I've said it before, but what I love most about BJJ is the sense of community. It's a vibe that I've enjoyed during my trips to the US, the BJJ Globetrotter Camps and most especially the GrappleThons I've been to over the last few years. The way that people from Brazilian Jiu Jitsu can come together for a good cause - sharing their time, money and effort to support something important - is beautiful to see. So when I read last week that Averi Clements was trying to organise an international event in memory of her friend Nichole Ossman, I wanted to help. She wrote a powerful piece for Jiu Jitsu Times, which I'll quote at length:
On Friday, October 7 (for those who have tournaments on Saturday) or Saturday, October 8 (for those who have work on Friday), I want the BJJ community to come together and Roll for Nichole. I want us all to have an open mat in her honor at our individual gyms. Invite other academies, invite people who have never done jiu-jitsu before, invite whoever you want. Take an hour or two to do the thing that— at least for a while— gave Ozzy happiness and a release from the things she was battling inside her mind.
But on whichever day you choose to do this, I want you all to sit down with your coach and teammates and take the opportunity to talk about mental illness. I want you to tell each other that you’re there for each other, and I want you to discuss the warning signs of suicide, which can be found here. I want you to discuss all kinds of options for help, including talk therapy and medication. By the time you leave that gym, I want every single person to know that mental illness is as serious as a physical injury or disease, and above all, I want you all to know that you’re not alone.
During all of this, I want you to create a memory with your teammates. Laugh together. Take pictures together. Post them on social media and use the hashtag #RollForNichole so that everyone inside and outside the jiu-jitsu community can see just how big our extended family is and how we support each other.
How you personalize this is up to you guys as individual gym families. I’d love for this to be an event to raise money for Ozzy’s family to help pay for funeral expenses, but if money is tight, I understand. All I want is for us to make it as convenient as possible for us to have an open conversation about this while helping to create some kind of a silver lining to the darkest cloud I’ve ever experienced, just as Ozzy tried to do for everyone else going through tough times.
I’ve seen the amazing things the jiu-jitsu community can do when we all come together. Now, we need to do so for each other for the sake of our teammates, ourselves, and the people who love us. We need to do everything in our power to make sure that no more friends or families ever go through what Ozzy’s loved ones are currently experiencing, and I think that by having a conversation about this, we can take the first step to preventing suicide in our own gyms.
So let’s do it. Let’s roll for a better future, for a stronger jiu-jitsu family, for a world in which mental illness is treated as a legitimate condition instead of something that should be swept under the rug and ignored. Let’s roll for ourselves, our teammates, and anyone else who has been at war with their own mind.
That's exactly what I did, along with many other clubs around the world (I've been reposting everything I see on the GrappleThon page, mainly from Averi's own indefatigable reposting of all the awesome #RollForNichole international support). We started off with a short open mat on Friday 8th October, from 18:00-18:30.
It was then time for the main event, our two hour Sunday open mat. I wasn't sure how many people would come down, as I'd only announced it a week earlier: as it turned out, the room was full. We had people head over from clubs around Bristol, as well as from further afield, like GrappleThon stalwart Piotr from Gloucester. There were lots of students from the local university too, which was cool to see. I hope this helped to raise awareness about mental health. :)
I was particularly impressed with Brendan. He had been along to watch us train earlier in the week, never have done any grappling before. Sunday was therefore the first time he'd ever got on the mats. After running through some basic escapes with me, he was happy to jump right in. He rolled with lots of the people there, picking up tips, until by the end he looked like he had much more training time under his belt than a mere two hours. Very cool! :D
The excellent turn-out for a short notice event makes me excited about the upcoming GrappleThon next year. I will therefore be getting my plans for that underway: we decided on a charity quite some time ago, just need to finalise dates. Keep an eye on the GrappleThon page, I should have more details soon. :)
Averi wrote a follow up piece on Jiu Jitsu Times, where she revealed that forty schools took part in the #RollForNichole, from Peru through to the UK. Amazing! Nichole's family also received over $1,000 in donations towards her funeral: if you'd like to help too, you can donate here.
Class #773 Artemis BJJ (MYGYM Bristol), Open Mat, Bristol, UK - 09/10/2016
As ever with GrappleThons, my main focus was spreading the word on social media. However, I did get in a few good rolls, giving me a chance to work some more on my open guard. I continued to keep trying for that shin-on-shin sweep, where my main problem is still getting that arm. I was trying to switch to the alternative of grabbing the gi, but without much luck. I need to remember to try grabbing the belt too, as that tends to be easier than the arm or the gi.
On a similar note, I looked for Chiu's lapel guard variation, where he pulls that under their leg while also grabbing a collar. This is something he showed at the UK BJJ Globetrotter Camp in June. Rather than relying purely on the shin-on-shin lift, he adds in a sort of judo foot sweep style finish, pushing their ankle inwards. I've found it combines nicely with shin-on-shin stuff, so I'll keep on attempting it.
Underneath I practiced Chiu's side control escapes some more, where the main thing is getting that arm locked against your shin. I need to remember that if they are moving back to prevent you getting control of the arm, I should capitalise on the space and go to another escape. I'm not combining it well enough yet, but it's getting better I think. The best thing was the relaxed pace, making for a fun, technical roll. That's another great thing about GrappleThons, most people don't go nuts in terms of intensity (especially higher belts who have been to GrappleThons before).
Playing around with kimuras was entertaining too. I managed to avoid mangling my wrist this time (yay!). Knowing when to let go is key: getting a submission is nice, bending my wrist without pain is even nicer. ;)
Mike Cowling has been coming to the GrappleThons I run in Bristol for several years now. I first met him in 2013 when we were raising money for RapeCrisis (he's on the far left here), then again at last year's event for Equality Now (second from right on the bottom row). He was part of the dedicated twenty-hour crew this year too, but in 2016 went the extra mile by deciding to host a twenty-four hour GrappleThon himself a few weeks later, also supporting One25.
