Once Upon A Time....In My Life

Open Mats 23.04.2011

Not much has been going on lately. Just getting on with life. Here's a short video of Marcos and Tommy mucking around on a beautiful Saturday morning.

(Screaming like a girl is optioonal..lol)

Suprise Guest

Saturday, 19 February was just another weekend as far as I was concerned and when 330pm rolled by the few of us just went to the academy for another jiu-jitsu class. Imagine to our surprise when Prof John Frankl swung by to pay us a visit. Well, his intention was to see Marcos but unfortunately Marcos was attending a convention in Singapore.

Aaron was going to teach class but since we had a visiting black-belt with us, Aaron decided to ask John if he would mind taking class for the hour. To our delight he obliged us and then it was virtually a 1.5 hours of private lessons for the bunch of us with the focus on escaping from the opponent whose game-plan is to tie you up from the bottom to delay time. And damn was it good or was it good!

After class, we started our Open mats and John rolled with bunch of us and and in-between gave us pointers on our respective games and hopefully we didn't embarrass ourselves while rolling.




Click on this link for a short bio of John.

UFC 124 Preview - ESPN MMA Georges St. Pierre's Mascot Self-Defense Training

One reason why thousands of MMA fans love GSP is because he is an all round nice guy. Having a sense of humour helps too. Hope you like Georges' advert for ESPN too. Funny.

3 Black Belts in the House

December 4, 2011 marks another milestone for Escobar BJJ with another seminar, this time with Prof. Alan "Finfou" Do Nascimento, Prof. Victor Costa and our very own Prof. Marcos Escobar. The seminar was split between a no-gi session and a gi session. There were some crazy moves in the seminar (see video below) but I particularly enjoyed the basic ones especially in the gi session eg controlling the opponent in setting up the submissions. For me it's the basics all the way.

All in all, it was well worth the time. Thanks Fight Zone Malaysia/Checkmat Malaysia/ EscobarBJJ in organizing this one

ps - if you check out this video, you will be able to see one of the craziest back takes ever (which was taught at the seminar) at 2:44, bugger me!

Great Fun With Kids BJJ

Today we had great fun with the kids at their 1st ever BJJ class. Marcos started the class by showing the kids the proper way of bowing to inculcate respect towards their fellow team mates. This was followed by some stretching exercises (not my best showing) and some floor exercises to get the kids comfortable with moving on the ground. As a final appetizer, the kids were briefly shown some positions from the closed-guard and side mount.

I am not sure about the kids (actually they enjoyed themselves) but I definitely had a great time today, being able to bond with the girls and hopefully being able to do something together and sharing the same hobby. It's only the first class but let's hope the kids stick to it. Fingers cross. Osu!!

I Need Motivation : Robert Drysdale, I Give You the Job!

I'll admit this much, as far as motivation to train is concerned, 2010 is a bad year. The kids are growing up fast and I'll be reaching the big 40 soon and instinctively I've been pushing hard towards work ie. filling the coffers.But it is what it is. Sometimes we have to prioritize in life but that doesn't mean I've given up training completely. At the bare minimum I still train at least once a week. This week I've trained 3X. So it's not all that shabby.

The immediate plan (if I can achieve it) is to tweak my work 'system' so that i can free up more time to train. There's still several months till the end of the year, so let's see how it goes.

Here's Robert Drysdale giving me the motivation needed (he does not know it but he's doing a great job, hahaha).

Beautiful, Just Beautiful

Last night's class was fun. The class was basically broken into 2 teams and we were given some challenges to compete against each other. Thankfully our team won. The losers gave us a performance which was quite interesting and mildlly entertaining.

Introducing the escobarbjj ballet company :-

Subsequently we had a mini competition as a form of preparation for the guys who are headed to Bangkok to compete at the end of October. As usual I was gassed...hahaha. Yes I know ,I am a sad individual but hey we live to fight another day

Battlestar Sciatica

I busted my back again last week and it's my old friend Sciatica paying me a visit (again). Consequently, I've been been walking and sitting funny the whole week trying to ease the pain. Fortunately for me, I am not in excessive pain, its more like an annoyance really. Anyway, I tried these sets of stretching exercises last night and the relief is almost immediate. Have a look, there's some good shit in there

FightZone Rio In Da House

Just a short post. Today I had my 1st roll with BJJ Black Belt, Leke who hails all the way from Rio de Janeiro, Brasil. Leke fights with the CheckMat team and is an instructor at FightZone Rio.

Of course it goes without saying I gassed badly and used everything in my 'arsenal' and got owned pretty badly. Felt like the first day of BJJ class all over again. The fantastic thing about it is that I think Leke was only using 10% of his skills against our 100%. All said and done I can't wait for the next roll. It's when you get pummelled that you learn I suppose. (I think I might have learnt a new sweep). Nothing beats rolling with a black belt.

Of course, after class it was makan time. This is Malaysia after all.

That's Leke on the right

p.s. - Leke will be with us for a month, so if you are in Kuala Lumpur, swing by the academy for classes. It's an opportunity not to be missed

Click on this link for the academy's location via google maps:Persiaran Mahogani,Petaling Jaya,Malaysia

Posted from my iPhone

Anderson Silva vs. Demian Maia - UFC 112

As far as the UFC is concerned I am a full fledged arm-chair warrior. I like the sport for the athletes it produces and the dedication put in by these fighters. I admire their discipline and work ethics in trying to become the best in their field. But once in a while something happens that really puts a damper in our view of things.

Take the recent UFC event held in Abu Dhabi with the main even being the Anderson Silva vs. Demian Maia fight with Silva being the chanmpion and Maia the challenger. From rounds 3 onwards, there was only 1 fighter in the ring. It was a weird fight to say the least with the champ dancing around the octagon and not engaging the challenger. I thought Anderson Silva was not giving the respect due to his challenger.

