Kevin Costner has thrown his considerable fortune and clout behind some technology which might be able to clean the oil out of the ocean. Not bad.
Ocean Therapy Solutions has patented a centrifuge which can clean petrochemicals including oil, diesel fuel, etc. out of water at a rate up to 200 gallons per minute. They're working on a bigger version that can handle up to 400 gal/min. Kind of like using a teaspoon in a lake, but hey, better than nothing.
Kevin Costner testified on behalf of Ocean Therapy Solutions yesterday, June 9 in Washington D.C., before the House Committee on Science and Technology. The hearing, titled Deluge of Oil Highlights Research and Technology Needs for Effective Cleanup of Oil Spill, focused on cleanup technologies, and is archived on the committee's website.
Thursday, June 10, 2010
Wednesday, June 09, 2010
Roger Gracie v Bruno Bastos, semifinals footage from the Mundials
Found this on Side Control.
Like David, I liked Roger's take-the-back starting around 6:50; this is one of Richard's favorites.
If you're curious, I was sitting off camera to the far left, at the scoring table for this mat. Whoever filmed this must have been sitting in the Gracie Humaita section.
Like David, I liked Roger's take-the-back starting around 6:50; this is one of Richard's favorites.
If you're curious, I was sitting off camera to the far left, at the scoring table for this mat. Whoever filmed this must have been sitting in the Gracie Humaita section.
BP spill response plans just plain LAUGHABLE.
BP spill response plans severely flawed.
By JUSTIN PRITCHARD, TAMARA LUSH and HOLBROOK MOHR, Associated Press Writers – Wed Jun 9, 4:54 am ET-- Originally found here.
VENICE, La. – Professor Peter Lutz is listed in BP's 2009 response plan for a Gulf of Mexico oil spill as a national wildlife expert. He died in 2005.
Under the heading "sensitive biological resources," the plan lists marine mammals including walruses, sea otters, sea lions and seals. None lives anywhere near the Gulf.
The names and phone numbers of several Texas A&M University marine life specialists are wrong. So are the numbers for marine mammal stranding network offices in Louisiana and Florida, which are no longer in service.
BP PLC's 582-page regional spill plan for the Gulf, and its 52-page, site-specific plan for the Deepwater Horizon rig are riddled with omissions and glaring errors, according to an Associated Press analysis that details how BP officials have pretty much been making it up as they go along. The lengthy plans approved by the federal government last year before BP drilled its ill-fated well vastly understate the dangers posed by an uncontrolled leak and vastly overstate the company's preparedness to deal with one.
"BP Exploration and Production Inc. has the capability to respond, to the maximum extent practicable, to a worst case discharge, or a substantial threat of such a discharge, resulting from the activities proposed in our Exploration Plan," the oil giant stated in its Deepwater Horizon plan.
In the spill scenarios detailed in the documents, fish, marine mammals and birds escape serious harm; beaches remain pristine; water quality is only a temporary problem. And those are the projections for a leak about 10 times worse than what has been calculated for the ongoing disaster.
Billy Nungesser, president of Plaquemines Parish, La., says there are "3,000 acres (of wetlands) where life as we know it is dead, and we continue to lose precious marshland every day."
There are other wildly false assumptions. BP's proposed method to calculate spill volume based on the darkness of the oil sheen is way off. The internationally accepted formula would produce estimates 100 times higher.
The Gulf's loop current, which is projected to help eventually send oil hundreds of miles around Florida's southern tip and up the Atlantic coast, isn't mentioned in either plan.
The website listed for Marine Spill Response Corp. — one of two firms that BP relies on for equipment to clean a spill — links to a defunct Japanese-language page.
In early May, at least 80 Louisiana state prisoners were trained to clean birds by listening to a presentation and watching a video. It was a work force never envisioned in the plans, which contain no detailed references to how birds will be cleansed of oil.
And while BP officials and the federal government have insisted that they have attacked the problem as if it were a much larger spill, that isn't apparent from the constantly evolving nature of the response.
This week, after BP reported the seemingly good news that a containment cap installed on the wellhead was funneling some of the gushing crude to a tanker on the surface, BP introduced a whole new new set of plans mostly aimed at capturing more oil.
The latest incarnation calls for building a larger cap, using a special incinerator to burn off some of the recaptured oil and bringing in a floating platform to process the oil being sucked away from the gushing well.
In other words, the on-the-fly planning continues.
___
Some examples of how BP's plans have fallen short:
• Beaches where oil washed up within weeks of a spill were supposed to be safe from contamination because BP promised it could marshal more than enough boats to scoop up all the oil before any deepwater spill could reach shore — a claim that in retrospect seems absurd.
"The vessels in question maintain the necessary spill containment and recovery equipment to respond effectively," one of the documents says.
BP asserts that the combined response could skim, suck up or otherwise remove 20 million gallons of oil each day from the water. But that is about how much has leaked in the past six weeks — and the slick now covers about 3,300 square miles, according to Hans Graber, director of the University of Miami's satellite sensing facility. Only a small fraction of the spill has been successfully skimmed. Plus, an undetermined portion of the spill has sunk to the bottom of the Gulf or is suspended somewhere in between.