Thanks to Mike and his team, the total for One25 has had a considerable boost. Along with a big donation from BrisDoc among others, it means that at the time of writing the JustGiving total is over £5,000, which jumps up to over £6,000 when you add in gift aid. That's the second highest total we've ever managed: well done to all the fundraisers!
Mike added in lots of extras to his event at the London Wing Chun Academy, with food, massages and t-shirts. There were raffles and even a mini arcade, costing 20p to have a go on UFC 2. Incorporating that 'donate to play' model is a great idea, so I think I'll copy it for the next GrappleThon I do. Oscar mentioned bringing down a console, something we could perhaps put upstairs and turn into a sort of 'chill out' room. ;)
It's the second GrappleThon Mike has done at the school, having run a smaller event as part of ROLLforROWW late last year. That was squeezed into the side mats as he fit it around the school schedule. Mike also sent over pictures on the hour for the GrappleThon Instagram. I popped in briefly on my way through London, but didn't take part as I had a fresh tattoo healing on my arm.
This time around, I could stay much longer and actually take part. Mike kicked things off at 08:30am, sending over a few pics on Facebook like last time. I headed down to London in the afternoon (meeting up with an old friend I haven't seen in years, which was cool: we wandered round the National Gallery chatting), dropping off a banner and collection box afterwards at about 6pm. After a delicious meal of top notch Turkish food with my father at Babaji, I was finally ready to stay for the long haul from around 10pm through to the end at 08:30am on Sunday.
Mike's GrappleThons have already developed a tradition: at some point during the night, people put on masks. There was only one luchador at the ROLLforROWW edition, who was joined by two more this time around. The atmosphere reminded me of the first GrappleThon I ever ran, back in 2012. Most people were from the same team, though there were a few visitors from other BJJ clubs (like Hiren, another GrappleThon stalwart, plus people from Mill Hill and of course me). I look forward to seeing this grow, as Mike has said he wants to make it an annual event. Hooray for more GrappleThons! Especially as because I wasn't running it, I treated myself to a brief power nap at 3am or so. Refreshing. ;)
Class #710 Origin BJJ (London Wing Chun Academy), Open Mat, London, UK - 09-10/04/2016
I was keeping things chilled out as usual, but got in quite a bit more sparring than normal. Mostly that was relaxed flopping on top of people, or staying in open guard and fencing with my legs. I did have one slightly harder roll, mainly because I joined in the mask excitement and pulled on a fetching Deadpool number. It means you get hotter and sweatier, but the main drawback is reduced vision. At one point the eyeholes slipped away from me while my partner was going for a choke from the back. Fortunately he crossed his feet, so I could anklelock my way to safety. :)
I also played around with the material I'd learned earlier on Saturday at RGA Bucks, throwing up a few reverse triangles, as well as attempting that worm guard sweep Kev showed me. The main issue with that was tempting them to stand up enough that I could bring the lapel behind the leg. I think I need to swing out more to get the necessary space, but I'll keep playing with it.
I went for lots of armbars too. With the armbar grip break I learned from Matt H a while back, I wasn't getting low enough on the arm to generate leverage. That could mean my initial grip is too high, I'll need to practice it some more at open mat. I should get behind their arm better too, blocking them with my body. Saulo has a good video on that I want to rewatch.
For my fifth GrappleThon, I decided to support a charity I've been aware of for a number of years (due to their strong presence at various feminist events around the city), but didn't actually know all that much about. A student at Artemis BJJ suggested we pick One25 this year, as she had direct experience (through her work in the prison service) of the excellent work they do to help vulnerable women break free from lives of addiction and poverty. Like 2015, we again organised a weekend in March: I had planned to go for later in the year, but this way we could tie in with the One25Live fundraising drive.
Just like every year, our two longest serving sponsors immediately came on board: Tatami Fightwear and Meerkatsu. They've both been staunch supporters since the first GrappleThon I ran in 2012. A more recent sponsor was also quick to pledge their support, GIMONO, once again offering the brilliant prize of a GIMONO gi to whoever raised the most money for One25. MYGYM generously allowed us to hold the event on their spacious mats for a second year, the gym owner getting stuck in to the extent that he helped to put up the One25 banners on the day. Other friends from MYGYM also joined in, with David and Natalia from Move Strong offering free kettlebell and kaatsu training on the Sunday. Lisa Chappell returned with her very popular massage table, then finally we had new support from Idee Pure, who provided a number of their soaps for fundraising prizes.
Another essential part of the GrappleThon comes from Wales, or more specifically, Aberystwyth. The West Coast BJJ team have been sending the biggest single group of grapplers over to Bristol since the 2014 GrappleThon, as well as raising a significant chunk of the total donations. This year, they were led by Katja Birkett, whose grappling skills got a lot of kudos from the higher belts I spoke to on the day (especially her smoothly executed escapes). Superman Kris was back too, with his indefatigable stamina, with several others returning for their second or third experience. There were plenty of new faces too: it's really cool that going to a GrappleThon has become a tradition for teams around the country! :D
Seymour 'Meerkatsu' Yang was back (see his write-up here), managing the triple support of donations (several hundred pounds from his art print auction alone), sponsorship and attendance. Also along from London was Mike Cowling and his team, which I think makes this their third visit. They've also now hosted a mini-GrappleThon back in the capital (about four months ago, part of the RollforROWW event), and will be hosting a full GrappleThon on the 9th April. For more info on that, I think you can get in touch via the Facebook event, here. There was plenty of local support too, with numerous Gracie Barra clubs in attendance (including Gloucester and Swindon, as well as Bristol), teams from Cornwall and Devon, Pedro Bessa, Sweatbox and of course students from Artemis BJJ. I believe Berry and Steve H from GB Bristol are the only two other people (apart from me) to attend all five of the GrappleThons I've organised. :)
I was pleased to see a considerable female turn-out for this GrappleThon, something that was notable last year too. I was hoping to encourage a few beginners into BJJ, tying in with the UKBJJA's #UnstoppableGirl campaign (who also wrote up a lovely press release for the 2016 GrappleThon), which did yield a couple of visitors. Natalia took the opportunity to give BJJ another go, while there was also a few women watching who said they would like to get on the mats in the future. It would be great to see a passion for BJJ kindled through the GrappleThon, so I'll be continuing to push that as part of upcoming GrappleThons too.
