Ed O’neill, best known as Al Bundy from “Married with Children” is a gracie jiu-jitsu black belt. The folks over at ProElite ran into Ed at the opening of a new Gracie academy and got his thoughts on a few things regarding MMA. While I disagree with some of what he says, he makes some good points. Here’s the link:Al Bundy spits MMA Read the rest of this entry »

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A friend of mine just told me something that really makes me wonder what I would do in this person’s shoes. Somebody that trains at the same gym was recently told that he has to have surgery and will no longer be able to train in jiu-jitsu anymore. Period. I don’t know the guy personally but apparently he has been training for 3-5 years and now he can’t train ever again (doctor’s orders).

I had to really think about this for a minute. I haven’t even been training for a year yet but to me, facing never training again is sort of like facing a divorce from a marriage that I thought was going beautifully. I don’t even have plans to compete or go into MMA but if I just had to stop training cold turkey, I don’t think I would handle it very well. Read the rest of this entry »

A post by Hazmat at whitecollarbjj brought up an interesting dilemma that I tend to go through. That dilemma being, should I analyze my training or should I just go with the flow and see what happens.

I go through phases where I really try hard to think about each move when I’m rolling and phases where I just “roll with it” (pardon the pun). Each phase I think I have the answer. Sometimes I choose a submission that I want to win with before I roll and Read the rest of this entry »

This has been a good topic of debate for many people on both sides of the fence seperating gi and no gi bjj practitioners. Since I started bjj with a gi, I may have a biased opinion. To me, starting out with a gi and growing into a no gi training regime is the way to go.

By starting with the gi, you learn the fundamentals of jiu-jitsu. You learn how to base, you learn the bread and butter mechanics of the majority of the subs you’re going to adopt in your game. I found though that when I switched over to no gi, my game noticeably improved. The reason, as I see it, is because I no longer had the gi to depend on. Without the ability to hold on to a sleeve or collar, I couldn’t muscle somebody into a sub if my technique wasn’t perfect or they happened to escape. I had to increase my speed and improve my technique because no gi is inherently faster paced (at least in my experience). Ive also found that transitioning from gi to no gi is pretty difficult Read the rest of this entry »