This was from my friend’s bachelor party last weekend and as the saying goes, “Another one bites the dust!”. The main man, Mike Meza is 3rd from left and one of my first friends when I relocated to Torrance from Harbor City back in 1989. He’s a fireman now with Los Angeles and will be getting married this weekend…good luck buddy!
In the photo from left to right is Jason, Yan, Mike, Pablo, Bean, myself and Sean.
Here’s a picture from last weekend’s No-Gi Championship that was held at CSU-Dominguez Hills. From left to right is Ray “Kong” Seraille, Baret Yoshida and myself. We all used to train together in Hawaii and all of us now live on the mainland, with Kong and Baret running separate branches of UNDISPUTED San Diego and really liking it there.
Baret was pretty sharp as he won the Masters division and submitted both his opponents in less than a minute each. He’s always tinkering with his game and looking to improve and after seeing this last performance, I think he’s on to something.
Kong took second after facing Jarrod Bunch, the former Michigan football star who is now training and competing extensively in BJJ and MMA. I did not see the match, but I’m sure it was a good one and Ray has definitely come a long way since he first joined Grappling Unlimited as a Navy guy far from his hometown of Louisiana.
Some of my other friends competed and did very well, including: Jason Bukich who won his first match in the Black Belt division and then loss on points to Saulo Ribeiro. Johnny Ramirez who has got to be the most active Black Belt on the scene today, triangled his first guy then lost to Rickson Gracie student Shance Rice in the second round. Speaking of Shane, despite having recent knee surgery, he beat some tough dudes in that lightweight division to capture 3rd place after coming in 2nd last year.
I’m having a hard time with the pictures on the blog; for some reason the size changes when I paste them onto the form. I’m suspecting a virus that hit my home PC hard is at the root of the problem. I’ll be updating more frequently with new pictures of training and competing once I get that issue solved.
In the meantime, big news is on the horizon as far as my training and competing career is concerned. After having trained in Los Angeles for the past several years, it’s time to get a change-up and get a new training environment. Will be relocating before this month is over and getting back on track with great training and coaching and the results will show when I get back in action.
Went to the 2nd No-Gi World Championships this past weekend as a friend and supporter to Baret Yoshida, who won his division handily in short order. He’s working on some kinks in his game and the results are impressive. He beat two Brasilian Black Belts in about a minute each. Baret will be heading to Asia this month to do some seminars in Taiwan so if you are in the vicinity, check him out.
UFC 87, wow! I thought Jon Fitch was going to be George St. Pierre’s toughest match to date, but it just goes to show what level GSP is on right now. You think about the people has beaten and the fashion in which he beats them and it is very, very impressive. Fitch has got to be one of the toughest guys in the world; to come back from some hard shots and keep fighting the way he did shows what we already know: wrestlers are TOUGH.
An interesting note from the 2008 Olympics is one of the guys I trained with in Hawaii, Taylor Takata made it to the semi-finals in Judo. He came up one round short from the medal round, but this guy has been good for a long, long time and I’m sure he still has another shot four years from now. Baret and I used to train at Shobukan Judo headed up by Migita Sensei and Taylor was just a high school student at the time, but he had no problem throwing us around. It was good to hear that he made the Olympics and that he beat some tough guys over in Beijing.