The plan uses computer modeling to project a 21 percent chance of oil reaching the Louisiana coast within a month of a spill. In reality, an oily sheen reached the Mississippi River delta just nine days after the April 20 explosion. Heavy globs soon followed. Other locales where oil washed up within weeks of the explosion were characterized in BP's regional plan as safely out of the way of any oil danger.
• BP's site plan regarding birds, sea turtles or endangered marine mammals ("no adverse impacts") also have proved far too optimistic.
While the exact toll on the Gulf's wildlife may never be known, the effects clearly have been devastating.
More than 400 oiled birds have been treated, while dozens have been found dead and covered in crude, mainly in Louisiana but also in Mississippi, Alabama and Florida. On remote islands teeming with birds, a visible patina of oil taints pelicans, gulls, terns and herons, as captured in AP photos that depict one of the more gut-wrenching aspects of the spill's impact. Such scenes are no longer unusual; the response plans anticipate nothing on this scale.
In Louisiana's Barataria Bay, a dead sea turtle caked in reddish-brown oil lay splayed out with dragonflies buzzing by. More than 200 lifeless turtles and several dolphins also have washed ashore. So have countless fish.
There weren't supposed to be any coastline problems because the site was far offshore. "Due to the distance to shore (48 miles) and the response capabilities that would be implemented, no significant adverse impacts are expected," the site plan says.
But that distance has failed to protect precious resources. And last week, a group of environmental research center scientists released a computer model that suggested oil could ride ocean currents around Florida and up to North Carolina by summer.
• Perhaps the starkest example of BP's planning failures: The company has insisted that the size of the leak doesn't matter because it has been reacting to a worst-case scenario all along.
Yet each step of the way, as the estimated size of the daily leak has grown from 42,000 gallons to 210,000 gallons to perhaps 1.8 million gallons, BP has been forced to scramble — to create potential solutions on the fly, to add more boats, more boom, more skimmers, more workers. And containment domes, top kills, top hats.
___
While a disaster as devastating as a major oil spill will create some problems that can't be solved in advance, or even foreseen, BP's plans do not anticipate even the most obvious issues, and use mountains of words to dismiss problems that have proven overwhelming.
In responses to lengthy lists of questions from AP, officials for BP and the Interior Department, which oversees oil rig regulator Minerals Management Service, appear to concede there were problems with the two oil spill response plans.
"Many of the questions you raise are exactly those questions that will be examined and answered by the presidential commission as well as other investigations into BP's oil spill," said Kendra Barkoff, spokeswoman for Interior Secretary Ken Salazar. She added that Salazar has undertaken transformational reforms of MMS.
Said BP spokesman Daren Beaudo from Robert, La.: "We expect that a complete review of the regional response plans and planning process will take place as part of the overall incident investigation so that we can determine what worked well and what needs improvement. Thus far we have implemented the largest spill response in history and many, many elements of it have worked well. However, we are greatly disappointed that oil has made landfall and impacted shorelines and marshes. The situation we are dealing with is clearly complex, unprecedented and will offer us much to learn from."
A key failure of the plan's cleanup provisions was the scarcity of boom — floating lines of plastic or absorbent material placed around sensitive areas to deflect oil.
From the start, local officials all along the Gulf Coast have complained about a lack of supplies, particularly the heavier, so-called ocean boom. But even BP says in its regional plan that boom isn't effective in seas more than three to four feet; waves in the Gulf are often bigger. And even in calmer waters, oil has swamped vital wildlife breeding grounds in places supposedly sequestered by multiple layers of boom.
The BP plans speak of thorough resources for all; there's no talk of a need to share. Still, Alabama Gov. Bob Riley said his shores were left vulnerable by Coast Guard decisions to shift boom to Louisiana when the oil threatened landfall there.
Meanwhile, in Louisiana's Plaquemines Parish, Nungesser and others have complained that miles of the boom now in the water were not properly anchored. AP reporters saw evidence he was right — some lines of boom were so broken up they hardly impeded the slick's push to shore.
Some out-of-state contractors who didn't know local waters placed boom where tides and currents made sure it didn't work properly. And yet disorganization has dogged efforts to use local boats. In Venice, La., near where the Mississippi River empties into the Gulf, a large group of charter captains have been known to spend their days sitting around at the marina, earning $2,000 a day without ever attacking the oil.
But perhaps the most glaring error in BP's plans involves Lutz, the professor, one of several dozen experts recommended as resources to be contacted in the event of a spill.
Lutz is listed as a go-to wildlife specialist at the University of Miami. But Lutz, an eminent sea turtle expert, left Miami almost 20 years ago to chair the marine biology department at Florida Atlantic University in Boca Raton. He died four years before the plan was published.
By JUSTIN PRITCHARD, TAMARA LUSH and HOLBROOK MOHR, Associated Press Writers – Wed Jun 9, 4:54 am ET-- Originally found here.
