Archive for the ‘Wellington’ Category

The boys and Girls in Auckland are hosting this years Will / Machado BJJNZ nationals.

Date: Saturday, July 31, 2010
Time: 9:30am – 5:00pm
Location: AUT, North Shore Campus
Street: 90 Akoranga Drive
City/Town: Northcote, New Zealand

Download the NZ Nationals Poster A4 >>
View the Competition Rules >>

Online entries have now closed!
There have been over 150 competitors registered! Including 11 Females and 26 Kids making this the biggest Will / Machado Gathering in NZ history and one of the biggest BJJ competitions in New Zealand.

A facebook event page has been set up for all information and news:
Facebook Event Page Nationals 2010

Here is all the info from the facebook page. We look forward to seeing all Will / Machado BJJ Students there!!

Early Bird Entry Fee, before 5th July
$40.00, includes free competition t-shirt

After 6th July $40.00 entry fee plus $20.00 for competition t-shirt

Online entries at http://strongvon.com/willmachado2010

Weigh In 9:30am

ENTRIES CLOSE MIDNIGHT FRIDAY 23rd JULY

* You must be a member of a Will/Machado affiliated academy to compete

DIVISIONS

WHITE BELT - 5 minutes
63KG
68KG
73KG
78KG
83KG
88KG
93KG
98KG
+98KG

BLUE BELT – 6 minutes
63KG
68KG
73KG
78KG
83KG
88KG
93KG
98KG
+98KG

PURPLE BELT – 7 minutes
80KG
+80KG

BROWN BELT – 8 minutes
Open

FEMALE:

WHITE BELT – 5 minutes
65KG
+65KG

BLUE-PURPLE BELT – 6 minutes
Open

2KG allowance for Gi

NB: Divisions are subject to entries, there may be an adjustment in weight split to make for better competition pools

Competition Rules

SCORING SYSTEM

2 points
Sweep, Knee Ride, Takedown

3 points
Guard pass

4 Points
Mount
Back Control

Advantage
(to decide in case of draw)

Penalties
1 penalty -1 advantage
2 penalties -2 points
3 penalties disqualification

RULES
The following is NOT ALLOWED:
· Slam from the guard
· Biceps lock
· Cervical lock (of any kind)
· Frontal neck crank
· Scissors takedown
· Heel hook
· Sideways knee lock
· Pulling backwards to take the back (over the feet)

In addition to the above, the following is NOT ALLOWED for WHITE & BLUE belts:
· Wrist lock
· Calf lock
· Mata Leao with foot

In addition to the above, the following is NOT ALLOWED for WHITE belts only:
· Straight leg lock

John Will returned to GSW in Lower Hutt for another round of BJJ Seminars. Once again due to numbers the seminars were split into two sessions.
White Belts and Coloured Belts.

The White Belt session was attended by 40 BJJ Students from GSW and Submission Martial Arts in Whitby. John covered a bunch of Immediate Action techniques in a seminar that he called a Vaccination Seminar.

Basically John covered answers to several of the problem areas that he sees beginners getting caught in during their first months of BJJ training. Things that John covered were, Crossover Guard defence, Side Control Escape (Hip in Pocket), Switchbase escape, Elbow Escape from Mount, Side Mount Escape, 1/2 Guard pass, Head to Head (Sit-out) and Front Choke Escape.

At the end of the White Belts session 4 New Blues were Presented 1 from Glen’s Submission Martial Arts and 3 from GSW. Conrats to Melvin, Kym and Kelvin

The Coloured Belts session covered getting the back and was attended by 30 of GSW’s Blue and Purple Belts. John had given us some great chokes at the last seminar and this time he went into several ways of gaining and controlling the back using several vital principals involving leverage and weight placement.

As always Johns seminar left everyone with something to take away and think about, as well as many things that instantly fitted into peoples grappling. Johns next session will be November 24th..

Our next seminar at GSW is with Richard Norton one of John Will’s training partners and multiple Black Belt, including his BJJ Black Belt from Jean Jacques Machado. Richard has starred in dozens of movies, with many top Martial Arts Movie Stars. Richard has also travelled the world as personal protection to performance artists. Richard bio can be found at his site www.richardnorton.net/blog

Richard will be running BJJ Seminars at GSW Lower Hutt on the 3rd of July 2010. Each seminar will be $50 and last 2 hours. Jump onto the GSW facebook page to register your interest as places are strictly limited and filling fast.
Wellington Saturday 3rd July 2010
BJJ Seminar White Belts 1pm – 3pm $50
BJJ Seminar coloured Belts 3.30pm-5.30pm $50

Wellington Sunday 4th July 2010
MMA / Street Defence Seminar (for Zen Do Kai Students)
Sunday 4th July
9am – 11am
$50

John Will returned to Wellington this month and there were a couple of new things this time around.

