DEAR MARVEL COMICS...

Hi.

I've only just watched your new Hulk movie. I'm sorry, I know, I should have done it a month ago, but I've been busy.

Thank you for doing such an excellent job with casting. Ed Norton was an inspired choice to play Bruce Banner - though to be honest I also really liked Eric Bana's portrayal (shame about the rest of that movie).

And seriously, William Hurt as General Thunderbolt Ross? Like, whoa. BEST. CASTING. EVER. And by "ever", I of course mean "since you cast J. K. Simmons as J. Jonah Jameson".

Thank you for staying true to the spirit of the comics and still managing to make awesomely nerdlicious movies. I completely squealed when I saw Stan Lee get Gamma poisoning, and it would be so sweet to see the Leader in the next Hulk movie.

I loved Iron Man too (its soundtrack will be a near-permanent fixture in my conditioning classes in the future) and you have got me so completely pumped up for Thor, Cap and THE AVENGERS! YAAAA HA-HAAAA! WOOOOOO!

As an aside, thank you for giving DC a big wake-up call, and showing them exactly what they can accomplish - in terms of continuity, content and sheer butt-kickery, if they can only get to work. I mean, I love DC, but nobody can deny that right now you have the clear advantage in terms of storytelling. Overall, that is. To be frank, for me, you haven't done anything that tops Batman Begins, and with The Dark Knight coming out soon, they still have the edge in terms of stand-alone movie goodness.

Thank you again for being so utterly cool by giving so much respect to the TV series (the theme? VERY classy) and to Lou Ferrigno. If I wore a hat, it would be so totally off to you.

Thank you for giving people a whole new reason to give the comic book industry the respect it deserves.

And finally...because I need to justify putting this post up on a BJJ blog...

Thank you so much for casting Rickson Gracie! I went nuts in the theatre when I realised who it was. So very cool. So much respect. It was sweet to watch him..."the man who slapped Hulk in the face"!

Sincerely,

Bert


...

...But, why was Rickson credited as "Aikido Instructor"?

RODNEY KING @ BUDO ACADEMY, JUNE 2008

No picture yet, I'll try to get one.

Last weekend a small group of the KDT guys made it down to Singapore to go train with Rodney King. Unfortunately, we were almost all of us injured or sick. Vince had some really bad food poisoning, Mike cut up his hand in a freak accident with exploding beer bottles, and on the Singapore side, Kon was out of action with stitches in his forehead, while Sul also had food poisoning (but he was ok for the second day of training). It was a bummer also because Adam and Jem were not able to make it down from Bangkok, as Adam hurt his elbow and shin in one of his Muay Thai fights.

As for me, I had a really weird thing going on with the middle knuckle on my left hand. About 2 weeks earlier I hurt it on Mike's forehead. Wasn't a hard shot, just one of those things. I suppose I didn't take enough care of it, because on the Friday we got there, it literally ballooned up. It was a bit scary and really strange. A lot of ice helped with the swelling and the blood stuck around for a few days after, making half my hand really purple. Going to the doctor tomorrow.

The trip was pretty fun regardless, we got to see some good friends there and it's a treat to watch Rodney in action. I learned a lot just watching him coach basics. He also showed a few drills which were really interesting and will definitely make their way into CMD classes at KDT. I'm really looking forward to the week-long CMD retreat in November!

KETTLEBELLS IN THE PARK, JUNE 8, 2008

Bottoms-up cleans are MUCH easier with Pro Series kettlebells.



What can I say, I couldn't find my sneakers.



Assistant coach Chui led stretches for the day.



Posing down after a hard morning's work.

HOW I LEARNED TO STOP WORRYING...

...about my training journal. And by that, I don't mean this blog. Instead, I'm talking about the actual notebook that I scribble in every now and then.

I've got this thing where I'm mad about brand new notebooks. I love everything about them: from the way the pages smell, to the sound they make when you flip the pages, to the feel of high-quality paper. It's especially the case for high-end notebooks, like the kind with the built-in rubber band, so they don't flop open, and the pocket in the back for loose sheets of paper.

I just hate writing in them.

It kills me when I have to start writing in a really nice book, because it's like I've just condemned it. Its future is now etched in stone. If I rip out a page so I can use the book for something else, I've just taken away a little part of its soul.

