring. Always. It was an amazing time, believe me. That was the end of my adolescent years, and I made the most of it! [laughs]

slideyfoot.com: Do you think that BJJ has changed for the better since Rolls' time, or is there anything that perhaps has been lost and you'd like to bring back?

Mauricio Gomes: I think what has been lost in jiu jitsu over the years...I think that much is different, we used to train a lot for competitions in a different way. I don't know, sometimes I look back and I try to compare our competitions to the competitions of today. What I see is that there are a lot of people training situations where they can hold on for dear life, or holding a fight up to a situation where you'll try to score a point, a half point, this or that, just before the finish of the fight, to become the winner.

I think that everybody should train to finish the fight. That should be the main goal of everybody. I would never encourage my students to just hold on to something, four minutes, five minutes, six minutes, whatever. "Then you can do this, and obtain the victory." That's a mistake. I don't know what happened, I don't know if jiu jitsu grew too much and there are too many competitors. Now you've got advantages and a lot of people started to stall, or don't want to finish the fight. They want to stay there forever. Obviously they put in time limits, advantages, they got this, they got that.

At the end of the day, I think that the focus should always be to finish the fight, how to get there as quick as possible. No stalling, no this, no that. Unfortunately, the competitors of today got to a point where the higher level fighters, there is no difference between them and an Olympic athlete. They train like they're going to the Olympics. They're really up for it. If you're going for these competitions and not prepared physically, you will lose. Even if you know a lot, today, that's not enough. It's the knowledge, but it's also your body and mind, are you physically fit.

You go to a competition these days, and you have like eight or nine fights, if you're looking at your weight and the absolute – I'm talking about black belts, right? It is usually like that, eight or nine fights over the weekend. You've got to be fit. They are ten minute fights, so if you don't finish your opponent right away, that goes on for ten minutes, then another ten, then another ten. So if you're not really fit, then over those two days you'll gas out.

slideyfoot.com: Was that less the case back when you were competing?

Mauricio Gomes: Yeah. We trained a lot, absolutely, trained like warriors, and we did a lot of physical conditioning. Running, walking on the soft sand on the beach, swimming. But nowadays it is just another level, it isn't like it was. It's the evolution, you know? That's normal, nothing stays the way it used to be. In this case, it changed for the best. The competitions are very competitive, the fighters are athletes, proper athletes. If you want to be a very good competitor, you have to have a good sponsorship. You require money.

You know how long a fighter prepares themselves for one competition? Obviously they never start from scratch, they maintain a certain level. Two to three months, at least, before a competition they start increasing their sparring, their fitness level and all that, to go all the way up to the level they want to be at to go for that competition. They have to sacrifice a lot in order to do that. They can't have a proper job, because they're training all day, so they need money to survive all this.

It's money for food, to pay for other people to train you. In the old days, you just think you do a run in the morning, something else in the afternoon, but today, the levels are completely different. You have a guy that is actually your instructor, for conditioning, for fitness, for the muscular part, a nutritionist, you know? All of this comes together to make you the proper athlete, fit and ready for the event. In the end, to reach this level requires a lot.

Next week, the discussion moves on to Mauricio's thoughts on his son Roger Gracie's success in competition.

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Article - ADCC 2011

Article #23, by Can Sönmez

[My pics are crap, as they're from way up in the arena. For decent pics, check out Seymour's blog. His pics of all the British fighters here.]

The Abu Dhabi Combat Club Submission Fighting World Championship, commonly referred to more simply as the ADCC, is the most prestigious nogi grappling competition in the world. It's backed by the financial muscle of Sheikh Tahnoun Bin Zayed Al-Nahyan, who aside from being a black belt under Renzo also happens to be incredibly wealthy. That has proved to be extremely fortuitous for grappling, as it means that since 1998, athletes have the chance to actually get some monetary reward for displaying their talents.

I haven't been to a live sporting event for many years: I think the last time was either Beşiktas or Turkey playing at İnönü, back when I used to go to football games in Istanbul with my father. However, when what is effectively the World Cup of grappling landed a train's ride north of me in Nottingham, there was no way I was going to miss it. Binoculars packed, I left my house in Bristol at 6:30am on Saturday: something has to be very special to get me up that early! ;)

There have already been numerous excellent write-ups of all the matches (like this), so I can be subjective. As usual, I was more interested in the women's fights than the men's. Unfortunately, there are currently only two female weight categories at the ADCC, which results in some ridiculous discrepancies. It isn't Gabi Garcia's fault she is so much bigger than everybody else, but she is competing with people literally half her size. It is a huge shame that Cris Cyborg had to pull out (I'm told due to the usual Zuffa shenanigans, but that may be hearsay: after all, other Zuffa employees were in the competition), as that would have been a fascinating match-up.

Still, I was looking forward to Garcia versus reigning champ Hannette Staack, who put up a fight, but couldn't quite get underneath Garcia's base. There were a few moments when it looked as if she might be able to enter into a leg submission, but Garcia made good use of gravity. Refreshingly, there was plenty of support for the Alliance stand out, who was visibly emotional at gaining her first ADCC title. Garcia has worked hard on both her technique and her physique, so deserves a certain amount of credit.

