Masters of the Universe!

Buna echipa.

Apologies this is a bi-monthly newsletter this month as I managed to miss Augusts roundup and I am just getting around to it… so this is August and September together.

Parabéns!

Firstly congratulations to Razvan, Andrei and Alex V on their wins at the AJP Tour in Bucarest. It constantly blows my mind that, as such a small club we can compete and win against much bigger teams. That said I truly believe it is down to the hard work and commitment that everyone puts in on the mats all year round.

Multumesc! I really appreciate you all very very much.

Welcome Visitors

Over the last few months we have had some very welcome visitors.

Alex Mezei has been grappling training for his MMA fight in Timisoara. While the result didn’t go his way, as always, his work rate has been impressive and inspirational to the whole team.

We also had Absoluto black belt Mihai Dinca and blue belt Alex Dan join us and for two sessions. Then a week later we were joined by a second Absoluto black belt and one of Romania’s top referees Catalin Otelea.

Finally we had a Romanian visitor from the UK in Christian Bucerzan from Gracie Swindon.

I cannot thank these visitors enough for coming and spending time with us. Progress does not happen in a vacuum and when we are lucky enough to have a visitor I believe that we move forward through shared knowledge and experience.

As always I was very proud to welcome visitors to our little gym and I was pleased to see how welcoming everyone was.

ATTENDANCE LEADERBOARD

Not a huge surprise to see Andrei Molnar smash the attendance leaderboard over two months. His commitment to training has shown with his hard won wins at AJP Tour in Bucharest.

1.	Andrei Molnar	22
2.	Robert Kis	20
3.	Razvan Mihonesc	15
4.	Alex Valea	12
5.	Alex Enache	12
6.	Alex Mezei	10
7.	Razvan Catilina	8
8.=	Rares Panainte	3
8.=	Christi Georghe	3
10.	Octavian Margineanu	1

Finally

Congratulations to Razvan Mihonesc, Alex Valea and Andrei Molnar on their stripes. Well earned!

Dinu Returns!

Buna echipa.

Late update this month. Sorry!

Dinu Returns!

It was great to have Dinu Bucalet back at the club in July. I always learn a huge amount from him and the seminar this time round was no exception. His detail about regaining back control was worth the seminar fee alone.

Hajime Submission Pro Tournament

Dinu was in town to compete on the first Hajime Submission Pro Tournament. It was really cool to see an event like this take part in Deva and it was a real pleasure to represent EchipeTCA at it.

ATTENDANCE LEADERBOARD

Great to see 2020 Student of the Year Robi back on top of the leaderboard. As more competitions become available across Europe I hope to see some more of you all on the mats. I realise it’s hot and the gratar is calling but…

1.	Robert Kis	16
2.	Razvan Mihonesc	15
3.	Alex Valea	14
4.=	Alex Enache	9
4.=	Andrei Molnar	9
5.	Cristi Georghe	8
6.	Alex Mezei	7
7.	Alin Rados	5
8.	Rares Panainte	4
9.	Mihai Bretotean	2
10.=	Octavian Margineanu	1
10.=	Razvan Catilina	1
10.=	Darius Imbrea	1
10.=	Mircea Iovan	1

Finally

Andrei Molnar and I are heading to Berlin to represent the team at Grappling Industries. Wish us luck and help us prepare by coming to training!

‘For the strength of the pack is the wolf, and the strength of the wolf is the pack' - Rudyard Kipling

Tomis BJJ Open

Buna echipa.

This month I am so proud to have been part of Equipe TCA here in Romania. We are not the biggest team in Romania but we definitely punch above our weight. That is down to your hard work on the mats. At the Tomis Open BJJ competition we took 5 athletes, that’s pretty much half our squad. Of those only one had competed in JiuJitsu before (me). We came back with 2 golds, 3 silver and 3 bronze. This gave us third place in the Masters division. That is pretty amazing.

Everyone did their best to represent the club on and off the mats and there was a great team spirit all weekend. Standout was Alex Valea who won his divisions in Adult and Master 1, but all of the team had great fights and, as mentioned, I am very proud to be part of the team! If you want to watch the fights almost all of them are on our YouTube channel.

Most impressive was the understanding of sticking to your tactics. In all the matches I watched, I saw the tactics that the guys had drilled in the gym over the last month. That understanding of training reflecting your success was great to see.

