Saturday, November 28, 2009

A couple of good videos



2 flying armbars


Wednesday, November 25, 2009

Some more photos and videos

Opening Ceremony in Samoa


Beau at the Junior worlds This year


My Semi Final fight agaisnt the chinese Guy at Oceania World Cup 09


-66kg Final Gadanov vs the Chinese guy.


Highlight Reel of the 2009 Cadet World Championships

Sunday, November 22, 2009

Pics of the week

These 2 Pics are 2 of my favourites.

One is of Rocky training in rocky 4, Awesome training montage and such an inspiring movie when u go off to war against the japanese while in a training camp.
The other is of Vazagashvilli, a judo guy from Georgia, He won world medals in -60 -66 and -73kg as well as olympic medals in -60 and -66kgs. His main technqiues was kata guruma (firemans carry) and he was i believe a very succesful freestyle wrestler as well.


Samoa Report - by aussie manager

2009 OJU World Cup
By Fiona Iredale
Australia has finished the 2009 OJU World Cup in Samoa on top of the medals table with 5 gold medals, 2 silvers and 10 bronzes. This was the first world ranking points scoring tournament to be held in the Oceania region.

World ranking points are used to separate the top players in the draws and a number of
Australians are now in stronger positions to go forward to their next international competitions as a result of their performances here. In the 2 years leading up to the London Olympics, the world ranking list will be the basis for Olympic selection, so this tournament will be even more critical in terms of points next year.
Gold medals for Australia came from Mark Anthony (-90kg), Jake Andrewartha (+100kg), Emily Bensted (-57kg), Stephanie Grant (-78kg) and Janelle Shepherd (+78kg).
Mark dominated the -90kg division, convincingly defeating 2 New Zealanders and local
favourite, the Samoan Nataeliga. In the +100kg division which was heavily loaded with Australians, youngster Jake Andrewartha took full advantage of his first round bye and then proceeded to quickly despatch all his other opponents. Australia also picked up a silver and a bronze in this division. Jason Phillips won through to the final after 2 gruelling battles with huge Pacific islanders – including a notable win over popular Fijian Olympian Nacanieli Takayawa. Terry Frankcombe also secured bronze in this division.

In the -57kg division, Emily Bensted and club mate Carli Renzi were drawn against each other in the first round, with Emily emerging the victor after a hard battle. Emily went on to quickly defeat the Kiwi, Ana Moceyawa in the final to take the gold medal while Carli went on to take the bronze.
Stephanie Grant convincingly won the -78kg division with wins over PNG and New Zealand while Janelle Shepherd, in her first major competition after a post-Olympic break, took out the gold in the +78kg division.
In the -63kg division, Kylie Koenig defeated a strong Kiwi to proceed to the final against
China. Kylie almost scored with a strong yoko tomoenage but was eventually thrown for ippon and takes home the silver.

In the womens divisions, Hannah Trotter (-48kg), Sonya Chervonsky (-52g), Carli Renzi (-57kg) and Margi Corfios (-63kg) won bronze. For the men, bronze medals were won by Matt D’Aquino and Arnie Dickins in the -60kg division; Steven Brown in -66s; Brent Iverson in - 81s; Josh Dahl in -100s; and Terry Franckcombe in +100s.

Coaches Gavin Kelly and Daniel Kelly, while pleased with the overall results, agree that there is still plenty of work to be done in the 4 day training camp being held after the competition and will be taking advantage of that opportunity.
The organisation of the whole competition by the local organising committee and the OJU executive has been fantastic and as a result this tournament has been awarded to Samoa for the next 3 years.

