Archive for the ‘News’ Category

Pete Parta entered in a No Gi comp in Palmy, his first grappling comp. He won two matches, beating a purple belt. He then just lost a match for a place in the final. The impressive thing about this is that Pete got lumped in to the advance division against blue and purple belts who have been training for 3 – 5 years plus. The only grappling Pete has done is through Lockdown so it was a great effort.

Guess we will have to keep to quiet that a TaeKwon Do blackbelt gave BJJ guys a run at grappling.

Lockdown’s head coach, Gareth Lewis, won gold at the No Gi BJJ comp in Auckland. He was in the Purple, Brown and Black blet over 98kg division. No points were scorred against him and he won the final with a Brabo choke in 3mins. Was good to see the coach back in action.

Frank Shamrock was training under his brother, Ken, in submission wrestling. After only 8 months of training he had his first fight in Japan, over the next 3 years he fough numerous people in many countries. Frank built a reputation as a fierce competitor who was always in shape, so he was signed to fight Kevin Jackson.  At the time it was impossible to exaggerate the high regard that Jackson was held in at the time. Simply said, Jackson was considered one of the elite all time great athletes in any sport amd the worlds greatest freestyle wrestler at the the time. Nobody gave Shamrock a chance in the match, except Frank himself  ‘my wrestling coach at the time competed against Jackson, so we knew what to expect’.

At the strat of the match Jackson was surprisingly aggressive on the feet, punching himself into takedown range where he clinched briefly and then took Frank to the mat. As he settled in to a comfortable top position, Frank trapped his right arm, swung his leg over Jackson’s head, and locked in the armbar forcing Jackson to tap just 14 seconds in to the match. It was a shocking match that forever changed the public opinion about cage fighters being second rate competitors unable to contend against Olympic-Caliber athletes. From that moment on, ultimate fighting moved from the area of spectacle and in to the realm of sport. In those 14 seconds, Frank Shamrock changed MMA forever.

This is from Geoff Grant (BJJ Black Belt) - Enjoy
http://caneprevost.wordpress.com/2009/10/13/how-to-be-a-dick/

Here’s my list of some of the ways to be a real Dick when grappling.

1. Make every roll feel like the finals at Mundial. ALWAYS bring your A game. Unless you roll hard all the time you aren’t progressing.

2. Don’t bother washing your gi. In fact, keep it in a ball in your bag. That way when you put it on it’s already wet. Nothing like grabbing a guy with a cold wet gi.

3. Always leave your gi pants at home. Grapple in your top and shorts. Sambo style! When you do that don’t forget to grab the other guys pants legs for all your passes.

4. Always beat down new guys. That way they know the power of BJJ right away. They need to know how effective it is.

5. If you know a cool counter to what the teacher is showing be sure to show it RIGHT AWAY. Especially when the instructor is talking. That way you can look cool. By the way, every technique has a counter.

6. Always use full resistance in class. Especially when in learning stage. If your partner is learning an armbar for the first time you need to give them full resistance so that they know how that feels. Don’t let them get it!

7. If you are about to get subbed switch into coach mode. Coach your partner through the rest of the technique. That way you get credit for HIS sub.

8. If you get tired in a roll wait until you are in a bad position to stop.

9. When you get tapped by a bigger guy always tell them after the roll “Dang, you are strong!” That way you can blame their win on their strength instead of their technique.

10. Keep track of everyone you’ve tapped, what you used to tap them, and when it happened. Relive those moment with your classmates before every class.

11. Gun after everyone who is higher rank than you. That way you can put a notch on your belt for tapping out a higher belt.

12. When you get a tap immediately jump up and do a victory dance. Make sure everyone in the room knows.

13. Drop in and out of class as you see fit. Don’t bother to do the warm ups. If the material doesn’t look cool to you be sure to pull your buddy out of class and grapple on the side of the mat while class is going on. ALWAYS do this if class is covering something you’ve learned already. Review is for white belts.

14. Along those same lines, always show up late. That way you don’t have to even bother with warm ups.

15. When you have a visitor in from another gym you MUST put a beat down on them. That’s the only way they will know how good your gym is. It is your job to uphold the reputation of your gym.

