The Abu Dhabi Combat Club submission wrestling tournaments bring in some of the best no-gi grapplers in the world. (Although they have kids, teens, and beginners divisions, too.)
This year, regional tournaments are being held in Spring Texas, Los Angeles California, Las Vegas Nevada and Denver Colorado. For us Utahans, the most accessible would probably be the Vegas regional, held on August 1.
If you have any questions about the tournament, you can read this interview with promoter Brett Boyce. If you desire to sign up, click here.
If you’re travelling and might be able to compete/attend one of their events, check out the official ADCC regional site, www.adccregionals.com .
Tags: Abu Dhabi, ADCC, submission wrestling, tournaments
I went down to the Orem Throwdown center for the Utah Champion Submission Challenge XI. First of all, what a blast! This was my first time down to Throwdown and it had a great atmosphere and all of the competitors were very cool. There were dozens of exciting matches, plenty of them taking advantage of the no time limit. Local MMA’er Steve “Razor” Sharp had a match that must have lasted 20 minutes.
I believe Ben Gardner snatched up the first place in the Absolute division, so congrats Ben. For all other division’s results, they should be posted on www.utahchampion.com soon.
Videos:
Bart vs Brandon (HQ) - 162 meg
Bart vs Nick (HQ) - 475 meg
Aaron vs Ben (HQ) - 534 meg
As I get more vids, I’ll get them posted up.
Also, if your looking for the March 28 competition, check out the last Throwdown CSC here.
Tags: competition, grappling, tournaments, utah champion
A few days after a no-gi Saturday down at the gym, I was thinking about how to put together a fierce grappling game plan and detailing a jujitsu roadmap to get there, something hit me. At first, I wanted to dismiss the thought as too simple - but the more I dwelt on it, the more sense it made.
Get on top.
What made it really click is something Mike Colby said while teaching. He said something like, “If you have the opportunity to escape from a disadvantageous bottom position to either a top position or a more advantageous bottom position, always choose to go to the top. The more time you spend in the top positions, the more guys you’ll tap.”
This rung true with most MMA and grappling I’ve watched, as well as my limited personal experience. Submissions are easier to get and harder to defend when attacking top down. When in top positions, it seems easier to attack the different body zones (head, neck, arms, and legs) from one spot. In MMA, half-guard, side-control and mount are some of the most excellent places to go on the offensive with minimum risk.
If you can just focus on getting from wherever you are to a more dominant top position, a lot of things will just take care of themselves. Having such a simple “plan” will help to funnel all of your moves to one consistent goal easily, instead of getting caught in analysis paralysis.
Watching Mike wrestle, he certainly practices what he preaches. It seems like he’s always putting pressure on his opponent from a top position, creating submissions or waiting for an opportunity. And if you don’t know Mike, it’s my understanding that he’s one of the state’s top no-gi grapplers.
Anyway, “Get on top” is just a quicker way to say, “consistently attempt to gain positional dominance.” It’s not that you haven’t heard this before. But for me, I often don’t really hear the truth, on a deep level, until I’ve heard it 100 times.
BTW, if you want to, here’s a video of Mike instructing a transition from reverse scarf position to belly down back control. Watch his training partner (Noah), squirm under the controlling preassure. Mike finishes via short choke/rear naked choke.
Tags: game plans, jujitsu, Mike Colby, mount, strategy, top positions
Some of us from the Fusion Academy went down and competed in the 10th Champion Submission Grappling competition and so we wanted to post some photos and videos about this great event.
The competition was a ton of fun, especially because it was my first one since I started training in Brazilian Jiu Jitsu. If you’ve never been inside the Throwdown Elite Training Center, you’re in for a pleasant surprise. It’s huge, clean, and well-equipped (even has a high elevation room). The walls have huge artistic photos of local and big-name fighters as well as beautiful yoga girls. The octagon-like cage and the large grappling mats can be seen well by spectators from the second floor.
Also, quick shout out to all Fusion BJJ competitors. Out of 19 schools that competed, Fusion placed 3rd for overall top team. To see all the tournament results, see here.
Below are the some photo’s and videos.
Read the rest of this entry »
Tags: Fusion Academy, grappling tournament, Steve Razor Sharp, throwdown champion submission, throwdown etc, utah grappling
Current Throwdown ETC welter-weight champ, DaMarques Johnson will be representing for Utah on UFC’s reality show, The Ultimate Fighter season 9 tonight on Spike, 8 pm.
Johnson has been waiting for his shot, and it looks like it’s finally come. Fighting out of Jeremy Horn’s gym, Elite Performance, DarMarques has been training in Jiu-jitsu since 2001 and has developed into a fairly well-rounded striker.
As you many know, this season’s TUF is like the Revolutionary War, the British vs the Americans. The Brit team appears to be pretty stacked, so Johnson will have his work cut out for him if he’s going put the beatdown on the redcoats. Oooohhh, and I hate them redcoats, with all their taxes without representation.
Good luck DaMarques!
Tags: Damarques johnson, TUF, UFC, Utah MMA fighters