It was great that plenty of British women took part, with grappling stalwarts like Dr Rosi Sexton, even if they didn't prove successful. Australian Laura Ng had sadly suffered a blood clot in her leg on the plane journey, which must have been devastating for her. Hopefully she'll be back in two years. Ng's absence meant that my RGA Bucks training partner, Yas Wilson, was called up as a very late replacement. Yas did well, considering she took the match on almost no notice. To go in against multiple time world champion Michelle Nicolini is a tall order for a well-prepared black belt, so to do so as a purple is especially impressive.

Nicolini was probably the most entertaining competitor among the women, with some excellent guardwork in a tense match with ADCC 2009 winner Luanna Alzuguir. Staack gave a dominant performance en route to the final, until she ran into Garcia. As there were several matches going on at once, I wasn't able to watch as many female bouts as I would have liked, but then I can just get the DVD. That has the huge advantage of commentary, which I find increases my enjoyment of BJJ competitions many times over.

Intriguingly, it seemed the seasoned competitors were tapping early to avoid injury. Or at least they did at first: things changed later on. If you were facing Rousimar 'Toquinho' Palhares, he didn't care if you tapped: your leg was coming home with him. His nickname means 'tree stump', because his huge muscles are packed into a 5'8" frame. He looks like a supervillain: apparently, the man even lived under a bridge back in the day!

After getting their knees mashed by Toquinho, David Avellan and Rafael Lovato were both left to limp off the mat (though Lovato bravely limped right back to face Popovitch for the bronze medal). It took Andre Galvao to finally slay the monster, narrowly escaping the knockout punch of Toquinho's leg attacks. Though his sportsmanship may be questionable, there is no doubt that when Rousimar Palhares is involved, you're in for an exhilarating match. Galvao had an incredible competition, winning not only his weight category, but taking the absolute title as well.

Among the male competitors, I mainly focused my binoculars on Dean Lister. I knew Lister (a black belt in BJJ under Jeffrey Higgs, who in turn is under Fábio Santos) had a decent record in MMA and had done well in the ADCC before (absolute champion in 2003, then he beat Jean Jacques Machado in the superfight at ADCC 2005), but I didn't realize just how skilled he was. Drawing on his experience, the 35 year old Lister submitted three out of his four opponents, which included the favourite, Rodolfo Vieira. That did mean I missed the Vinny Magalhaes armbar defence over on the other mat, which was getting a huge cheer, but Lister's technical mastery was worth it.

Aside from the high level BJJ on offer, I was also excited at the prospect of catching up with friends, both old and new. After heading up on the train from Bristol to the arena, I swiftly got to wandering round the rest of the crowd. That meant bumping into old friends like Zaf, Ciaran, Seymour, Callum, Kirsty from Roy Dean UK, Eamonn, the RGA Bucks crew and various others. I love the way that it seemed almost all of UK BJJ turned out for this event. :D

On the new friends front, I enjoyed learning more about sports science with William Wayland: check out his blog here. While heading outside just before the Renzo superfight, I recognised the author of the she beast blog. Slightly embarrassingly, I got her attention by shouting out 'she beast!', then introduced myself as slideyfoot. Mainly because I forgot her real name was Hannah and my name (Can) tends to confuse people. ;)

When I heard the ADCC was going to be in the UK and Caleb would be commentating, I had high hopes that he'd be able to sort out another breakfast with the family. That's something the Fightworks Podcast has been doing before big events for a while. Despite being super-busy, Caleb delivered, making time to meet up with members of the Mighty 600,000 on Sunday morning.

I was surprised the turn-out was pretty weeny, though then again, a lot of people went out for drinks the night before. That left me, J-Sho, Caleb and Shawn Williams to chat about BJJ, later joined by a pair of cool Scots. Every time I meet somebody from Glasgow, I ask about one of my favourite bands of all time, Strawberry Switchblade. Not only had she heard of them, she'd even been to their gigs! Awesome. :D

I'm eager to check out all the coverage over the next few weeks. I'm sure Callum, J-Sho and Seymour will have something brilliant in the works for Jiu Jitsu Style. If somebody from the IBJJF is reading, please bring the Mundials to the UK too. ;p

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Article - US Grappling and the Beginnings of Submission Only

Article #22, by guest writer Chrissy Linzy

A few years ago, US Grappling decided to run a true Submission Only Brazilian Jiu Jitsu tournament. We talked about everything that might go wrong. We talked about how to handle the people who would tell us it couldn’t be done. We talked about a hundred reasons not to do it, and at the end of the day, we all decided that we wanted to bring pure jiu jitsu tournaments back. So, we set out to solve the problems on paper before holding our first event.

First, how were we going to ensure that the event didn’t last forever? Should we have some time limit on matches? Should we have a mercy rule, with points to fall back on? Once we determined we didn’t want a time limit or any points at all, we had to discuss stalling. Finally, we weren’t going to have any stalling penalties, since there was really no advantage to stalling for either competitor. We handled this by limiting the number of competitors at the event. We wanted to be sure that our referees and our staff could handle the demand of focusing on one match that could potentially last for an hour, or more.

Second, how were we going to schedule the divisions? Without knowing how long matches would last, it’s really hard to have an accurate schedule for the day; something we have always tried to do for our competitors. We started with a liberal use of ‘tentative’ and did a lot of analysis of the preregistered competitors.

