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After finally recovered from spinal disc herniation and shoulder problems I focused on bringing on the best of me for three series of qualification rounds for the so called ADCC German Championships held in 23.07.2016. I'll go through my experience in each round separately:

Round 1

The first ADCC in Germany since 2010 kicked off with only 100 participants mostly in the professional division, which considering the ADCC label pretty much surprised me. Anyway I fought there in 76 kg division against Benedikt Schotthöfer and managed to pull off a disappointing performance by losing by takedown. Bennie had a great gameplan to shrug me off during the three minute no points time and then to take me down during the three minute time. So the time passed with pretty much nothing happening and I lost with that point. Then I went for the absolute division, where I fought an youngster named Tupac and after dozens of submission attempts by my side he apparently swept me during my guillotine attempt during the points time and I lost there too by that point. So overall it was very disappointing performance and I was ought to make changes for the upcoming two qualifiers.

Round 2

For the second round I tried to concentrate more on stand up game and realistic competition sparring. That is always as the sparring partner to start on feet and if he wants his stupid knee start then let it go and start from guard. Second change, was the intention not to give easy sweeps despite possible submission afterwards on my side. With that in mind I went off to give me best once more.

In the first round in my 76 kg division I stood against Mert Özyildirim, who as far as I knew started an MMA career. I was sure that because of his MMA focus and despite him winning there by submission, his grappling preparation couldn't match that of mine, so I went confident on the mat. I pulled off various takedowns and submission attempts to end him with heel hook.

My next encounter was Mourad Benabdallah, whom I saw in the previous round to be great wrestler. So in the beginning I immediately noticed that he is only tasting me during the three minute non point time, just to take me down in the next three minutes and win by that solely. With that in my mind I decided to pull him somehow in my guard and managed to lock him in my half guard after few attempts. Being there he maybe wanted to pass, but couldn't do so being swarmed by my submission attempts, which were finalized again with heel hook catching him surprised after switching the half guard to the other side.

In my third and final fight I stood against Amin Aichele of whom I saw to have decent leg lock game. So once again I was confident, that my leg lock game was a level better and won by toe hold submission.

Overall, I am happy with my performance and the adjustments I made during my fights. You can see the mentioned submissions in the first part of the Matrix BJJ video in youtube:

Btw, I fought again in the absolute too. My first match there was against a very strong Pole, which tired me a lot, but managed to win via heel hook somewhere near the end. Then in my second one I faced Poland's ADCC 100 kg winner Marian "Santos" Klosowski without any break between fights at all. So totally pumped I just went to give my best, but was practically crushed physically. Afterwards Marian was kind to show us two of his main heel hook setups, which were insane. I immediately understood those and integrated them into my game.

With the big boys Meraz and Marian

Round 3

After being already qualified for the German Championships I decided to enroll in the third qualifier too, just because I like the rules and I want to fight. So what was mean to be experience gaining fun tournament turned into a serious challenge once I saw the brackets and the name "Nogueira". I took me a time even to realize that this "Nogueira" was most likely 2nd Dan Luta Livre living legend Leozada (see link). I immediately got psyched of the possibility to face him in the semi-finals. I was always wondering what will be like to face the top opposition in submission wrestling and now that I got the opportunity I just couldn't wait that moment. I just prayed I won't do any shit in my first matches and really reach my potential match-up.

So the time came, I went once again to Mainz with my fellow warrior Alexander Neufang, who had a super match against Daniel Brauchle, which he eventually won by some submission. Back to the point, one of my opponents from the brackets didn't showed up and I should have won only against grappler named Menendez to meet Leozada. Luckily I got the heel hook against Menendez and watched meanwhile Leozada taking out his two opponents by submission like playing with kids.

It was time. We both shook hands and immediately engaged into a grip fight. Then both tested our necks and found each one to be stiff enough to try any jumping guillotine whatsoever. Then Leozada first changed tactics and I felt he tried to setup some judo-like foot-based take-down technique because he took a little bit of side position. I immediately jumped for a scissor-leg takedown got the foot for the hook with wrapped legs, while Leozada screamed from some pain. Ref got the fight stopped and my hand got raised. I don't know exactly what happened, even after watching the video multiple times, so I'll leave it as it is without any further speculations. Bottom-line is that I won my biggest fight and even managed to do so within 30 seconds from the beginning by technical knockout!

Despite the feeling of fulfillment of my grappling dreams after the semis I stil had to fight in the finals, where I was about to face Sascha Sharma, who is an young and trending MMA fighter in Germany and against whom I lost couple of times by a takedown point. So the fight started and as I expected Sharma went to defend the first minutes of no points time, thinking of taking me down in the second part. So as an aggressor I took the action initiative and even got somehow front headlock. This is one of my strongest positions so I immediately thought "gotcha". But while celebrating my position Sharma, for my total surprise, somehow sneaked out. I end up chasing his foot, which he saved too and we ended up in my half-guard. Pretty long time passed by and the points were already on, when I switched to butterfly guard and elevated Sharma for a foot grab, while he was defending a sweep. So I grabbed that foot and I knew I would finish him, since I isolated his leg perfectly and only a perfectly drilled escape and strong legs could have saved him. Despite having the second quality, he lacked the first one and I finally got him with a kneebar revenge.