At the time of writing, we've raised almost £3,400 for One25, with Laura raising the most individually (and therefore winning the GIMONO gi). It's not too late to donate, plus you could even take part at the London leg of the One25 GrappleThon on the 9th April. I hope to see you there: I'm planning on heading along for the late shift. :)
Class #705 Artemis BJJ (MYGYM Bristol), Open Mat, Bristol, UK - 26-27/03/2016
I never spar all that much at GrappleThons, particularly compared to some of the incredible displays of stamina on display. At most it tends to be three or four hours, mostly spread across Sunday. My main concern is to plug gaps when there is nobody else able to get in a round, with the aim of going as light as I can. That means I'll pick partners who are either smaller or less experienced, so I don't use up much energy or risk getting injured. In other words, I'm pretty lazy. ;)
Still, I did get in one tougher roll, as Seymour was there to beat me up with his black belt skills. Having said that, it wasn't a high intensity spar: if Seymour hadn't been taking it very easy, he would have taken my feet home with him. His focus on lower body submissions meant for a very different roll to what I'm used to, putting me in positions I rarely see. In particular, I kept finding my leg stuck between his, with the lower part bent out and at risk of attack. My main defence was to triangle my legs, and/or grab his arm in order to pull it towards me. It's a good thing I'm having a private on leglock defence with my instructor in a few weeks, as clearly I need it. :)
You will sometimes hear people say things like "Oh, we don't need feminism any more, everything is ok now." Unfortunately that's very much not the case. You may have heard the terrifying statistic that estimates one in three women globally will be sexually assaulted during their lifetime. Specifically, that comes from the UNIFEM publication Not A Minute More: End Violence Against Women, powerfully summarised on page six:
One in three. That stark figure sums up the crisis confronting women throughout the world. Of three young girls sitting in a classroom, learning to read and write, one will suffer violence directed at her simply because she is female. Of three women sitting in a market, selling their crops, one will be attacked — most likely by her intimate partner — and hurt so severely she may no longer be able to provide for her family. Throughout the world, this violence will be repeated: globally, one in three women will be raped, beaten, coerced into sex or otherwise abused in her lifetime. Violence against women has become as much a pandemic as HIV/AIDS or malaria. But it is still generally downplayed by the public at large and by policy-makers who fail to create and fund programmes to eradicate it.
Speaking a few days ago, the head of UN Women stated that no country has yet achieved gender equality. We're still waiting for governments to keep their promises on that front. Back in 1995, 189 countries pledged to end laws discriminating based on gender. Yet twenty years later, those laws still exist, as Equality Now's 'Beijing 20' campaign highlights. Fortunately, thanks to charities like Equality Now, there is hope for the future. When I started doing GrappleThons back in 2012, I already knew that Equality Now was the charity I wanted to support. I've had a direct debit with them for around a decade at this point, as I believe their work is incredibly important.
I couldn't do the GrappleThon for them in 2012, as they were not yet on an online fundraising platform. However, by 2015, Equality Now had started using MyDonate. Fortuitously, this year it happened that International Women's Day (8th March) fell on a Sunday. Hence why I decided the time was finally right, getting things started in January. Once I've decided on a charity, my next few tasks are picking a date (this year that was easy), finding a venue and getting the ever-popular fundraising t-shirts sorted.
Just like every year, the awesome Seymour 'Meerkatsu' Yang and the wonderful people at Tatami Fightwear immediately pledged their support, providing the t-shirt design and printing. The main venue for Artemis BJJ, MyGym Bristol, also agreed straight-away to let us hold the event on their giant mat space. We're also lucky to have a new company join as a sponsor this year, Gimono from New Zealand. They contacted me to offer a fantastic gi to whoever raises the most money, in the winner's choice of cut, colour and size. Thanks to all of the GrappleThon sponsors for your incredible support! :D
In terms of pre-event press, Martial Arts Illustrated put a story on their site, the wonderful SportsWatch site covered us again, as did Bristol Women's Voice. A personal highlight was getting invited last month by veteran combat sports broadcaster Eddie Goldman to talk about the GrappleThon on his show, 'No Holds Barred'.
On the 7th March, I got up at 9am to head to the Artemis BJJ open mat as usual, for pre-GrappleThon rolling and drilling between 10:00-12:00. Heading home for a shower and packing my bags (gi rainbow!), I arrived at MyGym shortly before 2pm, ready for the action. There was an especially good turn out this year: it seems every time we increase the space, the numbers go up to fill it, which is brilliant! There were over ten different teams from around the country, ranging from London to Aberystwyth, Chesterfield and Stone, among others. Many of them were returning from last year's event, like Horizon BJJ and Origin BJJ (headed up by 2013 GrappleThon 24hr Crew member, Mike Cowling), with plenty of new faces too.
We had our first contingent from Fightworx a bit further South West, including one of the top fundraisers, Jade. Bristol Uni BJJ was represented too, as were several other local teams, which was cool to see. I enjoyed meeting Andy, a fellow student under Kev Capel, who came down from Oxfordshire to take part before heading back up for a seminar with Kev. I also got to catch up about a previous instructor of mine, Jude Samuel (who gave me my blue), as Hiren from Legacy BJJ returned for what I think is his third GrappleThon now.
Chris Paines, probably the most impressive grappler this year in terms of stamina, kept on going at high intensity for pretty much the whole event. He brought down a team from Fighting Fit in Stone, including another stalwart of the event, Anya. There were lots of other women present too, some who had been before, like Paula (who has been a constant presence at the Bristol GrappleThons) and Anne.
Anne leads the mighty Birkett Crew from Westcoast BJJ in Wales, who were always ready to step in and keep the GrappleThon rolling on. Med, Adam, Kris, Katja and Jamie, along with Anne, were a key part of this year's event, as was Westcoast BJJ last year. I saw them in Congleton last year too, naturally featuring the indefatigable Kris. Read their write-up over on the Westcoast BJJ site, here.
