After months of preparation and build up, Pedro Sauer Brazilian Jiu Jitsu Association 2^nd Degree Black Belt Mike Diaz came to Laurence Sandum’s Black Belt Martial Arts Academy in Chelmsford in May 2013, for his first ever visit to the UK.

The weekend of seminars began at Dave Birkett’s club, Dartford BJJ. The session focused mainly on submissions, starting from an arm wrap in guard position, before then moving on to an informal Q&A session.

Saturday’s sessions focused on the PSBJJA White to Blue Belt in preparation for the impending testing on Sunday morning. Mike was keen to give points of fine tuning to make the techniques even more effective.

After the preparation of Saturday, Sunday started out with assessment; with some people, including myself, testing for Blue Belt and others testing for stripes on their White Belts. After a lengthy and thorough three and a half hours, we were done; I am pleased to say that everyone who tested was successful!

Sunday afternoon’s session again took the format of a Q&A session, where attendees had the chance to ask Mike how he might deal with a particular position or problem they were having.

A huge thank you to Mike for travelling across the Atlantic and leaving his own full time martial arts academy in Park City, Utah, USA.

A final thank you must be made to Guro Laurence Sandum. His hard work, much of which is behind the scenes to most, means that we have the opportunity to train with the best of the best, so close to home!

When I first found out that Royce Gracie was giving a seminar locally in April, I knew that I had to get involved.

Hosting the UFC legend, was Gracie Jiu Jitsu Brown Belt Jon Hegan, at his academy in Upminster.

The seminar began with three techniques from the Gracie self defence syllabus:

1. Defending a walking single choke, with a straight arm lock
2. Defending a walking double choke, with a hip throw
3. Defending a chest push with a wrist compression

Whilst drilling these techniques, Master Royce made sure to give humorous and easy to remember teaching points.

The second half of the session focused on four follow ups to an open guard variation:

1. Using a triangle choke if the opponent surged forward
2. Lowering and again triangle choking an opponent that stands up with poor posture
3. Using a tripod sweep against an opponent who stands up and keeps their weight back
4. Taking the back of an opponent that controls the leg and starts to walk past the guard

The seminar was well attended, with people travelling from a number of clubs all across the UK, including seven from our own BJJ club in Chelmsford.

Thanks to Master Royce, for travelling to the UK to give such an inspiring session, and to Jon Hegan for hosting him.

The first weekend in April saw me training once again with Gracie Jiu Jitsu Black Belt Dave Birkett at Laurence Sandum‘s Black Belt Martial Arts Academy in Chelmsford.

Throughout the three hour session, Dave worked through some scenarios, starting from the beginning of an altercation all the way through to a controlled nullifying of any threat.

Joining regular seminar attendees were members of Westcoast BJJ in Wales, as well as some students from Dave’s own club, Dartford BJJ in Kent. It was great to meet all these guys and I will hopefully get the chance to train with them all again soon.

Thanks to Dave, for giving such an excellent session. And to his student Danny Suman, for giving me some particular help with escaping the knee on belly position.

Thanks also to Guro Laurence Sandum, without who we would not be having such high quality Brazilian Jiu Jitsu in Chelmsford.

My training in March got off to a bang when I again got to train with Gracie Jiu Jitsu Black Belt Dave Birkett at Laurence Sandum‘s Black Belt Martial Arts Academy in Chelmsford.

Over the course of three hours, Dave took me and the other participants through a variety of headlock defences; first some standing variations, then on the ground.

Thanks to Dave, and Wayne Rowlands who came to help out, for travelling to Chelmsford to give the session. I for one learnt a lot from it and am super excited for Dave’s next visit to the academy in April.

I would also like to say thank you to Guro Laurence Sandum for organising the afternoon happen; making sure we have top quality Brazilian Jiu Jitsu in Chelmsford.

The seemingly never ending winter had a brief respite in February 2013, when Sifu Francis Fong returned to Laurence Sandum’s Black Belt Martial Arts Academy in Chelmsford, for his second ever visit to the UK.

Sifu Fong delivered six sessions over his four day visit, for the most part focusing on Wing Chun, with some time given to Jun Fan Gung Fu.

After my experience of training with Sifu Fong during his last UK visit at the end of 2011, I knew that this seminar was an absolute must to attend and was super excited for it.

Yet again, I was absolutely blown away by the whole experience; walking away with not only some new drills to master and points to incorporate, but massively inspired to continue my martial arts journey.