I truly hope that this is the start of lots of great competition trips with the Equipe TCA team.

It was also great to see our friends from Titians Timisoara Bianca Todoran and Alex Mezei have success. Bianca won the female white belt adult open and Alex won his purple belt Masters 1 division and the purple belt Masters open.

Felicitari!

Cluj Trip

We had another trip to our friends at Napoca JiuJitsu in Cluj. If you have never come with us on these trips you should make the effort. Roland Pauletti has a great team and facility and we always get great training up there.

ATTENDANCE LEADERBOARD

Once again Alex ‘Crazy Horse’ Valea tops the leaderboard this month thus proving that ‘the more you train the luckier you get’. With that I mean, there is clearly a link from training to success… so if you are looking to get better… you probably want to be training often.

1.	Alex Valea	13
2.	Alex Enache	12
3.	Robert Kis	9
4.	Razvan Catilina	8
5.=	Raresh Panainte	7
5.=	Andrei Molnar	7
5.=	Cristi Georghe	7
8.	Razvan Mihonesc	6
9.	Alex Mezei	5
10.	Alex Cioran	1

Finally

This month we have a seminar from the superb Dinu Bucalet on the 15 July. Don’t miss the opportunity to learn from Dinu a few of the guys did privates with him last time he was here and I’ve seen the techniques being used.

This month we will be changing the schedule with Monday being Gi and Wednesday, Thursday and Friday being NoGi. This is to help myself, Alex Enache and our friend Alex Mezei prepare for ADCC Nationals.

Don’t be afraid homie!

Plan or plan to fail

Buna echipa.

It’s been great to be back at Heroes this month and I think we have done some solid training. May we came back to Heroes, had a visit from Alex Popa, went to Cluj-Napoca Jiu Jitsu, had two shark tanks (congratulations again to Robi and Andrei!) AND I competed for the first time in over a year! May was PACKED!

Thanks to all of you who helped get me prepared for my match in Bucharest. I was disappointed not to bring you back a win but it really put a bit of a fire under me to get back to competition. I’m really looking forward to travelling to the Tomis Open with some of the team and seeing what you can do in competition. Which brings me on to this months theme.

Planning

As the phrase goes, ‘Failing to plan is planning to fail’.

In May we looked at creating flowcharts and gameplans. It took me a long time to really come round to this way of thinking about grappling but our head coach Dave Coles often brings them up as a way of simplifying the universe of techniques and positions that exist in grappling.

It does really help me plan classes as well.

All of this months classes are attached as a link below. Even if these gameplans are not how you want to grapple it is worth looking at them and thinking about how you could create a flowchart for your particular style.

This is doubly important for the team who are going to compete as you want to have your ideal scenarios drilled and ready well before the competition to avoid just having a game imposed on you.

ATTENDANCE LEADERBOARD

Congratulations to Alex ‘Crazy Horse’ Valea again this month not quite as spectacular as in April but still a very solid showing.

1.	Robert Kis	16
2.	Razvan Mihonesc	15
3.	Alex Valea	14
4.=	Alex Enache	9
4.=	Andrei Molnar	9
6.	Cristi Georghe	8
7.	Alex Mezei	7
8.	Alin Rados	5
9.	Rares Panainte	4
10.	Mihai Bretotean	2
11.=	Octavian Margineanu	1
11.=	Razvan Catilina	1
11.=	Darius Imbrea	1
11.=	Mircea Iovan	1

Finally

We have a trip to Cluj coming up on 12 or 19 June. I will try to get confirmation from Roland this week. The following weekend 26-27 June we will be in Tomis competing!

How exciting!

Lockdown v2 and Thoughts

Buna echipa.

With us being in lockdown again I didn’t expect that this month would be so good. It’s been a great month training with you all at The Bunker, so to start I want to say multumesc mult! to everyone who have kept training. We covered Escapes all month looking at escaping mount, side control, back control, half guard, closed guard and knee on belly… phew!

I’ve decided to change our newsletter a bit as we have quite a few great conversations in the gym pre and post training sessions and a lot of them give me things to think about. What I hope is to give you an insight into how I think about grappling and also provoke more conversations. For the first one I am going to cover a conversation I had with Robi.

Progress as a Spectrum

When I think about progress I think about grappling* as a spectrum. Which follows thus:

Stage 1 - Grappling happens to you.