VENICE, La. – Professor Peter Lutz is listed in BP's 2009 response plan for a Gulf of Mexico oil spill as a national wildlife expert. He died in 2005.
Under the heading "sensitive biological resources," the plan lists marine mammals including walruses, sea otters, sea lions and seals. None lives anywhere near the Gulf.
The names and phone numbers of several Texas A&M University marine life specialists are wrong. So are the numbers for marine mammal stranding network offices in Louisiana and Florida, which are no longer in service.
BP PLC's 582-page regional spill plan for the Gulf, and its 52-page, site-specific plan for the Deepwater Horizon rig are riddled with omissions and glaring errors, according to an Associated Press analysis that details how BP officials have pretty much been making it up as they go along. The lengthy plans approved by the federal government last year before BP drilled its ill-fated well vastly understate the dangers posed by an uncontrolled leak and vastly overstate the company's preparedness to deal with one.
"BP Exploration and Production Inc. has the capability to respond, to the maximum extent practicable, to a worst case discharge, or a substantial threat of such a discharge, resulting from the activities proposed in our Exploration Plan," the oil giant stated in its Deepwater Horizon plan.
In the spill scenarios detailed in the documents, fish, marine mammals and birds escape serious harm; beaches remain pristine; water quality is only a temporary problem. And those are the projections for a leak about 10 times worse than what has been calculated for the ongoing disaster.
Billy Nungesser, president of Plaquemines Parish, La., says there are "3,000 acres (of wetlands) where life as we know it is dead, and we continue to lose precious marshland every day."
There are other wildly false assumptions. BP's proposed method to calculate spill volume based on the darkness of the oil sheen is way off. The internationally accepted formula would produce estimates 100 times higher.
The Gulf's loop current, which is projected to help eventually send oil hundreds of miles around Florida's southern tip and up the Atlantic coast, isn't mentioned in either plan.
The website listed for Marine Spill Response Corp. — one of two firms that BP relies on for equipment to clean a spill — links to a defunct Japanese-language page.
In early May, at least 80 Louisiana state prisoners were trained to clean birds by listening to a presentation and watching a video. It was a work force never envisioned in the plans, which contain no detailed references to how birds will be cleansed of oil.
And while BP officials and the federal government have insisted that they have attacked the problem as if it were a much larger spill, that isn't apparent from the constantly evolving nature of the response.
This week, after BP reported the seemingly good news that a containment cap installed on the wellhead was funneling some of the gushing crude to a tanker on the surface, BP introduced a whole new new set of plans mostly aimed at capturing more oil.
The latest incarnation calls for building a larger cap, using a special incinerator to burn off some of the recaptured oil and bringing in a floating platform to process the oil being sucked away from the gushing well.
In other words, the on-the-fly planning continues.
___
Some examples of how BP's plans have fallen short:
• Beaches where oil washed up within weeks of a spill were supposed to be safe from contamination because BP promised it could marshal more than enough boats to scoop up all the oil before any deepwater spill could reach shore — a claim that in retrospect seems absurd.
"The vessels in question maintain the necessary spill containment and recovery equipment to respond effectively," one of the documents says.
BP asserts that the combined response could skim, suck up or otherwise remove 20 million gallons of oil each day from the water. But that is about how much has leaked in the past six weeks — and the slick now covers about 3,300 square miles, according to Hans Graber, director of the University of Miami's satellite sensing facility. Only a small fraction of the spill has been successfully skimmed. Plus, an undetermined portion of the spill has sunk to the bottom of the Gulf or is suspended somewhere in between.
The plan uses computer modeling to project a 21 percent chance of oil reaching the Louisiana coast within a month of a spill. In reality, an oily sheen reached the Mississippi River delta just nine days after the April 20 explosion. Heavy globs soon followed. Other locales where oil washed up within weeks of the explosion were characterized in BP's regional plan as safely out of the way of any oil danger.
• BP's site plan regarding birds, sea turtles or endangered marine mammals ("no adverse impacts") also have proved far too optimistic.
While the exact toll on the Gulf's wildlife may never be known, the effects clearly have been devastating.
More than 400 oiled birds have been treated, while dozens have been found dead and covered in crude, mainly in Louisiana but also in Mississippi, Alabama and Florida. On remote islands teeming with birds, a visible patina of oil taints pelicans, gulls, terns and herons, as captured in AP photos that depict one of the more gut-wrenching aspects of the spill's impact. Such scenes are no longer unusual; the response plans anticipate nothing on this scale.
In Louisiana's Barataria Bay, a dead sea turtle caked in reddish-brown oil lay splayed out with dragonflies buzzing by. More than 200 lifeless turtles and several dolphins also have washed ashore. So have countless fish.
There weren't supposed to be any coastline problems because the site was far offshore. "Due to the distance to shore (48 miles) and the response capabilities that would be implemented, no significant adverse impacts are expected," the site plan says.
But that distance has failed to protect precious resources. And last week, a group of environmental research center scientists released a computer model that suggested oil could ride ocean currents around Florida and up to North Carolina by summer.
