Will / Machado Brazilian Jiu Jitsu Australasia

THIS YEAR WE ARE PROVIDING CASH PRIZES FOR OUR BLACK BELT DIVISION!
That’s right – this year we are offering cash incentives to show our appreciation for the achievements our Black Belts have made …
1st PRIZE: $1000
2nd PRIZE: $500
3rd PRIZE: $250

So Black Belts – send in your entry forms within the week to secure your spot in the competition!
best wishes – John Will

We have three new T-shirts available at this years competition: The Smart Tee
Here are a few pics of the front and back art … We have 90 of each, so make sure you grab what you need early (ON THE DAY) … I predict they will
go fast!
See everyone at the Gathering …
Respectfully
John Will

The SMART tee

The PRODIGY tee

The GENIUS tee

Our Black Belt and god friend Brian Johnson of Seattle in northwest of USA has done it again. He has submitted every one of his opponents in the recent Abu Dhabi qualifiers. This is a feat that he seems to be able to repeat ‘at will’. He has done it several times already, dominating and submitted all of his opponents in the North American grappling Association championships …

As well as a swag of other competitions he has entered. Brian is such a nice guy – a wonderful example of Black belt excellence and a great human being as well. If anyone ever has the chance to make a visit to the Pacific Northwest of the USA – do not forego the opportunity of calling in to the Northwest Jiu Jitsu Academy and spend some time with Brian.
Congratulations once again Brian. Great job,
JBW

Here’s a link to see some of his fights in the Abu Dhabi qualifiers:
http://www.threeharmonies.blogspot.com/

I am just about to leave for the airport – on my way to Bangkok.
With the PAD (peoples alliance for democracy) rebels having taken over the BAngkok airport, all my arranged flights have been cancelled. In fact, the country sits poised for what could evolve into a military coup.
When my travel agent told me it was impossible to get there – I had to come up with a scheme of my own. A friend (and student of mine) Craig Moorfoot, is in the same boat as I am – and so we have decided to attck the problem together. We will fly into MAlaysia, catch a flight tomorrow night to Phuket, hire a car and do the radical ten hour drive through the hills and up the peninsula to Bangkok. That’s the plan in any case. Forty eight hours from now – all being well – I’ll post again. I am sure there will be problems to solve and hurdles to overcome before then. But that’s life – and we are problem-solving beings; so hopefully it will all work out. I need to be in Bangkok to keep an appointment on monday at lunchtime – we shall see.
Be well – gotta run.
JBW

Just finished the seminar in Napier at Shane Cox’s school. We had a blast going through a load of new open guard concepts, some high-crotch takedown principles and some new angles to take the back. At session’s end, the night was topped off with two new purple belts being awarded – one to Gareth Burke and the other to Daffydd Sweatman – as well as a few new blue belts; among them, Shane’s eldest son, Josh! After pics were taken and goodbyes all done, we headed home to Shane’s place for lovely dinner cooked up by Sue Cox (my lovely hostess) before hitting the sack.
After a great breakfast down at the waterfront with Shan, Phil and I began our four hour drive back up to Hamilton (thanks again Phil) in time to conduct an MMA seminar for Steve Wallace’s Incorporated Martial Arts group. This was my first time at Steve’s school, and what a nice bunch they are there. Sadly, Steve himself was away on a trip to Nepal – I am sorry to have missed him – in any case, we still managed to have a blast with the chief instructor, Reid, coming up from Taupo for the session. I look forward to sharing more mat-time with IMA in the new year.
The next morning, I headed to Wellington, where long time friend and Black Belt Geoff Grant picked me up from the airport. We had lunch at one of our cheap and nasty (but favourite) haunts. After heading back to Geoff’s place to jam my somewhat dirty Gi in the washing machine, we made our way down to Mt Victoria Dojo where I took a kids class for Kyokushin Instructors Chris and Jill Gower. Forty kids and an hour and a half later, I kicked off with an MMA class for the Kyokushin adults. We worked on Thai head control, counters, escapes and set-ups for the high-crotch takedown. A great session. That ended at 7:45pm and so I had 15 minutes to eat some protein and hydrate before the 8pm BJJ class were good to go. The mat, as usual, was totally packed – and our advanced BJJ session finished up around 10:30pm. After goodbyes were said, it was back to my hotel and four hours sleep before heading back to the airport at 4:30am. By 8am I was back in Australia where I was picked up at the airport by Melissa and Felix (wife and son).
I was supposed to be on the 2:30pm flight to Bangkok today, but as it turned out, my flight is cancelled. A mass of rebels have taken over the Bangkok International Airport and so all flights into Bangkok have been cancelled. I am trying for Friday or Saturday at this point – so it’s all a bit up in the air (no pun intended) at this point.
I best get out there and buy a couple of red and yellow T-shirts (what the rebels and Government group are wearing) just in case I need to blend in – in a hurry.
Home tonight with my family – what a bonus! More from Bangkok – if all goes to plan.
JBW