Congleton is also where I first met Chris P. He topped this year off with an especially tough roll towards the end with a certain visiting black belt from Miami. That was not just any black belt, but William Abreu, who has a grappling resume including world titles in BJJ and a high-level background in NCAA wrestling. He very kindly took time out of his UK seminar tour to join us on Sunday morning, full of great advice and tips for his lucky training partners.
Lots of Artemis BJJ students came down too, such as Simon, Steve W, Antonis and Chris J. The women were also well represented, with Tracey and Zoe heading down. Most exciting for the other attendees, Tracey brought along her famous cake, keeping our stomachs very happy through the late hours. Stefan was there too, not only grappling but getting in lots of video footage. I've been working my way through it, so plan to have something edited together in the near future.
I also got to meet up with some old training partners, like Berry and Steve H. As with previous years, Steve was on hand to help set up the live stream. After we battled with it for an hour and a half, it eventually whirred into life (should still be viewable, here), but only managed just under three hours before collapsing. As a result, I got a number of comments on Facebook congratulating us on how many people were still going at 3am. I had to sheepishly inform them that the footage they were watching was not from 3am: it was from 3pm the previous day. ;)
Around midday on Sunday, a photographer from the Bristol Post randomly appeared, a little after Laura headed down straight from a hen party to take part. She and Paula were featured in the Post on Monday, with some excellent posing skills (the online version of the story is here). We also got visited by Nicola from SportsWatch: she's a good friend of Artemis BJJ, having tried out a class herself.
Thanks to everyone for coming down and making this event a success, with special thanks to the brilliant efforts of all the fundraisers. At the time of writing, the grand total is at £2,616. I'm hoping we can make it to at least £3,000, so please keep those donations coming in! :)
Class #632 Artemis BJJ (MyGym), Open Mat, Bristol, UK - 08/03/2015
Given that 2015 marks the fifth GrappleThon I've rolled at, my plan of action is fairly well defined at this point. The most important thing is to pace yourself and pick your training partners very carefully. I therefore don't even start sparring until around 11pm, stepping in when I can see people are getting tired and the numbers are low. Interestingly, this time the sparring numbers didn't drop significantly until around 4am. We were then grappling in long shifts (around thirty to forty minutes) until 10am, when people both started to wake up and return to the mats from around Bristol.
Update June 2015: Here's a video I cobbled together on MovieMaker, mainly built from the oodles of footage Stefan captured:
I got in a number of rolls with Simon, along with several of my other students, like Zoe. I also jumped in for a long flow roll with Mike, where we were mostly just exchanging position with some light resistance, neither of us seriously going for submissions. I went for the unstoppable sweep a few times and landed it once or twice, but then this was going light. We also got into some bizarre entanglements, both trying to wrap the gi in random ways and hooking limbs. That's one of the most fun things about flow rolling, you do stuff you never normally do and get creative.
Rolling with Anne was fun too, another long spar. She has good defence, staying tight and not giving me much, except for that one position where she had one leg up and I kept knocking her over. Thinking about it afterwards, I'm wondering if moving into a low crouch would be more stable? But then I've never been great with combat base, so probably the wrong person to judge.
It was great to see the MyGym mats full of people all working together for a good cause. It was especially cool that so many people mentioned that they had learned a lot from rolling with lots of new training partners. We were also very fortunate to have Lisa in attendance, donating her massage skills: there was almost immediately a queue waiting to take advantage. I'm already looking forward to the next GrappleThon: I'm planning to get something sorted probably for April/May 2016. Hope to see you all there again! :D
Class #596 Artemis BJJ (Impact Gym), Open Mat, Bristol, UK - 27/09/2014
I was re-reading Rachael's blog this morning (the same Rachael who came along to class on Wednesday): her post on nutrition reminded me I should get back into taking fish oil supplements. My fingers have been quite painful recently, as my training has become more regular than usual. So it was a good thing that I did some nogi rolling today, with Gina: she had good pressure and has taken the guard passing tips to heart. Very coachable student, so I look forward to seeing how she does at the upcoming Grapplers Heart tournament. :)
That increased training frequency is going to continue, as I'll be taking on more teaching starting for next week. We're also going to be adding a new location, which is cool. Bristol Sports Centre is continuing as normal (Mondays & Wednesday 19:30-20:30, along with the free women's class on Wednesdays from 18:30-19:30), but there will be some changes over at our East Bristol spot.
For the last couple of months, the second venue has been in Staple Hill. Starting on Thursday 2nd October onwards, it's going to be in Kingswood instead, at PHNX Fitness. That's the new gym run by two of my students, Dean and Freya. Times will be the same as usual, so Tuesdays from 20:00-21:15, Thursdays from 20:15-21:15, then open mat on Saturdays from 10:00-12:00. Here's the address:
PHNX Fitness
Unit 7, Two Mile Hill Commercial Centre,
Two Mile Hill Road,
Kingswood,
Bristol, BS15 1AZ
There's a map with the address up on the Artemis BJJ locations page: if you can get to Kingswood (or our existing venue in central Bristol), it would be cool to meet you. First week of training is free, while the women's class on Wednesdays is free until the end of the year! I'm excited at the prospect of possibly starting up a second free women's class over at PHNX, but we'll see how the timetable goes. :D
The time has come for another GrappleThon, this year at a new venue. Dónal and I co-founded Artemis BJJ back in January: since then, we've been running classes at the central Bristol Sports Centre venue on Mondays and Wednesdays. Before and after we set up our club, we'd also been teaching at an unusual gym in Bitton (involving locked gates, llamas and Noel Edmonds. No, really), the old venue for local fitness gym Hit Fit. The owner, Mark, mentioned that he would be moving to a swish new location once the change of use was confirmed in late February.
I decided to take a risk and arrange the GrappleThon to coincide with the opening of the new venue, so it could act as a sort of launch event. In February I started to get things in motion, setting the date as 12th April, because I was completely booked up the rest of March and April. That gamble didn't quite pay off, because once it got to April, it turned out that the venue was not going to be ready to officially open until May. Mark was kind enough to let us go in there early to stick with the advertised time, despite the fact that he and his team were super busy with preparations to get the gym ready.