My third experience in Road to ADCC :)

So below the final line of this memoir, I want to thank anyone of my new Matrix BJJ team in Kaiserslautern, who besides smashing my ass of during hard sparring sessions, showed up in all of my three fights to support me! If you are somewhere near Kaiserslautern, consider visiting http://www.matrix-bjj.de/.

with Rene and Andy

Also obliged to mention the great travel athmosphere with the other two lone warrior near me Alex and Tomek :)


with Tomek and Alex

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This year I had the opportunity to participate at the Submissao Grappling Challenge, which was held in Karlsruhe, a city I consider my second home. It was around February and I wasn't particularly fit into grappling because I was training much more at the gymnastic rings and climbing a lot, but since the location was simply perfect and there isn't much happening around here I was certain, that I'll be there on the mats. Besides myself, only three guys from our team signed for the event.

Thereafter the good news started to flow. Firstly my family told me they'll come by, as well as my girlfriend and couple of other friends, which traveled with me to Karlsruhe. The small journey was all time fun and we had a great gathering till late in the night before the competition.

At the fight day I woke up surprisingly easy and felt fit to go. First of all I should tell that there was a schedule online before the competition with time of the fights and so on. I was pretty skeptical about that schedule, but was then proved wrong by the greatest fight event organization I've ever seen in my live. The whole event held on schedule and everything was perfectly smooth. Perfect timing, perfect conditions including warmup room, a lots of toilets, showers etc. Also the start-up price was fine, together with the coffee and cake prices. So uhm yeah, I watched two of my teammates, which had pretty good fights before getting warm for my first fight. It was a big group and winning seemed pretty impossible considering I had to win 5 consecutive fights. So this was pretty much out of my mind going out for my first bout. Other thought I had in mind, was there was no way I could tap in front of my "fans" :P

At my first bout, my opponent seemed much smaller than me, so it was clear I was going to submit him in the five minutes time, which happened around the middle via arm triangle. Overall it was a good confidence boost.

At my second bout I got a fresh guy, which got directly at the second stage, due to the participation quota. However I was fit and didn't took that as much of an advantage, besides that he should have seen me already and knows my style. The latter could be an disadvantage as well, cos he might got scared. Anyway, on the mat awaited me a big tall guy, which mean nothing else than taking him down easy to earn couple of points. He had good tight guard, which I was trying to pass. At a point of time I got his feet across and he had mine, but since I knew this was an forbidden technique I let his foot go and went to get up, while he was going to squeeze. At that time the ref came along and disqualified him. Well, his own fault, nothing more to say here. In the small rest between rounds I watched my third teammate having a great win in the last seconds via submission. Was very happy for him, since he was loosing with a wide margin on point up to the very end, where he turned things upside down.

My third fight grouped me again with fresh guy, who due to grouping luck and opponent not showing up got his first bout with me. He was pretty nervous despite looking pretty solid on the standup game. So I was pretty concerned no to lose by points and avoided taking risks in the first half of the round. Then I took the initiative mainly due to my physical ability and started an offensive game. At a moment I got his wrist very good and a moment before taking him down, he yawned at the ref, whether this was allowed. Well it was allowed, but it destroyed my good chance. Anyway a moment later I got his neck and tried to squeeze the choke, but was not that fortunate with putting the feet in good position, so it wasn't that tight and decided to let it go and get up immediately. This however gave me an advantage in a fight, where nothing was happening, which meant me being on the lead. At the end he tried a desperate double leg takedown, which allowed me to grab his head again, this time tight. Several seconds later he got very sloppy and the ref stopped the bout and he got up slowly on shaky legs. I thought it was a technical decision or a tap, but it was the time limit, which was hit and I won by couple of advantages. "A couple more seconds" I thought, while getting my hand held up again...

Shortly before my fourth fight I watched my teammate competing again and doing the same crazy win via tapping his opponent out seconds before the bell after loosing again on wide margin. How great! So happily i gathered concentration for my bout, this time with pretty muscular guy. I thought he would be very strong, but this wasn't the case. I mean in grappling, dunno maybe he is super strong at the bench press. So after he tried double leg I sprawled and got the dominating position to the end where I got him into an arm triangle from half guard. Was self-surprised he tapped, but as mentioned he had a big shoulders and back, so the choke should have felt definitely tight. Wow so happy, I was at the final and for first time I got the chance to watch my opponent on the other semi, which was a great and very tight match between two very even and similar grapplers.

The fact I've watched my opponent, didn't mean I had a plan at all. Just the usual stuff, get a grip to see, where is his weakness and go all in. Well he was very good in the grappling, but for his unfortunate, he was either not physically strong enough, or was just tired from the previous matches. So after couple of minutes stand up I got him on the ground and was able to get the side control, where he tried a typical kimura sweep. That opened the door to my favorite arm triangle, which I immediately held tight and after half minute he was forced to tap, after me changing the sides.

