There are numerous reasons that the ADCC Submission Fighting World Championships is a special event. It only comes around every two years, the rules are the most wide-open of any tournament, only the best athletes are present and the participants must be invited by a member of the U.A.E. royal family like some kind of death-match tournament in a Shaw Brothers film circa 1978. This year’s tournament more than lived up to the uniqueness that one associates with the ADCC.

The 2011 ADCC was hosted at the Capital One arena in Nottingham, England and was broadcast live over the internet by BudoVideos. Those who made the effort to watch the tournament, including myself and many others who made the effort to wake-up at an unreasonable hour to watch, were rewarded with a two-day showcase of the best techniques, strategies and athletes that submission grappling has to offer.

The standard showcased was world class. A few things that surprised me was the frequency of leg locks being attempted and finsihed. For me, it was great to see how the best in the world approached certain subjects such as opening the guard, passing the half guard and how they approached the stand up game.

There were few flaws in the tournament but those that existed should really be addressed. The tournament was very well run so that only three mats were needed to keep the schedule moving. This opened up a substantial amount of space on the floor of the arena that unfortunately wasn’t put to good use. This was manifested primarily in the lack of padding surrounding the small Dollamur mats, which led to many tumbles onto the hard surface as contestants frequently drove out of bounds.

There were some complaints that the liberal leg lock rules resulted in multiple injuries – including Rafael Lovato Jr., Rodolfo Vieira, David Avellan and even Rafael Mendes. However, the competitors are all high-level professionals who knew what they were getting themselves into and knew the risks of not tapping to leg locks. Unfortunately Avellan was intentionally injured after the ref had attempted to stop his match with UFC middleweight Rousimar “Toquinho” Palhares. All in all, this was a great event it was great watching the worlds finest grapplers.

Congratulations Ben!

We where there for 10 days for training and a bit of R & R. We had the opportunity of attending a seminar with Master Pedro Sauer 8th Degree Red/Black Belt. (www.pedrosauer.com) We travelled down in Donald’s truck which is the size of a small country! and fitted out with a loud speaker system to promptly shout at any motorists that are not getting out the way quick enough! very cool!!!

Master Sauer is a student of Master Rickson Gracie and was in Portland holding a mater class for the Lobo Academy. This seminar was different to any that i’d attended before. Instead of running through a pre arranged set of techniques like most seminars do, Master Sauer had the students ask the questions. It was mostly the Advanced students that were asking the questions and I think a lot of it went over the beginner white belts heads. What was great to see form my point of view was that even at Brown &  Black Belt level there is still so much to learn and improve on. Having these higher ranks asking questions was good to see.

It had been snowing for quite a while and as it was getting warmer it meant the road was an ice rink. On our way home we encountered a car which was hanging over a cliff edge with the driver still in it. It had basically lost control on the icy roads, I should have taken a picture Damn!!!! The drop was enough that there would of been death involved no questions! Donald hooked his truck up to the car and pulled them of the cliff edge.

The training was 1st class a usual and we crammed in as many classes as we could. A special thank you to Donald for his nights out and trip to Portland for the Pedro Sauer seminar and James for the dinner and ping pong tournament.

Looking forward to Jui-jitsu fest in August!

On a final note: Donald Bowerman agreed to do a seminar for us in May…watch this space for more info..

Well done Kirsty! A fantastic Performance!