Day 9: Giants in my Garden

Saturday, so a much appreciated lie-in. I wake up around 11, a bit too late as I was actually hoping for a real breakfast this morning. But seeing at training is at 11.45 it was not to be and I had my standard breakfast of protein bar and Jack3d and headed downstairs. I had finished my first full week of hard training and I could defiantly feel it. Without my usual recovery routines at home I felt, quite honestly, battered. Today was pretty much a sparring class. So did a quick standard BJJ warm up of running around, star jumps, press up etc, you know the drill. And we begin as usual with some takedown entries, then some takedowns. An old friend from RGA was over in NY on business so we paired up and started drilling. After a while it was straight into sparring. First a round of specific sparring from the guard. Next its a partner change and into sparring from turtle. It was cooler today than usual (or im getting used to it), but still immensely humid. By the end of the second round of sparring doing anything to my opponent had become a near impossibility due to sweat. I was starting from on top turtle, and the guy I was sparring with wasn't that good, despite that I was slipping and sliding all over the place, it looked like a oil wrestling match they make half naked girls do in a nightclub to rouse the men up. At times the floor got so slippery that you would base on a foot or go to stand to move and slip and fall over, most annoying.

We took a quick break from sparring to learn a technique, we were shown a controlling grip from guard that allows a nice set up fro a bicep slicer, triangle or back take. Then back to sparring. I sparred a few more rounds and was gonna call it a day, considering how knackered I was, missing the last roll. However I was told by the instructor to have a roll with the "new guy". What this usually means is either "See if this guy has any skills" or alternatively "put his guy in his place", most of the time it means a bit of both. I accepted the responsibility and looked round to the guy he was referring to. Just my luck, there is a huge swedish dude standing infront of me. The guy is a purple belt, MMA fighter and 100kg. We have a extremely boring roll where if hes on top stands around and tries to pass my guard without engaging and when hes on top I follow suit. I think he passed my guard once and squashed me, catching me with a brabo. After class I feel even more knackered, stretch for a bit, go take a shower then go out quickly to grab some lunch.

When I get back I see that Mauricio is over. Mauricio Gomes is Roger Gracies dad, a red and black belt (hell yes!) and a good friend. Although he lives in Rio he is often over in London, and he looked after us when we were in Rio in 2008, and it was good to see him again. He was here to fly out with Roger to his MMA fight against Mohammed "King Mo" Lawal next weekend in Strikeforce (the reason Roger has been at Renzos the last few weeks, preparing). I sit and chat with Mauricio for a while until a familiar face rolls in. Its none other than dominate UFC welterweight champion George St-Pierre. He comes in, says hello and goes and shakes hands with everyone. GSP is renowned for many things; his great conditioning, his world class wrestling, being the greatest welterweight champ in UFC and arguable pound for pound the best fighting in the world at the moment. But most of all Georges is known for his humble and nice guy persona. And I can confirm this, I dont think i've ever met someone who is such a high level fighter, so famous and really, if anyone does, deserves to a bit arrogant; but be so humble. GSP, along with one of his training partners he brought over, go and get changed and jump on the mat waiting for Roger (as Mauricio say "Roger is always late. Its so embarrassing"). Finally everyone arrives and they move up to the top floor mat or "my garden" as I call it, seeing that the mat touches what could only be referred to as "my front door."

Within a few mins the numbers had picked up, probably 10 guys. Including Roger, GSP, John Danaher, David Branch and a handful of other MMA fighters. They spend 10 or 15 mins getting a sweat on, gloving up and oiling up (I frantically tried to get a pic of GSP holding a tub of Vaseline, as a harcore BJ fan, but I was too damn slow!!!!!). Finally everyone seems to be warm, and John Danaher takes to the middle of the mat. Now you would imagine that guys of the calibre of Roger and GSP (both undisputed world champions) would be in charge of their own training, but you would be wrong; John claps his hands twice, signally that everyone needs to be quite and come in (exactly how he starts everyone of his normal grappling classes). John commands the room of professionals and world beaters in the same way he would a room of blue belts. Its not in disrespect, but in a "I dont care how good you are, you are still students" way, which I found amazing. He said that since Roger was fighting in a cage next week he will be in the cage, and as there are no padded walls up here, everyone else will be below on the Muay Thai mat. John tells everyone there will be 4 5 min rounds of "shoot boxing" with a minute break in between each round. Shoot boxing is striking with takedowns, but no grappling, once your one your arse, its back to the feet and back to fisticuffs. John would later talk about this form of training as "the most exhausting style possible..... you never get a break". John was downstairs watching the others and sending up a guy every round for Roger while Me and Mauricio crawled into the corner between the ring and the cage to watch.

Roger first sparred with David Branch. Then GSP, then GSPs training partner, a tall powerful fighter, much like Rogers build, then Back to GSP. Now, I know all that everyone is interested in is knowing is how Roger and GSP went, but im not gonna go into detail, as I know for a FACT that King Mo has a scout intently reading every one of my blog entries (of course I joke). But I will say that GSPs clean takedowns (takedowns without clinching) are just as fantastic as everyone has been lead to believe from watching his MMA career. Roger is extremely strong in the clinch, and his striking is far better than many people think. Throughout the session its relatively quiet and all you can here is Johns voice from downstairs "Very good", "Nice", "Tres Bein". And when GSP took a while getting downstairs between rounds "Georges, hurry up!", *French accent* "Sorry John".

After the class most the guys: Roger, Mauricio, GSP, John, David and Jason (Rogers Thai coach) sat around in a circle and chatted, mainly tactics. Needless to say I sat and listened. GSP did most the talking, whats going right, whats wrong, you should do this, hes gonna do this, he cant handle that etc etc. It was very interesting, as you would expect, GSP has a wealth of knowledge about the sport, the stuff he said was both intriguing and made perfect sense. He took Roger and worked on some strategy stuff for him, showed him a move and drilled it with him. They then sat down, talking again, and as it usually does in training, jokes started being cracked and soon the tension from the upcoming fight vanished and everyone was laughing and joking. GSP said that Roger hit him with one teap (front kick) that nearly had him winded, and that "it was only his pride" that kept him from going down. *French accent* "Your Dad was watching, I did not want to look like a pussy so I stayed up. I was like ewwwwwww, eeerrrrrrrr, eeeeeeee". Everyone laughs, and disperses slowly.

I go out for dinner followed by chill and bed.

Ape out.

Fisitcuffs

The secret technique!

Tactics

"ewwwwww eeeerrrrr eeeeeee"