[Incidentally, there will indeed be a Hit Fit launch event involving charity, on the 3rd May from 10:00-17:00, so be sure to check that out if you're able to pop along. I will still be in the US so unfortunately can't make it, but to find out more, here is the Facebook event page. They're raising money for the Lullaby Trust: there's a JustGiving page that was linked on that Facebook page, here.]
The inaugural Artemis BJJ GrappleThon is in support of local charity Kinergy. They provide professional counselling to survivors of sexual abuse and rape, helping them move on with their lives. The reason we went with them, aside from it being a worthy cause, is that Dónal is a Kinergy counsellor. Here is what he had to say back in February about how Kinergy make the world a better place:
It’s an amazing charity with 22 volunteer counsellors that see up to three clients every week. Kinergy offers a year’s free counselling and is open to everyone, regardless of location, age or gender. It’s hard to put into words how amazing it is at Kinergy.
The waiting list is a year long: due to the lack of funding, Kinergy was forced to not take on any more referrals. It is hoping for more funding to support the service and create more referral opportunities.
Some clients come to Kinergy trying to deal with the indescribable levels of abuse they have faced, attempting to express themselves and gain some sense of what happened. Kinergy can give clients the tools to support themselves in the future.
The counselling can potentially be a huge step for a client. I have met many clients that feel they can’t speak out to get the support they need. Some abuse is hidden and spreading this message of support, even if it only reaches one survivor, could be life changing for that person.
Just like every year, the support of Seymour 'Meerkatsu' Yang and Tatami Fightwear was absolutely invaluable. Seymour came up with another brilliant t-shirt and poster design, while Tatami generously printed the t-shirts for the third year running. Seymour then went a step further and sold 10 prints of his beautiful 'Heavenly Wristlock' rashguard design, with the profits going to Kinergy. The aim was to raise £500: there was a slight shortfall of £40. Most people would have just shrugged and sent in the £460 (as after all that remains a considerable donation). Not Seymour. He filled the gap from his own pocket.
Numerous people contacted me beforehand about bringing down teams from around the country. My response is always "the more the merrier": I love the way that GrappleThons can bring people in the BJJ community together, so we can all both make new friends and renew ties with old ones. There were BJJers who headed down from Northern towns Congleton and Chesterfield, a Welsh contingent from over in Aberystwyth, plus a few teams from around London (like Horizon BJJ).
There were others who decided to drop in on their way to the Welsh Open, like two grapplers from Impact Martial Arts Truro, then later a father and son duo who train with Seymour at Mill Hill. MMA commentator, purple belt and 'Top Control' podcast host Josh Palmer headed along too. Representatives from most of the local Bristol gyms were there too, something I always enjoy seeing: I've never been a fan of the tribalism that can sometimes blight BJJ, so it's brilliant to see people just coming together to train and help raise money for a good cause. :)
A lot of grapplers were crazy enough to commit to the full 24 hours. Anne Birkett and her Westcoast BJJ crew were the largest group, with some impressive fundraising meaning that they all earned t-shirts, seeing off some stiff competition. Anne could be seen bouncing around the venue for the majority of the event (I especially enjoyed her 5am dance-off grapple with Paula) while Kris kept us all going in the quiet hours of the morning between around 2am and 7am. I don't think he stopped grappling over those five hours!
Shane (2.0, bigger, beefier and beardier) was back too. Having rolled for most of the last GrappleThon, he repeated that same level of involvement. Not only was he constantly rolling, as an experienced purple belt he was giving out lots of advice to the less knowledgeable grapplers. All he needed was to occasionally collapse face down on the floor and sleep for a few minutes, then he was ready to jump back in. ;)
Paula and Tanya were two other returning veterans, going for the full 24 this time: my old training partner Pippa embarked on her second coach mission from London. They were among a huge number of women who came along to support the GrappleThon, like Jodie Bear, who has had an inspiring journey in BJJ. Her wrath at Subway could only be temporarily contained during a brief hibernation. Judging by Facebook, as soon as she drove back up the country, the first thing she did was go wreck a Subway. Well, that or go roll: either way, far too much energy! ;P
There were lots of other female grapplers heading along for the first time. Rachel, the champion fundraiser for this event, not only drove all the way down from Chesterfield, this was her first time ever sparring outside of her club. She was only planning to spend a couple of hours originally, but impressively managed to at least double (triple?) that initial slot. Well done Rachel, on both fronts.
As happens with any event you plan in advance, a few people unfortunately picked up injuries before the big day, but a number still turned up anyway to support. I certainly don't expect anyone with an injury to make it all the way down to Bristol, as it's totally fair enough if they stay at home to rest up and recover. That's what I would probably do myself (I'm a confirmed wimp). Hiren ignored his busted wrist to get in some grappling, Anne herself had messed up her neck, Geraldine was there with her bad back. David popped a rib so couldn't train (he still tried!), but came along to help out anyway.
For me, it was my first look at the new Hit Fit venue, in the process of being readied for its official opening next month. There is a decent mat space and - as of this weekend - two cool murals on the walls, painted while we watched by a skilled Slovakian artist. Rather less artistically, I went on an Instagram spree this year, something I hadn't started using by the date of the last GrappleThon. I set up a GrappleThon specific Instagram, so that's full of pictures from the day. I was using it to update on the hour, as well as try and make up for my rather limited pre-event directions...not that I wouldn't know where the venue was, that would be silly. Ahem.
