Abu Dhabi Pro 2015 Results

From over at BJJ Heroes:

It was tight as always but some good upsets in there. The different time limit and refs who will do things like disqualify both competitors (ask Keenan about that one) leads to some matches ending differently than they might at a longer 10 minute grind 'em out session like in the IBJJF. It also means more action than ADCC matches where counter-wrestling and patience often seem to win the day.

Among the "upsets" Victor Estima beating Keenan, a virtual unknown from Brazil beating one of the Miyaos, and Keenan not performing as expected all surprised me. . Leandro seemed to be much more in control against Keenan this time around with his bottom game, achieving 2 sweeps to Keenan's one (if I recall correctly).

Lucas Lepri was in top form as well, and put another win on the resume against the tough Satoshi (who has won the Abu Dhabi Pro before).  In the final, Lucas employed his usual top pressure passing game against a very game Gabriel Rollo who actually have Lucas a good run with his open guard and defending the pass. I couldn't tell on the video available of Lepri vs Satoshi what the takedown scored was, because it looked like Satoshi went to pull guard as Lucas did something and the ref awarded Lepri 2 points. At any rate. Lepri had earlier used his usual pressure passing to pressure with a stack pass kind of position Satoshi into turtling, but Satoshi wisely got to a one legged, ready to give up the single leg type of half -position rather than conceding turtle for too long and Lucas spinning to the back the way he would later do in the final against Gabriel Rollo.

In other news, the indomitable Buchecha submitted everyone until the final and put on the pressure to control and crush Trans' game from top position after a takedown. 



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BLACK BELT ADULT: Over 95KG, male

Final: Marcus Almeida (2) x Alexander Trans (0)
Champion’s run:

• Semi Final: Ricardo Evangelista (won by Guillotine)
• ¼ Final: Rodrigo Pereira (won by choke from the back)

BLACK BELT ADULT: Under 95KG, male

Final: Felipe Pena (8) x Jackson Sousa (2)
Champion’s run:

• Semi Final: Luiz Panza (4×2)
• ¼ Final: Felipe “Gargamel” (Triangle)
• ⅛ Final: Erberth Santos (7×2)

BLACK BELT ADULT: Under 85KG, male

Final: Leandro Lo (0 pts, 2 advantages) x Victor Estima (0 pts, 0 advantages)
Champion’s run:

• Semi Final: AJ Sousa (by points)
• ¼ Final: Felipe “Sagat” (Toe Hold)
• ⅛ Final: Igor Basílio (Cross Choke)
• Round 1: Max Carvalho (6×0)

BLACK BELT ADULT: Under 75KG, male

Final: Lucas Lepri (Choke from the back) x Gabriel Rollo
Champion’s run:

• Semi Final: Roberto Satoshi (2×0)
• ¼ Final: AJ Agazarm (3×0)
• ⅛ Final: Ilke Bulut (Choke)

BLACK BELT ADULT: Under 65KG, male

Final: Gianni Grippo (1 advantage) x Isaque Paiva"

Lucas Lepri Abu Dhabi World Pro 2015 -75kg Final

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Leandro Lo vs Keenan Cornelius Abu Dhabi World Pro 2015

Leandro comes out on top with his two favorite sweeps: the spider hook + half x-guard type sweep and his other version where he comes up on a single leg as the guy retreats from the same position.

Amazing stuff:

Because You Didn't Ask: Jon Jones, The Lottery, & Southpark's Britney's New Look Episode

A few years ago there was a Southpark episode which cleverly paralleled American culture's sadistic joy in watching the elite crash and burn in real time. It satirized Britney Spears' crack-up on social and celebrity media and ends with the alluding to Miley Cyrus as the next sacrifice.

It's a clever satire which borrows from the American short story, "The Lottery" which hopefully you read in an American literature or short story fiction class.

Let me get the disclaimers out of the way:
1) I don't condone illegal behavior

2) I think the wealthy often get away with egregious behavior and it underscores one of many disparities in a system fraught with inequality.

3) I do believe our justice system criminalizes addiction and related behavior(s) rather than treating it/them as an illness.

4) We have a system which is unfairly influenced by dogmatic adherence to statistically ineffective punishment methods (including a clear lack of rehabilitation efforts), and undue influence from those who stand to profit from privatizing the criminal justice system by incarcerating rather than rehabilitating members of our society.

5) His notoriety is a blessing and a curse and like it or not, being in the public eye will garner more scrutiny. 