Fiona Iredale
Team Manager

Alex Chew wins Abu Dhabi Pro



Congratulations to Zenbu Judo Clubs Alex Chew on winning the Australian Abu Dhabi Pro BJJ Tournanment Last weekend. Alex is a 1st Dan in Judo and is a regular at judo training as well as AIS Camps down in Canberra.
He had a very big win against the famous bjj black belt Anthony Perosh, Alex possesses a tremdous standup game but was uinable to utilise it in the bjj setting. Although managed to pass Peroshs guard on 2 occasions scoring 3 points each time and managing to keep Perosh pinned with his back to the mat for most of the fight winning 6 points to zero.

Alex now has the opportunity to travel to Dubai and compete in the World Championships and the opportunity to fight against the worlds best.
We wish him luck

Here is a preview of the tournament.

Oceania World Cup Videos

Here are my Oceania World Cup fights
Prelim Fight



Semi Final (is uploading now)


And my fight for 3rd

Presidents Cup

After the training camp we held the presidents cup,
Here are my 2 fights i had in the comp, The first was a guy from Samoa, The second was a fighter from the Solomon Islands.




Thursday, November 19, 2009

Wednesday

Today we held the presidents cup. It is a competition that consists of all the gold medallists from each weight division choosing a team and then all the teams fighting. The only problem is many of the teams and players may have gone home and so what happens is there are many gaps and spaces in weight divisions.
So we decided to have 3 teams. An Aussie team, a Samoan team and a team of islanders with some Aussies in it.

Due to the fact that there was only 2 other teams I had 2 fights. My first was against tony lomo from Solomon Islands. He’s a pretty strong fella, I have fought him before. I took him backwards with a tani otoshi after around 30 seconds of fighting so I won the first fight.
All of the other Aussies won their fights as well, all by ippon.

My second fight was against a local from Samoa; I threw him with sumi gaeshi for yuko and then held him down to win the fight. Once again all the Aussies won their fights so we were crowned president’s cup champions. We got some gold medals and a big cup that I don’t know is going to fit in my suitcase. Maybe I should have packed it first.

After training we went on a quick tour of Samoa. There is really not much to see. We went to a reef place for around 15 minutes and then we went to a rock pool cave which was a cave full of water that you could swim to the end of. It was pretty cold in there but we could see heaps of fish and stuff like that. When we were leaving some of the all blacks rugby team came so we saw some of them as well.
When we got home everyone just hangout at the pool and had a few beers. Tonight we are going to the Samoan Prime minister’s house for a BBQ so that should be pretty fun.

Matt

Wednesday, November 18, 2009

Tuesday in Samoa

Tuesday in Samoa, (not long to go)
Today was another busy day of training, quick rest and train again. I am so getting over the breakfast here. Cold toast or cornflakes with a coffee or a breakfast juice of some sort. I’m looking forward to some normal food like yoghurt, just right and some oats. Not to mention some sort of meat that’s not in a hamburger, maybe a chicken schnitzel.

This morning’s training session was stand up ground work and then some more standing. I found that I was so exhausted even though I wasn’t doing much and my heart rate wasn’t raised very much. I found that my body just didn’t react and be as alert as it usually is...in saying that though I still had some good fights with some guys from New Zealand and New Caledonia.

Afterwards the German head coach taught some nifty ground work techniques when someone is in your guard and stopping you hip movement. We also got some instruction from the 2001 world champion and Athens Olympics bronze medallist Vitaly Makarov. He beat the Japanese Guy Kanamaru at the 2001 worlds and he lost at the Olympics to the guy that beat jimmy Pedro. He taught us a good foot sweep from when you and your opponent are both right on right and left on left and are bending over.

I got a photo with him so that’s pretty cool. I also read tonight that the guy that won -100kg was Leo leite from Brazil. He is 2 x BJJ world champion and black belt and I didn’t even get a photo with him. Dang would have been good to get a photo with him and Canto.

In between sessions (because you are so full of water) you aren’t really very hungry, so I ordered some garlic bread from a cafe oh and I also had a choc banana smoothie. Smoothie and bread were both good.

