Martial Arts Wellington 272 Taranaki St GSW BJJ NZ

Archive for the ‘Uncategorized’ Category

Just a quick update the let you know that Alex had another victory in the ring last weekend. At the second “Kiwi King of the square Ring” Alex faced one of Shayne Cox’s boys from Napier.

Graeme Gidieon managed to last of whole 40 seconds in the ring against Alex, but was handled and tapped to a Figure four from side control.

Footage will be available in a few weeks via DVD from the promoters.

Former Wellington Lions player, Hemi Pou, believes he has found the answer.

When Hemi hung up his boots for the last time, he turned to Surfing to fill the gap in his sporting life. But after some encouragement from his business partner, Reefside Surf Shop owner Sacha Jackson, Hemi tried a new activity that stirred his sporting passion and inspired him to focus his skills in a completely different arena. Martial Arts.

Since his first introduction to the Martial Art of Brazilian Jiu Jitsu (BJJ), Hemi has been ‘hooked’. Joining Sacha at Wellingtons Specialists Grappling School, G.S.W. Hemi quickly picked up the necessary Fundamental skills and began training as many classes as he could possibly fit into a week.

Hemi’s passion and dedication for BJJ recently paid dividends when he competed at a national Brazilian Jiu Jitsu Competition held in Auckland. Hemi, along with 5 other teammates from the G.S.W. club, traveled to Auckland to test their mettle against the best the country had to offer.

The result? Well Hemi describes it as the greatest sporting achievement in his life.

Brazilian Jiu Jitsu is a Martial Art that is about controlling your opponent with grappling techniques and applying any number of different submissions forcing them to give up or ‘Tap Out’ and that is exactly what Hemi did. In his weight division, (novice under 95kg), Hemi submitted every opponent he faced, to take the first place trophy.

He then proceeded to repeat that feat in the open weight division. Storming through the competition Hemi again submitted every BJJ exponent that he faced, including, ‘Kula’, an Auckland competitor who weighed in at a whopping 160kg!!

That bout was a highlight of the day. After a tense 5-minute bout in which neither side was able to score any points, the referee called for extra time. In the dieing seconds of the two minute overtime the fight hit the floor and Hemi was able to gain the top position and secure an Armbar forcing ‘Kula’ to tap out. At which point the crowd went crazy in appreciation of the epic battle of wills and undoubtedly the day’s best match.

Hemi’s fellow G.S.W. teammates also held their own in the city of sails.

Michael Hourigan, defeated all in his division to take the under 75kg novice trophy. Jonathan Bares collected the Blue Belt under 75 kg title by defeating several of New Zealand’s top Blue Belt competitors. The other members of the team had success as well, with the newest club members Kane Minogue and Scott Lyons both having a great showing in their first BJJ competition. Assistant instructor Dion Burns competed in the Purple Belt division and gave a good display of high-level skill narrowly loosing his bouts.

At the end of day prize-giving G.S.W. had earned 4 Gold Medals and was awarded the 2nd place teams trophy, which is outstanding as the team consisted of only 6 members in a field of 60 competitors.

And the final highlight of the day?

After an outstanding display of skill and prowess on the BJJ mats, Auckland’s top ranked Brazilian Jiu Jitsu exponents voted Hemi Pou as most technical fighter of the day.

So Yes the is life after competitive Rugby just ask Hemi Pou, New Zealand Brazilian Jiu Jitsu Champion.

On a side not footage from Hemi’s interview with Maori Tv is available:
http://www.gsw.co.nz/images/video/hemi_pou.mpg

Fantasy novelist dies after heart operation

Best-selling fantasy novelist David Gemmell has died, his publishers have said.

He was 57.

He underwent quadruple heart bypass surgery a fortnight ago and appeared to be making a good recovery before his death this morning.

Gemmell wrote 30 novels, starting in 1984 with Legend, a tale of a fortress under siege which has become an heroic fantasy classic and is still in print.

