NSW OPEN 2010 66 kg SEMI FINAL

This is my semi final at NSW Open this year, look out for the newaza at the end

My MMA Debut

MMA FIGHTER!!!

Hey guys I stepped (WAY) out of my comfort zone on Friday. There was one last thing I had to do before my training break and it was making my MMA debut last Friday night.
I am not about to join the UFC, but I do cross train in BJJ as well as submission grappling and have done some boxing. I have wondered for a long time how I would go in MMA and when I was offered this fight and realised it didn't get in the way of my Olympic training I thought I should give it a shot.

I was the semi-main event of the Style Wars card and fought against Rob Pryde from Numurkah Muay Thai.
I was able to get the fight to the ground pretty quick with a big double leg take down. From there I worked some ground and pound until my opponent gave up his back. From there I locked in a rear naked choke and he tapped out at the 2 minute mark of the fight.
It was a crazy adrenaline rush after that and felt unbelievable given how much training and competing i've done lately. The relief that I could go on my break on a win was an awesome feeling. I am not sure if and when I will fight MMA again because my dream of getting to the Olympics far outweighs my curiosity in MMA.

From here I will have 2 weeks off to re-introduce myself to my family as well as catching up on uni and work. From there I will begin my training block in preparation for the Samoa World Cup, Korea World Cup, Japan Grand Slam and China Grand Prix in November-December. These events are all Olympic Qualifiers so with some good preparation and solid performances I could be well on my way to London 2012 by Christmas!

World Judo Championships 2010

Hi guys quick update on what's been up with me. I am in Narita Airport about to fly home from the World Judo Championships. I left home 3 weeks ago bound for Miami where I contested the Miami World Cup and US Open. I lost first round in the World Cup which was disappointing because I fought well below my best and could easily have won a few fights. At the US Open I was really sick with tonsilitis and felt horrible but I managed to fight pretty well and win 3 contests ending up in 7th place.
From there we (Aus Team) travelled to Tsukuba University in Japan for a training camp in preparation for Worlds. The camp was pretty hard because there was 12 nations basing themselves at Tsukuba before worlds. Training with Japan, Russia, Portugal, Greece etc was hard but perfect preparation for Worlds.
At Worlds I was able to submit my first opponent with a choke and my second with an armlock. In the round of 32 I lost to the world number 9 from Slovenia by getting thrown for Ippon (full point) and that eliminated me from the competition. Making the top 32 got me 40 valuable points towards Olympic Qualification.
All in all I won 5 fights and lost 5 fights all against world class opposition and was competitive in all so I am very happy with my progress.

Now I have to fly home and rest for a couple of days before my MMA debut on Friday night against Rob Pryde on the Style Wars card. It's very exciting for me to get a chance to test my skills in a new environment and I feel in the best shape ever so I am confident of a strong result.

That's all from me.

be humble

Everyone I meet is in some way my superior.
-- William Shakespeare

MIAMI

Hey folks I thought it was about time I fill you in on my latest situation.
Well i am sitting in my hotel room in Miami at 5:30 am because as usual I am suffering from a bit of insomnia.
Before coming to Miami I competed last weekend in the NSW Open. It was only 6 days after Oceania and not ideal but considering I am still trying to catch up on points from the 6 months i missed last year I had to compete.
The competition went well, i won my preliminary, quarter final and semi all by ippon after having thrown with wazari already and I felt jaded but Judo was good.
In the final I had my clubmate Ryosuke Miwa. We had fought twice before and gone to decision both times (1 win, 1 loss). This time I came out and threw him for wazari with 1 sided kata guruma after 30 seconds. I kept applying pressure and came close with a few more attacks. For the first time in 3 weeks I felt fast, fluid and comfortable, then he slid under me for drop seio and got me for ippon!
Frustration is an almighty understatement for how I felt. However looking back at my previous 2 competitions where I won gold but didn't feel or fight great I am actually pretty positive this time.

We (australian team) arrived last night in Miami after about 30 hours of travel and settled in to our hotel. Its very, very nice and has everything we need here which makes life easier.
I managed to get internet access and found out that the IJF has updated the World Ranking List and I slot in at NUMBER 33 in the WORLD!
I am hoping that is high enough to be seeded here and make my life a little easier.
My body feels pretty good right now and I am really looking forward to competing at this level again. I feel I have made serious progress in recent months and can't wait to put it all together and notch up some Olympic Qualification Points.