The arvo session was a ground and stand-up session again and I had the privilege of fighting Graeme Spinks (1996 Olympian for NZL) the guy is a weapon on the ground and I think he held me down about 10 times in 4 minutes, His ground control was so strong and he arm locked me about 5 times (after he held me down.) Graeme is an animal, simple as that.

Tonight we just watched a movie and had dinner downstairs, alot of the guys just sat by the pool and chatted it was a relaxing arvo.

Tomorrow I think we may be having a competition at training so we will see what happens. I am very keen to come home and see everyone and enjoy a relaxing holiday. Like I said before it has been a long year and I’m looking forward to resting and enjoying time with Sam and my family.

Matt

Tuesday, November 17, 2009

Some photos




Some photos





2 very sweaty tired old guys
A nice snset i took a photo of while kyaking
and callaway bronwie and i upon arrival at the airport

Matt

Monday in Samoa

Monday was a pretty tough day at judo. It is so hot here that you sweat your butt off. We had 2 training sessions 10-1230 and then 3-350. In the first session we did only stand up fighting 16 rounds of 5 minutes but there are 2 groups so you can usually do 8 9 or 10 fights a session. After this the head coach from Germany taught some technical and so did one of the Oceania coaches.

The only problem is after the sessions you have a stretch and you finally get back to your hotel at 1pm and the next sessions is at 3 so we didn’t really get any time to relax and have a snooze or anything. By the time you order some food from the bar you quickly eat and get going. Because we sweat so much in our sessions we are starting our second sessions still dehydrated from the first session. But you can’t help it because with only 2 hours in between sessions you just get completely full of water and can’t drink any more.

The arvo sessions were ground stand up and groundwork again for 2.5 hours. One of the kiwi coaches is an animal on the ground and completely owned me big time. Then after the session the German coach did some more technical coaching and so did the Aussie head coach Gavin Kelly. Gavin taught a fantastic version of a sode tsuri komi goshi.

After training because Brownie is going home tomorrow we decided to take a kayak out to this shipwreck about half a kilometre out from shire. So Nik brownie duke and I paddled out and had a look at the ship wreck. It was really good fun even though we were wrecked from training it is good to see a bit more of Samoa besides sitting in our rooms watching DVDs. The shipwreck was pretty cool we don’t know how it got there but in Australia I’m pretty sure it would not be allowed. We got home around dark and had to walk back to our hotel but some locals gave us a lift in the back of their Ute.

A lot of the Aussies are going home in the morning so we all went out to this Italian pizza restaurant that duke brownie and I went to last night. It was good fun and everyone ate so much food and there was plenty left over. Then we went to a pub next door to the restaurant for about 20 minutes because it’s the law that all clubs’ close at 10pm. The Police even came in and told us we had to leave. So we walked home and most of us had a beer walking along back home. We thought it was strange that we can walk the streets with beer and that’s ok but clubs must close at 10pm.

Once we came home I gave Samantha a quick call and then went to sleep. I was dang tired and slept until 630 when brownie woke up packing his bags.

I’m very keen to come on home now. It’s been a long year and I really hope next year they bring this comp closer in the year because if you train all through January for ACT open its just a long year of travel and dieting and training hard. I’m so keen to come home and see Sam and my family. When I get home we are going to the Britney spears concert and then hanging out in Sydney on Saturday and Samantha and I are going to eat our faces off at a small Japanese restaurant we found. Then we are starting to save for next year and rent.