Next, we knew that in order to combat the naysayers, we’d need a lot of data after the event so that we’d know how long matches really lasted, on average. We modified the brackets so that there would be a spot for the length and submission for each match, and trained the referees and table workers on how to complete these extra fields.

Finally, we were ready to go. We made our brackets, took a deep breath, and kicked off the day. One of the very first matches of the day lasted nearly ninety minutes. We realized the two grapplers in this match were both in several other divisions. We started to worry about holding things up. Then, other divisions started to finish. Fast. Matches were ending in two minutes. Entire divisions were finishing in fifteen minutes of total match time. This was working!

At the end of the day (which wrapped up before 5 PM), we had collected data on nearly 200 matches, and our average match length was just over six minutes. We were well within the normal tournament timelines, even with that first match lasting so long. It turns out that for every outlier like that one, there are a few dozen matches that end in less than two minutes, and it all averages out quite nicely. Oh, and the two grapplers that competed for ninety minutes both went on to compete in some (but not all) of the other divisions that they entered.

The thing that we hear over and over again from competitors that try the submission only format is how the event just feels different. There’s no pressure to score points in the next 30 seconds. No one is yelling at the referees for points or advantages. Everyone is there to see whose jiu jitsu will prevail.

US Grappling plans to run around 10 Submission Only events in 2011. You can see where they'll be at www.submissiononly.com.

Chrissy Linzy has been training Brazilian Jiu Jitsu for 5 years, and is one of the owners of US Grappling, a Brazilian Jiu Jitsu and submission grappling tournament circuit that travels across most of the United States for events. She (rarely) blogs at www.clinzy.com.

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Article - The Dreaded Beast-Men

Article #21, by guest writer Allie McClish

For a fighter, I’m not much to look at. I’m an average sized girl: 5’5’’, 135 lbs. In a sport dominated by men, most of my opponents boast a significant weight advantage. Add onto that the spastic craziness of a new, white belt male and you have a creature I like to call the beast-man.

I used to complain about the impossibility of grappling beast-men. They were too big and strong. They used too much muscle. I cringed at the thought of grappling them, secretly rejoicing whenever my instructor, Fabio, assigned me to grapple someone with a little color on their belt.

When I got my blue belt, my distaste for beast-men increased. I felt I had something to prove. I was supposed to be more technical than them now, right? Mysteriously, that technique was missing on the mat. I was still getting crushed. The more I tried to beat these guys the more frustrated I got.

My breakthrough came when I realized I was looking at them in the wrong light. Beast-men weren’t my enemies. They were my training partners. Not only that, but I realized that these guys, with all their strength and spasticness, were some of the best training partners I could ask for.

If you take BJJ for self defense, who would be more like a real attacker on the street? A seasoned brown belt who rolls with control and courtesy, or a white belt who is coming at me with all of his strength and random bursts of movement? The white belt would be more like what I would actually face.

I realized I only wanted to defend myself against people who were going to attack me nicely. I was complaining about the most realistic mock attackers that I would get in a safe setting. Having training partners who relax and teach me things is an invaluable treasure, but having guys whose only goal is to crush me into oblivion is equally valuable.

After I stopped looking at these guys as evil villains who wanted to ruin my evening of happy grappling, and started looking at them as real-life scenario tests, everything changed. I took the pressure off myself to perform. I stopped letting my own frustration and anger cloud up my mind while I was grappling. Instead of thinking about how unpleasant the grapple was, I started thinking about what I was doing; paying attention to where I could move, where they were off balance, where both of us were vulnerable.

The results were instantaneous. Not only did I grapple better, but I started growing again in general. I started enjoying jiu-jitsu again. I stopped hating the beast-men and actually learned to look forward to the challenges they present.

It doesn’t matter whether you’re big or small. Eventually, you’ll encounter people that seem created for your misery. When you come up against them, the difference between frustration and growth is your point of view. You can decide to complain, or you can be thankful that beast men are there to point out the holes in your game. You can be the victim against an insurmountable enemy, or accept the challenge of a training partner who has something to teach you. The distinction is yours to make.

Allie McClish is a blue belt, who has been training Brazilian Jiu Jitsu for a year and four months under Fabio Novaes in Florida. She maintains a blog at Allie the Clear Belt.

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Article - BJJ & Aggression

Article #20, by Can Sönmez [FAQ Entry]


In Brazilian jiu jitsu, you learn how to fight, imposing your will on another person to prevent them doing the same to you. It is less confrontational than MMA (a closely related sport), where you're also getting punched in the face, but physical combat is still at the core of BJJ. Sparring for the first time can be an intimidating experience: most beginners will panic. Depending on their size, they will be struggling wildly to escape with all their strength, or looking to crush their opponent with superior mass. Either way, they are probably going to be aggressive.

Personally, I have an automatic aversion to the term ‘aggression’. For me, it conjures up images of shaven-headed thugs with bulging neck veins getting into fights outside pubs. I prefer the term ‘assertive’, which doesn’t have those associations. It may merely be a matter of semantics (as Leslie discusses), but it nevertheless makes me wonder why people like me have that reaction to ‘aggression’, particularly in the context of BJJ. After all, the legendary Aleksandr Karelin put it to good use in the picture above.