Born in west London in 1948, he was expelled from school for gambling in 1965 and worked as a labourer, driver`s assistant and nightclub bouncer before becoming a journalist and newspaper editor.

In a statement Transworld said: “For many years, David has been acknowledged as a master storyteller, one of the best-known and most highly regarded writers in his field.

“His themes of heroic adventure, leadership, personal heroism and the possibility of redemption for every one of us ring as true today as they did when he first published the novel that was to become a classic of heroic fantasy, Legend.”

His most recent books were two historical novels about the siege of Troy, Lord of the Silver Bow and Shield of Thunder.

Larry Finlay, managing director of Transworld, said: “David was writing at the peak of his powers.

“He was a true pleasure to work with. We will sorely miss him, as will his thousands of devoted fans around the world.

“Our thoughts are with his wife Stella and his two children.”

Bugger.

Damn, just noticed that I haven’t even updated Alex’s fight result. Sorry Alex.

The result was exactly as we expected.
Alex wins R1: 1.30 tap out to punches from mount.
To view the fight check this page >>

Alex’s opponent was a reputable Kickboxer with over 20 fights but very little ground game.

Well done Alex on getting another step closer to you dream. There are several other fighters that Alex is looking at in the near future and hopefully they can prove a little more of a test for Alex.

Well done.

Today we rolled and then spent some time working on how to escape sidecontrol when your opponent has you crushed down and flat on your back. Specifically we addressed the first step, which is to get yourself into the right position so that u can star to work and create space, we repped this out and then rolled some more with the focus on escaping that above situation. We also pent sometime working pillow defence and getting our hooks into play sot hat we can go on
the attack again.

Sunday was cold and dark and not at all a nice day. So naturally I was expecting a small class, you can imagine my surprise when we ended up with 37 on the mat!

Absolutely no room to move or drill as we normally would. So we had to quickly improvise some in the hole drills to keep everyone involved but not in danger of getting knocked by other people. Fantastic turnout for such a shit day.

Many stayed on for the Gi-less grappling and we ended up with about 20 on the mat rolling. Again far too many to safety roll, but everyone made it through all right.

Thanks to everyone for coming out on such a cold day and hopefully we’ll be better prepared for that many again.

Injured my knee on Monday and getting information on whats wrong with it is proving difficult. I actually went to the Dr and even had X-rays done but still no idea whats wrong. So I’m pretty much going to do what I always do, ignore it and carry on as normal.

Classes have been fantastic and last night was no exception. There were about 28 people on the mat for Fundamentals and almost 20 stayed behind for the Gi-less class. Alex was on the mat polishing off his game and drilling some fitness stuff in final preparation for this fight on July 1st. in Porirua.

Lasts nights class had a great atmosphere to it and several people commented on it. Things seem to be really coming together on the mat for many of the crew. It’s great to hear that sort of feedback and see the dedication of so many people.

Thanks

The last women only class is next Sunday, 18 June.

After that – those who are keen will be joining in the Fundamentals class
if you haven’t already.

I’m off to San Francisco soon
I’m sure you all will enjoy your training at GSW!

-Melissa

Sunday the 11th of June every club training at the MVD will be participating in the open day.
GSW – BJJ
Budokan – Judo
MVD – Kyokushin Karate
and the new yoga lady.

GSW will have an area in the club with information about our Brazilian Jiu Jitsu and Submission Grappling training. We will be giving away memberships and gear as well as other incentives to encourage new people to sign up and join GSW.

During the hours of the open day we will be demonstrating Grappling drills and techniques to show people what it is we do at GSW. These will not be flashy prearranged techniques or drills but rather just general grappling and Syllabus techniques.

Anyway, Sunday – 1pm till 3.30pm Demos are 15mins only. If you have friends or family who have previously expressed an interest then bring them down, get them on the mat and show them what we do.

13:00 BJJ
13:15 Kyokushin
13:30 Fight Gym Fitness
13:45 Judo
14:00 Yoga
14:15 BJJ
14:30 Kyokushin
14:45 Judo
15:00 Yoga
15:30 Close