Thanks to everybody who came down to take part, especially all the fundraisers who did such a great job of getting in donations for a fantastic cause (at the time of writing, we're close to £5,000: donations still welcome on our JustGiving page :D), and thanks again to our sponsors Meerkatsu, Tatami Fightwear and of course Hit Fit, for letting us use their gym even though that meant we were rolling around right as they were trying to finish off their DIY. Thanks also to Sarah from Kinergy for bringing us that lovely box of chocolates, plus the delectable lemon and ginger cakes brought by another supporter (who also put in a load of very generous donations on JustGiving). :)
Class #557 Hit Fit, (Artemis BJJ), Bristol, UK - 12/04/2014
As usual, I'll also put down my sparring notes: I definitely rolled more this time than in the previous two years, though that still probably doesn't amount to more than four hours total over the whole 24hrs, maybe five. The usual themes from the last year or so keep cropping up. I'm still relying on the running escape way too much, rather than trying the basic guard recovery and turn to knees first. I'm also not yet managing to effectively combine with the stiff arm escape: I think I managed that once, but there was a reasonable weight discrepancy.
Like Kev suggested with the running escape, I continue to look to control that far arm, but with higher level grapplers like Shane, their arms almost immediately snake past the elbow I'm trying to block by my hip. That messes up the escape, so it then becomes a battle of digging their arm back out. Marcelo does the hip swing escape to guard with the arm still in, like Jeff Rockwell showed me in Texas a couple of years ago (sort of, as part of another technique), but I have yet to do it successfully without clearing their arm.
In guard, especially open guard, I'm getting passed too easily by anyone experienced, who tend to either leg-drag me or otherwise control my legs and slip around. I would have thought that is partially because I'm not threatening enough with sweeps, plus I'm also not doing a good job of combining attacks. I went for the windscreen wiper repeatedly without much luck (even if they were smaller than), possibly because my angle is poor and I'm telegraphing it too much. I tried Kev's grip break to back take or sit-up sweep (if they pull their arm back), but again not much luck there.
The back remains a weak position for me (both attacking and escaping), though that lockdown from the back thing Kev showed me recently is fun (but it does depend a lot on leg proportions and flexibility). A few times, I was able to wriggle back into half guard when escaping and I had a few attacks going from the back, but I don't think I actually landed any. And again, I was mostly sparring smaller people, so it's not because they were using any Hulk strength to resist. :)
I'm looking forward to organising the 2015 GrappleThon at Artemis BJJ: I already have a date, venue and charity in mind, so will get planning that in a while. Probably early in the year again.
For a long time now, a major goal of mine has been to support women already in jiu jitsu and encourage others to give BJJ a try. I was therefore appalled earlier this year when I read that a woman had been raped by two of her team mates, which was followed by further disturbing revelations about what has been called a 'rape culture' at that team. I had not intended to run another GrappleThon until next year, but because I wanted to turn the strong feelings about that incident towards something positive, I decided to get something organised soone in aid of the important work undertaken by RapeCrisis to increase awareness about sexual violence, press for change and help survivors.
Last year was the first time I had run an event like this. It won't surprise anybody who knows me or reads this blog regularly that I took a lot of notes, with various spreadsheets proliferating during the planning process. That meant I had plenty of material to draw upon for the second GrappleThon this year, including a sort of 'action plan' based around the steps I took in 2012. First up was asking Geeza if he was happy for us to use his club again, to which he generously said yes. That was followed by checking Seymour was willing to do another design for the event, as he was absolutely key to the success of 2012. As Seymour is an awesome guy, he immediately said "no problem" and got to work. Tatami Fightwear were the third important element, who also quickly replied that they would be happy to print the t-shirts for 2013.
The big change this year was that I made an effort to reach out far more broadly than just Gracie Barra Bristol, the host academy. There were two reasons for that. Firstly, since going to Texas a few months ago, I have increasingly realised just how amazing BJJ is as a community, rather than simply a sport, hobby or martial art. I'm keen to push that aspect of BJJ, giving back through charitable work as well as providing an opportunity to expand the camaraderie that I've found to be such a notable aspect of BJJ. The GrappleThon is intended to raise lots of money for good causes, but I'm also hoping that it can bring academies and people together.
In the weeks leading up to the GrappleThon, my girlfriend wrote a press release and sent it out to lots of newspapers and websites (naturally including RapeCrisis, who put it on their Facebook page). I'm not sure how many picked it up, but I do know that the BBC read it. That's because a few days before the event took place, I got an email from Sacha Bigwood at BBC Radio Bristol telling me to call her. That led to a live interview being arranged for Saturday 4th May at around 07:40. I was more nervous than I expected and thought I stumbled at the start, but it sounded much worse on the phone compared to the broadcast. That should be on the BBC iPlayer for a while, here (skip to 01:48:39), but when that disappears, you can also have a listen here.
An hour later, I was on my way to the GrappleThon, carrying a laptop, two gis, lots of cereal bars, some collection boxes and a banner. The latter two were again sorted out by my girlfriend, meaning that I could make sure RapeCrisis was featured prominently on the live stream. Perhaps most importantly for the fundraisers, I was also carrying a large box of t-shirts from Tatami Fightwear with Seymour's design. Carrying on the format from last year, these were for a special competition for fundraisers: I had a limited quantity in various sizes, which were given out in order of amount raised. That meant if there were only three shirts in your size but five people raising money who wanted one, you had to make sure you raised enough to rank in the top three. The cut-off point was 9am on Saturday: I double-checked everyone's total just before things got started.
That little element of competition brought out some impressive fundraising efforts. Jack McDonald was the champ, ending up with almost £1,000 on his page by the deadline (and passing it afterwards). I should note I wasn't counting the biggest single contributor, Seymour, who gave our total a huge boost when he added his t-shirt sales to his JustGiving page. Various others got well into three figures, some in a very short space of time: Paul only found out about the GrappleThon in training a few days before, but by the time Saturday rolled around, he had already managed over £200.
Another competition helped in a different way, as it did last year: the 'most time sparring' battle. Seymour brought down a print of his 'Heavenly Footlock' design, which I used as the prize, eventually earned by Christian with a ridiculous 95 rolls.