Matt

Monday, November 16, 2009

Sunday

Today we didn’t really get up top too much; Nikola Brownie and I got up pretty early and went to a place called sliding rocks. It’s a place where you can slide down the rock face into a pool. It was a great little place to visit and I took some good photos of brownie and Nikola jumping off the rock into the pool at the bottom.
We had maccas for lunch and it wasn’t too good. This arvo was our first training session. We did a quick 5 minute warm up then 5 minutes technical before 16 rounds of 5 minutes each. The group is split so each group does 8 rounds each. It was so so hot training and no amount of water could keep you hydrated as judo suits are so heavy and really do make you sweat.
Afterwards we did 20 minutes of technical work where one of the Oceania coaches taught 2 variations of a crocodile roll strangle and the other coach taught a good uchimata from an over hook grip.
Most people wanted to see how Flavio Canto does his strangle. Canto is 2007 World champ (or maybe 2nd?) and 3rd at Athens Olympics -81kg. He has weapon groundwork that even Brazilian bjjers say he’s good. (Although he has never fought a bjj comp I think.) I actually fought him 2nd round today. He didn’t have a partner and I was having the one off so I asked if I could fight him and he said yes. Although he was 81s and could bash me easy his judo was very smooth and technical (like most of the Brazilians.)
Canto is famous for his strong ground work and in the competition on Friday I didn’t get a chance to tape all his fights. He won the first by arm lock, 2 and 3rd fights by an awesome strangle something I have been meaning to know how to do forever and he actually lost the final by penalties. So I missed 3 of his fights which sucked big time.
Anyway watching him do his strangle I think I now know how to do it.
Tonight duke, brownie and i found a good Italian restaurant and for only 8 bucks each we ate our heads off, the pizza was so good. Then we just sat around and relaxed before training tomorrow, we have 2 sessions of similar structure as before.


Matt

Some photos of World cup

For all the results of the comp click on this link
http://www.judoinside.com/uk/?factfile/tournament/5497/world_cup_apia

here are a few photos of me fighting
http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?pid=4022571&l=7e88ff4e74&id=731281095
http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?pid=4022277&l=f019448a5e&id=731281095
http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?pid=4022576&l=5ad3c83f69&id=731281095

Sunday, November 15, 2009

Comp day (I Came 3rd)

Competition day.

I had a pretty horrible sleep the night before the comp. We had a live band downstairs in the bar and on top of that our bedroom is above the kitchen so I heard the clunking and clanking of the employees cleaning up downstairs.
Whenever you sleep 2 or 3 kilos dehydrated you never really sleep to well and you are always wondering whether you have sweated just enough while lying there so you start thinking you could afford just a sip of water.

Trial weigh in was at 6am so we were up at 545am and ready to go I weighed in at 60kg on the dot so no water for me before weigh in. Brownie and I the night before made ourselves some pasta for breakfast and we had that along with a stack of powerade with a dang lot of salt in it to help hydration.

My warm up was pretty good besides the fact the warm up areas were inside a squash court, it was very steamy in there that’s for sure.

My first fight was against a guy from New Zealand and I beat him by a hold-down. He turned in for a drop seoi nage after about 1 minute of feeling each other out. I stepped to the side and threw him over with a sumi gaeshi and ended up in a half guard. Then I wrapped up his head and shoulder with his gi and got my leg out and held him down in side control (yoko shiho) to win the fight.

My second fight was against a guy from China, he was chiselled to the bone, young probably only no older than 20. I started off playing him quite well but started getting very tired in my arms after around 2 minutes. He was a lefty and so so fast with his lapel snapping but I just kept breaking grips and working for a sumi gaeshi but wasn’t committing enough with my attacks, especially on the ground.
He ended up throwing me for a drop seoi about 20 seconds in and although the referee said matte because we were off the mat, about 40 seconds later the referee’s commission looked at the video and gave him a waza ari. After about 3 minutes of so I followed him right onto a seoi nage for ippon.

My fight for 3rd was against a local guy from Samoa. He had some alright attacks on my but I dominated grips and ended up throwing him with a right drop seoi for ippon.
Then I had to get drug tested. Because I was so dehydrated it took me about an hour and a half to wee. And even then it was still very very yellow and dehydrated. Drug testing is so so annoying, but It needs to be done.

Finally after drug testing we had the official function where all the teams got together and there is speeches and everything and then a buffet with a stack of food. I was so hungry because I hadn’t eaten a proper meal for days and the dinner for me was a bit of a letdown.

