Double Header Seminar

The double Header seminar run by Gordon Scott-Russell and myself was a great success. With Gordon bringing two car loads of the Scottish horde down with him, Revolution matching that number and Jamie Ward and one of his guys down from Sai Martial Arts, it was a pretty full mat.

GSR and I have very similar ideas on training and coaching so it was great to see our respective students mixing in and working with each other throughout the day. A room full of people training solid material, without ego, and in a healthy and alive environment – couldn't be better.

Grappling for strikers

First up we had Grappling for Strikers, in this session I was working to build everyone's understanding of how clinch can be used to keep a fight standing. By looking at what grapplers are trying to get from a clinch situation we could then look at what a striker needs to do to negate the grapplers game.

Focusing on making and breaking contact, defending level changes, controlling the position and grips and how you could create opportunities to strike safely in a clinch situation, my session was a whistlestop tour of the things a striker needs to have in their clinch game.





There was a range of experience levels on the day and I was really impressed with the progress that everyone made. Great job all round. From big ideas to tiny details I’m confident that everyone took something away from today that they can add to their game.

Especially bearing in mind that this isn’t the main area of focus for most of the people who were training it was good to see people stepping out of their comfort zones and getting stuck in.

Padwork and Power

Gordon’s sessions on padwork and power are always a huge success and today was no different. His knowledge of, and coaching of, kickboxing are fantastic and I spent the whole session playing with new toys and tucking away really nice ways of explaining key ideas.

Gordon and I have overlapping styles of standup, but with some significant differences based on the formats we train for – me MMA and Gordon K1-style kickboxing. These differences meant that even the most experienced of my guys got a lot out of the session.



Gordon emphasises live padwork. The striker is working but so is the feeder, so the round looks almost like sparring, with both sides working to get the best out of each round. With movement, returned shots and counters all part of the experience for the striker, this is a method of padwork that needs to be felt as a workout. Fantastic coaching, great details and big improvements across the board. Thanks Gordon.

Working together

The best thing of the day is seeing clubs with very similar philosophies getting together to train. Even though we're hundreds of miles apart. It was particularly good to see Paul (from Gordon’s gym) and Gaz (from mine) working together throughout the day, swapping ideas, tips and techniques. Fab.

We'll be doing this again, probably up in Scotland next, and it would be great to see others taking the opportunity to get some great training in. Regardless of your style, I think we can all agree that working on new ways to improve your functionality in striking and clinch is only going to help anyone.

I know that everyone who was there today can say they have boosted their game. Thanks everyone.

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John Will Seminar

What a great day. John is a fantastic and inspirational coach. We've all got a ton of stuff to work on.

We spent the afternoon working on half-guard. John has had a look at what he thinks I should be working on to develop a game that suits me.

This alone is something that we have struggled with as we spent all but a few weekends of the year just trying to work our collective BJJ game without input from outside. So when we have the likes of John and Rodney across it gives us a major boost in our development.



The evening seminar was a mix of things that all linked together. John and I had discussed what we had been working recently and what we thought people might be missing and he planned the session based around that. John took us through some great, hig-percentage moves from closed guard, looking at timings to break people down working to sweep them. After plugging in a batch of sweeps John switched to attacking from here with a great set up for armbars and triangles.



From here we switched to passing the guard looking at breaking down a pass incrementally and waiting for them to give you the energy, space or movement needed to complete the pass - something John calls the Patience Point. A fantastic idea which takes a lot of the ‘battle’ out of passing guard.

As a natural progression John worked us through some knee ride material - at which point Gaz began to wish he'd picked someone lighter to work with. John was emphasising how grips work and how they can be set up before you take the knee ride.

To finish off we looked at setting up the spin choke from here. A great cross-lapel choke that uses rotation to lock it in and feels like a monster. I want to play with that on a lot.

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John Will BJJ Workshop tomorrow

Just got off the phone with John, who is currently down in Coventry with Geoff Thompson, and we're all set for tomorrow night.

Adam, Doug, Gaz and I all trained with John last year in Singapore and are really excited to get the chance to train with him again. John is a walking encyclopaedia of BJJ and he has some fantatsic insights into training from big picture to the tiniest details.

Getting him over to the work with us, as part of a mini tour of the UK, will help us take another step down the path as a developing club. We've come a long way in the past year or so having gone from working pretty much in isolation to having regular contact with some great BJJ coaches like John, Rodney and Revolution's Man in Arizona, Cecil.

Can't wait to see where we go next.

I'll be posting pictures of the workshop.

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First PCWA Europe Trainers Clinic

We've just wrapped up a week long visit from PCWA head Rodney King which included a 5 day tranier's clinic, a Crazy Monkey Defence Programme (CMDP) seminar and workshops in Brazilian Jiu Jitsu and Mental Game.

It was a completely stacked week with people coming in from around Europe to take part. The whole week has been a huge success.

The PCWA is pushing the boundaries of how martial arts can be viewed, coached and experienced on a daily basis. For example, our membership site provides an incredible resource that can be accessed as a perfect complement to the time our clients spend in the gym. The CMDP is a revolutionary programme that takes martial arts training that works and delivers it in a way that leverages positive developments in the gym and allows you to apply those changes to life outside the gym.

