Congratulations Tim!

On your championship at the Pan Ams!

Lets keep this forum alive!

Kit LeBlanc

I was there. They were two amazing fights. The first guy was an undefeated brown belt from the Pedro Carvalho school. The fight was so intense that it left both guys (Tim and Rommel) exhausted. You have to realize that Tim can grapple hard for an hour with purple belts and other brown belts. The match was only 6 minutes. Yeah, they were fighting hard.

Tim's second opponent got a BY because Rommel didn't want to fight for the second place medal. He was absolutely done. So, Tim had to fight the second guy who was fresh. The second guy knew Tim's arm was exhausted after fighting Rommel, so the guy pulled guard right away and tried to attack Tim's arms. But in was in vain. Tim had enough juice in him to defend, almost get a submission and eventually sweep the guy.

The best part is the stone face look that Tim had in the fights. Absolutely no expression of fatigue, pain, exhaustion, nothing ... like a freakin statue. It was great!

I hear you didn't do so bad yourself, Meynard!

They say that when you get really tired, exhausted, is when true "ju" comes out....

Question:

Do you guys change your training when getting ready for a BJJ tournament?

How much of your regular training is geared to resistive sparring, how much on technical training (how to punch, kick and grapple standing and on the ground), and how much on attribute training (by which I mean standing exercises, movement exercises, qigong, calisthenics etc.)?

I remember you saying that Tim teaches the traditional arts in a more private setting outside the Shenwu classes - is Shenwu the focus of daily/weekly training at the school?

Kit LeBlanc

Classes at Shen Wu are as follows: Shenwu mixed class is 3x/week, Sun Style Bagua is 2X/week, BJJ is 2X/week, Xing Yi is 1X/week. Tai Ji (Sun, Yang, Chen), Ba Gua (Gao Style), Xing Yi (hebei, Shanxi), are taught privately. You can also do a private lesson in BJJ as well as vale tudo type training. From what I've noticed, guys who do privates with Tim seem to get a lot better faster.

Regular training format for most class includes exercises (attribute training 20 min+), techniques, drills,and sparring ... in that order, but not set in stone. Sometimes we drills first before techniques. Each class is 1.5 hours most of the time we go over by 10-15 min. I would say it's pretty much all Shenwu, but in the different classes you will learn techniques, drills, and forms specific to that style. For example, you are not going to find out how to pass a spider guard in a Xing Yi class.

The only real training change before a tournament comes up is we put Gi's on Thursday instead of doing no Gi Submission grappling. The week before a tournament we roll really easy and work more on flow, sensitivity and fight strategy/rules. Outside of class you are responsible to get yourself in better condition to be really competitive.

Thanks for the info, Meynard.

Meynard,

Could you describe the "attribute training"?

They're physical and coordination exercises based on internal martial arts principles.