Here are some pictures from Sean Flannery’s black belt celebration. All of us from Hollywood BJJ went to a hotel in downtown LA called the Standard. The Standard has a rooftop bar and lounge. I believe Sean Flannery is Shawn Williams’ first black belt so it was a big deal for the academy.

Sometimes during open mat I’ll watch Sean tie people in knots and I am gripped with schadenfreude. “I got mugged by Flannery” is a rueful phrase you hear a lot at Hollywood BJJ. In addition to being a two-fisted ass kicker, Sean is a truly generous and genuine dude and I really enjoy his classes.

Due to my inept photogritude, everyone I snap looks like the devil. In the picture below, Sean is the devil in the middle.

This picture sucks too, but it’s one of about three that doesn’t have my thumb in the frame. I just had a private with the guy in the “Thinker” pose (Warren Stout). I have to write more about that later.

Here’s the other picture.

I roll with all of these guys. The guy looking at the camera is a for-real photographer named Ron who is also known as “The Meanest White Belt”. Soon he will be “The Meanest Blue Belt” and then the universe will need to re-balance itself with another mean white belt.

It’s hard to believe but I’ve been doing Brazilian Jiu Jitsu for a year now. Looking back over the year it’s hard to remember who I was when I first stepped on the mat. A year ago I weighed 230 pounds. Years of driving a desk had turned me into a festering mass of nagging yuppie ailments. Running four miles was an agonizing mental test for me. Today I weigh 190 pounds and my overall fitness is better than it’s ever been. Mentally I’m a lot tougher and that discipline has carried over into every other aspect of my life.

While there are many positives, I do have regrets about the past year. For someone who trains five or six days a week my Jiu Jitsu is appalling. I think there are a lot of reasons for this but the main reason is that I didn’t train with a specific goal until recently. When I did narrow in on a goal, it turned out to be the wrong goal. Here’s what I mean:

After months of training with marginal improvement I decided to just focus on one thing and get really good at it. Since back mount is the most dominant position I decided to focus on obtaining back mount. For four months this was all I worked on, and I really improved. Unfortunately, I neglected my guard game and as a result I can’t fight off my back well. I can count on two hands the number of times I’ve submitted anyone from guard. That’s pretty sad. In my last tournament I had to pull guard out of desperation and I could not threaten my opponent at all from my back.

For people who are just starting out at BJJ, I think it’s important to train with a specific goal, but not to “swing above your weight.” For example, if you’re not good at passing guard, you’re not likely to be in a position to take someone’s back. If you’re not good at take downs how often are you going to pass guard? And so on.

In my own case I think I need to stop swinging above my weight by focusing on the following things over the next year:

• Escape from side control (but not the single-leg attack which is all I do now)
• Escape from mount (but not the bridge because I don’t want to take on the complication of guard passing)
• Full guard
• Half guard

When I feel comfortable with those things, maybe it will be time to develop other positions.

Renzo Gracie dropped by Hollywood BJJ today for an impromptu seminar.  It was awesome.  BTW - Shawn Williams is a Renzo Gracie black belt and Hollywood BJJ is part of the Renzo Gracie association.  Anyway, Renzo taught us a few techniques and then we drilled.  I hadn’t seen any of the techniques before so it was really a great learning experience.  In addition to being a two-fisted ass kicker, Renzo Gracie is a really funny guy.  He was cracking jokes and fooling around with Shawn and overall kept everyone focused and positive.  He was totally gracious and signed autographs and took pictures with everyone.  It was a lot of fun.

Watching the Brock Lesnar/Frank Mir fight last night made me think back to the very first UFC when a physically over-matched Royce Gracie left a swath of destruction down the center of the octagon. If there was ever a question that technique can defeat strength Royce Gracie laid that question to rest with a jaw-dropping display of Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu.

Given the history of UFC, I’m not sure why so many pundits were convinced Lesnar would beat Mir. If a littler guy can’t beat a bigger, stronger guy than the entire premise of Jiu-Jitsu is worthless and we should all just go to the weight room and try to get pumped up. Right?

One other gripe before I shut up about this forever. A lot of the Monday morning quarterbacks are saying stuff like, “Lesnar would have destroyed Mir but for the one mistake.” I think that reasoning is deeply flawed. If Lesnar made a big mistake in the first 90 seconds of the fight, he’d make roughly 3 big mistakes per round, or 15 big mistakes over the course of a fight. Compare that to someone like Fedor Emelianenko, who makes almost no mental errors, and you begin to grasp how much Lesnar has to learn (and unlearn) before he takes the belt. Personally, I think it’s inevitable that Lesnar takes the belt. He’s too talented and driven not to. As he raises his game he is going to be pounding guys like rented mules.