The worst part, though, the WORST part? There was a time when I was absolutely horrified of writing anything in my notebook about my BJJ classes until I had - and I know how this will sound - positively every aspect of every technique ready to put into print. Never mind the ignorance of assuming this was even possible. Let me explain.

Guy obsessed with getting everything positively right the first time with a notebook + constantly evolving system of combat sports = not fun. To illustrate, imagine the following internal dialogue:

"OK, right. So. I'll just start writing the alphabet in this book, with my ballpoint pen. So...whatever I write...will be permanent. So I need the first page for 'A', the second page for 'G' and the third for 'Y'...OK I can do this, I can do this, just breathe. Just breathe. Relax. I'm just going to write down some letters in a book. In order. But great Caesar's ghost, what happens if THERE'S A LETTER BETWEEN A AND G?!?!"

You get the idea, I hope.

Yes I know, there's something a little wrong with me. I mean, I'm no Tony Shalhoub. I think this is the only thing I ever really get all OCD over.

I've had the same book since last september. I started writing in it after last year's Australian BJJ Nationals, when I was on the train to Geelong for a visit to John Will's gym. The train was really jerky so the writing for the first 10 pages or so is frighteningly sloppy.

When I got back home I found some old notes from a seminar earlier in the year. I didn't want to lose them, so I copied them into the book. Pretty soon I started using it to take notes on CMD classes. Thoughts and things I had learned about coaching also made it into the notebook. I ended up writing in the book from both ends, so now there's just a bit of space left in the middle.

I'm trying to save enough space to make it last until after this year's Australian Nationals, at least, so I've been going back and looking for pages where I didn't write on both sides of a page to scribble in the latest notes.

When I look back at things I wrote just a few months ago I see rubbish and I wonder what I was thinking. That's OK, because I can flip just a couple of pages and be reminded of something I may have forgotten about, and have it become a meaningful addition to my game after some drilling. And who knows, a few months from now I may look back through my notebook and yesterday's 'awesome' will have become today's 'this is a joke, right?'.

I can, with some embarrassment, trace the progression of my game through the kind of notes I take, which for me is really cool to think about. It's also helpful that having a notebook does not mean I can just totally forget about stuff. In addition to the mat time I spend drilling something, I've also taken the time to write it down, which makes me think about it and analyse it enough to be able to articulate it.

The purpose of this is to say, just get a book and write in it. To an extent, it doesn't matter what you write, just as long as you get started. Write down things you learned in class, things you feel, things you think won't work, whatever. I mean, not to sound facetious, but if I can do it, I think anyone can. The trick is, if you are even half as obsessive as I am, don't think about it...start writing before your OCD defense mechanism knows what hit it.

It also helped that my notebook is ringed, and not bound with glue. It drives me absolutely up the wall when the spine on one of my books is damaged.

NEITHER RAIN NOR TRAFFIC NOR BITES OF MOSQUITOES...

...Stays these crazy kettlebellers from getting it on in public.

I've just arrived home after our first Kettlebells In The Park workout, held in TTDI park. The KDT bunch was joined by Jonathan Wong and friends from the Pushmore gym, which was really cool.

We got off to a late start, because it was raining a bit and there was also a pretty big event being held in the park, so there was quite a lot of traffic in and around the area. Fortunately I was one of the few who got there on time and managed to score myself a parking spot. The area where we got to work out was actually quite far in, so just getting there, while hanging on to a kettlebell, was a good warmup in itself.

I had made the decision to switch down in weight for today's session, passing my current 20kg kettlebell over in favour of a 16kg (fortunately they were both Pro Series kettlebells, so nobody could tell I was cheating). It turned out to be a pretty smart decision.

The KDT group was the first to arrive so we were already doing snatches, swings and squats. When the Pushmore gang joined and everything got under way, though, it turned out to be a really good workout! We did another several hundred swings, snatches, presses, jerks, squats and slingshots.

For me, the killer was when we did our sets of swings. First Cliff, then Thong and finally myself, each counted out 50 swings (25 each hand) and everyone followed along. In between each set, nobody could put the kettlebells down, and we were made to do slingshots as an active recovery exercise. By the time I was done we had gone through about 150 swings - which was really challenging for me, first thing in the morning - and we weren't even halfway finished!