If you can remember your first lesson you will remember just constantly being overwhelmed by people who had even just a little bit more training than you. I think this is the first stage of grappling where things just happen to you and you spend all your time just trying to stop them. This is the beginner stage but it also occurs when you meet people with significantly more skill than you.

At this stage the grappler needs to focus on defence. If you are hard to submit or are comfortable being uncomfortable you can begin to relax and think.

Stage 2 - Grappling happens

This is where most people are. Once you have some technique you will be able to make grappling happen. Neither person has absolute control and the exchanges are pretty equal. To be honest I think for most people this will be where they get to. Some days you’ll be the hammer, somedays the nail but overall you can apply your grappling knowledge to make things reasonably equal.

I sometimes reference this in training when I am watching sparring as opportunistic. When a submission or position presents itself one grappler capitalises but there was little forethought leading to the action.

Stage 3 - You make Grappling happen

Anyone who has been lucky enough to train with someone truly high level will recognise this in the same way that the novice does after their first lesson. Expert grapplers will make their opponent input 99% of the effort and will direct them towards the mistake that they want to capitalise on. At this point you are making the other person move in a way that will allow you to complete the technique you want.

I’ve been talking in training about the idea of limiting your submissions or working a specific area of your grappling. I think this is one part of making grappling happen. If you can be disciplined to work towards a predefined specific goal you will improve your grappling overall as you will be able to return to a position or submission from any phase of the match.

Why is this important?

I think that you can use this as a guide to your own progress. Try to think about your grappling as on a spectrum where the absolute novice has grappling happen to them by everyone they face and the expert makes grappling happen to everyone they face. As you progress you can check in with yourself by asking, am I making grappling happen or is it just happening?

*I use ‘grappling’ here as I have found this is the same for other grappling arts; wrestling and judo not just jiu jitsu.

ATTENDANCE LEADERBOARD

Congratulations to Alex ‘Crazy Horse’ Valea this month who only missed a single session (and that was because he had already attended one that day) in the whole month of April. His progress speaks for itself.

1.	Alex Valea	22
2.=	Razvan Catilina	11
2.=	Robert Kis	11
3.	Razvan Mihonesc	10
4.	Andrei Molnar	8
5.=	Alex Enache	5
5.=	Bianca Todo	5
6.=	Raresh Pa	2
6.=	Andrei Lazar	2
7.=	Darius Imbrea	1
7.=	Octavian Margineanu	1

Finally

We are back in the gym on luni 3 Mai. Next weekend sambata 8 Mai we are heading up to our friends in Cluj-Napoca JiuJitsu so it would be GREAT to have you join us.

I’ll leave the final words to Mr Valea!

Passing Guard

Buna echipa.

Wow! April already.

TECHNIQUE OF THE MONTH

In February a few people asked for a month of guard passing. It’s been a lot of fun despite us being put back on lockdown in the last week. I know I have particularly enjoyed watching all the situational sparring and seeing everyones progress. We looked at passing from the following positions:

• Closed Guard

• Open Guard

• De la Riva Guard

While these are only a few of the guards you will encounter there are some fundamental rules from each that you can take into any guard passing situation. Wether you are a pressure passer or a more dynamic passer the fundamentals can be seen as:

• Removing the opponents structure

• Changing direction

• Maintaining pressure

One of my favourite concepts that I have learned this month is Balling vs C-Spine which I picked up from Nick Salles and Danny Maira on Jiu Jitsu X. It’s worth revisiting as a concept for understanding how your oponents’s body can change your passing.
https://jiujitsux.com/courses/modern-passing-mindset/lessons/balling-vs-c-spine/

If you want to understand the difference between Pressure and Dynamic passing take a look at these videos.

Pressure Passing by Bernardo Faria

Dynamic Guard Passing with Leandro Lo

Attendance Leaderboard

This month Robi and Razvan Catilina topped the table. Great work from both of the heavy team. I know that b y the end of the month I definitely felt like those two had been most often!

1.=	Razvan Catilina	13
1.=	Robert Kis	13
2.	Alex Valea	12
3.=	Raresh Pa	11
3.=	Alex Enache	11
3.=	Andrei Molnar	11
4.	Razvan Mihonesc	9
5.	Bianca Todo	8
6.	Alexandru Cioran	7
7.	Razvan Furdui	6
8	Andrei Lazar	5
9.	Alex Mezei	3
10.	Darius Imbrea	2
11.	Octavian Margineanu	1

Finally

Thanks again to Raresh for running the Judo class last month. We will make this a regular thing when we are back in the gym but I want to show my appreciation to Raresh for taking the class and teaching some great Judo fundamentals!