That being said, let's look at some assertions/speculation:
Jon Jones had weed with him.
Okay.
What percentage of our population has smoked weed? How many others continue to do so successfully/not getting caught?

Jon Jones was busted for cocaine.
Okay.

Again, a sizable portion of our population has tried the schedule 1 substance.
Now, you may begin to say "well, I only tried it...." and that's where the rationalization begins.
If you tell yourself weed isn't a drug the way cocaine is...again....you're rationalizing.
If you smoke weed regularly, but look down on Jon Jones for using cocaine, depending on the state in which you live...you're either a criminal or totally within your rights.

There's a number of rationalizations or inner narrative deal-making methods when people publicly voice their outrage about Jon Jones' alleged behavior.

Ted Kennedy drove his car off a bridge while drunk and left a woman to drown to death in it.
This I don't say to mitigate his behavior but to then point out the ensuing justice system basically white washing Kennedy's behavior and giving him a pass. There will always be apologists and I am not one for Jon Jones.
I am, however, depressingly unsurprised to see the faux outrage by many people who have plenty of skeletons in their own closet, there's just aren't publicly known.
I say this also to point out that the majority of those crowing the loudest didn't like Jon Jones to begin with.
We often resent those more successful than us.

We love to resent those we feel are more smug and successful than us.

Remember all the TMZ style MMA coverage when it was alleged GSP has gotten some girl pregnant?
What are we? High school girls in the locker room? 

Ultimately, what was likely a youthful indiscretion (the cocaine positive test) has become a full blown problem. 

It's hard to convince someone who's the undisputed best in the world at something that they are not in control (of an addiction for example). 

It's likewise hard to convince someone like Mayweather he has a problem beating women as long as he makes a ton of money, has sycophants in his ear(s) and largely gets a pass for it. 

I write all this not because I think Jon Jones needs this punishment or that punishment, I write it because much of the outrage is simply rationalized hypocrisy on display. 

You can believe he should be held accountable without the vitriolic, emotionally charged tirades you see being thrown around by people who've likely at some point done similar behavior or others along the same lines. All the moral grand standing is just sad, self-justified hypocrisy.

Cyborg Prepping for Josh Barnett at Metamoris 6

Aside from his leg lock game and solid wrestling, Barnett's size and frame is one of his biggest assets. Even Lister seemed to really struggle with getting off bottom. Barnett is patient and the submission only format definitely favors the large Barnett grinding you down from top position.

At any rate, Cyborg does have a win of Buchecha at the last ADCC in the Absolute and Buchecha's physicality and agility in that weight class is frightening, but stylistically, Barnett's game is very different.

Weekend Recap: Fight Lab in Charlotte, UFC 186 et al

Headed out to Charlotte to do a superfight for Fight Lab. Video coming soon. The rules were 3 minute rounds with 3 judges scoring each round and a clear cut emphasis on aggressiveness. If I heard correctly, my opponent showed up weighing 168. I knew 3 minutes wasn't a lot of time to get to the mat and break down someone with about 20 lb's on me.
I lost a split decision. I honestly felt I won and feel I would have won a 7 minute match under normal rules but that wasn't what I found out we were doing the week of the match.
At any rate, I did some learning, saw my buddy I started BJJ with, and got to compete on top of the rooftop Epicenter in Charlotte.
Can't complain all around.

I headed back to town and caught the UFC on PPV due to a rare Saturday night off.
I went 4-2 with my picks on the admittedly lackluster card.
Almeida got an early stoppage of Jabouin who wasn't really out but didn't really protest the stoppage to hard either. Cote looked stronger throughout against Riggs who didn't keep the dominant positions he got by taking the back et cetera. Cote looked absolutely flat in his previous outing but didn't look so shopworn this time around. Johnson did what he did and looked impressive doing it. He got another stoppage win which is more than a some of the other champs in various divisions can say.
Even my boy Dominic Cruz (of whom I am a HUGE fan) didn't have any stoppage wins while champion in the UFC (Yes, I'm looking at you Jose Aldo). I actually left during the Rampage/Maldonado fight because 1) it was boring and 2) I had been sitting down since the prelims. I underestimated Almeida which won't happen again. He looked good, very good in fact, and I see bright things for him. I haven't seen enough of the other parts of his game to say whether or not I think he'll be champ, but he definitely has the killer instinct and edge of youth on his side.