Part of the reason is the fondly held myth of the slightly-built martial arts superhero, gracefully dispatching a horde of less enlightened meatheads. The weedy nerd within us all (or rather less deeply buried, in my case) wants to believe that pure technique will trump brute strength, requiring no physical effort or malicious intentions on our part. BJJ has several diminutive superheroes of its own, beginning with Hélio Gracie. The Gracie patriarch was allegedly so frail and weak he had to learn his impressive fighting prowess through observation (I have my doubts).

The success of his son Royce in the early UFC is another touchstone, dominating with skill rather than power and overcoming huge size discrepancies. Importantly, he also made a point of winning without unnecessarily hurting his opponents, often opting for a gradual transition to a rear naked choke, without throwing a single punch.

When competing, you are unlikely to succeed by staying passive and working your defence. You've got to score points, or even better, force your opponent to give up, which is rarely a gentle process. Neither of you are there to help the other person improve: you are each an obstacle in the other's path to getting that gold medal. Some might argue, justifiably, that aggression has its place in competition.

However, examples like Royce feed a desire to succeed through pure technique, smoothly flowing around your opponent rather than savagely cranking your way to a submission. This is especially the case outside of tournaments, when you are in the more co-operative and relaxed class environment. As Saulo Ribeiro said in Jiu Jitsu Revolution, "You have to think that your partner, the guy that you're training [with], has to be your best friend. So, you don't want to hurt him."

Nevertheless, there must be a line. I want to perfect my technique rather than beat up my partner, but I also don't want them to flop limply into my submission attempts, or never threaten with any attacks of their own. The extreme end of this paradoxically pacifist approach to martial arts is aikido. There, you can dance your way through crowds of attackers, because they are actively jumping into your throws.

A certain amount of resistance is required, or practice becomes meaningless: to paraphrase another of my favourite quotes, you can't learn how to swim without getting in the water. The question is, when does useful resistance cross over into brutish aggression?

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Article - A Women's BJJ Class (4)

One woman's journey into creating a women's jiu jitsu program
Article #19, by guest writer Chrissy Linzy [FAQ Entry]
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I’m now five months into teaching the women’s BJJ classes at my academy. It’s been an interesting journey, for sure. I’m still learning the methods that work for teaching smaller classes, and how I should handle skill disparity between students. I’m getting the rhythm of the classes down, which was one of my concerns when I started teaching.

One of my least favorite things about drilling techniques in jiu jitsu is that they often require one person to do something wrong, over and over again. For example, when drilling a kimura from guard, we’re often asked to start by putting our hands on the mat so that our partner can begin right at the kimura setup. That’s great for the muscle memory of the person on the bottom, but it’s teaching the person on top that sometimes when you’re in the guard, you feel the mat under your palms. It’s teaching you to have bad posture. This is one of the easier ones to fix, just by requiring the guard player to break the posture and move the hands to the mat before setting up the kimura.

A big part of the drills that I’m using are drills that will help both people improve. My current favorite drill is switching between a triangle and an armbar from guard. The person caught in the submission alternatively postures up or stacks the bottom player as the bottom player alternates between the two submissions. The top person works to actually finish the escape and the bottom person works to actually finish one of the two submissions. The women work to tighten the triangle or the armbar with each switch between the two submissions. I believe that I’ll add the omoplata into the mix after a few more weeks of this drill, and after the women have learned the omoplata on its own.

I believe that these drills are working because I’m seeing the women look for these transitions during sparring. When I spar with them, I set them up from both the offensive and defensive sides of the drills, and they’re starting to react automatically now that they’ve worked these drills for a few weeks. I think as an instructor, that has to be one of the most gratifying things that can ever happen.

I’m always looking for other drills that benefit both training partners, so if you have any that you use in your academy, please post them in the comments!

Now that September is over, I’m happy to report one of the women who was a bit reluctant to train with men has started attending the co-ed classes. She came on a night that she knew I would be attending for the first one, so she could drill with me, but she also sparred a round or two with some of our nicer fellows. She left class soaked in sweat and smiling from ear to ear. She’s been back for a few more since then, and has even come in a few times when I wasn’t there. That was really a big accomplishment for her, when you consider that she was pretty sure that she never wanted to try a co-ed class just two months ago. I’m glad to see her branching out, and I hope some of the other women follow in her footsteps soon.

Chrissy Linzy has been training Brazilian Jiu Jitsu for 5 years, and is one of the owners of US Grappling, a Brazilian Jiu Jitsu and submission grappling tournament circuit that travels across most of the United States for events. She (rarely) blogs at www.clinzy.com.

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Article - The Importance of Training Partners

Article #18, by guest writer Chrissy Linzy

Last month, I attended another amazing women’s grappling camp in Toronto, Ontario. This was my second week long camp, and it proved to me yet again the importance of seeking out different training partners. Even if you have three or four other people your size to train with on a regular basis, it’s really important to get out there and meet other grapplers to find the holes in your game before you find them at Mundials.

This doesn’t just apply to women, though. There are always outliers. Think about the people that train in your gym. Do you have a man training there that’s under 130 lbs? What about a man over 300 lbs? Are they always paired up with the closest person to their size, but still training with a size disparity? Sure, maybe the big guy is on the winning end in the gym but what do you think will happen the first time he has to compete against someone who is actually his size, or even bigger? He is probably going to find that his technique might not be as solid as he thought because he’s been relying on his size advantage for the last year.