We got home around midnight and I was absolutely stuffed, getting up at 545am with a crappy sleep to begin with plus warming up and fighting for 3 fights really does take it out of you.

Today we didn’t really get up to too much. It is a Sunday here so all the Samoans are at church and don’t work on Sundays. So we luckily enough found a taxi who took us to a place called sliding rocks, it’s just a place where there is a waterfall and its nice scenery. Then we went to MacDonald’s no we are having a rest before training this afternoon.

Regarding the new judo rules the competition was very good but many penalties were given due to leg grabs and direct attacks. The positive out of this tournament in particular was no fight went to golden score. Not one fight. On Saturday ALL fights were won with ippons. No fight went the full distance. So the rules are definitely here to stay.

I think I really struggled with the new rules. This is the first tournament we had with the new rules and I did feel a little hesitant with some attacks but after a few more months of training and competing that should be fine.

As always after every competition you always have heaps to learn from and practice in order to get better. In Australian tournaments you don’t notice as much because you can make mistakes and not get beaten. In international comps 1 mistake is 1 mistake too many. So I have had a talk with Gavin and Daniel Kelly regarding what I need to work on and now I feel like I have a new goal in working on new techniques.

Today the training camp starts we are doing 2 sessions a day and its going to be so so hot. One of the coach’s from Bath university will be running the sessions so I think there will also be some technical sessions as well. I’m keen to fight alot of people and develop my strategies alot more.
Well I’m off to have a snooze
Catch ya
Matt

Friday, November 13, 2009

Day 3 in Samoa (Day before comp)

Day 3 in Samoa (Day before comp)
Today was the first day of the judo competition, heavy weight men and lightweight women. I didn’t watch too many fights as I am making weight and not to keen on sitting round all day in the hot sweaty gym when I could be at home snoozing in the air-conditioning.
Today flavio Canto fought today and he is a weapon. 3rd in Athens and 2nd at 2007 Worlds and he won all his fights on the ground, he groundwork is sweet I only filmed one of his fights though and that sucked because I was filing another aussie in his 2nd fight and on his 3rd fight my camera froze and stopped working not happy at all.

For weight Brownie and I did about 20 minutes of judo and dropped an easy 1,5kg and then bi sat in the sauna for another 900grams so at the moment after a can of full coke (need the sugar) I weigh around 59.6kg. We are going to make some dinner watch a movie and hopefully get an early night.
I fight tomorrow against a new Zealander and if I win that one I have the winner of the aussie arnie and a chinse guy. I’m definitely keen on fighting tomorrow.
Talk soon
Matt

Thursday, November 12, 2009

Day 2 in Samoa

Day 2 in Samoa
I had an awesome sleep last night I slept nearly 10 hours which was sweet. Training today was the same as yesterday and after training I also weighed the same as yesterday at 62.2kg. I may not have to use the sauna tomorrow because I may train a little bit with brownie and sweat that way. The sauna is a bit of a hassle to go to because you have to ring and book in to it and then catch a taxi there.
We didn’t do too much today after training we went in to town and bought some competition food, and boy was that tough. There is no proper food here, no lollies, no muslie bars no ham or chicken in little packets like a woollies. We have no cooking facilities so we can’t cook toast or pasta or anything. You don’t really want to eat the fruit because they wash it in Samoan water and you don’t want to get an upset stomach. But we have settled on buying a loaf of bread tomorrow and some vegemite and hopefully at the breakfast after weigh in they have better food. But we don’t want to take the risk because you should never ever ever run out of food or water on a competition day ever.
This arvo brownie and I just watched a few documentaries and went for a swim in the pool downstairs. Tonight we are about to head into town and get a coke float from Maccas and then come home and watch a movie before bed. I weigh now 62.3 so half a kilo overnight and a sweat tomorrow I should be fine with weight.
The competition starts tomorrow so duke will be fighting and I am excited to see him fight at this level. I may be able to write a blog tomorrow but we will see I would probably rather just sit.