If anyone wants to follow the results they should be available live at ippon.org

Ivo

OCEANIA

I haven't posted for a bit because i have been so busy training my butt off and fighting.
I spent a bit over a week at the Australian Institute of Sport preparing for the competition with hours of randori and fitness work.
It was a hell of a grind but came through uninjured.
The competition was small with only 8 in my division but my draw did me no favours because my first fight was against Nic Gravier of New Caledonia who i had fought and lost to twice a few years back. I won't lie i felt horrible, a mix of stale gastrolytes and nerves had my stomach doing all sorts of intestinal pyrotechnics!
Despite that I felt my way into the match and after scoring a wazari and yuko with a sit through and a pick up i was able to lock in a kata-gatame-jime (arm triangle) from half guard and once i applied some pressure and passed to side control was able to coax the tap out.
My semi final was against Allister Leat from New Zealand who had beaten me back in 2004 by a koka in golden score. We have both done a lot since but never crossed paths. He was the man who won the competition in 2007 that led to me not qualifying for Beijing.
he was mighty strong and an extreme leftie (which i hate) and he was able to throw me with a yuko and 2 penalties against me as well in the first half of the fight. Somewhere in the middle i decided that i was not going to lose like this and following the (VERY LOUD) advice coming from my coaches area i began to impose myself more by dominating the grips and pushing the pace of the fight. This worked well as it soon became clear that i was much fresher then my opponent. Going into the final exchnages of the fight i had been able to get 2 penalties on him but was still trailing 2 yuko's to 1. I gave everything and pushed, pulled, attacked and threw everything at him until the referee stopped the fight to penalise my opponent for stalling. I knew this gave me the lead and when i looked at the clock and saw only 6 seconds left i felt like i had gotten out of jail! i was able to survive the last exchange and win the fight.
The final was not contested as my opponent Steven Brown deemed that an arm injury suffered in his preliminary fight was too painful for him to participate in the gold medal match.

I was very disappointed by this since I was very keen for a rematch after our Nationals Final but i guess that will have to wait.

That was it, i had defended my Oceania Title from 2008!

It was a hell of a roller coaster day but thankfully i was able to listen to my coaching advice (thanks Daniel, Brent, Dennis) and had the support of my girlfriend and parents too which gave me all the strength i needed!!!

Now it's time to prepare for the NSW International Open this weekend and then off to Miami for the World Cup and US Open.

2 YEARS

If you've watched the news in the past couple of days then you'd be aware that its exactly 2 years until the London 2012 Olympics. More , precisely 2 years until my division (66kg) is contested.
There is a lot of work to do in the meantime but the realisation that in 2 years I could be realising a dream i have had for 18 years send tingles down my spine.
Not that I needed any, but I am more motivated then ever to work my butt off, sacrifice everything and fight above and beyond my own abilities and get to London.

2 years..................

REST

Having enjoyed a wonderful rest day yesterday and dealing with the reality of going back to training, school, come monday morning i thought I would explain my thoughts on resting.

Until a few months ago when I began working closely with a exercise physiologist I didn't believe in rest days.

My (own) theory was that as long as i was working my body in different ways each day it wouldn't need rest. For example if friday was a hard gym and technical judo day then I would work my cardio and randori more on saturday. It seemed logical to me but it did mean that i was constantly jaded and operating at about 80%. I thought that was no problem because given a little taper I would be firing 100% come competition.

Unfortunately as time dragged on I started feeling the effects of over-training more and more. I would have chronic muscle soreness, feel lethargic most of the time, struggle to concentrate, have real issues getting to sleep and many other things which are really not fun to be dealing with when you are trying to peak physically and mentally come competition.

Eventually I had the benefits of complete rest explained to me and it was something I started to work on. If I was able to train 12 sessions a week at 90% of my maximum and have a day off. Then that would lead to much more improvement in my abilities then 13-14 sessions at 75-80%.

When that is mapped out over an 8-16 week training cycle it makes for a considerable difference in the end result.

I have now been operating with 1 day off a week for about 5 months now and I can say it has really been of benefit to me. I have been able to improve my performances in training, my concentration has been better and aspects off the mat have been helped too. I get to have long lunches with the family at home, get to spend couple of hours completing uni work and even get to veg out on the couch and watch tv for a change.

I do sometimes feel restless and revert back to meat-head mode that I could be doing more training (haven't broken a sweat in 24 hours!) but it just means I put that much more effort into my sessions on my work days.

I assure you that come sunday morning there is absolutely no petrol left in my tank.

Monday mornings still suck cos there is a hell of a lot of huffing and puffing to be done before my next day off!

Ivo

hard work

Victories that come cheap are cheap. Those only are worth having which come as the result of hard fighting. Henry Ward Beecher

Check out these escapes, AMAZING!

Great Clip!