Top 3 Knee Stability Exercises for BJJ/MMA

Top 3 Knee Stability Exercises for BJJ/MMA

Hey guys, so I decided to put together a video to help out my fellow BJJ players to improve their knee stability, balance and stay knee injury free.

In this video I first establish the need for proper knee stability in BJJ by sharing some clips of how the top level fighter’s game’s benefit from it and then share my top 3 exercises that you can perform at home to improve your balance.

P.S. the blog has moved to a new domain! Please go to IMBJJ.com and subscribe!

Checkmat Team BBQ at the Favela Cantagalo

Ever wonder how a BBQ/party in a Favela in Rio would look like? Well this Saturday after finishing up the morning BJJ session the entire Fightzone/Checkmat team headed up to the Favela Cantagalo to celebrate Philipe’s birthday by having a big BBQ. A lot of the guys from the team are from Cantagalo and came up through Ricardo’s BJJ social project so I’ve actually been up there quite a lot..

Antonio, one of the instructors over at the project, was nice enough to host the party on his rooftop. Antonio is a super nice guy and also the father of two ridiculously talented kids, “the Gomes Brothers” who you will definitely hear about in the future!

I hope you guys enjoy this entry and feel free to share!

 

The Checkmat Rio team

My First BJJ Class

Hey guys, this post is a follow up from the “How the Journey Began” blog post. In This blog entry I talk about trying to find a place for the first time in Bangkok and the difficulties that come along with it. I also share how the first BJJ class I had ever attended felt like and offer a formal apology to all my early training partners!

I hope you enjoy!

Like finding a needle in a haystack

So a couple of days after receiving the info on where to train from Zohan I decided to go check out BKK/BJJ. It was at the end of September and around the end of the rainy season in Thailand. Since I had been in Thailand for only about a week at the time and I didn’t really know what to expect as far as how long it would take me to arrive somewhere for the first time. I must explain that Bangkok isn’t exactly the easiest city to navigate it. There are a lot of one way streets, the buildings aren’t always numbered and at times it can be a real mess.

I wanted to give myself a chunk of spare time so that I can get there early and show respect to the instructor and introduce myself, but when I walked out of my apartment there was a pretty intense monsoon going on and apparently Thai cab drivers prefer to nap in their cabs rather than take a passenger when it rains because of the traffic. So after trying to catch a cab for 15 minutes and getting completely soaked in the process one cab driver agreed to take me and after a long traffic congested ride (and a couple stops to check if we were at the right place or not) I was finally at the gym! I thanked the cab driver while feeling very proud and cultured that I knew how to say thanks in Thai and went inside.

I Train UFC!

When I walked into the gym I was greeted at the reception by a pretty Asian American girl who told me that she was also the yoga instructor at the gym (This was also the day that I learned that Asian people can get upset if by accident you think they are from a different country in Asia then they are actually from. Or of Thai decent instead of Korean decent in this case…)

She helped me find a gi I could use for the day and I rushed onto the mat. Class had already started fifteen minutes ago and I was immediately paired with a green belt to start pummeling. He said his name was Lorne and asked what was mine, I said Itamar to which he surprisingly responded in Hebrew “Ohh you’re Israeli!”. After we exchanged a couple niceties there was a booming voice from behind us yelling “shalom, shalom! Get to work!.” Those where the first words I heard from Professor Adam Kayoom. lol.
During the class we worked on x guard sweeps and although I didn’t really know what a regular guard was I felt like I understood the specific things he showed and how they manipulated joints and worked. We sparred at the end of class and I had a blast. I didn’t really know what to do so I just figured I would compensate for it with a ton of aggression and power (I’m around 6’1″ and 90 kilos). Don’t you love newbies that are like that?! I did have some success and was able to catch two other white belts with really sloppy rear naked chokes which I improvised from what I saw in UFC matches. I know, I know! I was definitely that guy at the start. To everyone, you may consider this my formal apology. Sorry!
After the class ended I talked with Professor Adam a bit, bought a gi and signed up for three months!
BKK/BJJ was where I spent my first 6 months of training and is where my journey began. That first class will always be a found and special memory for me. It’s where without me realizing it my life started to change…

Anyone else have found memories of their first class? Can you still remember the feel and experience of the first time you stepped on the mats?