That's a total of at least five hundred and seventy minutes. I say 'at least' because the tracking was inherently vague, as I was relying on the timer beeping after each round: there is a gap of anything between 30 seconds to a minute and thirty seconds once it beeps. So, Christian was most likely sparring for over six hundred minutes! He was looking to break the 100 roll barrier, which he very almost managed, but ran out of time towards the end. I'm sure he'll be back to try and make that target next year. Considering his admin skills, I may also try and rope him into helping me run GrappleThon 2014 too... ;p
Christian was closely followed by two fantastic gentlemen from Dartford BJJ, Danny and Shane. Not only did they raise plenty of money, they were the first people rolling and the last to leave: Danny finished with 93 rolls while Shane had 91. They were ahead of Christian for most of the event, then after he passed them they made a powerful effort to try and reclaim the top spot, only missing out by two rolls.
If you want to learn how to pace yourself in jiu jitsu, then clearly you need to head to Dartford BJJ. Or indeed just learn from Marc Walder: another grappler from that same affiliation, Mike, managed a very respectable 63 rolls. The same affiliation also boasts an elite level blogger whose insightful writing has influenced me ever since she started up her site: Meg Smitley. It's a shame she couldn't be at the GrappleThon this year, but hopefully I'll finally get the chance to meet her at some point down the line.
I was looking forward to seeing some old friends, some of whom I had not seen since I was a white belt. The one who I hadn't seen for the longest time - though she is so active on social media that I still felt I was in touch - was Pippa, who arrived around 10am. She was literally the first person I ever met in BJJ, as she was behind the desk at RGA when I turned up for my intro lesson with Oli (the second person I ever met in BJJ) on the 26th October 2006. It was great to catch up with her and also with Howard, who was my regular training partner at RGA Bucks. He now calls Brighton home, based at Elements BJJ: two other members of the Elements team came with him to support the event. By the 6th May, the Brighton boys had raised over £1,000 for RapeCrisis.
Geeza appeared forty minutes or so later, in order to run a class he wanted to teach. At that point we split the mat in half, angling the live stream camera towards the near side while the class continued for roughly two hours. Conor, another old friend (this time from the Belfast Throwdown) arrived shortly after that class started. I was expecting a lot of people at 12:00, as most people had told me they would be there between 12:00 and 18:00: the mats were stuffed.
It was cool to see so many brown and purple belts on the mats, including Rob T and some of his students from Swansea, as well as Dónal's brother Paddy (I first met both of the Carmodys up at Gracie Barra Birmingham in 2010). The private lessons I've been taking from Dónal served me well today, as I was able to get in some practice on a number of the technical details we discussed. That also means I have lots of material to work on for my next set of private lessons with him. :D
Alison and birthday girl Paula from Gracie Barra Bath got there at about 12:30, bringing some delicious sweets. That was far from the only confectionery to grace the event: the front desk ended up looking like the dessert counter at a fancy cafe (a tradition I feel should be a part of every academy ;D). With so many people it started to get quite difficult to keep track of everybody on the spreadsheet, particularly once Geeza's whole class joined in with the sparring. I therefore apologise if I missed any of you, or just called you 'Big Guy 1' and 'Small Guy 2'. ;)
The mighty Meerkatsu himself walked through the doors around that time too, packing a brown belt, a camera and some nifty mat skills. At about 13:30, yet another blast from the past hit the mats: Chris Williams, who was among my favourite training partners in the early days of my training. We first rolled in February 2007, where I was intimidated by the enormous guns Chris had at the time. It turned out there was a lot of brain to go with that brawn, as every time I rolled with Chris I learned something new. He has the excellent habit of analysing rolls afterwards and offering constructive tips. Since 2007, he has lost about 20kg of brawn, but none of the brain. Fantastic training partner: as I'll discuss lower down, we had a good roll in the early hours of Sunday morning.
Looking at the timings spreadsheet (not everybody picked a particular time, but most of the fundraisers are on there), it was clear that to get a photo of as many fundraisers as possible, I would need to do it in the early afternoon. I decided on 14:00, unravelling the various tangled bodies in order to rearrange them for a photograph. Or rather, Seymour did, as unlike me he's a professional. He then took what proved to be my favourite picture from the day. Most of the photos on this page come courtesy of Seymour (the rest are from Facebook).
A few hours later, Raphael dos Santos, a black belt who runs Gracie Barra Cornwall, was on his way to London for a seminar. He then saw the GrappleThon mentioned on Facebook. That prompted him to make a quick detour to Bristol and jump on the mats, as well as helping us with a donation on JustGiving. Exactly the kind of thing that makes me love social media!
As we got into Saturday night, the twenty-four hour crew was getting tired. Danny and Shane went to sleep around 20:00, which is when Christian was able to close the gap and overtake them in the sparring competition. Other members of that same group also managed to rack up plenty of sparring. Conor finished on 40 rolls (but managed to impress with his eating skills), while Carlos racked up 38 despite an injury to his arm. Kyle didn't quite match his previous competition-winning 63.5 rolls, with 40 this year, but two of the younger participants from last year returned to match their 2012 totals. It was good to see children on the mat, adding to the family atmosphere of the event.
In 2012, it got increasingly difficult to keep the rolling going after 22:00. This year, there was no such problem, in large part thanks to people like Danny, Shane and Christian who were unstoppable, but also because of the stalwarts from Gracie Barra Bristol. I was expecting the locals to be essential for the late shift, which proved to be true: it would have been much harder without the efforts of Luke (34 rolls), Mike F (36 rolls) and Ben K (32 rolls). Maeve was also a big help, bringing cake, coffee, cups and plenty of rolling too (you'd expect nothing less from a woman who did 60 rolls almost non-stop last year).
At 2am on Sunday morning, the last two fundraisers materialised in a flash of blindingly colourful gi threads. David's fabulous dye job is a sight to behold, while Tanya was as always resplendent head to foot with the latest in gi fashion from Meerkatsu. I sadly didn't get a chance to roll with them, but I'll have to rectify that next time. They stayed until a bit after 5am, not long after which submission only champ Nando from GB Bath arrived. Like Raphael, he saw the event on Facebook and decided he wanted to come and help.