• Perhaps the starkest example of BP's planning failures: The company has insisted that the size of the leak doesn't matter because it has been reacting to a worst-case scenario all along.
Yet each step of the way, as the estimated size of the daily leak has grown from 42,000 gallons to 210,000 gallons to perhaps 1.8 million gallons, BP has been forced to scramble — to create potential solutions on the fly, to add more boats, more boom, more skimmers, more workers. And containment domes, top kills, top hats.
___
While a disaster as devastating as a major oil spill will create some problems that can't be solved in advance, or even foreseen, BP's plans do not anticipate even the most obvious issues, and use mountains of words to dismiss problems that have proven overwhelming.
In responses to lengthy lists of questions from AP, officials for BP and the Interior Department, which oversees oil rig regulator Minerals Management Service, appear to concede there were problems with the two oil spill response plans.
"Many of the questions you raise are exactly those questions that will be examined and answered by the presidential commission as well as other investigations into BP's oil spill," said Kendra Barkoff, spokeswoman for Interior Secretary Ken Salazar. She added that Salazar has undertaken transformational reforms of MMS.
Said BP spokesman Daren Beaudo from Robert, La.: "We expect that a complete review of the regional response plans and planning process will take place as part of the overall incident investigation so that we can determine what worked well and what needs improvement. Thus far we have implemented the largest spill response in history and many, many elements of it have worked well. However, we are greatly disappointed that oil has made landfall and impacted shorelines and marshes. The situation we are dealing with is clearly complex, unprecedented and will offer us much to learn from."
A key failure of the plan's cleanup provisions was the scarcity of boom — floating lines of plastic or absorbent material placed around sensitive areas to deflect oil.
From the start, local officials all along the Gulf Coast have complained about a lack of supplies, particularly the heavier, so-called ocean boom. But even BP says in its regional plan that boom isn't effective in seas more than three to four feet; waves in the Gulf are often bigger. And even in calmer waters, oil has swamped vital wildlife breeding grounds in places supposedly sequestered by multiple layers of boom.
The BP plans speak of thorough resources for all; there's no talk of a need to share. Still, Alabama Gov. Bob Riley said his shores were left vulnerable by Coast Guard decisions to shift boom to Louisiana when the oil threatened landfall there.
Meanwhile, in Louisiana's Plaquemines Parish, Nungesser and others have complained that miles of the boom now in the water were not properly anchored. AP reporters saw evidence he was right — some lines of boom were so broken up they hardly impeded the slick's push to shore.
Some out-of-state contractors who didn't know local waters placed boom where tides and currents made sure it didn't work properly. And yet disorganization has dogged efforts to use local boats. In Venice, La., near where the Mississippi River empties into the Gulf, a large group of charter captains have been known to spend their days sitting around at the marina, earning $2,000 a day without ever attacking the oil.
But perhaps the most glaring error in BP's plans involves Lutz, the professor, one of several dozen experts recommended as resources to be contacted in the event of a spill.
Lutz is listed as a go-to wildlife specialist at the University of Miami. But Lutz, an eminent sea turtle expert, left Miami almost 20 years ago to chair the marine biology department at Florida Atlantic University in Boca Raton. He died four years before the plan was published.
OK, I'm back....
And boy am I tired. The plane landed at midnight Austin-time last night; I was finally on California time so I fell asleep just before two in the morning, but had to get up in the morning for class. This plan was scrapped at 5:30 this morning (3:30am to my brain) but I still made it into work before eight, so I have a couple minutes to get this out before the "workday" starts.
Got a bunch of real work to do here today, plus crossfit at noon and class tonight. And that pretty much describes tomorrow and Friday as well. I will be putting together my big Mundials post this weekend, with pictures etc. It's deep grey and rainy outside, wish me luck staying awake!
In the meantime, thought I'd mention a nifty online resource to plan your BJJ competition schedule-- jiujitsucalendar.com.
It's a searchable database for North American Jiu-Jitsu tournaments, free for competitors and tournament promoters, and it happens to be the only site with the ability to manage tournaments in your own personal calendar and map. They still have several slick functions to add, as well as plans to expand beyond North America as the site grows, so keep visiting to see what's new. If you have a tournament coming up, go there and add it.
Brain is still a-buzzin' with the sweep I learned yesterday at New Breed. It was a handy variation on a common shin sweep setup with your leg wrapped around their arm, but I found it easier to use because it didn't depend on their momentum, and yet I was able to sweep and mount even a big guy. :)
Got a bunch of real work to do here today, plus crossfit at noon and class tonight. And that pretty much describes tomorrow and Friday as well. I will be putting together my big Mundials post this weekend, with pictures etc. It's deep grey and rainy outside, wish me luck staying awake!
In the meantime, thought I'd mention a nifty online resource to plan your BJJ competition schedule-- jiujitsucalendar.com.
It's a searchable database for North American Jiu-Jitsu tournaments, free for competitors and tournament promoters, and it happens to be the only site with the ability to manage tournaments in your own personal calendar and map. They still have several slick functions to add, as well as plans to expand beyond North America as the site grows, so keep visiting to see what's new. If you have a tournament coming up, go there and add it.