16. Nobody minds if you roll with open sores. Go ahead and grind that scab in my face. I don’t mind at all.

17. Long fingernails are a great sparring weapon. Don’t cut them. Toenails either.

18. Small joint locks are your secret weapon. Grab and twist fingers. Do it hard and fast.

19. Don’t tap! Doesn’t matter that the arm is totally straight and you can hear the tendons ripping. You might still get out! Your pride is worth it.

20. Slam on all submissions hard and fast! That way you get twice as many. Doesn’t matter that your partner won’t have time to tap until it’s too late. This is BJJ. If you don’t want to get hurt then take up yoga or TKD.

Lockdown’s last session for the year is on Saturday 19th December, the first session back will be Saturday 9th January.

Gareth Lewis, Lockdown MMA’s Trainer was promoted to Purple Belt in BJJ. Gareth trains under Geoff Grant at GSW. This should make rolling in the cage a little more interesting.

Here is an artile written by John Will who is the head of Machado BJJ in Austraila and New Zealand. Although the article is aimed at  BJJ a lot of the lessons apply to MMA – Have a read.

“First two years of training – get your priorities in order – don’t be distracted by ‘the latest and greatest’ – by new ‘funky’ moves – get the basics down well.

I think that before the rank of blue belt – you need to develop an overall game – a solid foundation that covers most of the basic positions – and gives you several options (both offence and defence) from each. You also need to be able to understand how to effectively transition between these positions.

Biggest problems:

Pre-blue belts - usually hold non-tenable positions longer than they have to. Eg: they are on the mount – opponent is putting them back into the guard (say: elbow escape) and they try to keep the mount. Whereas a blue belt or better, would be ‘bailing out’ (transitioning) as soon as he/she feels they are losing the mount.

Best analogy: the titanic is just about to hit the iceberg – the black belts are already in the lifeboats with the women and the good food – the boat hits the iceberg – they brown belts are off, just after the black belts – the boat starts sinking – the purple belts take the last of the boats (sorry, no women) – the boat is going down – the blue belts have at least grabbed the life vests – cold, but alive) – the boat hits the ocean floor, the white belts are wondering why their violins are not sounding so good as they continue to play regardless.

In other words – the more experienced people deal with problems more easily, because they simply see them way early, and at best, avoid them completely. less experienced people – have to come up with solutions after they have let themselves get into trouble. Even less experienced people, are in the deepest of trouble before they even realise it.

Avoid the swamp to begin with! brush your teeth – and avoid a trip to the dentist. That’s Black Belt dental hygiene!

So apart from good basics and an understanding of essential attacks and escapes, transitions are about the most important thing a pre blue or new blue can work on.

All of my beginners know – the first three big secrets to good grappling are:

POSITION – POSITION – POSITION

Also works for real estate!

So for the first two years of practice – we put loads of emphasis on that aspect of training (in all it’s forms)

Please excuse the typo’s – time is short.

JBW

PS; Any women that read this : please don’t take offence at my analogy – just substitute ‘women’ for ‘guys’ – and all will be fine.”

Dylan Andrew’s a 15 fight Pro from Ausi turned up to training on the 17th October. Dylan is a skilled fighter and a great guy and was helping the Lockdown boys out with wrestling and BJJ. Lockdown’s head coach, Gareth Lewis, had a roll with Dylan this caused the action in the cage to be put on pause as everyone was interested how their fearless leader would go against a seasoned pro. Dylan and Gareth had a good roll which went to a stalemate. Then it was sparring time and Dylan again was helping the boys out with technique and the training mentality of a pro. 

Lockdown would like to thank Dyaln for sharing his skills and profesionalism with Lockdown MMA.

Lockdown’s head coach, Gareth Lewis, has been training wrestling with NZ’s number one heavyweight wrestler Nick Lane. Nick has been selected to go to India in December to represent New Zealand in the Common Wealth Wrestling Champs. Nick has asked Gareth to be his training partner for the comp. On top of this as Gareth is a personal trainer (www.ImpactTraining.co.nz)  he is helping Nick with his conditioning.  Lockdown wishes Nick all the best for the games.

Lockdown member Duncan Hewer was awarded his Blue Belt. He recieved his belt from John B Will who is the head of the Machado orginisation in Australasia. This has increased Lockdown’s current Blue Belts to 6. Obviously GSW’s head coach has a large influence on Lockdown’s succses.