Friday, July 31, 2009

Books, video and dvd listing (my library)

I've put together a listing of the material in my library. It can be found here. That page also contains links to sites I've found useful, including suppiers I've used.

As time goes by, I will try to add reviews or at least comments about books and videos, and I will update the list as I go.

Thursday, July 30, 2009

Up and blogging!

Today is the day where I finally start this blog properly.

I've been keeping a progress page elsewhere . Now I'm moving all the old entries to this blog and I'll be adding new bits and bobs as I go, together with various ah-ha (or sometimes duh!) moments from my training diary.

The old page will just contain a link to this blog and maybe some photos when I can get some more together. Photos are a problem. My friends and family don't understand my addiction, and it's pretty hard to convince anyone to come along to classes and watch and take photos. When I started Karate, my friends were worried about me. Why would anyone want to get hot and sweaty and hit and kick people? I wisely didn't mentioned the stuff we learn in PFS.. But when they found out about BJJ, they knew I'm totally off the planet. Wrestle??? Like as in: roll on the floor with sweaty men? You cannot be serious!

Needless to say the sight of my bruises and my occasional complaints about being tired and sore are just met with a shake of the head. Evidently, no person in their right mind would have a hobby that makes them look like a domestic abuse victim. Hell, no person of sane mind would willingly roll with blokes and get sweaty, particularly not a woman.

Well, I'm obviously abnormal :-) . So what's new?

On a positive note, on the rare occasions that I've been able to drag a less than willing partner or friend to a class, the comments at least hinted at admiration (such as: 'wow, that's much harder than what I thought', 'I wouldn't even last through the warmup, let alone the rest' etc.). And I have promises to watch at future gradings and at the comp I've entered.

Saturday, July 25, 2009

John Will seminar

John Will came and held a seminar at The Ballarat Dojo.

We learned entries for the single and double leg takedown, particularly from roundhouse kicks. We saw how foot placement and correct distance is of utmost important to set up the takedown. Depending on whether the kick is with the rear or front leg and whether we step forward after the kick, we are set up ideally for either the single or the double.

Then we worked on building the open guard from foot placement and getting the correct grips. John had some interesting comments about the importance of open guard. We then learned sweeps from the open guard.

As usual, the two hours passed way too quickly. John not only teaches methodically and in an easy to understand way, he breaks up the instructions and drills with stories and anecdotes.

Tuesday, July 7, 2009

the letter is in the mail....

Today I posted my entry for the Will-Machado Asia Pacific BJJ Championships on 12 September 2009.

That will be my first MA competition and I'm certainly looking forward to it :-)