Brain is still a-buzzin' with the sweep I learned yesterday at New Breed. It was a handy variation on a common shin sweep setup with your leg wrapped around their arm, but I found it easier to use because it didn't depend on their momentum, and yet I was able to sweep and mount even a big guy. :)
Monday, June 07, 2010
Training at New Breed Jiu Jitsu...
The only real downside to a tournament like Mundials is the lack of training. When you're used to training 7 days a week, the sudden dearth of activity for FOUR DAYS actually causes physical pain; at least it does for me. I flew out here Wednesday (and did in fact train on Wednesday at the morning class and at noon, thank goodness.) Thursday through Sunday, I did nothing but sit, all day, every day, and snack. I brought sugar snap peas, carrots, and apples to nosh on-- but unfortunately also had more than my share of mini scones for breakfast-- plus the IBJJF people provided its staff with sandwiches (which, oddly enough, are identical at both Pan and Mundials and apparently are the same from year to year. Go figure.) What this meant was by Sunday morning, my legs actually hurt from the inactivity, and I was definitely suffering some water retention, or edema, or something in my legs. Fat ankles and fat feet, fat enough that I was noticeably uncomfortable when I flexed my feet and knees. I tried to make circles with my feet and get up and move around when I could, but Sunday is the LAST day you want to be up and away from the mats.
Fortunately, I got back on the mats myself today, at New Breed. I decided to train here, of all the oodles of phenomenal jiu jitsu opportunities that abound all around here (you can probably frog jump your way from great jits to great jits) because of the amazing cornering I heard from Johnny Ramirez when his fighter, Val "Valhalla" Worthington was in finals at the Pan. (She blogs here.) Johnny is just one of the awesome instructors there; this morning I got to train with John Ouano. Yes, the Ouano gi Ouano.
John Ouano is a bb under Rodrigo Medeiros and Carlson Gracie and his former student, Johnny Ramirez, is a bb of the same lineage. Johnny took first place at the Abu Dhabi West Coast trials (nogi) and the Arnolds (gi) this year. And yes I know I owe you the Ouano competition light gi review-- it's coming I promise!
Let me pause for just a sec and reflect on something I noticed at Mundials-- the rest of those reflections will have to wait for my Mundials Lessons post-- which is that jiu jitsu has the oddest way of putting kick ass, amazing, deep, experienced people in your path ALL THE TIME. And so when you're sitting next to someone at a tournament like that, or in any jiu jitsu context, you have a very good chance of discovering that they've been a black belt for years and years. That they've probably been training since before you were BORN. And so, you are very small, much smaller than you already realized. And then they turn around with amazing humility and kindness and generosity, and give you their time, their attention, their intensity and their advice... and it just blows your mind. It's like being a very small grain of sand on a beach and still being picked up and examined and pushed a little further on your own path.
Call it synchronicity, or whatever, but I was again fabulously blessed. Val with her willingness to come train with me (tomorrow) and John with his focus and warm encouragement.. and I clearly was not being treated like anything special. It's just how they are, to all their students. It's as though we were family, with John offering to pick me up next time at the airport, showing me pictures of his son (a 12 year old judo and surfing enthusiast.) I felt very much at home and welcome, and challenged but not too much.
Class was a nice 90 minute length, in a pleasant, airy matted room with open windows (gotta love this Southern California weather!) We had about 8 people at the start of this class (labeled "white belt class") and I was the highest rank, so I led the warmup run... as more people trickled in, I was happy to see a multi-stripe purple and some other blues. (I tend to think I can never work on the basics too much and I think it's a good sign of a good academy when other students feel the same way.)
The first lesson was a flow between 5 means of holding side control. Basic, classic, with two new elements for me to incorporate into my practice. Second, we moved to some standup-- kuzushi from a lapel and sleeve grip, then single leg to the ground. I liked that the exercise included techniques for both people to perform. Third, a choke series from closed guard. Cross collar grip, other hand feeds the lapel up over the back (aided by the opposite knee really strongly compromising their posture and base). From there it's either a standard cross collar choke, or, depending how they defend, you can switch sides for the other cross collar choke OR stiffarm their blocking hand to the other side of their body and take the back.
After that, we just rolled. I had a white belt (happily was able to handle him pretty well, though he was cautioned by John to go slow with me) and then a blue belt (felt evenly matched, though he was stronger and heavier, of course) and then two rolls with John. Not surprisingly, I felt like a child lost in the woods with him, though he was very kind about it afterwards and told me I had good movement, just needed to work on the timing.
I'm so happy to be going back there tomorrow morning, before I head to the airport and back home. I was going to hit up the Gracie Academy too, but there just wasn't time. I did swing by the Jiu Jitsu Pro Gear shop (and saw some familiar faces from the tournament!) and get my husband a birthday present for his 40th which is tomorrow :)
Tomorrow, looks like maybe Jonathan and Dustin from Kauai Kimonos fame-- here's Dustin, with me at Mundials Sunday morning-- can you tell I was still sleepy?