What a pleasant suprise - I became the champion! And we had a looong loong day and night in front of us :)

Here is a small video I gathered from some phone records:

 

 

First of all I want to thank to the organizers for this great event, where as mentioned, everything ran smooth and on schedule, which is actually the first time I anticipate something like this.

Then I want to thank to the other three teammates Dominik, who coached me, Nic and Dominik, for the good teamwork at the event.

Then I want to thank to Team Ballterrier and coach Dustin for the great preparation.

I am also very grateful to my family, friends and my girlfriend for showing up to support me - a clear sign that underperforming was not an option!

Please visit Team Ballterrier website ballterrier.de/

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This weekend I had the opportunity to participate in my first grappling tournament called Swiss Grappling League held in Lucerne. It was pretty interesting to step on the mat for first time check out the grappling scene in live. Overall, it is much better scene than the boxing scene, so I'll write about the differences and similarities down here and later on I'll write shortly about my personal fights and experience:

 

Similarities:
  • Organization
Just like in boxing the organization in grappling varies from bad to terrible. In all stages - from schedule through transparency to application of rules.
  • Grouping
Both scenes suffer from distinction between beginners and advanced pairing. In boxing the problem are mostly some soviet dickheads that coming out of they lands after having 100+ bouts, but having registered only couple of fights in their current place, are banging rookies around. Same happens with people having 50 thai boxing bouts, but landing in the rookies groups in boxing. Same happens in the grappling scene with people having dozens of bouts and clearly trained much more than the limits of the "beginners group". It was clearly observable that most of the people are openly lying about their experience and thus making the gap between "advanced" and "beginner" pretty much nonexistent. In grappling there is no such equivalent to the boxing pass, so they use years of experience, but you can hardly make the case that someone sticking perfect judo throw combined with tight armbar on multiple opponents is training less than an year. Same goes for someone who is judge and assistant trainer himself, but strangely appears signed with the "beginners".

 

Differences:
  • Trainers
Grappling scene has much better trainers than the boxing scene. The grappling trainers are mostly young and highly motivated. In contrast to that the boxing trainers are mostly old, stupid and simply blind for what is happening in their own sport. I have almost never saw a decent boxing trainer that has boxing background by himself, possesses solid practical and theoretical knowledge, is capable of teaching, can coach guys on the ring, is able to deal with the mental problems that most boxers confront. This is pretty much never the case in boxing, while in grappling a lot of trainers have the qualities mentioned above.
  • Dedication
Grappling scene is more dedicated than the boxing scene. Since boxing is much more popular and also Olympic sport, it deals with much more money. This means usually even being the biggest rookie you'll fight at least for free. This means the club will take care for your travel and entrance, also for your clothes and stuff. Even more the training fees are almost laughable in boxing. For the grappling people, they usually pay everything by themselves and deal with much higher training fees. Thus such people are really highly motivated in doing what they are doing - they are not doing it by coincidence (in this term this is similar to the climbing scene).
  • Audience
Grappling scene has much smaller, but much more intelligent audience than the boxing scene. Maybe since boxing is very entertaining and old sport it has much more bigger audience. This is not bad, but the masses that watch boxing and go to the shows are typically complete stupid assholes. The grappling audience consists pretty much of people doing the sport themselves or being close friends to the participants and thus also familiar with the sport. There is also a clear age difference.
  • Communication
In boxing you'll confront almost all of the time aggressive haters, while in grappling the connection between the teams is mostly friendly.

 

 

So after the small parallel between both scenes, I'll write couple of lines about my personal experience. Everything started with making weight as usual. So like in the other tournaments I took my Everlast equipment out of retirement. I had serious amount of weight to make and the weather was terribly cold for this part of the year making everything harder. Nevertheless after 4-5 hours drive to Lucerne the weight scales showed 69.8 kg which was perfect and I could drink water and sleep a bit ;)
Enjoying the sun and then 10 hours later traveling :)

 

After taking a nap it was time to warm up and step on the mat for first time - yeah!
Overall it was a nice fight, but my opponent was very tight and not willing to risk. So unfortunately, it ended up with draw. Note that the tournament was submissions only so despite me taking the action with take down, mount and side control, there was no reward with no submission end.
My typical strange look after fight :P

 

The second fight was pretty interesting. I managed again to take down my opponent, but could capitalize from that position. At one I had a tight omoplata position, but wasn't flexible enough to submit him. Even worse my knee cracked a bit, so I was forced to drop my advantage and tried to regroup. Although I was close from finishing my opponent, he was tough and survived it all. So this was another draw and by this my participation ended.
All images by pictures.enrik.lu so thanks :)
Again one of the tight positions, which I couldn't capitalize ;-/

 

At one point I would agree with the system, that if everyone in the group makes draw then everyone should be dropped, but then I disagree by making groups of three people instead of 5. Just because traveling 350 km for couple of fights with 5 minute limit and then being dropped by two draws sounds like an absurd.

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