Firstly we held the seminars in our own facility in Lower Hutt. With the Wellington Dojo fire earlier this month and the smaller mat area I decided that running the sessions in the Hutt would be a better option. This also gave us the chance to start at a much earlier time slot. But with the mat size I also split the session into White Belts followed by Coloured Belts.

So at 6.30pm with a few stragglers still coming through the door John kicked off his first session of 2010 and his first ever session at GSW Lower Hutt. there were 30 White Belts on the mat including 7 from Submission Porirua. Glens club is going through the same sort of expansive growth as we are at GSW and The Submission guys are starting to fight for mat space. An awesome achievement for Glen and a positive boost for BJJ students in Wellington.

John covered some basic concepts for recovering the guard, then a few ways to pass the guard followed by a few was to escape when you guard has been passed. He then put the whole thing together as a drill for everyone to cement the concepts of guard recovery into their heads.

After a quick break there was a change of tack with John covering a couple of concepts for attacking and maintaining and attacking the back. He then made everyone go through the guard recovery drill at a slower more flowing pace and swapping partners..

The White Belt session ended with 3 Blue Belt promotions. Glen awarded Submission Martial Arts first Porirua Blue Belt to Andrew Douglas and I promoted two GSW students to Blue as well. Congrats to Jeffery Alcaraz and Haydn Parker. After a quick Photo shoot the White Belts cleared the mat and the Coloured Belts took over. There were 30 Blue and Purple Belts in the advanced session and John and I took the opportunity to promote a couple of Blues to Purple.

Congrats to Phil Stenhouse and Brad Kora! BJJ Purple Belt is a significant step up and one that is not easily earned or awarded, so well done. I know the East Coast BJJ crew will be particularly stoked with Brads promotion. We hear nothing but good things about Brad and his boys in Whakatane.

John the got straight into the session covering advanced concepts around the Kata Gatame position, including, maintaining and fine-tuning the position, finishes and entires to the position. A great session and 4 hours of hard work for John. After a few quick photos everyone split and John and I got home a good hour earlier than normal. This morning I’ve seen John off on a flight to Christchurch to meet up with his ol’ buddy Ron for a fishing trip in the Wanaka area. Ron accompanied John and Melissa on Johns very first seminar trip to Wellington in 1999!

So all up there were over 60 people attending this seminar round and I’m sure that when John returns in June we’ll have to take advanced bookings as the GSW classes grow and as Glens school requires more and more spaces on the mat for Johns seminars. Look for big things in 2010 as this is GSW’s 10th year as a BJJ school!

By the time John Will had left Wellington on Wednesday he had changed the face of BJJ in New Zealand, again. After a week of seminars in Christchurch, Auckland, Hamilton, Napier and Wellington, John had taught some very cool techniques and concepts to the BJJ NZ Will – Machado schools.

But more importantly he had promoted some of his most loyal BJJ NZ followers.

While in Auckland John ran two seminar for the GroundControl crew in Howick. During the seminar John took the opportunity to promote several of GroundControl’s senior students to Blue Belt. The following were rewarded for their commitment to training,Lee Warden, Brent Lang, Leyla Oakley, Matt Hogan and Kody Hamilton, congratulations all.

GroundControl in Auckland continues to go from strength to strength. The new blues will find they are needed during the upcoming restructuring of the crew. With Glen Tarrant returning to his home town of Wellington, there will be a huge gap in the Auckland BJJ team. Glen is returning to Wellington to be closer to family support and will form a new GroundControl in Wellington, good luck with the relocation Glen.

Also Auckland, during seminars run by Michael Gent’s former students, John promoted two of the members of the Maai Hyoshi Dojo’s. Karl Norton and Steve Cockell were both awarded BJJ Purple Belts for their hard work and dedication to the BJJ style.

In Napier, another former student of Mr. Gent was awarded an even higher honor. Shayne Cox of Twin City Martial Arts was graded to BJJ Brown Belt. Shayne has been active in competition in both New Zealand and Australia. Recently competing in the Will – Machado Nationals in Australia, Shayne took 2nd place in the Purple Belt division. And in Auckland a few weeks ago Shayne stepped into the competitive arena for his very first MMA fight, which he won convincingly.

Shayne has been a steadfast supporter and member of BJJ NZ for many years and this promotion is another step in is never ending quest for knowledge and skills.