Travelling from Sifu Fong’s own full time martial arts academy in Johns Creek, Georgia, USA for the seminar was Sihing Kevin ‘Kev Kev’ Lee. An inspiration in his own right, Sihing Kevin exemplifies the Jeet Kune Do (JKD) mindset, selecting his own personal blend from a whole host of arts that he trains in, including Wing Chun, Jun Fan Gung Fu, Kali, Brazilian Jiu Jitsu, Muay Thai, and Combat Submission Wrestling (CSW).

I cannot wait for the date of the next Sifu Fong UK seminar to be announced; I can guarantee my name will be first on the list when it does!

I would like to thank Sifu Fong for travelling across the Atlantic to deliver another outstanding weekend of information; every person I have spoken to that attended, from raw beginner to experienced martial artist, walked away with masses of things they can use in their own training.

Finally, as ever, I would like to give special thanks to Guro Laurence Sandum for his hard work, time and effort he puts into this and every seminar that he hosts, without which, they would not happen!

 After a reasonably early start (for a Sunday) and braving a particularly treacherous and snowy A12, a group of friends and  I arrived in Ipswich for a seminar that promised to deliver a way of eating and living that would mean I would have to ‘Never Diet Again.’

The free seminar, given by Ben Coomber of Body Type Nutrition, in conjunction with Ben Gray of Ipswich Fitness gave basic and easy to implement strategies for living more awesomely, without the need to ‘go on a diet’.

As I have followed Ben Coomber’s work on Facebook and Twitter, and via his Podcast for a while now, I was already aware of what his recommendations might be. Personally, what really struck me at the seminar was Ben’s commitment and desire to help people.

As a bonus for attending the seminar, I was given early access to an eBook that the two Bens had put together as a no-BS how-to guide to accompany the seminar. The eBook is now on general release and is available for free HERE. I can’t recommend you download it enough!

After the seminar was over, myself and a few others were invited to a Geek Lunch with Ben Coomber, at the local Nando’s (Did I say that I liked chicken…). It was great to have a more personal chat and ask some more in-depth nutrition related questions.

Thanks to Ben and Ben for the putting on the seminar and releasing the eBook.

Finally a big thank you to Peter Squire for the ice road driving.

January 2013 started with a bang (and a sweep) for me when I attended the Gracie Jiu Jitsu Self Defence seminar, given by Jon Hegan at Laurence Sandum‘s Black Belt Martial Arts Academy in Chelmsford.

Brown Belt Jon Hegan took time in the session to go through some of the self defence syllabus from GJJ; techniques that he had been training in USA with Royce Gracie just a few weeks before.

Also in attendance was Mark Phillips, himself a brown belt, who I was lucky enough to partner up with for most of the session. It was a great opportunity to have some of the finer points of the moves explained to me.

Thanks to Jon for giving the seminar and Mark for training with me.

As with all the great seminars that he hosts, I need to also thank Laurence for continually striving to provide such high quality martial art instruction right on my doorstep!

Hang on a minute? 27 Hours?

That’s right; I hadn’t eaten in over a day. Why? How did I get to this point? Before I begin, let’s rewind some.

I detest ready meals; I really detest everything about them. Primarily because the ‘manufacturers’ use the lowest cost ingredients they can get away with, regardless of their effect on health. Therefore Aeroplane food is out for me.

So, with a vacation on the cards and a ten hour flight to get there; what to do? Any ‘real’ food is going to be super tricky to explain, if not confiscated at security.

Sometime earlier in the year, I had stumbled across the concept of Intermittent Fasting, or IF. Put simply, taking a break from eating. You can find a good introduction, by Dr John Berardi here.

Can I go a day without eating?

I mean really, can I? I can’t remember a time in my 30-plus years where I’ve gone a day without eating. That in itself intrigued me; what happens if I don’t? Does the World end? Do I become a jibbering wreck? It was definitely time for a trial fast to find out.

As some of you may know, I like Chicken. If you weren’t aware, I like chicken A LOT…

Maybe it’s purely psychological, but nothing relaxes me more than chowing down on a chicken carcass, chatting with friends and family. Lucky then that Nando’s have expanded operations in the UK over the past few years.

After we decided to travel to Gatwick and stay in a hotel nearer the night before the flight, the next decision was what we should eat for dinner. When I say decision, I mean convince my wife to go to Nando’s again.

A chicken and a half later (got to love that loyalty card) and the trial fast had begun. I was staring down the barrels of non-eating for a day; peering into an unknown abyss.

But, what happens if it all goes wrong?

Still doubting my ability to see the day through, I began forming contingency plans; maybe I could get some nuts after check in? Is airplane food really that bad after all?