Maybe you do have partners that are your size and skill. It’s the perfect scenario for great training, right? Maybe, but think about the last five or ten rounds with those partners. Did they all go about the same way? You pulled guard. Your partner passed your guard. You recomposed guard and tried to sweep with your favorite sweep (that your partner knows is your favorite sweep, so she defends it). If this (or some variation) is what every roll looks like, you just might benefit from finding some new training partners once in a while.

I know that I tend to fall back on what is comfortable, or on techniques that I have had success with in the past. For me, a great example of this is spider guard. That doesn’t work so well if I’m at a no gi class, or if I drop in to train at a school where everyone works low passes instead of standing to pass the guard. By forcing myself out of my comfort zone and training with a different style of jiu jitsu, I’m ultimately opening myself up to learn more and to improve. Sure, that learning curve is probably going to start with me playing a different guard that gets passed, but it’s all part of the journey.

The moral of the story is to seek out new and different training partners, especially ones that will push you to try new things or play a different game. As much as I love my teammates, I make it a point to train with other people at least once a month, just so that I can experience a different style of jiu jitsu, and to make sure I’m not developing any bad habits. I think women’s open mats are a great way to do this, especially if a week-long camp isn’t in your budget (or on your continent). Where I live, there are also open mats where men that are over 250 lbs (I think that’s their cutoff, anyway) get together to train. I know that sometimes it’s hard to get beyond the politics of an area to set these sorts of things up, but in the end, it will only make everyone better.

Chrissy Linzy has been training Brazilian Jiu Jitsu for 5 years, and is one of the owners of US Grappling, a Brazilian Jiu Jitsu and submission grappling tournament circuit that travels across most of the United States for events. She (rarely) blogs at www.clinzy.com.

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Interview - Romulo Barral on Teaching

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Romulo was kind enough to grant me an interview on Saturday, which I'll be sharing in instalments over the next month or so. This is part one of five.

slideyfoot.com: You’re a top competitor in BJJ, but also an instructor. Is teaching helpful for developing your BJJ game, or does it detract from your own training?

Romulo Barral: I think teaching helps a lot, because when you teach, you work on details of the technique. When you roll, you have details, but sometimes you use power, sometimes you overpower somebody who is not as strong as you. So when you’re teaching, you develop a lot of details, and then every day you teach, even if it’s the same technique, you can see another detail.

That helps a lot to develop your BJJ. I think if I wasn’t teaching, just training, I would not be that good. [laughs]

slideyfoot.com: Your instructor, Draculino, is well-known for producing champions, like yourself. What do you think is the key to effectively teach BJJ?

Romulo Barral: I think the key, to teach BJJ or compete, you’ve got to put a lot into what you do. You need to put everything in to make people get better. I have seen a lot of people, when they’re teaching, they don’t put in a hundred percent. They don’t want to show everything, all the details for their students to get better.

So, Draculino – I train with Draculino since I was a teenager, it has been a long time, maybe more than ten years ago - his style of teaching is like this. He gives everything for you, everything. He is not teaching only his style, only his details. He is trying to show you everything, so you can choose your own type of game, or you can be complete, learning everything from him. His style, it is my style, you know. I learn from Draculino, and I try to pass to my students now what I learned from him.

slideyfoot.com: Do you think it is beneficial to split the beginners into a separate class for a few months, or is it more productive to have a mixed ability class from the beginning?

Romulo Barral: Definitely, you’ve got to split them. You cannot have somebody who has never seen jiu jitsu before in their life come into class and do spider guard, flying triangle, something like that. So, Draculino, that’s another thing Draculino has success with, because maybe like six or seven years ago, it used to be everybody in the same class. If somebody new came into the academy, they’re going to be the same class as the black belts.

So Draculino – I don’t remember, maybe more than six or seven years ago – he started to split the class, and then he started to do a curriculum class. Like, this is a fundamentals class, and these guys go to the advanced class. He’s got to take a little while here, you know, until they pass through the basics. When he was doing that, I think he made a big difference.

First, the students, they weren’t quitting the training, they kept going, because they were training with people on their level. Also, all the students had strong basics, strong fundamentals, so when they pass to the advanced class, they were learning much faster.

slideyfoot.com: So he had a set curriculum of say escaping side control for a few weeks, then mount, then submissions, that kind of thing, or was it more just general principles?

Romulo Barral: It was all the basic positions, you know. There were all the situations, but the basics. Like you said, side control, couple of attacks, basic attacks, and basic escapes. Then, mount, basic attacks, basic escapes. Very consistent, like that: couple of takedowns, self-defence. All the basics they would need to go to the next level, so they’re not going to be lost.

slideyfoot.com: Following on from that, if the beginners class is with that clear structure, how would the advanced class differ? Would it still have a curriculum or is it more of a “this week we’re going to do 50/50, this week we’re going to do reverse triangles”?

Romulo Barral: You know, a lot of places, they still don’t have a curriculum. My place, Draculino’s place, we always have a curriculum. You cannot go to the class, drive your car, and then think “oh, what am I going to show today? I’m going to show spider guard today.” Then the next day, you drive again, “what am I going to show today? Today, I’m going to show mount attack.” It’s very important you break down the curriculum, so you can work all the types of game. For example, let’s work for two months on spider guard, maybe spider guard sweeps, spider guard attacks.