In Wellington, John ran another highly successful training session at the Royal New Zealand Police College, where he imparts knowledge and techniques to the trainers and instructors and also helps formulate training programs for the police and recruits of the New Zealand Police Force.

John later taught a BJJ Seminar at Wellingtons GSW Martial Arts. Where he also took the time to promote several of the clubs deserving students. Cain Harland and Brendan Pfahlert were both awarded their BJJ Blue Belts. The promotions are the result of years of dedication to the club and consistent BJJ training.

Also promoted on the night were Jonathan Bares and Jason Murphy. Both were promoted to Purple Belt.

Jonny is a fierce competitor and has twice defeated some of New Zealand’s best BJJ competitors at the Douglas Santos competitions in Auckland. In both 2006 and 2007 Jonny won his Blue Belt division. Jonny has also recently steeped into the MMA arena, testing his grappling skills in a limited rules fight, which he easily won.

Jason Murphy is a quiet mild mannered thinker and a tireless workhorse. Jase has been part of the GSW club for almost 5 years, and in that time has been a consistent and dedicated part of the clubs infrastructure. Recently Jase has taken up the job of running classes and writing the news for the extensive GSW website, both of which he performs with meticulous precision.

The big news of the night though was the promotion of GSW’s head instructor Geoff Grant. John Will awarded Geoff with the coveted BJJ Black Belt. Geoff has been a member of BJJ NZ from the very beginning and started his BJJ training with John in 1995. The promotion represents over 12years of hard work and dedication.

Geoff’s Black Belt promotion puts him in a very select group as he is one of only two Will – Machado BJJ New Zealand Black Belts.

Congratulations to all the Will – Machado students and instructors and thank you to John Will for another fantastic year of BJJ in New Zealand. We hope to see you on the mat sometime soon.

John is returning to New Zealand in November and will run sessions at the following clubs

Friday November 23rd – Martial Arts Christchurch: Geoff Aitken
Saturday November 24th – Martial Arts Auckland: Mike Fooks & Glen Tarrant
Sunday November 25th – Auckland: Karl Norton and Steve Cockell
Sunday November 25th – Martial Arts Hamilton: Phil Beale
Monday November 26h – Martial Arts Napier: Shane Cox
Tuesday November 27th – Wellington: NZ Police College
Wed November 28th – Martial Arts Wellington: Geoff Grant

John also plans to have copies of his book “Rogue Black Belt: Fear & the engine” available for purchase. If you can’t wait then please order a copy now from his website www.rogueblackbelt.com

The GSW crew headed to Auckland for the 9th edition of the Douglas Santos BJJ event. Hosted at the Auckland University Rec centre a team of 8 joined the 110 competitors for a long day of grappling under the CBJJ rules.

GSW results from the day were.

White under 74kg:
1st Rob Long
2nd Adan Tijerina

Blue under 74kg:
1st Jonathan Bares
2nd Michael Hourigan

Blue under 94kg:
1st Hemi Pou

Kupu Vanisi should have had silver in the white open but the division was run poorly and as a result Kupu was left out of the medal tally.

Congrats to Cam and Dan for their efforts as well. I know they are both pretty disappointed but as we all know it’s pretty difficult to go out there and win your first comp of the bat.

Dan was pretty much against the ref in his fight as the guy wasn’t even looking at the match, so he was robbed.

Cam did good in his fight but knows where he went wrong and what things need to be worked on.

It was a good day and everyone did us proud, as they always do.

We have a great bunch of guys and a fantastic attitude to our training which I think clearly shines through when we compete and interact with other clubs. Having watched the attitudes, skills and actions of other schools I can safely say we are doing very well, thank you very much. Also for a club that apparently has a reputation of having mostly Big “Strong guys” it was our lightweights that tore through the opposition and our big “Strong Guy’s” who were some of the least munterish.

Well done to all the GSW crew for making the effort to get to Auckland and have a go.

Once again John’s foray into Wellington left the GSW members humbled and a little stunned.

Firstly John took the time to promote two new Blues on the GSW mat. Congratulations to Steve Yee and Ivan Yarslov. Both boys have been training at GSW for almost 3 years.

This time around the mat was not over flowing but with over 30 it was still full. John got under way with some new warm up and motion drills, before launching into another fantastic series of techniques. What made this session different is that John was teaching more than just the usual stunning array of skills and techs, he was teaching the skills involved in training ourselves to be better at everything we do.