After having a stern word with myself, I made the promise to myself to get through the day. If it worked, I may do it again. If it didn’t, I’d scrub IF out of my tool box of nutrition protocols.

Sleeping is easy

We all fast. Every night we fast whilst we sleep. Hence, the term Breakfast for our first meal of the day.

Waking up wasn’t so easy. The usual zombified shuffle to the kitchen to prepare some sustenance is a hard habit to break; the feed me instinct was switched on. But that’s what it is I suppose; a habit or an instinct. After a shower, black coffee and a bus journey to the terminal, the hunger pang strangely disappeared.

What is that feeling in my stomach?

This made me think; if that feeling of hunger can come and go, maybe it’s not so desperate that I down tools with whatever I am doing and eat. Maybe it’s more of a psychological hunger cue, as opposed to a physiological one. Interesting.

After checking in and going through security, the usual rush to find something to fill my face with wasn’t there. Instead my wife and I sat and relaxed with another black coffee.

Roll up, roll up, come and take a ride on the sugar rollercoaster…

It’s amazing what you see when you take a second to look. Sitting on the plane, it hit me just how strapped into the sugar rollercoaster most of the fliers were. The high of the duty free chocolates; then the crash back down. Brought back up for another go with the high of the starchy in-flight ‘meal’ chased down with a bread roll, and onto another crash. This cycle went on for the remainder of the flight.

So, what did I learn?

So back to the Mexican Riviera… Sitting and reflecting whilst eating my break fast meal, I began to ponder what I had learnt from this experiment and what I will take away from it:

• A state of emergency need not be declared if I do not eat every couple of hours
• The mental feeling of hunger is not the same as actual physical hunger
• Hunger comes in waves; it doesn’t accumulate
• I feel I appreciate hunger and food. And how privileged I am to be able to eat healthily and regularly
• This 24 hour fast seemed to agree with me and I’ll look into purported health benefits and use it again in the future
• Is Intermittent Fasting for everybody? Maybe not, but after a year or so of teaching my body to use fat as an energy source, I found the fast quite easy
• Why is there not more public knowledge of IF? Is it because there is no ‘product ‘ to sell? It is simply a method of occasional deletion.

Intermittent Fasting Shout Outs

Finally, I’d like to give a shout out to some people that have helped me wrap my head around Intermittent Fasting and how to ‘Survive an Airplane Disaster’

Friday 19th October 2012 saw the return of Master Tutor Michael Powell, to give a Yoga and shiatsu seminar at Laurence Sandum’s Black Belt Martial Arts Academy in Chelmsford.

The first half of the seminar focused on Yoga. After starting with some movement drills to warm up, Michael worked seminar participants through variations of the ‘Sun Salutation’ to further warm us. After this, Michael moved on to a selection of standing, seated and inverted poses; as ever Michael took the time to demonstrate correct form and progressions to teach to those not capable of the full position.

The second half of the session focused on Shiatsu, particularly focusing on calf and shoulder work. As ever, the pace and nature of the session left me very relaxed.

Thanks to Michael for travelling to the academy to give this awesome seminar.

Thanks, as always to Guro Laurence Sandum for making these seminars happen!

Saturday 6th October 2012 saw Laurence Sandum’s Black Belt Martial Arts Academy in Chelmsford, host another of the regular UK MASDA Kickboxing Black Belt gradings held there.

The grading was a day long assessment, starting at 10am, with candidates first demonstrating a selection of randomly picked syllabus material.

At noon, the candidates were assessed on their ‘self defence’ techniques; having to demonstrate and teach both two empty hand defences and two weapon defences.

After an hour lunch break, the afternoon session began with sparring. This began with ‘specialised sparring’ where only certain limbs or strikes could be used. The sparring rounded out with general sparring.

Candidates aptitude to learn new material was then tested by working on some brand new drills and combinations.

The final section of the day took the form of a gruelling fitness test, where physical and mental limits were pushed.

I am happy to say that after nearly twenty years of training in Kickboxing, I passed my 3rd degree Black Belt.

I would also like to congratulate two of my close friends, Peter Squire and Dave Mecham for successfully testing for their 2nd degree Black Belts; they are two of the most committed and determined martial artists that know.

Successfully passing their 1st degree Black Belts were Graham Young and Debbie Lysaght. This is Graham’s second Black Belt grading this year; he is a true success story from the Academy. Debbie is the first person that I have trained from White through to Black Belt; this successful rank up therefore represents a big milestone for us both.

As ever, I have to thank Guro Laurence Sandum for his help, support and coaching that has been fundamental in my development as a martial artist.