I think that is the best way for people to learn and develop their own game, so you can teach everything, not focus on one thing. You’ve got to have a curriculum for both parts.

In the next instalment, Romulo shares some of his thoughts on competition. To read more about Romulo, check out RomuloBarral.com, and you can also follow him on Facebook and Twitter

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Article - A Women's BJJ Class (3)

One woman's journey into creating a women's jiu jitsu program
Article #17, by guest writer Chrissy Linzy [FAQ Entry]
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Post-Tournament Wrap-Up

Thanks to injuries and cold feet, we ended up with one woman competing at US Grappling’s Dominion Grappling Championships on August 7, 2010. Rachel Prestipino took 2nd place in her white belt division, losing to a woman who was promoted to blue belt the following day. Rachel trained very hard for the tournament, and I’m really proud of her. I think this is her first time competing with women instead of teens (she just turned 16 this summer), and the first time she’s competed in about a year. I can’t wait to see how she does in her next event.

Class Progress

July brought several new women to class, which meant retooling lesson plans nearly every week. This is a great problem to have, and I’ve structured the August classes so that new women can jump right in. This month, we’re working from the closed guard. I’ll be introducing the women to passing, sweeping, and submitting from there so that they get a taste of both top and bottom games. I’m trying to incorporate both sides into the drills, but sometimes it means that we work the same basic position for two classes in a row. I actually like doing that, since it means that the students get more reps from a position and they spend less time practicing bad technique (like putting their hands on the mat so that their opponent can practice a kimura, for example).

Curious Problem

I think it’s fairly common practice for the instructor to (kindly) submit students when they first start jiu jitsu. The problem comes in when I’m training with the teenagers. I don’t want to train so hard with them that they are too discouraged to return. I also don’t want to train so light with them that they think that jiu jitsu is easy or ineffective. I’m also a bit worried about the perception of the parents on the sidelines that don’t train, who are watching their children get beaten repeatedly by an adult. Being a teenage girl is hard enough without this sort of extra pressure, and I’m trying to find the right balance.

So far, my solution has been to reward good grappling choices and to “punish” bad ones, much like I would do if I were training a puppy. If the teenagers flail around under side control, the pressure slowly increases. If the teenagers attempt proper escapes, the escapes will work. I’m still working out if this is the best way to work with them or not, and I’d love some feedback from anyone that has trained teenage girls in the past. I don’t want to treat them like delicate flowers, but I also don’t think that treating them like a full-grown adult is the answer.

Coming Up

After August, I will start trying to get some of the newer women over into the co-ed classes. I think they’ll have enough of the basics to start trying things on a larger variety of opponents at that point. I also don’t want them to become too spoiled by always having sparring partners at their size and skill level. Plus, they need to find ways to adjust techniques for shorter and longer limbs and so on. If they’re always training with the same body types, they’ll never learn to make these small adjustments that will make their jiu jitsu more effective.

I’ll be spending a week at a women’s grappling camp in Toronto for the last week of August, and I hope to come back with some more ideas about developing the women’s program.

Chrissy Linzy has been training Brazilian Jiu Jitsu for 5 years, and is one of the owners of US Grappling, a Brazilian Jiu Jitsu and submission grappling tournament circuit that travels across most of the United States for events. She (rarely) blogs at www.clinzy.com.

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Article - A Women's BJJ Class (2)

One woman's journey into creating a women's jiu jitsu program
Article #16, by guest writer Chrissy Linzy [FAQ Entry]
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The Classes

The day of the first class, I couldn’t really think about anything else. What if no one showed up? What if I forgot everything I wanted to show? What if jiu jitsu techniques magically stopped working?

None of these things happened, of course. I had two students for the first class, and have had at least two students for nearly every class since then. I have designed the classes so that the warmup, the self defense move of the week and the two BJJ techniques all tie together somehow so that there are common motions being repeated.

At the end of each class, we do some positional sparring and then review the techniques from the class. During the first class, I covered details of mount escapes and then my “rules” for maintaining mount. The positional sparring was solely to maintain mount, without working for any submissions. I wanted to make sure that the women become comfortable with making adjustments in their posture and base automatically, before thinking about submissions.

Since most of the women that have been attending classes are fairly new to jiu jitsu, I’ve been spending a lot of time on the basics. I want these women to feel confident in the co-ed classes, and to have a lot of repetitions of the fundamentals. I also spend a good bit of time on the principles behind the movements so that the women understand other places that these movements will be effective.

Nearly every jiu jitsu academy talks about posture while you’re in someone’s guard, but I try to point out what good posture is from every position so that they’re always thinking about how to be safe, even if they don’t quite know what to do next. This is where I think that the positional sparring is the most helpful. Now that I have 3 months or so under my (blue) belt, I’m going to start making a few changes. I’m going to drop the second BJJ technique and add in more sparring. A lot of my students are teenagers, which means parents are very prompt about picking them up. This means that they expect class to end right at 9 PM, so the teenagers are missing out on the open mat time after class ends.