John gave us an overview of several teaching models and then showed us a better way of drilling and learning and perfecting the techniques we learn and already know. John has covered these ideas in his BJJ Blog on a couple of occasions but it’s one thing to read it and quite another to have it explained and broken down for you in person.

Johns technique for delivering these concepts was the X-Guard, a great set of techniques to demonstrate the idea that he was trying to put across. As always with John there were some stunning pointers and little details on not only the techniques but also the concepts he is delivering.

Remember!

20 bucks! = seize the moment
Practice makes permanent
Stress
Live +1

Also on the GSW mat we had 3 members of one of NZ’s best bands, KORA. The boys were in Wellington putting finishing touches on their long anticipated album. Needless to say they have been bitten by the BJJ bug and Grappling is now a huge part of their lives. Thanks for coming guys.

And once again thanks to John Will for continuing to deliver world class information and knowledge in a way that even the newest students can grasp and make work.

Geoff

John hit Wellington for this round of seminars on Tuesday the 24th of April and immediately headed to the RNZPC in Porirua for his session with the PT staff based at the college. This session was special as it focused more on training methodologies and training the trainer rather than specific techniques.

The other milestone tied to this session is that in the next couple of months the new training package for all Police recruits with be put into action. The package is 2 years work by dedicated PT staff and is the culmination of the skill sets and techniques that John has passed onto the trainers over the last few years. The end result is that our new police will be better trained and more prepared that ever before.

After a gruelling 5 hour session we headed out for a bite to eat at Monsoon Poon (love u long time) where John consumed 4 lemon lime and bitters and enough beef Rendang to feed a small village. Then it was home for some much needed rest and relaxation. Wednesday morning was spent in preparation for the night seminar at GSW. Due to expected high numbers we added extra mat space to the floor and made sure all was ready before hitting Starbucks to test John’s iChat configuration so he could catch up with home and check in with the family.

We then spent some time at Mr Bun a local and international favourite before catching “Pathfinder” at the gold lounge (don’t bother it was bad) Then it was back home to finalise the preparations for the nights session. 7pm kick off at GSW saw 40 people on the mat to soak in the information that John had to offer. Before getting into the session John took the opportunity to promote several long term students. Due to injury and off the mat time some of the new Blues are actually some of my longest serving members of GSW. Blues were presented to Brent Lindsay, Carl Rex, Phil Stenhouse and Adrian Smith. Congratulations to the boys on there dedication and commitment to their training and development.

This session focused on more than just techniques and like the RNZPC staff, we were treated to some of the ideas and concepts behind the methodologies as well as plenty of technical data to process. As always the 3 hour session was over in a flash and John was entertaining and informative, with a story and anecdote for every position and situation that cropped up during the night. I would like to take the opportunity to thank John for his time and patience. I know his life is full on and his work load ever increasing. Thanks.

I trust everyone else had successful and informative sessions and we all look forward to John’s return in August.

Geoff G

By REBECCA STEVENSON

There may not have been a cage but the over 500-strong crowd packed into the Kennel Club on March 24 certainly saw a spectacle as Ring Wars – The Beginning kicked off.

The event boasted the first mixed martial arts fights in the Porirua area alongside traditional Muay Thai kickboxing.

The main event, a light heavyweight MMA title bout between local Alex Richardson and Auckland’s Sam Brown, saw the Jiu Jitsu specialist Richardson taking on the boxer.

In the first round the Porirua fighter had the better of Brown, wrestling him to the ground and landing some savage blows. Brown struggled to escape but learned early on going to ground would only result in a win for Richardson.
In the following rounds Brown kept Richardson at bay, fighting gamely to stay on his feet and staying busy with his hands. In the end a split decision went in favour of Brown, the title heading up to Auckland with him.

Event promoter Rex Redden says Richardson was disappointed to lose his belt but plans are already afoot for a rematch.
“It will be at the end of June at the Wellington Town Hall. We will be unveiling our new cage there so it’s going to be great.”

Redden says the fight night was the best he’s seen, all of the bouts back- and-forth affairs with no fighter dominating. Usually the Porirua faithful like to see knockouts, but Redden says a no knockout night – like this one was – is a sign of quality match-ups. He says the fight of the night was between Alpha’s Scott Simpson and Danny Robinson. Both fighters weighed in at a trim 110 kilograms, Redden saying both were so cut they could have been mistaken for body builders. “It was so close, right from the first round, with non-stop action. At the start of the third Danny hit Scott with a stunning kick in the stomach, and you could tell he was hurting. But he came back to knock over Danny and the crowd went berserk.”

Local Northern United rugby player Anare Ko-livau also had an “awesome” win as did Kevin Dick, says Redden.