Talk soon
Matt

Day 1 in Samoa

Day 1 in Samoa
We finally arrived in Samoa after a very entertaining plane trip sitting next to duke and brownie most the way. It took about 5 hours to get here on Virgin blue and by the end of the trip I was getting pretty hungry because you have to buy your own food so I just had a protein bar and I thought a bit of starvation on the way over would be ok for losing weight.
Samoa is exactly 19 hours behind Australia and so we arrived into Apia at midnight local time. Upon arrival we were hit by the humidity as well as locals giving us some flower necklaces. Callaway=, Brownie and I got a good photo of us in our flowers. We then caught the bus to our hotel and it took about 30 minutes and along the way I saw about 20 massive churches. I figured out straight away that Samoans must be very religious because the guys cd on the bus had ‘Jesus take the wheel,” and other Christian songs and I also thought they were very Christian for the fact that the judo comp is on fri and sat and on Sunday morning there is no training camp obviously due to the locals being at Church.
I’m lucky enough to be rooming with brownie which is cool because we always have a stack of fun but always manage to keep enough headspace to concentrate at training on why we are here and to train hard. Many people when they are away sit in their rooms all day stressing and thinking about making weight and competing. After a few days these people are usually mentally fried and sick of judo and everything that’s come with it like training dieting weighing in warming up etc.
But Brownie and I are very experienced now and know when to concentrate on judo and when to forget about it.
Due to the fact that we arrived so late at night we didn’t end up getting to sleep until around 3am. I was soon up at 630am with one of the Aussies playing music very loudly through the paper thin walls. I believe the culprit was Mark Anthony but I am yet to approach him about him not doing it tomorrow. 
Today we didn’t really get up to too much. We trained this morning for a hard hour (which is great especially after the plane trip.) It’s good to do a few good hard practices before tapering off a day or two before the competition depending on how much weight I have to lose etc. After the session this morning I was only 2.2kg over which is pretty good even though I sweated a stack of weight I was pretty hydrated so I am pretty confident of making pretty easy.
There are many teams entered in this comp which is rightly so due to the fact that it’s a world ranking tournament. Teams from USA, Canada, Czech, Russia, Brazil, china and Japan all have teams as well as all the Oceania countries as well. I’m pretty excited to see who I draw and am keen to win a few fights and get a medal.
Today Brownie and I went and did some shopping and scout the area and this place is a massive dive. The ‘postcard’ beaches are all on the other side of the island which was the part that got hit by the Tsunami so apparently they are still a bit dirty. We will try to get a few guys together and catch a taxi over there and have a look anyway. It would be an eye opener to see what the beaches look like and the after effects of the Tsunami.
We found a Maccas which was pretty sweet and we bought a thing called a Coke float. It just a spider (coke and ice cream) but it was good and drinking that plus the heat I wasn’t hungry for hours.
The local people here are pretty nice and everyone says hi to you when you walk along the street. At the place we are staying all the workers are really nice and I guess they have to be at the moment because if we were not here (40 Aussies) there would probably only be another 10 tourists here and they probably wouldn’t have jobs. Already looking around the local community you can see that any extra money they get would help them so so much. After talking to 2 taxi drivers it seems that this country absolutely loves Rugby union and I have seen 2 guys walking round in Tuggeranong Vikings rugby union shirts (I have no idea where they got them from.)
I don’t think we have much time to have a look around the island due to the training camp but hopefully we get half a day to see at least a little bit of the nice aspects of Samoa.
The weather is not too awesome it’s very very humid and it’s been overcast all day. The internet here is very expensive so it’s hard to get on the internet so I will only write small emails to people or just write stuff up on here.