The Future

Right now, I have a few students who are planning to compete at US Grappling’s Dominion Grappling Championships, so we’re spending July and the beginning of August working on tournament strategies and on what to do if the plan goes awry. We’ll have some women coming from other academies to visit for classes between now and August 7 to help prepare for the tournament. In addition, I know I’m going to be getting a few new students in the next week or two, and I’m excited about seeing the program grow. Planning the lesson is one of my favorite parts of the week, especially when I work out the alternate ways to explain things, or to accomplish a particular technique with a different body type. I feel like it makes me a better instructor and a better grappler.

Chrissy Linzy has been training Brazilian Jiu Jitsu for 5 years, and is one of the owners of US Grappling, a Brazilian Jiu Jitsu and submission grappling tournament circuit that travels across most of the United States for events. She (rarely) blogs at www.clinzy.com.

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Article - A Women's BJJ Class (1)

One woman's journey into creating a women's jiu jitsu program
Article #15, by guest writer Chrissy Linzy [FAQ Entry]
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The Setup

About 3 months ago, using what must have been some sort of black belt trickery, Klint Radwani (my instructor) convinced me to teach a women’s class at our academy. I hesitantly agreed once I was absolutely sure that there was no way our purple belt woman could do it. Of course, when I agreed, I was sort of banking on this class starting sometime in the future. The distant future. Instead, it would start on the first Tuesday of May. I had two weeks. Crap.

So, I did what any panic-stricken gal would do – I dashed off an email to friends of mine who teach women’s classes and begged for help. Adrienne Adams (Yamasaki), Jen Flannery (Fifty/50), and Alaina Hardie (MECCA MMA) all started teaching women’s classes back when they were blue belts, and were kind enough to talk me off of the proverbial ledge and back onto the mats where I belong.

With some excellent advice from them, I got my head back into the game and got to work on my game plan. Common themes from all of the women – develop consistent patterns, show movements that the women can build on from class to class, and reinforce what they already know. With these things in mind, I developed lesson plans for May and June, starting with the positions that I always wished I had spent more time working when I first started jiu jitsu.

The Requirements

Klint wanted to ensure that any women who were only attending this class would be getting self-defense techniques, so each class would need to include at least one of those. I have eight self-defense techniques that relate directly to jiu jitsu that cycle through the classes, and I tie them to the lesson for each week. Other than that, I could teach whatever I thought would be most beneficial. Knowing that I would have a mix of experience levels (including women that outrank me on occasion), I started working on a curriculum that would be scalable enough for beginners to jump in, but would also offer a challenging session for the more experienced women as well.

After I had the first nine sessions outlined, I asked for feedback from everyone I’ve already mentioned, plus Valerie Worthington (Carlson Gracie/New Breed). Val has a background in both BJJ and education, and among other things, she recommended being prepared to handle the “But What Ifs” (aka Mission Creep) in each class. I tried to do this by teaching both sides of each technique. For example, if I teach a submission, I will also teach the defense. I’ve used this format since the first night. This way, the students all know that they don’t need to ask how to defend that cross choke because I’m going to show them in the next section. Then, they’re going to start sparring from that position so that they can work on the submission and the defense. I like to make sure the women are getting some sparring time in during each class, and to see that there is a practical application for these techniques.

In the next installment, you’ll hear about the first week of classes, and what I hope the future will bring for the Yamasaki Jiu Jitsu women’s classes.

Chrissy Linzy has been training Brazilian Jiu Jitsu for 5 years, and is one of the owners of US Grappling, a Brazilian Jiu Jitsu and submission grappling tournament circuit that travels across most of the United States for events. She (rarely) blogs at www.clinzy.com.

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Article - Amazon Jiu Jitsu: BJJ & Larger Women

Article #14, by guest writer Megan Williams [FAQ Entry]

I…am a large woman. That’s not a euphemism for overweight or exceedingly muscular. I’m 6’ tall, with an almost 7” wrist and 22” shoulders. I weigh 180lbs when in good shape. Like the majority of women that train BJJ, I showed up for self-defense reasons (even though, aside from an incident of a man telling me that I was “so tall he wanted to put his fist through my chest”, I’ve seldom felt threatened), but the similarities begin to die off there.

Yes, a large woman will face the same “lady problems” that any other female would in training BJJ…dealing with inappropriate behavior, managing the intensity of sparring with opponents that either want to man-handle you for fun or go way too soft on you because they don’t want to hurt you, feeling out of place as the only female in class…but the issue of size is a creature unto itself. I outweigh most of the women in my school by 60lbs or more and am a solid 10” taller. I worry more frequently about putting too much of my weight on smaller opponents (male and female) than I do about being crushed by the 220 lb guy that shows up on Wednesdays. The idea of being picked up or tossed around doesn’t really cross my mind and sweeps only work if they’re technically clean. Still though, I’m not as strong as men my size, or even those smaller than me.

I’m guessing the guys at the gym have to be thinking something similar…wondering what’s got the Amazonian chick interested in a sport that’s designed to shift the balance of power in favor of smaller, weaker opponents. Their comments on how strong I am, or have gotten are great motivation, but they’ve given rise to some new concerns. I used to worry about being weak. Now I wonder about life beyond the white belt and if my size plus a pigmented belt will cause resentment or backlash. I wonder if my manly size will result in my being manhandled. I’m guessing it will, and that’s fine. Just a new challenge with which to deal. While I’m sure the heel I took to my left breast last class is a problem that’s particular to women, I suspect there are fewer differences specific to gender in Brazilian jiu jitsu than one would expect, and that’s part of what makes it beautiful.