Professor Adam and I after a No-Gi Class

“Staycation” in Rio – Muscle beach and Acai

This week I did my best to enjoy what Rio has to offer besides BJJ. I was letting my knee heal and decided to have myself a little “Staycation” in Rio and just enjoy myself a little. In this blog post I talk about how I spent the past week and show you guys the best place to get Acai in the city and Rio’s caveman version of muscle beach.

I also got to go to the Copa De Podio yesterday which was an awesome experience. I’ll be making a post about it soon, but right now it’s time to hit the mats!

Hope you guys enjoy!

Risk Vs. Reward – The IBJJF Brasileiros

How much are you willing to risk in order to achieve a goal?

That was the question I was faced with this past week as the IBJJF Brazilian Nationals (Brasileiros) were approaching and I was trying to battle through a knee injury. Like I stated previously on the blog, my two primary competition goals this year were to win the Brasileiros and the World championships so the thought of having to pull out of this competition was killing me.

In this video I talk about my decision and how I came to it (and also give you guys a glimpse of how the beach in Ipanema looks likes).

Honestly though, I’m still a little on the fence in regards to the decision that I made and I’m very interested to hear if any of you have been in a similar situation. What did you end up doing and in hindsight are you happy with the decision you made? Please leave a comment  and share your experience…

I also want to say thanks to everyone for all the support on the Itamar Marani BJJ Blog Facbook page, I really appreciate it.

 

 

How The Journey Began

Hey guys! For a change of pace I’ve decided to publish a written post instead of a video.

Before I decided to go ahead with the video format for the blog I wrote down a bunch of entries about the beginning of my BJJ journey. I wrote about my first training session, my first competitions and just my general experiences from living in Bangkok and Israel back then.

In this post I give a bit of background as to how my martial arts journey began as a set up for the next entries. Hope you enjoy it!

How The Journey Began

I began doing martial arts pretty early on. I grew up in Jerusalem and at age 5 I started doing karate, but after two years my family moved to the United States and since there wasn’t a karate school in our area my parents enrolled me in judo. As a kid I had ADHD and my mother knew that the structure of a martial arts class would do me good. I’m also pretty sure she wasn’t exactly devastated by the thought that I might come home tired afterwards.

 Judo was an instant hit. I did my first “belt promotion” tournament after only two weeks of training and ended up doing so well I was promoted to orange belt (skipped over yellow belt)! I went on to be a green belt, but the amount of time I had to wait in between matches during tournaments drove my ADD nuts and I eventually quit Judo in favor of basketball. I didn’t really touch martial arts again until the army.

During the army we did a lot of Krav Maga in my unit and I was always drawn to it even though it was supposed to be their way of breaking us down. I ended up getting injured really bad during one Krav Maga session and I dislocated my left shoulder. This had a very negative effect on the rest of my service, but I still loved the aggressiveness and competition that was involved in martial arts and fighting.

After the army I went into the air marshal service and that’s truly where my martial arts career began. The training for the job was a rigorous three months course of around 3 hours of Krav Maga a day as well as other physical elements (which I will not go into for obvious reasons). I had a head instructor who was very very big on aggressiveness and he wanted to sign off on people who first and foremost had “the heart of a fighter”. I really agreed with his way of thought and enjoyed the Krav Maga part of the course. This led me to continue with it after I had finished the course and started working as an air marshal. I would go to the Shabak’s (the Israeli version of the FBI and where the training and certification of air marshals is conducted) training facility every Friday to do a kind of Krav Maga/MMA hybrid class with the Krav Maga instructors and others who had a passion for it like me. It was almost a 100% stand up as the Krav Maga philosophy states that u never want to be on the ground in a street fight (The belief is that there might be multiple opponents so you never want to lower your head to where it could be kicked). I was hooked…