But the thing that really got to me was the never say die attitude of the challenger, Demian Maia. I am looking at this man in a new light. It was very obvious that he was out-gunned by the supremely lethal Anderson Silva but yet he was pushing forward trying to engage the champ and at 1 point even swinging and slugging at the champ from his knees and in the end, the challenger lost the bout on points.

BUT WHAT CAN WE TAKE AWAY FROM THIS? To me it is this : never say die, never give up and persist till the very end. In life you may lose your 'fight' (whatever that you may endeavour) but at least you know you tried your best and in the end that is all that matters.

Check out the link below to watch the fight :

Anderson Silva vs. Demian Maia Video - UFC 112

UFC Gym Grand Opening

I haven't been to a gym lately but check out this video. This should be the future of gyms.

Big Wow! I am a fanboy. Click on the link below to see the gym's set up



UFC Gym Grand Opening this weekend in California

Dr. Escobar PhD

Just a short note. This is our very own Dr. Escobar Phd (in house doctor, BJJ coach, father, mother etc to all of us at Escobar BJJ academy ) draining the ears of 'Pok Cik'. Looks painful..heheheh..but that's the price to pay

Leo Vieira In Malaysia

Click on the poster (to enlarge) for details.


An opportunity not to be missed

Once in a lifetime chance

With 1 of the Gods of Jiu-Jitsu

Bangkok BJJ Open 2009

Last week saw the whole bunch of us competing in Bangkok at the Bangkok BJJ competiton. As usual as with any competitions, win or lose, we came home learning something new or learning about the flaws in our games.

Overall, this time we only managed 1 medal BUT it was a gold medal, delivered by none other than our Darren who positively crushed all competition. Well done my friend, we are really proud of your achievement.

After taking a long break in Bangkok and consequently missing 2 classes, I must say I am determined to push myself harder. Well, as far as this old body can take me anyway. There's a whole lot to do but I think, honestly, I really need to improve on my stand-up game. If I were to score myself between 1 to 10, I would say that my stand-up game is a 2 (sad but true). So priority no. 1 is stand-up and priority no. 2 is to continuously improve on the basics of the ground-game.

There you go...sap sap suey.

Manila 2009

Team CheckMat Malaysia/Escobar BJJ left for Manila last weekend to attend the 2009 Pan Asian BJJ/No-Gi International on the 2 - 3 May 2009. It was a good time all round for the team as it was an opportunity for the entire team get some competition experience especially for us newbies. Fang, Alex & I have previously competed in Singapore and since that was our first time, we thought it would be a good idea to do it again. More importantly Manila presented the team with an opportunity to bond also.

I also got to catch up with some old pals like Albert who is now fighting out of Sarawak and whom I have not met in more than 2 years I think. New friends were also made and hopefully we can keep in contact (through Facebook)

Of course I would like to thank Alex for taking me & Sumi out for a short sight seeing tour around Manila. It is much appreciated bro.

Anyway, I've not had the time to edit the videos and so for now here's just a simple slideshow of the trip.

Uncle Ben Drops In For A Visit

Today Uncle Ben paid us a visit at CheckMat Malaysia for a few friendly rolls. For those of you who are not familiar with Uncle Ben, he's the surfer dude from Down Under who is currently residing in Bali. From the look of things, he hasn't lost any of his ground skills and was consequently making life miserable for us on the mats today. But jokes aside it was good seeing you again and hopefully we'll get to see more of you either here in KL or in Bali.

p/s : Uncle Ben, I lifted the pic from your FB account. Hope you don't mind that I display your ugly mug for all to see

A Night Out For Durians (Translation Needed)

Last night the few of us decided to take Chico & Marcos out for durians. For weeks we've been talking about it since Chico's arrival but after a few false starts we finally went ahead and did it. The place we chose was of course the durian stall in SS2 (http://www.durianss2.com).

Anyway Chico was first up and true to form he liked it and had several seeds. Next up was Marcos and as you can see from the video, he was having a difficult time with the durian, his most difficult opponent since ADCC...hahaha.




Of course subsequently, we proceeded to the hawker stalls nearby to have a taste of the local delicacies. All in all, it was a fun night out

Iron Time

It's almost to the year since I last set foot in a gym, meaning I have not run on a treadmill or lifted weights in a long long time. Not to mention the swims I used to do at the gym's pool. Honestly with the constraints of work, time on the mats and time with the family, time is really at a premium.

Previously, I was usually too damn tired to work out after BJJ classes (fatique would last several days after classes) but the good news is that my cardio or whatever you want to call it has improved considerably since those days. Nowadays I feel quite ok the day after BJJ classes unless it was an exceptionally tough class. The main reason I feel I need to get back to the gym is to improve my strength, by strength I mean 'killa' strength, strength that once I get you in my grips, there's no escaping.

The remaining question is whether I should go back to my old gym or try out a new one. Ahh...decisions, decisions, decisions. Any suggestions?

Just Another Nite...Not

To say that last Thursday (19/03/09) was just another night would be misleading. It was a night of double celebrations. Well, firstly the 4 stooges (Aaron, Fang, Me & Raul) got promoted to blue belts and to top it off we also celebrated Marcos' birthday. It was good to see everyone turn up for training and I am sure we were all surprised that each of us got to roll twice with Marcos & Chico (continuously) respectively. Of course we also celebrated the return of Chico from China after 3 months as head coach of China BJJ.

This guy is something else...just got off the plane, 1 hour in the car from KLIA to the academy, change of Gi and "let's roll". Chico will be in town for 2 weeks and guys if you are reading this, let's make full use of this opportunity and learn up as much as we can.