AggieChemE09 said:

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Got my 4th stripe today. Just kept showing up.

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Well done sir.

Nice! Blue belt is tough, great job pushing forward. Getting close to that next belt!

Man you are crushing it! Purple will be here before you know it.

Just saw this thread. I signed up and started at the age of 51. Sometimes I still question what I was thinking, but I love it. I train at Gracie Barra The Woodlands.

BQZIP91 said:

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Just saw this thread. I signed up and started at the age of 51. Sometimes I still question what I was thinking, but I love it. I train at Gracie Barra The Woodlands.

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45 when I started Muay Thai.
48 when I started BJJ.

Ya gotta look at this way....us older guys may not be as fast, but we will fight dirty.......

Hell yeah

Is anyone else competing at the IBJJF Austin Open in July?

Did my first ever Tournament this weekend. Fuji BJJ. (Advanced White Belt)

Lost on points in the Gi Division, but.....the guy kept going for an arm bar and his coach kept telling him to go for it. I've been Arm Bar'd many times by advanced belts, I'm not immune to it.....but this guy couldn't quite get there and I just kept weight on him (he was beneath me, I was semi standing) so he couldn't get a solid lock on me.

The reality was, I was using it as a moment to catch my breath after he'd been on me for a minute or so and I finally got him off of me.

Admittedly, I got crushed in the NoGi division, but, in my defense I haven't been doing No Gi all that long and not nearly as often, because I'm also a runner and I have to save my legs.......The dude was skilled though and all respect and credit to him.

I do have to say, while I'm glad I did NoGi, even though I lost I'm still glad I did it, the divisions were a bit jacked up. I'm almost 50, he was in his early 30s. I weighed in at 188, he was 215. Not making excused, he beat me fair and square but I would have appreciated a heads up about the weight/size difference.

Still though......I would do it again.

Tournaments at white belt level are always a little crazy, glad you enjoyed it and that you'd do it again.

Years ago I entered a small tournament and cut to get to 165. But there was nobody at my belt/age (brown belt, late 40') so I had to compete against a 31 year old black belt in gi. He destroyed me.

In nogi, they put me against a couple experienced purple belts who weighed in at 200 and were in their early 30's. It was rough day for me haha.

Do y'alls gyms run the A/C? My instructor is a Brazilian & former Carlson Gracie instructor... bit of a hard ass sometimes. No A/C for us, just fans & the cool summer breeze through open doors & windows.
We joke that we practice "Bikram" Brazilian Jiu Jitsu. Really makes you conserve energy during rolls.

My instructor is also Brazilian and ran a school in BH before moving here, and it's similar. A/C on for the kids class and for fundamentals, but once Advanced or no-gi starts the AC goes off and we sweat.

My lightweight gi is supposed to keep me 'cool and dry'. Which it does, for about 12 seconds. Then I'm drenched haha.

Apache said:

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Do y'alls gyms run the A/C? My instructor is a Brazilian & former Carlson Gracie instructor... bit of a hard ass sometimes. No A/C for us, just fans & the cool summer breeze through open doors & windows.
We joke that we practice "Bikram" Brazilian Jiu Jitsu. Really makes you conserve energy during rolls.

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I've seen both. In Texas and in Northern States, where there was no AC at all, but....the one in Texas did have the big cooler fans at the corners of the mat, this was in a large warehouse in San Marcos, so the air flow definitely needed help. He also had a, Big Ass Fan (that's literally the company name) on the ceiling.

In some ways, I like the No AC thing, but it can be rough.

Respectfully asking for donations for this BJJ Organization. Adopt-A-Cop is ran by a friend of a friend of mine, (Guy I knew in HS and college went on to become a Navy SEAL and is friends with this guy, Mitch Aguiar, also a former Navy SEAL)

Mitch owns a company that sells supplements etc and has his own BJJ gym in Virginia Beach as well as raises money to pay for cops to learn BJJ up to the rank of Blue Belt.

At present, Adopt-A-Cop has approximately 1500 cops in the program nation wide, but Mitch is having to dip into his other businesses/finances etc to cover costs. If you are able, please donate. If you make a one time donation, it lets you make a comment, so say something about Texas A&M or Aggies, or whatever so they see who is supporting them. Even $5.00-$10.00 helps. Thank you so much.

https://adoptacopbjj.org/

Hope everyone's training has been going well! Just to bump the thread, curious if anyone is watching the Gordon Ryan v Felipe Pena match this weekend (and if you have predictions on outcome).

Several years ago I would have predicted a Pena win, but I don't see anyone beating Ryan at this point.

Thoughts?

I don't really see how Peña wins. Gordon made Peña's double gold world champion student/training partner look like a white belt a few weeks ago. Against common opponents like Vagner Rocha and Tex Johnson, Peña struggled or was outright defeated where Gordon dominated. However all it will take is one mistake- should be an interesting (although probably a little boring due to no time limit) match.

I seem to remember someone on here training at the GB in Houston where it looked like Pedro and Peña were training- I would be curious if they saw them training and what their thoughts are.

I don't see anyone beating Gordon right now. Say what you want about him off the mats, but on the mats he's nothing short of dominant.

Yeah, I was hoping he'd stop by GB Pearland, but he was over at Webster with Draculino and the crew there and a few others (Pedro, Marcelo Uirapuru, Lucas Valente, etc). Bunch of tough GB black belts and instructors.

Several of the guys Pena trained with at Webster are long time friends and training partners (and are in that pic Ryan put up on IG) and they said he looked/rolled great.