De Ashi Bari

Osoto Gari

I look forward to welcoming you all onto the mats wherever we are in April!

Fundamentals

Buna echipa.

What a full month!

TECHNIQUE OF THE MONTH

February we have looked solely at Fundamentals. Those positions and attacks that should be the base for your grappling. It’s easy to overlook these fundamentals as boring and obvious but, as Roger Gracie has proven, if you do the simple things well you will win matches. Ideally if you can have two or three high percentage attacks from the base positions this will give you a solid base to work from.

RECAP:

• From Knee on Belly - Kimura or Armbar

• From Side Control - Kimura or Americana

• From Mount - Cross choke or Armbar

• From Back Mount - Lapel choke or Bow and Arrow

• From Closed Guard - Armbar or Triangle

*Remember these don’t have to be your only attacks but if you have them other attacks will appear.

If you want to watch the fundamentals in action watch any of Roger Gracie’s matches from the IBJJF Worlds in 2009.

Attendance Leaderboard

Congratulations to Crazy Horse who tops the leaderboard this month. Absolutely smashing it, fulled mostly by MacDonalds!

1.=	Alex Valea	17
2.	Robert Kis	11
3.=	Alex Enache	10
3.=	Raresh Pa	10
3.=	Darius Imbrea	10
4.=	Andrei Molnar	8
4.=	Alex Mezei	8
4.=	Razvan Mihonesc	8
6.=	Razvan Furdui	3
6.=	Alexandru Cioran	3
6.=	Mircea Iovan	3
7.	Alin Rados	1

Finally

At the start of the month Alex and I were in Brasov with the Absoluto team at their Winter Camp. It was great to see some of our friends and do some training. Then we sadly said goodbye to our friend Mircea Iovan who heads back to Cluj to finish his medical training and resume training with our friends at Cluj Napoca JiuJitsu.

Dinu Bucalet

Finally we had a great seminar with Dinu Bucalet. I know you were all as enthused after the seminar as I was. It was great to welcome him to Deva and I have already seen the techniques he showed working for you in sparring!

If you want to support Dinu more subscribe to his social media channels or buy one of his instructionals at BJJ Fanatics:

• YouTube

• Instagram

• BJJ Fanatics

Lapels

Buna Echipa!

A late review of January but it’s been busy! Apologies!

Technique of the month

In January we have been looking at Lapel Guards. I know I really enjoyed looking at this and, although it can be a bit technical, it’s a growing area of modern JiuJitsu. We looked at Lapel DLR, Lapel Spider, Worm Guard, Reverse Worm Guard and Lapeloplata!

Key points:

• The lapel can be used to support most guards.

• Key to any lapel guard is the ability to off-balance your opponent.

• Make sure that you are using your other limbs to frame, grip and create distance.

Although Lapel guards seem very new, Keenan Cornelius first really revolutionised the position in 2014, seven whole years ago! The first time most people really started to take notice was this match against the great Leandro Lo at the IBJJF World Championships.

Attendance Leaderboard

It was a tie this month with Alex, Robi and Mircea all tied with 11 lessons. Good work all round and it’s been great to see so many people on the mat in January… I hope you keep it up all year!

1.=	Alex Mezei	11
1.=	Robert Kis	11
1.=	Mircea Iovan	11
2.=	Alex Valea	10
2.=	Daniel Mihonesc	10
3.	Andrei Molnar	8
4.	Razvan Furdui	7
5.=	Alexandru Cioran	6
5.=	Alex Enache	6
6.	Raresh Pa	5
7.=	Ioan Csinády	4
7.=	Razvan Catalin	4
8.=	Octavian Margineanu	3
8.=	Mihaitza Hodor	3
9.	Darius Imbrea	2

Finally

It’s so good seeing so many people on the mats at the moment. Remember though that JiuJitsu is a marathon and not a sprint. Let’s try to keep the enthusiasm right through 2021!

Stay safe and healthy. If you are sick let me know and please stay at home.

I look forward to welcoming you on the mats next month.

Obrigado!