Its all in the hips

As we all know your hips are one of the most important parts of your bjj game. If you feel like your hips just aren't working then you should try some of these moves. I'm not saying they are an instant fix, but they do help. I've used these, as well as, some bag work to try and get mine back, its a still a work in progress but I'm getting there. I will post some bag drills you can do at a later today.

From the mind of Babalu... Back at it!

Woah!! It has been over 4 years since I last made a post. I've been slacking, life has been busy and let's just say my time has been very limited. June 1st 2012 was my last post and a lot has happened since then. Lets see on that date:

1. I was still a 4 stripe purple belt!
2. I was about to make a career change
3. I was preparing for IBJJF Worlds Masters (I placed 3rd)

Lets speed this up a bit, I was awarded my Black Belt in July of this year by my Instructor and mentor Professor Draculino. One of the best instructors in world and one of the best human beings I have had the pleasure to meet. You know my story is like a lot of other peoples. I grew up an athlete, got injured, got fat, and BJJ brought me back to life. When I started I was 270lbs, I was obese! I trained hard, learned as much as I could, and was fortunate to win my share of tournaments. I learned early as a blue that the Ultra Heavyweight division just wasn't for me. So I set out to lose more weight. I dieted down and at one point in time I had gotten down to 202 lbs which for me it was a bit to small. So I usually hung around 220 and was comfortable with that. I love pizza, well who the hell doesn't! Fast forward to February of 2015 and my back put me out of commission. When I say out of commission I couldn't do anything, no BJJ, no weights, nothing! During that time I was dumb, real dumb and ate like it was nobody's business. So I'm fat again! I got back on the mats regularly in January of 2016 and haven't looked back. Let's get one thing straight though, missing so much time sucks! You lose all timing, your technique is sloppy, your cardio sucks, your hips don't move correctly, and its all so DAMN FRUSTRATING! When you're used to training a certain way and doing many different techniques with ease and now you can't, really makes you have to reevaluate everything and question your BJJ. So that's where I'm at now. I am working on improving and soaking everything up again. Even though I am a black belt, I am still a student and always learning. By keeping an open mind and trying new things your game will always continue to grow. I listen to everyone, doesn't matter if they are instructors or not could be a random blue belt. People who share the same passion as you always have good things to share.

As I set out from the beginning, this blog is something I will use to keep me accountable for my training and the Sensible Portions Weight loss meals journey. Also, like before, I will post videos of techniques, training, workouts (circuit training and weights), MMA, and just have some damn fun! Who knows maybe I will get back to interviewing random students, White belts to black belts, if you have an interesting story I may share it. Follow along, and enjoy the Babalu Experience for some good clean family fun! See you on the mats!

Combat Jiu Jitsu... What do you think??

Rolled Up Episode 32: Draculino – Where the old school meets the new school

Rolled Up Episode 32: Draculino – Where the old school meets the new school

Budo Videos was in the house!!  Check it out!

Justgipants.com!!!

Kron Gracie Speaks!

The Rise of “Toquinho”

The Rise of Toquinho from stuart cooper Films on Vimeo.

Roger Gracie Interview

Great interview by one the greatest BJJ players in the world.

Chael Sonnen... What a great interview!!!!

Training in the Gi CAN and WILL make your BJJ better for MMA/NOGI

I ran across this write up this morning that I had to share with you guys.  I don't know how many guys I come across saying stuff like "You don't wear Pajamas to the cage" or "take that thing off and there is no way you can submit me".  I hear it all the time, but the truth of the matter is BJJ in the Gi makes your Nogi game much tighter and precise.  Which in turn can translate to MMA.  I found this write up at mixedmartialarts.com posted by a professional MMA fighter whose name on there is The Sultan.  Here is the post and below it is my reply to it.

I know this topic touches on the age old debate of gi vs no gi for MMA training, but bear with me for a moment.

What I have found in my years of doing BJJ in the gi is that there are certain ways you can train in the gi to help reach your goal.....whether that goal is ultimately competition jiu jitsu, gi or nogi and MMA.

Here is my take on the subject.

If your ultimate goal is to fight MMA, you can still train in the gi and still learn effective grappling concepts that translate to MMA.  However, the manner in which you train in the gi is the key.  When I roll in the gi, I use a no gi style (for the most part) while rollilng.  What that means is that instead of relying on gripping sleeves and pants, I grip wrists, ankles and legs.....I go for wrist control, overhooks, underhooks and I spend a lot of time working on sweeps that use this idea of training "no gi style"......

The immediate question one would ask is WHY would you train in the gi, but use a  no gi style instead of just training no gi?

IMO, the gi eliminates the slip factor when you start to sweat....It limits the explosive, "hercules" style of powering out of submissions and bad positions.  The reason this is important is because it forces you to technically escape these positions using perfect technique BECAUSE you cannot just power out of a move.  The coefficient of friction of the gi does not lend itself well to this.  Therefore, it's much harder to perform some of these same manuevers in the gi, than it would be in no gi.

Ultimately, this leads to an extremely elevated awareness of submissions.

Here's a specific example of what I'm referring to.  Let's say, for instance, a person has your back with the hooks in and is looking for submissions.  The amount of submissions available to your opponent is basically multiplied by 2, 3 or even a factor of 4.  For all of the standard chokes you have...IE....RNC or even armbars, you have numerous other gi chokes as well.  Defending from this position is harder because you have so many more submissions to worry about in addition to the fact that you cannot just explosively bridge or twist right out of back control......You need to defend numerous submissions while calculating and executing your standard escapes.

From an offensive standpoint, the same coefficient of friction factor plays in your application of submissions as well.  Trying to get a standard RNC with the gi is difficult because while you are sliding in to position, the person can grab your sleeves, etc.....Also, the gi makes it difficult to just slide in there for a choke easily because of the high coefficient of friction.