I do think though, that my situation sheds light on an opportunity for instructors, bloggers and others to adapt how they address techniques and abilities. My instructor, (I like his method and think it could be a benefit to both genders) instead of giving advice on techniques that are good for men or women, teaches based on body type or situation…leg length, relative weight of opponent or flexibility. I’m sure there are men out there with legs that are stronger than their upper bodies, be it because of freakish genetics or injury. There are definitely men out there that are small for their gender, and I believe they could benefit from more specialized attention.

All that said, I’m glad to have found the likes of Lana Stefanac, Gabi Garcia and a few other ladies online, so I can see how other large women move and work with women their own size.

Megan is a white belt, who has been training for six months at American Top Team in West Palm Beach under Marcos "Parrumpinha" Da Matta. She maintains a blog at bjiujitsu.blogspot.com

BJJ for the Larger Woman: Further Reading

Megan Williams: Big Girl Syndrome
Fenom Kimonos: Annemieke DeMaggio Interview
Open Mat Radio: #23 - Emily Wetzel Interview
Megan Williams: Commentary on Emily Wetzel Interview
BJJ Heroes: Gabi Garcia Profile
Erin Herle: Gabi Garcia Interview


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Article - Competition & BJJ

Article #13, by Can Sönmez
[For the practical side of competition, such as when to compete, how to prepare, weight cutting, tournament listings etc, go here]

When Jigoro Kano was in the process of developing judo, competition was central to the fledgling style's success. By defeating all-comers, judo established itself as the premier martial art in Japan at the time. Brazilian jiu jitsu, an outgrowth of judo, followed in this tradition. Indeed, you could say that BJJ is the very epitome of competition as a means of expansion: it first came to attention due to the vale tudo exploits of the original Gracie brothers, most famously Hélio. Decades later, his son Rorion created a superlative marketing tool in the form of the UFC, which has led to BJJ's popularity today. MMA and BJJ continue to have a close relationship.

It is therefore unsurprising that competition has remained a staple of BJJ. In many clubs, tournament performance is a significant factor in promotion, which has the dual effect of objectively evaluating a student and simultaneously enhancing an academy's reputation. That has disadvantages, such as the 'sand bagging' phenomenon, but generally it is a positive part of jiu jitsu. There are even some schools where rank is purely predicated on competition record.

At the opposite end of the spectrum, there is the Gracie University online training system, where the Gracie Academy in Torrance loudly denounces competition as unrealistic. Given their history, this is unsurprising, and at first it seems a logical argument.

However, numerous other styles have hidden behind the "self defence, not a sport" excuse, to their great detriment. By removing competition, a martial art stagnates, as techniques are no longer pressure tested. Instead of empirical data, students are left with their instructor's anecdotes, and training steadily degenerates into compliant drilling and dead movements.

Full contact competition sustains a martial art's vitality and efficacy: fortunately, BJJers generally treasure tournaments. Instructors will often list their personal competitive accomplishments on the school website, where it is treated as a selling point. A gleaming pile of trophies makes for effective advertising.

Yet this comes with its own problems: it can also mean that a black belt scalp is highly prized. As Dave Jacobs discussed on The Underground and NHBGear, higher belts can be put off competing as a result. Particularly when competing against lower ranks, it is arguable that a black belt running a school has nothing to gain, but everything to lose.

Due to the inclusion of a ranking system, competition has an added importance. It is seen as the litmus test, proving to both yourself and anyone who asks that you are indisputably worthy of your belt. For an instructor, it enables them to claim they can prepare others to enter the arena, because they can prove they know what it takes to succeed in that environment.

BJJ is unusual in the sporting world in that the most prestigious competitions, such as the Mundials and Europeans, are open to everyone, not just elite athletes. There is no qualification requirement beyond the often expensive entry fee, which means the only barriers to competition are cost and inclination.

Hobbyists like me can take solace in teachers such as John Danaher. He has never competed, but is nevertheless widely regarded as one of the best jiu jitsu instructors in the world. The paradox is that BJJ could not survive if everyone took the same approach as Danaher.

There is nothing wrong with not competing, but that luxury is only available because of the many who do compete. Without them, BJJ would become debased into yet another martial art with meaningless rank, populated by ten-year olds wearing black belts. Gaining rank in BJJ is currently a long road filled with sweat, years of mat time and tapping: I'd hate to see that change to rapid promotion, grading fees and kata.

BJJ Competition: Further Reading ^
[started 08/04/10, last update 29/10/2013]

-When to Compete: FAQ Entry
-Weight Cutting: Shama, Stephanie
-Preparation: Leslie, Georgette (1) (2), Shawn, Dev (1), (2), Nic Gregoriades
-Why Compete: Mark, Georgette, Dave, Liam (1) (2), Rafael Lovato, Steve, Seymour, Me, Calf of War, heavytraining, side control, DirtyRancher on JiuJiuBJJ.com ("I'm Afraid I'll Get Hurt" and "Should I Compete Later Due To [Reasons]?"), Tracy, Andrew 'Goatfury' Smith, BJJ Canvas, No Guts, No Glory?, Rob Taylor
-Where to Compete: iCompete.org (global), EFN (Europe, especially UK), bjj.ie (Ireland), JiuJitsuCalendar.com (USA)


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