-- will train with me at New Breed. That's another thing I like about these big tournaments-- meeting people face to face and networking. Earlier Sunday morning I enjoyed chatting with Caleb and Dan of the Fightworks Podcast, and a couple other people, over coffee before black belt day got started. Just all around good times.
OK.. time to shower, change for dinner, and chill out :)
Fortunately, I got back on the mats myself today, at New Breed. I decided to train here, of all the oodles of phenomenal jiu jitsu opportunities that abound all around here (you can probably frog jump your way from great jits to great jits) because of the amazing cornering I heard from Johnny Ramirez when his fighter, Val "Valhalla" Worthington was in finals at the Pan. (She blogs here.) Johnny is just one of the awesome instructors there; this morning I got to train with John Ouano. Yes, the Ouano gi Ouano.
John Ouano is a bb under Rodrigo Medeiros and Carlson Gracie and his former student, Johnny Ramirez, is a bb of the same lineage. Johnny took first place at the Abu Dhabi West Coast trials (nogi) and the Arnolds (gi) this year. And yes I know I owe you the Ouano competition light gi review-- it's coming I promise!
Let me pause for just a sec and reflect on something I noticed at Mundials-- the rest of those reflections will have to wait for my Mundials Lessons post-- which is that jiu jitsu has the oddest way of putting kick ass, amazing, deep, experienced people in your path ALL THE TIME. And so when you're sitting next to someone at a tournament like that, or in any jiu jitsu context, you have a very good chance of discovering that they've been a black belt for years and years. That they've probably been training since before you were BORN. And so, you are very small, much smaller than you already realized. And then they turn around with amazing humility and kindness and generosity, and give you their time, their attention, their intensity and their advice... and it just blows your mind. It's like being a very small grain of sand on a beach and still being picked up and examined and pushed a little further on your own path.
Call it synchronicity, or whatever, but I was again fabulously blessed. Val with her willingness to come train with me (tomorrow) and John with his focus and warm encouragement.. and I clearly was not being treated like anything special. It's just how they are, to all their students. It's as though we were family, with John offering to pick me up next time at the airport, showing me pictures of his son (a 12 year old judo and surfing enthusiast.) I felt very much at home and welcome, and challenged but not too much.
Class was a nice 90 minute length, in a pleasant, airy matted room with open windows (gotta love this Southern California weather!) We had about 8 people at the start of this class (labeled "white belt class") and I was the highest rank, so I led the warmup run... as more people trickled in, I was happy to see a multi-stripe purple and some other blues. (I tend to think I can never work on the basics too much and I think it's a good sign of a good academy when other students feel the same way.)
The first lesson was a flow between 5 means of holding side control. Basic, classic, with two new elements for me to incorporate into my practice. Second, we moved to some standup-- kuzushi from a lapel and sleeve grip, then single leg to the ground. I liked that the exercise included techniques for both people to perform. Third, a choke series from closed guard. Cross collar grip, other hand feeds the lapel up over the back (aided by the opposite knee really strongly compromising their posture and base). From there it's either a standard cross collar choke, or, depending how they defend, you can switch sides for the other cross collar choke OR stiffarm their blocking hand to the other side of their body and take the back.
After that, we just rolled. I had a white belt (happily was able to handle him pretty well, though he was cautioned by John to go slow with me) and then a blue belt (felt evenly matched, though he was stronger and heavier, of course) and then two rolls with John. Not surprisingly, I felt like a child lost in the woods with him, though he was very kind about it afterwards and told me I had good movement, just needed to work on the timing.
I'm so happy to be going back there tomorrow morning, before I head to the airport and back home. I was going to hit up the Gracie Academy too, but there just wasn't time. I did swing by the Jiu Jitsu Pro Gear shop (and saw some familiar faces from the tournament!) and get my husband a birthday present for his 40th which is tomorrow :)
Tomorrow, looks like maybe Jonathan and Dustin from Kauai Kimonos fame-- here's Dustin, with me at Mundials Sunday morning-- can you tell I was still sleepy?
-- will train with me at New Breed. That's another thing I like about these big tournaments-- meeting people face to face and networking. Earlier Sunday morning I enjoyed chatting with Caleb and Dan of the Fightworks Podcast, and a couple other people, over coffee before black belt day got started. Just all around good times.
OK.. time to shower, change for dinner, and chill out :)
Saturday, June 05, 2010
Mundials Day 3....
I am happy to have left my notes in the other room. This is just the off the cuff review... you know a detailed one will be coming in a week or so.
HOT DOG... what a day. I must have been good in another life, because I had some amazing jiu jitsu on my mat. Marcelo Garcia.. Cobrinha... Abmar Barbosa... Penny Thomas.. Val Worthington... Kyra Gracie.. Hillary Williams.. Luanna Alzuguir... and on other mats visible/recordable, Roger Gracie, Romulo Barral, Oli Geddes, Alec Baulding, Tracey Goodell, the Swedish purple belt who won absolute and his division and rocked the house but I can't remember his name... the list goes on and on and on!
My brain's just blown wide open. Just a lot of very very high quality jiu jitsu all stuffed in and overflowing. Thank god for video tape.
