Archives for 2012

Fasted Training May be One Way to Improve Your BJJ Grappling Training Sessions and Overall Performance

By Ruben Avila · October 16, 2012 · @RubenEAvila

I’m not crazy (I think), but I fasted training might be a protocol I will be experimenting with more.

Allow me to explain…

Yesterday I was able to get four training sessions in preparations for NoGi worlds (training more than once a day rarely ever happens for me) all of them in a fasted training state. I got in a little less than an hour of drilling in the morning followed by the morning Jiu Jitsu class. By then, I was hungry enough to eat a horse, or a pony… or at least a small chicken. I quickly rushed home and had a monstrous breakfast (btw may have discovered my absolute post training breakfast.. more on that later) I rushed to work and took care of all my errands etc.

Fasted training is great for fat loss, but does it have any place in discussions about performance?

Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to have another meal before my next training session the evening bjj class. I was only able to have two apples, a banana, and a mandarin between breakfast and the evening training session which is 8 hours! On the drive to jits I started to feel the hunger in my stomach, but it was too late to get something to eat. I decided to train in my fasted state. The evening bjj class went very well for me. I was a little more focused than usual and my energy levels were higher than normal. It seemed my performance got better as the training went on. We ended the evening class and began our NoGi competition class, and I felt INCREDIBLE.

Knee Reaping Disqualification Tactics: A New Low Among Cheating BJJ Competitors

By Ruben Avila · October 11, 2012 · @RubenEAvila

Knee Reaping DQ — Reaping the knee can get you disqualified… even if your opponent reaps his own knee. =/

Shady competitors are now knee reaping themselves to get you disqualified!

This past weekend I traveled with my teammates to the 2012 IBJJF Master & Seniors Worlds Championship. Although I wasn’t competing, I was pumped up because of the amount of work we put in to prepare ourselves for these tournaments is immense. I was interested in seeing my teammates do well with our newest tournament prep tactics and skill building strategies. The tournament got under way with our instructor taking silver via a razor thin ref’s decision in the final match of the masters lightweight division against Vitor “Shaolin” Ribeiro.

After a long break, one of our blue belts was up next. The match started with his opponent jumping into full closed guard. After a little monkeying around, Randy secured his grips to start working his stand up guard pass. As he progresses through the pass, an opportunity presents itself and Randy, being the submission maniac that he is, went for the ankle lock. His outside foot placement on the hip was within the gray area where it’s not definitely illegal, but it wasn’t 100% certifiably legal either.

His opponent was much more keen to the knee reaping rule, because, as he stood up to defend, he was staring at the referee telling him it was a knee reap. The referee stood there watching not fully convinced, until the opponent forcefully moved Randy’s leg into the definitive red zone area for knee reaping. At that point, [Read more…] about Knee Reaping Disqualification Tactics: A New Low Among Cheating BJJ Competitors

Black Belts That Get Slept On Pt.2

By Ruben Avila · September 29, 2012 · @RubenEAvila

Bjj black belt — Study this slept on black belt to learn some technique that works on all sizes!

As the 2012 bjj grappling tournament season starts to wind down, we keep reading about the same names from the mainstream bjj media. My facebook feed always has the same bjj black belt names circulating. And, for some odd reason, the majority of bjj blogs/websites seem to always “share” all of the exact same stories. ( That’s part of the reason this blog exists. This blog will not perpetuate. This blog will not be just another mainstream run-of-the-mill boring blog with nothing of value other than sharing what other people already said.) I want to share a new name with you all that will be huge in the very near future.

Samir Chantre

IBJJF Rankings – A step in the RIGHT direction

By Ruben Avila · September 26, 2012 · @RubenEAvila

IBJJF Rankings Officially Updated by the International Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu Federation. UPDATE 3-17-14

There have been other organizations/websites that have done this. However, they are not “certified” by the IBJJF. That can be both a good and bad thing. The IBJJF Rankings posted today are comprehensive and cumulative since January 2010. They have promised to update the IBJJF Rankings after each Gi championship.

The IBJJF Rankings will be used “as a parameter for the making of brackets” for tournaments. Which is a nice thing to know. Although some people would prefer completely randomly assigned brackets, at least there is a definitive manner in forming the brackets and biases will, in theory, be less affecting.

Here are the top 10 males in the black belt IBJJF Rankings: [Read more…] about IBJJF Rankings – A step in the RIGHT direction

Hater Fuel

By Ruben Avila · September 15, 2012 · @RubenEAvila

EDITOR’S NOTE: AT THE TIME I WROTE THIS ARTICLE, IT WAS TO THE BEST OF MY KNOWLEDGE. I NOW RESCIND THESE WORDS AND WITHDRAW ANY SUPPORT FOR THE TLI BANNER. APPARENTLY, THERE WAS A REASON TO BE “HATING” AFTER ALL.

Are you feeding your haters their hater fuel?

I wasn’t planning to make an update today. But, I was forced to. I was inspired by success. While prepping for some personal training today, I saw Master Lloyd Irvin put up a hater fuel status update that brought a smile to my face: [Read more…] about Hater Fuel

BJJ Black Belts That Get Slept On Pt.1

By Ruben Avila · September 12, 2012 · @RubenEAvila

Are you up to date on your bjj black belts?

For every Rafael Mendes and Rodolfo Viera, there are a number of BJJ Black Belts that get slept on. They could go unnoticed for a number of reasons such as: their affiliation, bjj politics, not coming from a widely recognized academy, etc. We have already seen one bjj fighter get completely ignored by the jiu jitsu media this last 2012 year. He happened to be the first ever bjj fighter to win the double grandslam at any belt level. Have you heard of this guy? No? Do you live under a rock? Of course, I am talking about Keenan “The Cobra” Cornelius. Although he destroyed his competition in all of the major tournaments in both his division and in the absolute (something that no one has EVER done before), the mainstream jiu jitsu media completely black balled him. This blog post is not about him, but, coincidentally, about one of his bjj black belt teammates who has also gone under the radar despite being one of the most decorated american bjj black belts (10 IBJJF Medals this year alone) and currently ranked #8 among bjj black belts.

Renzo Gracie the Hero

By Ruben Avila · September 7, 2012 · @RubenEAvila

This is not yet ANOTHER attempt at reporting exactly what happened last night with Renzo Gracie. I will, however, briefly summarize it. Renzo Gracie was about to be attacked by two men, he pretented to be drunk, and, when the time was right, he attacked them and defended himself successfully WHILE TWEETING ABOUT IT THE WHOLE TIME!

If you want to know the specific details you can read about it here. Otherwise, we are going to assume you are familiar with the events of the night. This post it just to congratulate Renzo Gracie for being a hero and a bad ass dude. I hope this serves notice for people trying to mug others, that they should be more careful. You never know what a stranger is carrying or what he knows. What terrible bad luck when a couple of muggers stumble upon the beast of a man that is Renzo Gracie.