The trainers clinic is another example of the PCWA's cutting edge approach. Five days of development on personal game, technical knowledge, coaching ability, philosophy, mental game and business methods... I don't know any other group in the field that is offering anything even close.

At the end of the clinic all the participating trainers were assessed and licensing promotions were awarded as follows to the Revolution crew.

Adam Adshead - Licensed Trainer (with an emphasis on BJJ)
Ian Mochan - Licensed CMDP Trainer
Gareth Rogers - Licensed CMDP Trainer
Dave Kari - Licensed CMDP Trainer
Phil Wright - Licensed CMDP Elite Trainer.

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Payment gateway for Rodney King 2007 Seminar is up

Hey everyone

I’ve added the details for Rodney’s CMDP seminar onto the shopping cart.

Book your place or miss out.

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Seminar follow up & book links

A great fun weekend with people coming in for the Singapore Catch Up seminar. Check the write up on virtualcrazymonkey.com to see what you missed if you didn’t come down.

After the seminar we were talking about some books that people should have a look at, here are the links on amazon.co.uk:

The Gift of Fear by Gavin de Becker

Protecting the Gift by Gavin de Becker

Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card

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Singapore retreat notes (from virtualcrazymonkey.com)

Here is the write up I put up on the membership site of what we covered on the Singapore retreat.

This is the diary that the three musketeers kept too, documenting their pink wristband terrorism.

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Singapore photos

Rodney introduces the 2006 PCWA Retreat


How to set up the body shot


Straight right to the body


Rodney and Nuno demonstrating


John Will and Adam rolling


Nuno - sneaky uppercuts


John Will pimping my pommie ass


Kon - Striker v. Grappler


Phil - Sanctuary clinch for beginners


Discussion at the beach


Bobby K - Vale Tudo


Retreat attendees


Matt Jones, having been through the retarder machine


Palawan Beach, Sentosa Island


Mr Turtle


Mr Polar Bear


Mr Shark


CM - Singapore stylee


We're not in Kansas anymore


Even the playgrounds aren’t safe


Who let this lot in?

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Isle of Man Seminar review

By Chris Bishop

--

..... I know Kung Fu.
Show me................

Well, what an fantastic weekend. As per usual Phil had fried my brain by the end of the weekend, but that was expected.

Phil arrived on Friday night, and stated 'I'm tired and I probably won't talk much'. Well he lied. So began my matrix style download of a weekend.

As stated above Saturday was about CM phase 1 and 2. A fantastic job was done on explaining the drivers using different modes of communication; explaination, illustration and experimentation. So no matter what your ideal learning mode was, it was covered. I always wanted to scribble over the studio's mirrors, so Phil has now set a precident.

Everybody was really engaged, and CM1 and CM2 gelled together nicely. Everybody's performance has had a dramatic improvement......... then the caveman came out. Okay, for those not familar with caveman strikes, get hold of Rodney's 'Viking' DVD to see what happened. It was a little more dramatic in my case, as I have yet to master the 'game face', but it illustrated perfectly the reason why you should shrug your shoulders in the hunch back stance.

We then moved onto kicking specifics. How to make you kicks heavy and more effective using body mechanics and proprioreception. As amateur kickboxers, we don't throw kicks below the waist, so this was a new experience from both a delivery and recieving point of view. Doug, I have a new respect for you as Phil's demo dummy.

On sunday, Phil introduced us to clinch. Something we haven't played around with to much. It has wet our appetites, and will be the subject of Phil's next visit. Though some of our necks didn't appreciate it the next day. Clinch was a very refreshing change, and it added an aspect to our game. We already started incorporating it into our pad work during our conditioning classes.

Monday, Phil took me for some private training to see how I was developing. I don't think I need to tell some of you coaches how difficult it can be developing your athelete's as well as your self. I was good to have someone who got me to the edge of my comfort zone. Phil has got game. You don't expect him to be so nimble and quick, let alone flexible. With only a month til Singapore, it was a good 'warm up', and has given my alot to work on.

It also highlighted that rules restrict creative thinking, experimentation and a hell of a lot of fun!!

Phil left me feeling empowered, and enthusiastic after the weekend..... just really tired.

I'd like to particularly thank him for getting my guys fully engaged. I have already some of them asking when the next seminar will be. Phil just has that ability to cause a massive mental shift. One of the lads is of to Thailand for 4 months with an entirely different outlook on things. I was also a great experience for them to simply get brain fried. Now they understand exactly what I mean.

I could go on forever on how much I loved the weekend, so I'll stop there. Having a coach like Phil in the PCWA makes you realise how special this alliance is, and how honored we should be to belong to it.

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Seminar crazy

It's getting pretty busy at the moment.

Classes in the new gym from Tuesday 3rd October
Launch day – Saturday 14th October

Seminar at Phi-factory, Accrington. 23rd September
Seminar at PCWA Isle of Man, The Refinery, Douglas, IOM - 31st Sept/1st Oct
Seminar at PCWA Dublin - 7th/8th October
Seminar at SKD, Darwen - End of October

Mental.

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