But with Pena being a black belt under the same instructor I train under (Marcelo Uirapuru) I didn't want to ask too much about it. There's not a whole lot of Gordon Ryan love among that group of old school GB Belo Horizonte guys so we've kept locker rooms chat fairly quiet on the whole topic.

For those that follow sport BJJ and MMA, the BJJ world lost a legend today. Leandro Lo was shot and killed at a concert in Brazil by an off duty police officer. From what I've seen in the news, there was a disagreement, a small scuffle and when the two were separated by others and walking away the officer shot Lo in the head from several feet away.

He's apparently now on the run and being pursued by authorities. No clue as to how valid the news reports are but sad to see.

It's the wild west down there. 33 years old. damn

No time limit/submission-only matches may be the purest form of the sport, but my god that was exhausting to watch on a Sunday Night.

Especially with no-gi. After 5 minutes I'm like, nah "tap". But 45? I kept looking at them thinking they needed to be hosed down every 10 minutes.

I didn't watch it, but I heard it was a weird ending.

Curious what the chatter will be at the school this week (since my instructor is the instructor who awarded Pena his black belt back at GB BH).

Side note, my son asked me if I'm as good as Pena because we're both black belts under the same person. I laughed and told him that isn't how BJJ works.

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No time limit/submission-only matches may be the purest form of the sport, but my god that was exhausting to watch on a Sunday Night.

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I didn't watch... did it appear Gordon could have submitted Pena at any time? Most of his other recent matches he appeared to be toying with his opponents.

Perhaps Gordon just want to exhaust him into tapping. To me, this could be considered a knock against GR that he couldn't get a real submission.

I prefer submission only over points, but I think that time limits are useful to force the action.

tbh it looked like Pena was doing a great job. He had several leg entanglements that would have had lesser beings tapping, but Gordon methodically dismantled each attempt.

Gordon looked to use his superior physical attributes of strength and conditioning to win this match. Kinda just leaned on him for 45 minutes, both while standing and on the ground.

The match ended pretty abruptly when Pena just said he wanted to stop because of "reasons" (said his heart was not into it due to the recent murder, but really he was at the end of his cardio". There was no submission in the submission only match.

I have only seen a few highlights, but most of the highlights seem to show Gordon dictating the action and Pena reacting by escaping a bad position. I can't imagine going 45+ minutes- I do 3x 5 min rounds and I am ready to die. I recall Gordon and others talking about pacing in a no time limit match. From the high lights I saw, it looks like Gordon was working to either draw Pena into an elevated work pace or just exhaust him before working toward a sub. I don't really see that as a knock against GR, I think that tactic is because of the NTL rule set. If they fought under ADCC rules I think we see a much higher paced fight. At some point the sport needs to combine the ADCC rules with EBI overtime in order to make the most marketable product. Hopefully they meet again at ADCC and have a more interesting match. Regardless, the Gordon's tactics worked, even if it resulted in an anticlimactic end.

Sad news about Leandro- Brazil is a crazy place. I was shocked that Leandro was only 33- he looked like he was closer to 43.

None of Pena's 50/50 game was ever threatening Gordon. It was pure defensive. Gordon had his back at the 10 minute mark, but let Pena get out as he was pretty clearly trying to finish him a certain way (as he has in every match the past couple of years). Gordon rag dolled him standing from about the 20 minute mark on and started taking him down with ease. Gordon's only real weakness is wrestling and he was toying with Pena in that dept the last 1/2 of the match. Pena has no chance against him at this point. He realized that last night and quit.

Yeah, I watched most of it later and came away with the same thoughts. Pena looked decent defensively for a while but started to crumble. I just can't get over how Ryan makes elite black belts look like average practitioners.

There's some stuff coming out on Flo now about the match, negotiations over money, time, etc that's really messy. Not a great look.

I haven't consistently rolled since pre-Covid and am looking for a good gym. Anyone have any recommendations in the Southlake/Keller area?

I know it'll be a shock (kidding), but the only place I've rolled in Southlake is at GB Southlake and it was years ago when I was there for work.

All the folks were really nice and welcoming, and the head instructor (Prof. Alejandro Siqueira) is an experienced black belt and competitor and he definitely knows his stuff.

Probably a bunch of good places up there, curious what others who live in the area may recommend.

For anyone following the tournament in Las Vegas this week, my instructor, Mark Comean is competing.

Good luck to your instructor, there's a ton of great matches on schedule - hope he does well!

My friend/training partner Mariana Azevedo won her division yesterday (Female /Master 2/ Black / Feather). She's 5'11" which is really tall for Feather.

My instructor (Marcelo Uirapuru Azevedo) competes today I think. I can't recall who all is in his division but think there's something like 39 people competing. Crazy.

Well, Marcelo ended up with Silver in the Master 4 / Black / Medium Heavy. Big bracket with 39 competitors but he told me years ago he doesn't keep any medal for his trophy case unless it's gold (and he's not kidding).

Watching a few of the matches it's crazy how OG BB's tear through hobbyist BB's at the Master level. Years ago a buddy (new black belt) competed at black fur the first time. Against a 6th degree BB. Ended how you'd expect it to.

Sweep4-2 said:

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Well, Marcelo ended up with Silver in the Master 4 / Black / Medium Heavy. Big bracket with 39 competitors but he told me years ago he doesn't keep any medal for his trophy case unless it's gold (and he's not kidding).

Watching a few of the matches it's crazy how OG BB's tear through hobbyist BB's at the Master level. Years ago a buddy (new black belt) competed at black fur the first time. Against a 6th degree BB. Ended how you'd expect it to.

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When did you train there? I started there ( Southlake GB) in 2018 then left for Kama Jiu Jitsu in Flower Mound in 2019.