Catch you soon
Matt

Friday, November 6, 2009

A Very blessed week

This week has been a roller coaster. Sam and I were really lucky with how everything panned out. due to the fact that I went to Adelaide to train we ended up having very little money to pay for the essentials this week. Especially with me going over to Samoa and missing 2 weekends of work.
Alot of people think because i go overseas all the time i must save really well or have a stack of money but they tend to foget that most of my trips are funded and although i get paid to fly over to where ever i am i don't actually make money while im over there. then when i come home we may be behind on rent and rego for care and whatever else.
So lately it has been a very stressful few weeks with money not to mention dieting for competition, training hard twice a day as well as studying for exams.
So Samantha and I have been prying so hard for God to help us out somehow with everything and to help take some of the stress out of our lives and tell help us be able to score a few extra shifts at work or maybe even another PT client.
Then on Tuesday we got a phone call and was lucky enough to score a job helping out a Friend of ours do some stamping and paperwork for $100 a day. So for the past 3 days i have been slaving away 9-5 getting 3500 bits of paper into plastic sleeves and then into letter.
And also on top of that i also received an email from someone inquiring about personal training.
So Sam i i have been really really blessed this week with everything.

When competition draws nearer you always get a little more stressed and nervous each day. Always thinking bout the comp, what I'm going to do when they attack, or when i attack and they move this way what I'm going to do next. Thinking bout sitting in the sauna and if it will be hard to drop a bit of weight or will it be easy. All these things go through your head.
But in the bible it pretty much says why worry and stress about tomorrow when today has enough problems as it is. So i always try to apply this to my life and tapering for a comp. Why worry bout the comp next week when i have enough problems today.

In regards to training i have been training really well. I have been doing alot of work with those ropes at elite physique and i feel very very fit due to all the cross fit style workouts i have been doing. My dieting is also going pretty well i was 63.3kg last night so i had a few tablespoons of Milo out of the tin. It was very nice as well.

I just found out on Thursday that the IJF will be trialling the new rule of attacks below the belt at next weeks World cup which is a bit of a shame to find out now and I'm still against the new rule and the evolution of judo.

This weekend i trained at ANU judo club and it was good to have a light sweat and catch up with Anthony and have a light biff with him.

So that's bout it from my end
have an awesome day
Matt

Pic of the Week - Matt Hughes

My favourite fighter Matt Hughes and these 2 pics are pretty cool, the first one is of Matt beating up Royce Gracie in about 3 minutes of the first round. everyone thought he was gonna lose but he laid a big beat down that day.The second one is a drawing of the standing rear naked choke out of Frank Trigg with and they had a past that went back to high school wrestling days.
Awesome


Samoa Media Realease

Aussie Judo Team Heads to Samoa Looking for
Gold - Beijing Olympians lead the charge


The Australian Judo team heads for Samoa this week to take part in the Oceania
Judo Union World Cup in Apia. Although the tiny country is still mourning the
dreadful toll from the recent tsunami the government, under the leadership of its
Prime Minister, is determined to make the event a success, and has dedicated it
to the victims of the tragedy.

The Australian team will be the largest taking part in the competition, with twenty
two men and sixteen women in the squad. The tournament has also attracted
entries from all over the world, including team from such judo heavyweights as
China, Russia, Canada and Brazil.

Prominent among the Aussie team will be a number of athletes who represented in
the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games, and others who took part in the 2009 World
Championships in Rotterdam.

Those expected to do well in Samoa are Janelle Shepherd from NSW, in the
women’s over 78kg category, and Mark Anthony (VIC) in the men’s 90kg.
Janelle has taken a break since the Games, but is back in training and looking to
cement her top ranking. Mark comes to the event fresh from a fine silver medal
in the Pacific Rim Championships in Taiwan, and a top16 rating in the World
Championships in Rotterdam in August this year.