After we wrapped up at 9am, Christian and I went back to my house to get some rest. A few hours of snoozing later, we headed off to Cafe Grounded for a filling brunch. While he was sleeping, I was able to count up the collection boxes, which coupled with Rich L's £60 came to over £200. The present grand total for the GrappleThon (at the time of writing) is a superb £8,406.97. My own page was pushed past the £1,000 during the event, which was a great feeling. Of course, you're more than welcome to make those totals even higher: given the present team total and the herculean efforts of all the fundraising team, there's a chance we could hit £10,000, which would be amazing.
Seymour got his write-up wrapped up quickly, putting it out a couple of hours after the GrappleThon finished, here. Pippa has also written one for her blog, here. The first highlight video popped up on the 6th May, which like last year was a sped-up version of the full event, edited together by Steve:
Next time, I'd like to delegate a lot more, perhaps even go home for a sleep every now and then (although as Luke C pointed out, that's exactly what I said last time. Ahem). To that end, I've set up a specific social media presence for the GrappleThon (e.g., Facebook page, Twitter account and separate website, GrappleThon.Org), which should mean that from 2014 onwards, it doesn't have to be me in front of the laptop the entire 24 hours. I do enjoy spreadsheets, of course, but I'd like to get more involved in socialising. I didn't get to speak to people anywhere near as much as I would have liked, so in 2014 I'm hoping to change that.
Thanks again to our awesome sponsors, Meerkatsu for designing the t-shirts and Tatami Fightwear for printing them. Massive thanks to Geeza for letting us use his spectacular venue, Gracie Barra Bristol, and of course thanks to all the fundraisers. Let's do it all again in 2014! :D
Class #500 Gracie Barra Bristol, (BJJ), Bristol, UK - 04/05/2013
It's fitting that my 500th class (which isn't a lot of classes, seeing as I started back in late 2006!) is a GrappleThon. I rolled less than last time, partly because the attendance and activity online was much higher than 2012. Still, I got in twenty rolls, which as ever gave me plenty to think about. I wanted to focus on using the techniques I've been working on with Dónal in our private lessons, though I also spent a fair bit of time in my typical slow, stalling positions. As a general point I should be more proactive, but at least some of that time was stalling on top, which is an improvement from stalling on the bottom. ;)
My first bit of rolling was with Alison and then Pippa (I think in that order? I'll have to check the videos when I get hold of them). Last time I rolled with Pippa, I can remember my neck feeling rather vulnerable. That was several years ago, but Pippa's ability to get to the back remains high (although hindered by an injury to her arm). Stupidly I forgot about her injured arm at one point and went to set up an armbar from the back way too quickly. Fortunately she tapped early, enabling me to realise my mistake and let go.
Seymour was taking some snaps while we were rolling (like the one above), meaning I could get in a spar with him before he had to catch his train. We spent the whole roll (I think) working on grips, in my case trying to get to Dónal's knee cut pass position, in Seymour's case using his feet and hands to close that down. I was getting stretched out whenever I tried to get in tight, but couldn't capitalise on being pushed back with a bullfighter pass because Seymour also had good control of my arms. It was an enjoyably technical roll and gives me some ideas of what to ask Dónal next time we cover that pass.
Rolling with Howard is always cool, at about 16:30, where again I found myself frequently in my favoured running escape posture. For some reason all the higher belts I rolled with (which IIRC was Howard, Pippa, Paula and Seymour. Oh, and Geeza, but he was going very light as he waited for me to work, because he wanted to see if I'd gotten less complacent since last time we rolled) were trying to set up footlocks on me, but that was a good reminder to keep my feet out of trouble (I don't generally leave my feet dangling anyway, but it's useful to remind yourself why you shouldn't). Howard also showed me a nifty trick where you trap their arm, put your elbow on the floor then rest your head on your hand. From there, Howard does something where if they do pretty much anything you can catch them in a figure-four. Pre-order the DVD now. ;p
[Update: After watching the video which features my roll with Howard (a bit hard to see as we're way off in the corner, but it starts around 44 minutes in), there must be something up with my posture when trying to pass his guard. He swept me EVERY TIME, so I need to work out what I'm doing wrong (or indeed what Howard is doing right). It's a shame I can't make it out more clearly, as it would be interesting to check out the grips and whatever sweep Howard keeps getting on me. Also amusing that it looks like Geeza is watching the roll and presumably shaking his head at how I repeatedly got knocked onto my back ;p]
After that, I stiffened up even though I really didn't roll very long by comparison to everyone else. It could be I'm just not used to rolling more than a few minutes, or just that my body is pants at the moment - as Chris said, I should really sort out my diet. More of a concern was that the groin injury which has been plaguing me since last year began to act up: I originally noticed it after the GrappleThon 2012. I'll make sure to take it (even) easier before my upcoming trip to California.
At around 04:30 on Sunday [Update: video of it here, starting from about 12 minutes in towards the far corner], Chris and I got back on the mat for the first time since 2007. He was pretty tired by this point, so I was able to get on top a few times and work my mount as well as side control. My mount continues to be rather lacking in submission finishes (even when I do get them, they tend to be sloppy and my combinations are poor), but I can at least generally maintain. The same is true for side control. I'm also almost always getting my pass by forcing half guard. Which works, but much better to circumvent it altogether.
I need to be far more careful of my neck in guard: I got caught in a guillotine and then a head and arm choke. Better neck defence when in guard would be sensible. I'm too complacent about my neck from there, as I forget it is still at risk if they're able to get a good hold. Earlier in the day, Paula almost caught me a few times too: if she was the same size as me, I'm sure I would have been tapping. I should get those hands in place and react before they get it sunk in.
On the plus side, I was able to get the windscreen wiper sweep a few times. Interestingly, the John Will version I taught earlier this week proved effective, combining it with what Dónal taught me. I also hit the sit-up sweep just like Dónal showed, but wasn't able to combine it with the windscreen wiper very well.
There is full video of the entire event (Steve has been uploading the whole thing onto YouTube plus highlights, but I'm waiting for the high quality originals), so once I get my hands on that, I'll update this post (with the links, if nothing else). That should give me some further understanding of what lessons I can learn from the sparring, especially as I haven't seen decent quality video footage of my sparring in a very long time. I'll also update if I see any further links, videos, write-ups and the like about GrappleThon 2013.
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