Originally posted on Paul Pedrazzi’s Journal and the Straight Blast Gym Forum. Reposted here with his permission.
The Training
Yesterday I drove down to San Jose to train with Dave Camarillo at AKA in San Jose. I have not been down there for about a year simply because the drive is about an hour each way [...]
There are three main principles which I feel define the curriculum, methodology and mission of SBGi. The first is Aliveness, and we covered that in depth in the last entry. The second is Adaptability, and I will write in detail about that later. The third is Coaching, and that is the topic we will talk [...]
I have traveled literally all over the world over the last several years, and it has been a great privilege for me to do so. The reason for my travels have been seminars, but regardless of where I am I always start them the same way. I explain that my main message that I am [...]
What is Aliveness?
Aliveness is timing, energy and motion.
What do you mean by timing, energy and motion?
For something to be truly Alive in what we do then it has have three key elements: movement, timing and energy (resistance). If you are missing any one of these then it is not Alive.
Movement means real footwork, not contrived, [...]
Tonight I had a new experience of running a private lesson with two students and I wanted to keep notes on it to evaluate how it went. I figured I’d share them so others could get some ideas from what I taught or offer me some advice.
The lesson took place during a normal class, but [...]
Below is an article by Indrek Reiland of Aliveness Gym Estonia (SBG) on the 5+1 stages of resistance he uses to coach his students. He had originally developed these and written about them before learning about the SBG training methods, but he found that his methods matched up nicely with their curriculum and the I-method [...]
I enjoyed reading what Andre had to say about an instructor’s responsibilities, and it reminded me of another piece I had read recently by Cane Prevost of the Straight Blast Gym in Portland, Oregon. He wrote the 8 main points of what he considers responsive coaching. I’m republishing it because I feel others with benefit [...]
This is a subject that has held my interest for a while now, but I have been holding off discussing it since I haven’t yet been able to try it out extensively and form a solid opinion. But it is an interesting topic and shows enough potential that I’m willing to share it with you. [...]
For this Sunday’s open mat, I put together a lesson that I thought you, the general you, would find interesting. First of all, it’s all about using simple drills to train basics of open guard and x-guard. But probably more interesting to you unwashed masses is how I took everything from instructional DVDs.
So yes, you [...]