Anyhow, I hit up open mat Sunday afternoon, worked until early this morning at my downtown job, I'm going to rest today, and start back training tomorrow after I work all night again tonight. My superfight at the 2nd installment of the Toro Cup is May 16th. It's 15 minutes submission only, then if necessary a 5 minute round that is points or submission, and if still deadlocked, we go to sudden death overtime where the first points scored win.
It's a cool format and one that produces some serious excitement. I know a ton of the guys on this 2nd card, and I'm excited about virtually all of the matches. 
My opponent, Josh Murdock is a guy for whom I have a lot of respect for him and his game. It's going to be a tough match.

I'm going to head down to Charlotte and train either this week or next to get some different looks and have some guys come after me as the visiting purple belt featherweight in the room.

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"Reason from Essential Truths," Competition, Specialization, et al....

I often hear the words of Elon Musk in my head saying, "reason from essential truths."

He was discussing why he decided to invent a car battery out of the materials he did and he said that his process was to look at the materials and chemicals and raw components that were cheapest and then engineer from that end of the problem.

Rather than say, looking at how car batteries have traditionally been made and improving on the slight improvements of others in this constant cycle of slight improvements.  He then noted that the prices of the materials would change in respond to changes in demand and he noted the fluid nature of supply, demand, and innovation.

He also reasons that  if you enter a crowded field you must either do the same thing as many others but much, much, much better, OR you can approach the problem from an entirely different angle and think along the lines of the old adage "outside the box."

I competed (poorly) this past weekend due to personal issues, lack of focus, a lack of focus on peaking at the right time, and my realization that if I'm going to compete every single month or more this year, not every tournament can feel like it's "do or die". Some tournaments will have to be off days. Some days will have to be trial and error where I let my game unconsciously unfold and simply try to do what I've been doing while rolling as of late, not just my tried and true previously winning formula.

It's also the realization that I can doggedly figure out a way to win at purple belt now, or develop skills I've reasoned are necessary at the brown belt and black belt level and long term.

My essential truths are that I want: 
1) a very difficult combination of open guards for my opponents to pass
2) a pressure, swarming guard passing style that works both at weight and against bigger opponents
3) a very small set of submission for which I hunt in key positions that follow my preferred sweeps and/or guard passes, and a precise set of sequential submissions in the closed guard

At blue belt, after knee surgery, I developed a gameplan that won me 3-6 or even 7 matches in a day that looked nearly identical: pull half guard, deep half guard sweep, over/under pass, knee on belly, lapel choke.

At purple I began developing more versatility in my open guard because with the exception of DLR or perhaps Spider-guard, or Bernardo Faria at HW doing deep half to his single leg transition, I've seen guys like the Miyaos and Gianni Grippo falter at black belt because what worked at brown belt was not versatile or varied enough to work against craftier black belts (well, that or their application of it against more experience black belts was not highly developed enough to trump that edge in strength, experience, et cetera).

This may or may not be the case. I'm a purple belt....what honestly can I say with certainty?
What I must do, however, is believe in my process and the work I've done and will continue to do.
Innovators are un-handicapped by the nature of expert failure, or by being so deeply entrenched in the hierarchy or system of which they find themselves a part.
Malcolm Gladwell has a great talk about the qualities of innovators which is that they are curious/passionate, deliberate in their willingness to dedicate hours and hours in pursuit of their goal/passion, and most importantly they persist in the face of doubt/ridicule/criticism on the part of the established experts and/or peer(s) in their area. 

Off Topic:
I've competed in some submission only superfights as of late (still hate the term "Superfight") and it has encouraged me to more aggressively hunt for the submission whilst rolling, something that can be subtly forgotten when you focus so much on position before submission and controlling your partner/opponent et cetera. This Friday I'm competing up in weight (as is normally the case when I take superfights, and it's a 3 round format with some changes to the traditional scoring in the hopes of making the match more entertaining.
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There's a time to doggedly pursue one pass, one sweep, one position, et cetera.
There's also a time to play, to experiment, try things out without expectation of "winning" or "failing." The key then is choosing the right mix or combination.
Everyone trains hard
Everyone diets.
Everyone rolls.
Et cetera.

The secret sauce then is that intangible mystery ingredient when it comes down to where you spend your hours and minutes and seconds.
It's why Kron Gracie who grew up with Rickson and a fundamental treasure trove of Jiu-Jitsu access can beat Otavio Sousa in submission only 20 minute match at Metamoris and ADCC champion in his weight class, but Otavio Sousa is 2x world champion at black belt with a 10 minute time limit in their weight class in the Gi.

It's how Lucas Lepri can win his black belt world championships in the Gi something like 7 years apart and still be relevant in the sport Jiu-Jitsu world as a competitor.

Happy training and such.
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