Going to bed. Going to the Fightworks Podcast breakfast in the morning before the tourney gets running again. Say a prayer that I have enough battery and tape for tomorrow.
HOT DOG... what a day. I must have been good in another life, because I had some amazing jiu jitsu on my mat. Marcelo Garcia.. Cobrinha... Abmar Barbosa... Penny Thomas.. Val Worthington... Kyra Gracie.. Hillary Williams.. Luanna Alzuguir... and on other mats visible/recordable, Roger Gracie, Romulo Barral, Oli Geddes, Alec Baulding, Tracey Goodell, the Swedish purple belt who won absolute and his division and rocked the house but I can't remember his name... the list goes on and on and on!
My brain's just blown wide open. Just a lot of very very high quality jiu jitsu all stuffed in and overflowing. Thank god for video tape.
Going to bed. Going to the Fightworks Podcast breakfast in the morning before the tourney gets running again. Say a prayer that I have enough battery and tape for tomorrow.
Live streaming coverage of Mundials!!
DON'T FORGET-- BudoVideos.com is putting on live streaming coverage on Saturday and Sunday!
Watch some of the most amazing jiu jitsu in the world right here!
And, they should be filming women's matches too! :)
Watch some of the most amazing jiu jitsu in the world right here!
And, they should be filming women's matches too! :)
Mundials day two...
Only 64 matches today. Some wondrous, some soporific. What can I report for you? Unless I specify otherwise, assume that I have footage and will post it next week sometime.
-- Tracey Goodell, Team Lloyd Irvin, was on a rampage. She just got her purple belt (after double-gold at the Pan & NY Open as a leve-weight blue belt, and winning Brasileiro, the Brazilian Nationals, in her division and I think taking silver in absolute, also as a blue) and for sure won 3 of her matches today with submissions. She probably won her division today, but I'm not sure and results aren't up on the website yet. Holy crap! I did get some footage and stills of her, though, and will be posting that with our interview soon.
-- Mackenzie Dern, Megaton Diaz's 17 year old daughter and a pena-weight blue, won her division, was promoted to purple on the podium, and took silver in the women's absolute, losing 3-2 to the much larger Maya Matalo (sp? the website lists Mayra Mazza but that didn't sound like the name people were saying!) in the finals. Again, have footage, will share next week. Dominyka Obelenyte, allegedly only 14 years old, won her division in leve blue.
-- Alec Baulding, Alliance, continued the success he tasted at the Pan by winning the middleweight purple division. Have his finals match but the notes I took on who he fought are across the room in my bag, and I'm in bed, so that will have to wait. I do believe he won on points.
-- Ronis Gracie, purple leve, fought on my mat several times, and while I don't know how he ended up, I know he won several very tough matches. He always slides to halfguard or butterfly-ish guard right from the start and plays a complex open guard game that my noob eyes are too inexperienced to dissect. It's probably really exciting for masters of the art to watch; for me mostly it was concrete setting. He usually won on points. He knocked Jaxon Smith, Machado BJJ-Redondo Beach, out in maybe the 4th round or so. Too bad but no shame for Jaxon, who just got his purple after winning the largest division at the Pan (leve blue men.) Got footage of all that too of course.
-- Alaina Hardie, Mark Stables, beat Jen Whitcomb, Team Renzo Gracie, but then lost to Kay Stephenson, Gracie Elite, in finals of the women's light-heavy purple division. Footage to come.
Yes, there is a new affiliation out there-- Gracie Elite. Check out Caleb's article about it here on FightworksPodcast.com.
Sorry, getting sleepy, so the blow by blow (which isn't so fascinating after all, unless it's about you!) will have to wait, if ever. But I will say that I still think this is the best damn sport out there! How else could you get me to sit in one place from 8am till 8pm, only taking one potty break and rushing back like a lunatic for fear of missing something, for $80?
Tomorrow will be KILLER. Don't forget you can follow my updates on facebook... I haven't twittered during Mundials yet, but I should. Follow me on twitter too!
-- Tracey Goodell, Team Lloyd Irvin, was on a rampage. She just got her purple belt (after double-gold at the Pan & NY Open as a leve-weight blue belt, and winning Brasileiro, the Brazilian Nationals, in her division and I think taking silver in absolute, also as a blue) and for sure won 3 of her matches today with submissions. She probably won her division today, but I'm not sure and results aren't up on the website yet. Holy crap! I did get some footage and stills of her, though, and will be posting that with our interview soon.
-- Mackenzie Dern, Megaton Diaz's 17 year old daughter and a pena-weight blue, won her division, was promoted to purple on the podium, and took silver in the women's absolute, losing 3-2 to the much larger Maya Matalo (sp? the website lists Mayra Mazza but that didn't sound like the name people were saying!) in the finals. Again, have footage, will share next week. Dominyka Obelenyte, allegedly only 14 years old, won her division in leve blue.
-- Alec Baulding, Alliance, continued the success he tasted at the Pan by winning the middleweight purple division. Have his finals match but the notes I took on who he fought are across the room in my bag, and I'm in bed, so that will have to wait. I do believe he won on points.