Here in New Zealand right now. Visiting good friends and conducting my last series of seminars for the year. Geoff Aitkens fantastic new school in Christchurch is very likey the biggest school in New Zealand. he and leonie have done an absolutely remarkable job in growing their school over the past two years. What an amazing accomplishment. I am in awe of their efforts.
After leaving Geoff’s place, I headed to Auckland to do a full days training for Ground Control, run by Mike Fooks and Glenn tarrant. We did an MMA session for the first two and a hlaf hours, had a quick bite and then did a solid 2 and a half hour BJJ session. These guys (and gals) are totally hard-core! Again, we conducted those sessions in the brand new Ground Control Academy – love the smell of new mats in the morning!
I write this blog in HAmilton, after teaching for Karl Norton this morning in Auckland and Phil beale in Hamilton this afternoon. Karl has started a dedicated BJJ class now and numbers are growing – I am excited to see how well it will grow over the next 12 months; they have a very solid core of starters.Phil in Hamilton is a very nice guy; his group is also growing well, with their first Hamilton-grown blue belt being awarded the rank today – congratulations Earle. Nice to see Travis playing such an active and important role in the growth of the Hamilton club as well. Nice to see so much of you this weekend Trav!
Tomorrow morning (not that far away), Phil is driving me down to see my friend Shane Cox in Napier. We always have a blast there – I can’t wait.
Best go – time to call my family – and check a few e-mails.
Back on in a day or two – before I head to Bangkok for some Muay Thai training.
Best wishes,
JBW

Here is a very powerful method (one that I often employ as a professional coach) of identifying a starting point to improving someones ‘game’. I developed this diagnostic tool about 15 years ago, and it has helped me help others ever since.
HERE’S WHY IT WORKS:
Almost in every case a student is exposed to and learns BJJ techniques in a very ‘unbalanced’ way. For example, they may know 10 ttacks form side control, 12 sweeps from the guard – but not know one thing about escaping the ‘north-south’ position. Another way of putting this is that they may have a blue or purple belt level of skill in some areas of their game but a white belt level of skill i other areas. obviously, this is not ideal. My diagnostic model simply highlights those areas of the game where we have weakness and allows us to address them and make our game more well-rounded.
HERE’S HOW IT WORKS:
We make a chart that highlights all of the main positions that occur during grappling. Firstly, for each and every one of those positions, we must assign a technique that we can employ with no hesitation. These techniques we call ‘IA’s’ – or Immediate Actions. In short a students ‘game’ is determined by the IA’s he or she assigns to each position.
Secondly, there must be three IA’s assigned to each position – our preferred ATTACK – our preferred TRANSITION – and our preferred ESCAPE.
The ATTACK – should be the attack we feel most confident about.
The TRANSITION – if we are losing our position we should have exit strategy in place. Ie: where are we transitioning to if we are losing our position.
The ESCAPE – if we are the one’s caught in the position (eg: under the mount, etc) wich is our favourite escape.
The important thing here is that each of these Immediate Actions – should be just that ‘IMMEDIATE’! it is important that we access them right away and don’t find ourselves scratching our heads and trying to decide which technique to use – when under pressure. In the high-end military and law enforcement world for example – they use the Immediate Action strategy for many situations that require a learned and appropriate response under pressure. The firearm jams – we ‘drop-tap-tap-rack’. IA’s save lives!
I am very confident that everyone will find my Diagnostics Model to be very useful.

CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD MY GAME-DIAGNOSTICS TOOL >>

I suppose most of you have heard of the old Monkey Trap, wherein the Monkey reaches into the Gourd to pull out the banana but can’t take his hand out without letting the banana go – end result, he is still stuck there two or three days after first reaching in to extract his delicious treat.
What makes this so interesting to me is (as always) why it works. I am almost certain it goes like this …. the monkey is looking for a one-step solution to a two-part problem.
To remove his hand, he needs to complete step one: let go of the banana before moving on to step two: pulling his hand out. His brain seeks a one-step solution – which doesn’t exist – and so he can’t make his escape.
The exact same principle exists within the landscape of Brazilian Jiu Jitsu.
Escaping a tight ’side control’ for example, almost certainly requires a multi-step solution – but our first (natural) instinct is to seek a one-step solution. Almost always, a one-step solution does not exist – and we remain stuck the side control.
Once we get our heads around the fact that the answer lies in the multi-step approach – things start to look a little better.
Another way I like to explain this idea is by asking students if they think they can pick up a woollen sweater and rip it in half – pretty difficult. But by finding the right thread, it may be very possible to start pulling and eventually unravel the whole thing. This idea is key to developing effective escapes. We should begin, not by trying to blast out in one big move – but by looking for the right thread that will begin to unravel the opponents position.
if we are ‘deep in it’ – then it will almost always take us a series of steps to dig ourselves out. if we are only a little way in trouble, then the process of getting out may indeed be a single-step process.
Deep in – start digging – small steps – find the thread.
Hope this helps,
JBW

Although I harbor a deep love of things natural, wilderness adventures, etc – I have to admit, I also love technology and the opportunities it brings.
This week, for instance, I taught three ‘remote classes’ to students living in different time zones – something, that a few years ago, would have been an impossibility.
All we needed to make it all happen was a computer at each end with a camera.
At my end – I use my Apple Mac laptop, all of which come standard with a camera built into the screen and i-chat software. An internet connection completes the picture and we are all good-t0-go. My students, usually with the same kind of set-up, just plonk their computers on the mat where they are ready to go with their training partner. The only pre-requisite for this arrangement to be a success, is that the students must be able to respond well to verbal instructions – and although that sounds easy, it isn’t an arrangement that suits everyone. They must also be appreciative of detailed instruction that really helps.
This kind of teaching is actually a little harder than me getting on the mat with the student in person – as it requires an almost endless stream of conversation – fairly taxing after 45 minutes or so. But we get great results – and the fact that people can be trained up technically, despite the hassle of great distances, is really amazing.
Fifteen years ago, if I wanted learn something I didn’t know anything about, I had to spend thousands of dollars, getting on a plane and traveling, being away fro work and family to achieve my goals – now, that is no longer an absolute necessity.
technology has really made the world mat – a smaller place.
JBW

The past week has been a very taxing one for myself and my family. As the ‘new age’ types would put it – ‘we have had a few challenges’ this past week. That, coupled with a super-hectic seminar schedule on the weekend, followed by my usual swag of private classes and lessons this week, has left me feeling in need of a holiday. But the reality is that I have a couple of classes to teach only an hour or so from now – and for me personally, a big part of being a martial artist, is finding the wil to take another step forward when I feel like lying down.
Paradoxicaly, no matter how I feel, once I step onto the mat, I seem to rally the energy to complete the task ahead. That’s the funny thing about ‘energy’ – when you put out the effort, and the sweat starts flowing, you always feel better for doing so.
It seems that there is a universal law at play here – the more you give, the more you receive – the more you put in, the more you get out. Training in the martial arts has always been an uplifting and highly positive experience for me – one that always leaves more fully charged for having participated. Every day I train – is simply a better day.
When in doubt – simply step onto the mat.
JBW