While some of the Kids Grappling Competition team was in California for the Kids Pan, the rest of the Crazy 88 children martial artists where enjoying a fun joint training session with our neighbors from Severna Park – Ivey League Mixed Martial Arts.  Coach Teresa Russin, Jon Delbrugge, and Cathy Tran-Zwanetz ran a great No Gi practice where the children where able to roll with some unfamiliar partners and get experience with different styles.

Best wishes to the team tomorrow as it competes at the Kids Pan Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu tournament.

A few of the Next Generation of Martial Arts Champions!

Crazy 88 Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu just released an app! The description is below (please excuse the crazy writeup LOL!)!

“The official App of Crazy 88 Brazilian Jiu Jitsu – Baltimore Mixed Martial Arts Gym. Designed for your ultimate success at Mixed Martial Arts is our MMA Facility in Elkridge, Maryland. Once you step into our training facility, you’ll soon realize that this is no ordinary mixed martial arts academy, but is something truly unique. You’ll see for yourself why everyone says that we have “World Class Training Secrets.”
No matter what your goal of learning mixed martial arts may be, one thing is for sure, Julius Park remains committed in his endeavor to help everyone experience the multiple benefits of learning mixed martial arts. And you’ll find that his mixed martial arts, kids MMA, and Women’s Only Bootcamp academy in Maryland is truly reflective of his personality, beliefs and spirit.”

The download link is below…

https://market.android.com/details?id=com.app_crazy88.layout&feature=search_result#?t=W251bGwsMSwyLDEsImNvbS5hcHBfY3Jhenk4OC5sYXlvdXQiXQ..

Make sure to download the new Crazy 88 Droid App!

Stay up to date with the latest news and upcoming events from Crazy 88.

Wilson covered No Gi Guard Passing along with other aspects of MMA Grappling during his seminar.

Wilson is 17-4 in professional MMA competition. He was Elite XC’s 140 pound world title holder and a Bellator Feather Weight tournament semi finalist. Wilson is coming off of a submission win in Brazil and is planning to eventually make the jump to the UFC’s new 135 pound division sometime soon. Wilson is pretty much a “hot prospect” in the sport of MMA and he was really eager to show a lot of the things that he currently uses in preparation for his fights and training. Not only is Wilson a seasoned Pro MMA fighter but he was also a Brown Belt World Champion and has competed at the black belt level in almost every major international BJJ tournament in the world.

Wilson spent time making sure all the Crazy 88 students got the little details that make BJJ work.

Wilson started off with a light warm up that focused on movement and breathing. The seminar started off with set ups to specific high percentage take downs for MMA accompanied by some finishing techniques. WIlson also showed some no gi variations of Judo throws that work extremely well in any type of non gi situation. On the mat the focus was on sweeps and passing the guard into dominant positions. Wilson has a style that works in virtually all three areas (gi, nogi and mma). He broke down his techniques in a very simplified manner so that everyone attending the seminar was able to conceptually understand each position.

Special thanks to Wilson Reis for coming down to Baltimore!

For everyone that knows who Wilson is and was not at the seminar…..YES, he did show the “Wilson Pass” and in a very detailed manner as well. He also showed some of his world famous half guard ”stuff” too. Wilson explained how his grappling based game has allowed him to really trust in his techniques because he has to use them in a lot of different situations. He also said he is working on a lot of new techniques in the Gi and cant wait to show everyone. The seminar was a hit and Crazy 88 looks forward to having him back soon!

Vanessa Griffin won Gold at her first competition.

Later that day, it was time for the adult divisions to start. On the women’s side, we had Lakita Patterson competing in the female blue belt division. Lakita has many of jiu jitsu competitions under her belt, so this was just another day in the office for her. She went out and did exactly how herself and everyone expected and took home the gold.