What does all this mean?  It means that if you spend a lot of time training in the gi, while observing some basic concepts of no gi training, (Again, gripping the body instead of the sleeves, for example), your application of your jiu-jitsu when it comes to no gi training and even MMA training will be sharper and much more technically sound, IMO.

My professor also incorporates the idea of striking when he discusses and teaches certain positions.  For instance, when we are covering mount escapes, he incorporates the opponents ability to strike from this position and to how to defend it while escaping the position.

Personally, when I train no gi and MMA, I never miss a beat....I don't feel "lost" and my jiu jitsu still works just fine.....In fact, I feel loads of improvement when I go back to no gi or MMA training.  I feel smoother, my control feels much tighter and i don't experience any regression in my game.  The place where I really notice a difference is in my ability to regain guard or escape bad positions....I'm so used to getting stuck in certain positions or working really hard to get out of these positions because of all my gi training and the difficulty involved with that.

I purposely pay attention to this while rolling no gi or MMA to see if I'm missing or losing stuff when I go from gi to no gi or MMA.....in short, for me, the answer is not only do I not lose any portions of my game, I feel a significant IMPROVEMENT in my no gi game as well as my MMA game.

Anyone have any thoughts on the subject?

I think you hit the nail right on the head here! I've always felt that training in the gi has made my no gi game much tighter and cleaner. Wearing the Gi makes you really focus more on your technique. Whether it be passing, sweeping, or submitting because of the friction it causes and the grips available to your opponent everything has to be precise especially at a higher level. Your good technique will easily translate to Nogi in these departments with the use of different grips.

And another one

Another Nick Diaz Interview

This one is long and a little different type of interview that I have ever seen from him.

Nick Diaz Interview

With the UFC 137 coming up this weekend and the main event now featuring BJ Penn vs. Nick Diaz I came across a pretty good Nick Diaz interview.  I really like this fight, two true warriors of the sport are going to go head to head its a very tough pick.  Who do you think will win.

Roger Huerta Documentary

Check out this video.  I have always liked Roger, he seems like a down to earth guy and some of the things he stands for or doesn't stand for makes me a fan.  Check out the video at the link below.

http://fcfighter.com/post/documentary-roger-huerta-in-thailand-%e2%80%93-talks-upcoming-showdown-with-war-machine-re-lives-street-fight-incident

From the Mind of Babalu- Trials, Tribulations, and Victory!

Today I am posting my first blog in a while.  After being injured and not being able to train full speed, not being able to workout the way I need to as well as taking a hit to my confidence because I felt out of sync, I can finally take a deep breath and relax a bit.  As most of you know the Gracie Barra Compnet Tournament was this past weekend.  This is where you get all the Gracie Barra schools from the southern region together and hold a tournament.  In my eyes the tournament was a huge success drawing about 400 competitors with some exciting matches, and some great displays of Jiu Jitsu from all.  As the tournament approached I did the best I could to prepare my mind and my body for competition.  I was in great shape before my rib injury from the ESP-XC workouts that I was doing and all the mat time that I had I was feeling awesome.  The injury took alot of that away.  I could no longer do the ESP-XC workouts and I couldn't do the things I wanted to do on the mat.  This really messed with my confidence!  I was easily losing positions, getting swept, and couldn't move enough to win scrambles.  This was the case up until about 2 weeks ago. 

I want to thank Dr. Lance Campbell for giving me this anti-inflammatory cream.  This stuff was amazing and is what actually got me back on the mat sooner than later. Two weeks ago I still wasn't registered for the tournament, and as I started to feel better and better each day something crazy happened!  My BJJ started coming back around!  I made the decision to register for the tournament on the last day of registrations, thinking what the hell I might as well do it.  I was pretty close to weight (with my gi on) so that wouldn't be a problem. It was official I was competing again and the nerves started kicking in.  For those of you who say you don't get nervous, you're lying!  I've competed in sports all my life, from the time I was 4 until now that is almost 30 years of competition and I still get nervous.  I think its a natural thing to be nervous at least a little bit.  I was nervous, but very calm.

The day came and I left with a gold medal.  The finals match was a tough and ugly match.  The action was very limited, I pulled guard, attempted some subs from there with no luck.  During the match even the ref was bored LOL, he told us to pick up the pace!  I just kind of waited to see what he was going to do, I saw an opportunity and landed a basic scissor sweep to score.  I was in the half guard the rest of match trying to pass and try to keep him from going to deep half.  As the time ran out my leg finally slid out of his half guard, it didn't matter it was over.  I was still completely relaxed and still had a pretty full gas tank which made me very happy!

I want to thank my instructor and mentor Professor Draculino for coaching me through the match and giving me the knowledge to be very successful on the mat!  All my teammates, you are only as good as your training  partners and I'm privileged to say I train with the best dudes that anyone could train with!  I also want to send out a thanks to the guys over at ESP-XC MMA Fitness doing their workouts as you saw from my workout blogs got me in the best shape I have been in probably 12 years.  My weight the morning of the tournament was 209lbs.  I was still eating and drinking everyday, even the day of the tournament when you weigh in before your first match.  If you guys want to get in shape, lose some unwanted pounds, and perform at your best check these guys out, I highly recommend their program.  My body feels stronger, cardio is great and my body is leaner than I have been in YEARS and their program played a huge part in that. I will definitely continue to use their program for my training needs.  I also want to send thanks to USP Labs Direct for making some of the best supplements money can buy.  As you saw from my product reviews I loved Jack3d and Prime.  I appreciate the kindness this company has shown to me as well as your great products!  I look forward to working with you guys more in the future!