-- Ronis Gracie, purple leve, fought on my mat several times, and while I don't know how he ended up, I know he won several very tough matches. He always slides to halfguard or butterfly-ish guard right from the start and plays a complex open guard game that my noob eyes are too inexperienced to dissect. It's probably really exciting for masters of the art to watch; for me mostly it was concrete setting. He usually won on points. He knocked Jaxon Smith, Machado BJJ-Redondo Beach, out in maybe the 4th round or so. Too bad but no shame for Jaxon, who just got his purple after winning the largest division at the Pan (leve blue men.) Got footage of all that too of course.
-- Alaina Hardie, Mark Stables, beat Jen Whitcomb, Team Renzo Gracie, but then lost to Kay Stephenson, Gracie Elite, in finals of the women's light-heavy purple division. Footage to come.
Yes, there is a new affiliation out there-- Gracie Elite. Check out Caleb's article about it here on FightworksPodcast.com.
Sorry, getting sleepy, so the blow by blow (which isn't so fascinating after all, unless it's about you!) will have to wait, if ever. But I will say that I still think this is the best damn sport out there! How else could you get me to sit in one place from 8am till 8pm, only taking one potty break and rushing back like a lunatic for fear of missing something, for $80?
Tomorrow will be KILLER. Don't forget you can follow my updates on facebook... I haven't twittered during Mundials yet, but I should. Follow me on twitter too!
Friday, June 04, 2010
Mundials day one...
Sorry no footage! Just a quick rundown... I scored 82 matches on Mat 1 and it was a great day.
Even the frickin' whitebelts were good. Sigh-- I was so impressed. My first couple hours I just kept musing how beautiful jiu jitsu is! Especially the little peoples' jits. I must admit I saw 2-3 matches of big whitebelt jits and was totally unimpressed... I think at that level they only know "crush, stand up in guard and try to forearm choke" etc.
The bluebelts were ridiculously good. I didn't get footage because I wasn't prepared-- my camera was in my bag but the matches kept rolling almost nonstop so I didn't have time to subtly, invisibly bring it out. I am SO PISSED too because I had pena (feather) blue belt women on my mat, so I would have liked to get them some airtime.
Mackenzie Dern (Megaton's daughter and I think only 16 years old) mopped up pena blue with ease, beating Jennifer Turner in finals with a bellydown armbar at 1:22. Mackenzie was being coached/cornered by Leticia Ribeiro and Beatriz Mesquita. I will note that Letty and Bia both have some guns! If you haven't watched their rope training vids on youtube, you should. But I digress..
Now that Tracey Goodell is purple, Dominyka Obelenyte of Alliance handled leve (light)_pretty easily, defeating Erikka Flom in finals but I didn't see how.
Full results can be seen here on the IBJJF website.
I'll save more big-picture reflections for later. Gotta jet to the Pyramid!
Even the frickin' whitebelts were good. Sigh-- I was so impressed. My first couple hours I just kept musing how beautiful jiu jitsu is! Especially the little peoples' jits. I must admit I saw 2-3 matches of big whitebelt jits and was totally unimpressed... I think at that level they only know "crush, stand up in guard and try to forearm choke" etc.
The bluebelts were ridiculously good. I didn't get footage because I wasn't prepared-- my camera was in my bag but the matches kept rolling almost nonstop so I didn't have time to subtly, invisibly bring it out. I am SO PISSED too because I had pena (feather) blue belt women on my mat, so I would have liked to get them some airtime.
Mackenzie Dern (Megaton's daughter and I think only 16 years old) mopped up pena blue with ease, beating Jennifer Turner in finals with a bellydown armbar at 1:22. Mackenzie was being coached/cornered by Leticia Ribeiro and Beatriz Mesquita. I will note that Letty and Bia both have some guns! If you haven't watched their rope training vids on youtube, you should. But I digress..
Now that Tracey Goodell is purple, Dominyka Obelenyte of Alliance handled leve (light)_pretty easily, defeating Erikka Flom in finals but I didn't see how.
Full results can be seen here on the IBJJF website.
I'll save more big-picture reflections for later. Gotta jet to the Pyramid!
Tuesday, June 01, 2010
Getting psyched for Mundials?
Found on the BJJ NorCal blog, this reminds me of Cirque du Soleil athletes.... imagine what grips this guy has!
Talk about inspirational.. It isn't a math test!
So, I leave tomorrow and will be back late on the 9th. My husband will unexpectedly not be coming with me-- he has developed a bad case of tendonitis in his ankle and thus working as ring coordinator, which involves a lot of walking, is out. Since I'm not competing, there's absolutely no pressure on either of us to work as RC (which would have made my entry cost nothing.) I'm still excited to go as scorer and watch all these amazing matches, plus I get to train at New Breed and hopefully also the Gracie Academy for two days afterwards... yay!
Best of luck to all my friends competing. And to any readers, if you're at Mundials, please do look for me. I'll be the redhead at the mat table :)
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)