Lakita won her first Blue Belt competition as a Blue Belt (note: she won a few Blue Belt divisions as a White Belt)

For the men, Crazy 88 had multiple competitors. Jon Connelly was in another packed division and knew that he was going to have multiple matches. This was just the usual to Jon as he has made an appearance at a few jiu jitsu tournaments within the last year. Jon took bronze in this weight class and is ready to fix his mistakes to get ready for the rest of the jiu jitsu competition season. For 88’s blue belts, Devon Delbrugge and Fred Thomsen had to bump up to the purple belt division due to NAGA’s rules for competing in the expert no-gi division. Devon had 3 fights, one of which against the guy who had beat him in the no-gi division earlier that day. Devon pulled off a close win as the match was a sweep for sweep battle. His finals match was a close one as he lost by one advantage from a straight ankle lock. Fred also had multiple fights and one against an opponent whom Fred has fought once before. This match was in the finals of the purple belt cruiserweight division and against a tough opponent that Fred was ready for. For the second time, Fred had beaten his nemesis and took home the gold for crazy 88.

I told them, "Sorry ladies, I have a tournament to win in Lisbon!"

Our first stop would be in London for a few hours and then to Lisbon, Portugal. When we reached Heathrow, one of the biggest airports EVER, we took a train into Paddington station. From there we bought tickets to go to oxford circle. During the traffic at Paddington station, our group got split up into two. One of the groups got to walk around London and got to see some of the best of London, while the other group, which happened to be the one I was with, went to a nearby Starbucks and set up shop until it was time to head back to Heathrow.

Half the BJJ team ended up here...

...and half the team ended up at Starbucks...

After my first and crazy experience in London, it was time to go to Lisbon and get ready to fight the next day. I was up early in the morning around 10:15 Portugal time (5:15 EST) and had to get some good rest. I felt pretty good and not that affected from the five-hour time difference.

As the lead off man for Team Lloyd Irvin and Crazy 88, I was very ready and excited to compete. My first three matches all went about the same. I had won all 2-0 and scored the two points with a sweep. As expected, all my opponents were very strong and had good pressure, but since the team had been to this tournament multiple times, I knew exactly what to expect from my opponents. My first match however, my gi had ripped. It was said to be a freak accident since it happened during the first minute of the match and ripped in a really odd spot on my sleeve. After the first three matches, I had made it off the first page of my bracket. The wait in between my third and fourth match was very long, since they had to make a new page with all the remaining competitors. During the match I had scored two points again since the guy ran out of bounds when I was about to take him down. I made a very large mistake causing myself to lose the match by arm-bar with two minutes left in the match while I was up by two points. The feeling I had after I lost was the worst I have ever felt in my life. To come as close as I did to my goal and make a mistake is terrible.

One thing about Europeans you should know - they are hard to choke!

The only thing to do after that was to fix my mistakes and move on to the next tournament. Fortunately, there was a national team tournament that four team Lloyd Irvin members had joined for blue belt. As a team, we had four matches, I only had to fight 3 since I was fourth in the lineup and it was best out of 5. I won all three of my matches helping team U.S.A. to a gold medal in the team tournament. This was the end of the tournament for me and overall I had gone 5-1, but the one loss was more disappointing to me than the wins were exciting.

I told them, "I'm pretty sure there's a lot more to life than being really, really, ridiculously good looking. And I plan on finding out what that is. "

Before we were to head back to London, there was still one more day left, the black belts. As always, it was very fun to watch the black belts, since you can really see the great level of technique that is shown by the world-class grapplers. All the matches were exciting to me, especially Bernardo Faria v. Rodolfo Viera. This match is always very exciting to watch since Bernardo is coming closer and closer to beating Viera each fight, but yet has not done it. The match that they had in Lisbon was very close up until the last couple of minutes when Rodolfo passed Bernardo’s guard into mount. The venue was packed and going crazy at the time it happened. It was the most fans I’ve seen since the worlds. Overall, the tournament was very good and a huge learning step in my jiu jitsu career. Now it was time to relax and fly back out to London for two days while we stay in the Mayfair hotel, and go sight-seeing around the beautiful parts of London.

After watching Rodolfo win the Open, I decided that I needed to get on P90x as well.

In my opinion, I like London a lot more than Lisbon. It is a lot cleaner and more places to eat and shop at. The food in London was not hyped up to be very great, but was above average I thought. At the end of the trip, my mind is now focused on the next tournament, the Pan Americans in California. I can’t wait till next year to come back to Europe for the second year in a row, and to get what I originally wanted in the first place, the REAL 1st place medal.

Christo de Redentor