I did manage to find one thing out for myself though. Placing my kettlebell on the floor with the handle perpendicular to me, and my hands on either side with my fingers pointing towards the ground, pushups are a great way to stretch out my wrists. Being that the swings only tired out my forearms, wrists and fingers - my triceps and pecs were still right fresh.

Lots of fun was had by all, and I'm seriously looking forward to the next time we get to drag ourselves out of our warm beds at 8 in the morning on a rainy Sunday to go hurl my kettlebell in a park with all the joggers and mosquitoes!

I'll be looking to put up pics of the workout, though since I didn't bring a camera, I'm rather at the mercy of those who did.

BJJ - CHESS REDUX

This isn't meant to be as rambling a post as my previous effort on the topic. Instead, I was inspired to write something after reading Garry Kasparov's book, "How Life Imitates Chess".

I've also been affected by a spot of blog inertia, so aside from the not-unwelcome chance of spurring me on to more entries of greater insight, I hope that this post will actually be of some use to its readers, and in so doing prove to be somewhat more than an exercise in creatively bankrupt indulgence.

I won't go into very much detail here - because I really do recommend this book to anyone with more than a passing interest in Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu - but I will bring up some of the highlights.

Strategy vs. Tactics:

The words 'strategy' and 'tactics' are routinely used interchangeably, a waste of many useful distinctions. While strategy is abstract and based on long-term goals, tactics are concrete and based on finding the best move right now.

A tactician feels at home reacting to threats and seizing opportunities on the battlefield. His problem is how to make progress when there are no obvious moves, when action is required, not reaction.

Just think about all the times when you started rolling with a "I don't know what I'm doing, but I'm doing it" mindset (which for me would be...alot) and you start to get a sense of the gold to be mined from them thar hills.

Challenges, Competition and the Path to Growth:

Feudal and caste systems might be dying out in most places but they are alive and well in the chess world...First category players aren't allowed to participate in the second category competition, any more than a twenty-year-old could play in the under-twelve championship. Of course there are no restrictions in the opposite direction...No one could complain that it was unfair when I won the Soviet national under-eighteen tournament at the age of twelve.

If it is challenges that help us improve, why then - apart from prize money - shouldn't everyone want to play in the open section of the tournament? Would we not learn more from nine losses to very strong opponents than from six wins and three losses against players roughly our own level?

...Finding the correct balance between confidence and correction is up to each person. 'Lose as often as you can take it' is a good rule of thumb...as much as we enjoy winning, and winning every time out would obviously be ideal, it is important to realise that setbacks are both necessary and required if we are to make progress.

I think it's quite obvious just from this passage that this information is relevant to a great many things, including of course, Jiu-Jitsu. I often feel like the times I grew the most in my training were the nights I got repeatedly, quickly and sometimes uncomfortably tapped.

I would hope I'm not just preaching to the choir here, but trust me, if there's anything that will make a fast learner out of you, it's getting flattened into a white-and-sometimes-blue stain on the mats by guys who are just so far above you in skill that it's not funny anymore, but you laugh anyway. (thanks, Adam!).

I found a whole lot of good stuff from my first read - much, much more than has been presented here, so treat this strictly as the teaser trailer before the summer blockbuster - and will definitely need to have another go.

BETTER LOOKING THAN RENZO GRACIE...

...And here's proof!



Vince edited this video of a CMD class we recently had, the whole time we just did really light "MMA" sparring. No elbows or knees, but kicks, takedowns and grappling were allowed. I'm the fellow with the dark blue t-shirt (also designed by Vince), the black Fairtex shorts and the light blue gloves.

I found it tremendously fun, though pretty draining. As you may guess from the sloppy takedown, much of the video was shot close to the end of class. I think I did alright as far as endurance is concerned, and I have only Vince's conditioning classes to thank for it. If you're looking to train for MMA or even standup, I'd really recommend some kind of interval training regime, the benefits to be had are simply immense.

I had loads of fun integrating BJJ into my sparring. I can't get enough of it as is, so any opportunity to throw in some grappling is always cool. It was really interesting to again take note of how much the dynamics of "normal" BJJ training shift when not only do you not have a gi to slow things down, but someone is also trying to punch you in the face.