Others with potential are Sydney mother of two Kylie Koenig, and Beijing Olympian
Matt D’Aquino of Canberra. The veteran of the team, Kylie recently cemented her
top ranking in the women’s 63kg category with a fighting bronze medal in the Pacific
Rim Championships, and a top 16 finish in Rotterdam, while Matt (60kg) will be
looking to regain the explosive form that saw him take Australia’s first men’s gold
medal in Pac Rim.

The team is a good mix of youth and experience as the National Federation looks
ahead to London and beyond. Almost half the team is under twenty one, but
already several of this younger brigade have World Championship and Olympic
experience behind them.

Taken from
http://www.ausjudo.com.au/jfa/images/managed/10/Judo%20Australia%20Media%20Release%20-%20Aussie%20Judo%20Team%20Heads%20to%20Samoa%20Looking%20for%20Gold%20091101.pdf

Matt

Monday, November 2, 2009

Training with Steve

today I was lucky enough top T up a training session with my good mate Steve, He just bought a new Gi from Grapplingstore.com and its a really nice Koral gi that has a thick collar and is also really light which is good for BJJ comps (cos you have to weigh in in a gi.
It's good to see that Steve is taking his Bjj seriosuly and is investing in a few nice gis to wear while training and competing. You see many grapplers wearing gis that dont fit or gis that arent maintained but when you see a grappler wearing a nice gi thats well looked after you know your dealing with someone that has a passion for the sport.
Ash, one of my clients told me that you would pay $300 for a dinner suit that you wear two or three times a year, why not invest that money into a nice Gi that represents your passion as well as the fact that you wear it 2 or 3 times a week.

Steve and did alot of throwing and had a good ol chat and an awesome time training.
There is a BJJ comp on in 2 weeks time its the BJJ Abu Dhabi Trials and the winner gets a paid for trip to compete in the Abu Dhabi pro (which is the world champs i thinki) so i hope steve does really well throwing dudes and keeping position and winning each fight any way possible either by points or a submission.

Here are some photos of us in our new gis.
Imn wearing the new Mizuno Shiai and steve has the Koral gi on. We are at Phoenix Gym in Mitchell.





The most Muscular! Yaaaaarrrr

Training this week

This week the weather has been absolutely amazing. I love daylight savings how its lighter early in the morning so if you want to do a workout outside you can do it safely with enough light.

Judo training has been going very well this week and last night we had the privelge of having a stack of ANU guys come along to marist and have a biff. One of ANU'S blackbelts Terry is also competing in Samoa in a few weeks so it was good for him to also come and fight duke and Tom for some hard rounds before we leave next week.

I ran the session and it involved a good warmup followed by some seoi ngae nagekomi as well as your favourite throw. We then did alot of static uchikomi where i showed a series of techniques finishing by a throw into an armlock or hold down.
It was really good that the anu guys came along because its great to have different bodies to grip and move with as with different shapes require slightly different points to pull and push etc.

Today has been a busy day of training people as well as training myself. One bad aspect of summer training is the fact that you become very dehydrated and then it takes you a long time to rehydrate and sometimes your up all night going to the toilet.
Thats why its good to try and stay hydrated while your at training. even though thats pretty hard because your gi weighs 1kg.

today im off to train with my good mate steve. He just bought a new koral gi from grapplingstore.com and im keen to see how nice it looks. He has been dieting for a little while for na comp this weekend as well as the abu dhabi pro thats on next weekend.
So we are gonna have a bit of a biff and do some technique at Phoenix Gym this arvo before catching up with our church group tonight. Should be great.

For people that dont know my favourite UFC fighter is Matt hughes and i watched one of his fights today. i dont really know why people dont like him. For one hes a tank and hes a top wrestler, but he is such a nice guy. He never talks smack about other people and just tells it how it is. Whenever he wins he never runs around the ring like an idoit he is always very respectful and a nice guy.
He is also a christian and i read his blog quite alot because he has such an interesting life. I would love to one day go and train with him and just get a picture with him. I think it would be so awesome.
his website is www.matt-hughes.com

Some photos of Marist on Monday night