I ended up moving to Mumbai for work after a little more then a year of being an air marshal and was going crazy not having anywhere or anyone to train there with there. My time in Mumbai wasn’t much fun. It was just a very difficult place to live and my stomach didn’t exactly agree with the local cuisine  After about three months there an instructor from the service came to train us and me and him clicked… lets call this instructor Zohan (an inside joke some might get 😉 )… Zohan saw my interest in MMA and would later on introduce me to BJJ!

After India I moved immediately to Bangkok, Thailand, or in other words” the land of Muay Thai”! I was thrilled to say the least! When I arrived I gave Zohan a call and asked him to refer me to some Muay Thai gyms there. He told me to go to Giti’s gym and I’ll never forget the directions he gave me “get off at the metro stop, go left and start following the sounds of heavy bags being smacked and people yelling”. Sure enough it worked. 😀

He also told me I should start doing BJJ and recommended a place called BKKBJJ. I had never done any ground work, but like anyone who’d ever watched the  UFC I understood how effective it could be.I went to check the place out and as you may have guessed that’s where my BJJ journey began…

The Follow up to this post is about the difficulty of trying to navigate to a BJJ academy in a city like Bangkok for the first time and my first training session there. If you guys enjoyed it and want me to publish the next entry, “I Train UFC”, let me know!

Copa Do Brasil – The Process Continues…

So as those of you who are following the “Itamar Marani BJJ” Facebook page know, I competed in the “Copa Do Brasil” last week and things didn’t go so well. This is a post about the competition itself and how things were in the immediate aftermath.

Oddly enough I really enjoyed making this video and I’m really looking forward to making the next one where I’ll share my insights from this experience with you guys.

On a side note it’s really nice to receive all these messages of support from everyone and I just wanted to say thanks!

Hope you enjoy!

Daily nutrition + Ricardo’s 3 keys to victory

So it’s a rainy Friday here in Rio and I’m not training as I have a competition tomorrow. I was a little bored and also had one of my friends from back home ask when I’ll be doing the next entry so I figured I might as well get to it…

On this entry I share with you guys what I eat in order to be able to train at this intensity as well as master Ricardo’s insights after coming back from the Pan Ams last month.

Hope you enjoy!

P.S. If anyone out there is interested in me doing an entry where I explain a certain aspect of nutrition let me know and I’ll be happy to do it.

Guest Post – How to tape your fingers for BJJ and Judo

For a little change of pace I’m going to share a video done by someone else. Every once in a while I plann on sharing content that isn’t mine as long as I believe that it’s worthwhile either for BJJ or just life in general. If anyone ever wants to do a guest spot let me know!

My good friend, Dan Simmler, was nice enough to make a video explaining how to properly tape your fingers for BJJ and judo. I’ve started to tape my fingers like this and others in my academy have followed suit. It’s great because it protects the joints but still allows your finger to bend properly. I definitely recommend it.

Dan is a black belt in BJJ, and has trained extensively in Sambo and Judo. He is also the head coach of the Abusado Team in Worcester, MS.

Check out his blog at WWW.DANSIMMLER.COM.

The Rio De Janeiro State Championships

Hey guys, sorry for not posting this past weekend but things were a little crazy. I was able to finally find an apartment and move in while also competing on Sunday. I also started a little blog fan page at www.facebook.com/imbjj that I update daily with cool photos, videos and such…

Anyway here’s the next episode “The Rio De Janeiro State Championships”.  Hope you guys enjoy it!

P.S. I’ve been getting a couple requests for subjects that people want me to do an episode about and I plan on doing most of them fairly soon. So if any of you guys have a request I’d be happy to hear it!