Thursday, November 24, 2011

Kettlebells for Judo

Friday, November 18, 2011

The Amsterdam Grand Prix

For all the info on the event check out ippon.org

Monday, November 14, 2011

Oceania judo world cup results

I thought I would give you an update on my results of the Samoa World cup.

Put simply, I had one of those days where I had the best preparation possible and fought to not my full potential.
My side of the draw looked pretty good with me drawing a Judoka from Hong Kong first round. He was an awkward fighter with a rather wide stance and switch between being a lefty and a righty.

Mid way through the fight he cross gripped me allowing me to attack his leg, as I picked him up in the air he hooked on with a Ko-uchi makikomi and threw me beautifully onto my back for Ippon. He went on to place fifth while I was left to ponder what I could have done differently in order to win the fight.

People say that you learn more from your losses than your wins and as much as that is annoying to hear when you lose against a beatable player I have definitely learnt a lot with this fight.

Final places in my weight division included China placing 1st and 2nd with USA and Aussie team mate Dickins in 3rd place.

In terms of the World ranking list and qualifying for the London games I am still within qualifying distance. I will be competing in both the Japan and China Grand Slams in December and hopefully I can fight to the best of my ability and finish the year on a high.

Once again I would like to thank you all for your support and ill talk to you soon,

Friday, November 11, 2011

Competition day tomorrow

Today I haven't really done too much, had a bit of a jet lagged late night watching blade with my room mate before falling asleep around midnight. I had a great sleep and woke and jumped straight on the bus to watch my team mates compete. 
My club mate duke drew an Argentinian who was rather defensive and ended up throwing duke for two counters for waza ari each.
Aussie -57kg player Carlo renZi beat the legend Isabelle Fernandez in a tight match by two penalties. That is the 2nd time carli has beaten Fernandez and it shows how much of a top level judoka carli is.
 It is at the moment Daniel Kelly and mark anthony are fighting for bronze with jake Andrewartha also fighting for bronze.
I got a bit of a sweat up today training with club mate Debbie hill. I retuned back to the hotel early to read Brock lesnars book (it's actually ok) and the hopefully ill hVe an early night.
Tomorrow in the competition I am the number 2 or 3 seeded player and I drew an unranked judoka from hong kong. You do get slightly excited when you get a player from a weaker nation but you always must humble yourself and remember that everyone is beatable. Therefore fight hard and don't make any mistakes and I should win each and every fight.
I'll let you know how I go on Facebook over the next few days do stay tuned
Have a great day
Matt

Thursday, November 10, 2011

Samoa judo World Cup


41 of us aussies arrived in Samoa early on Wednesday morning. We had a quick 2 hour snooze, did some shopping and then went to do some judo late Wednesday afternoon. It is really hot and humid here and it rained all day. This meant that when you do any sort of physical activity you seat more than ever.
My weight here is not too bad and unfortunately I will need to sweat a bit in order to make weight- although there is no better place to sweat than here. I made a rookie mistake last night by accidently falling asleep at around 730pm only to wake again at 11pm. My aim was to stay awake till at least 10pm and then sleep throughout the night and catch up my body clock to Samoa time. Buy like I said I woke up at 11pm was awake for about an hour so I listened to a few church podcasts before falling asleep and sleeping right through to 8am.
Today we left for training at 830am so I had a quick breakfast and trained with club member Debbie hill and the session was run by my club and national coach Tom Hill. We did a variety of gymnastic drills to warm up followed by some moving uchikomi. This was followed by speed uchikomi 6 sets of 5 repeats 3 times.  Then we did some shark bait style of training (1 person out the front getting a new partner every 1 minute) before doing our own training for the last 20 minutes. I did some light ne waza and tachi waza randori.
Today we are not doing too much the heavy weight men and light weight women fight tomorrow so they will not be doing too much. My club mate Duke Didier is fighting tomorrow. He is looking big and strong as always and I am keen on seeing how he performs.
I think we are gong to do a quick bit of sightseeing – we are going to a place called cave rock or rock cave or something like that but the key is not to get sunburnt and not to over exert myself. Although this close to competition many people tend to sit in their rooms all day watching movies on the hard drive and doing nothing. This tends to leave you slow, lethargic and plain tired. Doing something distracts you from the stresses and nerves of competition and will allow you to enjoy yourself while still keeping your head in the game as such.

Anyway you guys have a great day,
I am off to call my wife and say hello but you have a wonderful week. Don’t forget to follow the competition at www.ippon.org
Talk soon and god bless
Matt

Sunday, November 6, 2011

Grip to Win by Rhadi and Jimmy Pedro




In-the-know Judo Players and Grapplers know, understand and accept the fact that gripping and the knowledge of gripfighting can single-handedly take an Average Grappler and launch them into the realm of GREAT in no time at all
Gripfighting is a grappler’s venom. By injecting it into your game you can literally use your hands like fangs to neutralize and paralyze your opponents and render them helpless as you go in for the kill!
When you understand, grasp, learn and uncover the “ins-and-outs” of the secret art of Gripfighting from two of the foremost experts in gripfighting instruction you will feel like an unstoppable machine!! And once you get a taste of this drug, you won’t be able to stop!

IS GRIPFIGHTING REALLY A SECRET?
This question comes up all the time and here’s the best way that I can explain it to you. Jimmy Pedro is a 4-Time Olympian and a World Judo Champion. He lived for months at a time in Japan , trained all over the world and traveled internationally as young judo player.
Also his father was a top notch coach in the sport of judo and he also was an international judo player. Traveling to all the tournaments, training camps and team competitions easily cost over $30,000.00 a year. Jimmy even ran up a bill one year of $67,349.23
In 1992 Jimmy made his first appearance at the Olympic Games and in 1991 Jimmy Pedro won his first medal at the World Championships by placing third. Which means that Jimmy has been on the top of the judo world for 12 years. If you include the 14 years that he spent to get to that level, then you are looking at 24 years of total high level judo and gripping instruction and experience. If you multiply 22 years by $30000.00 you will quickly see that Jimmy Pedro easily has over $660,000.00 dollars worth of gripfighting information in his head.





Grip to win comes with 3 modules with some really great content. The best part of Grip to win is the question and answer section with both Jimmy pedro and Rhadi Ferguson. Here is where Rhadi and Jimmy answer some common gripping strategies such as attacks against stiff arms and ways to develop better grip strength.


To learn more about Grip to win simply click the image below of Inoue and Riner having a gripping battle.