My job was to put together a street fight scene so my student and I practiced for an hour or so before we headed out to Scarborough to film it.

We smashed each other! I still remember one of the crew telling us “You guys hit way harder than stuntmen!” I didn’t really think much about that until the next day when I was really sore!

You’ll see one at point in the video when Dean kicks me in the chest with a push kick. I wasn’t supposed to fall but it hit me so hard that I lost my balance. That looked good on camera though.

Anyways here’s the video (we start at 1;57ish) :

Even better is that this video has a martial arts theme to it since the people who are in it are wearing some pretty awesome Mortal Kombat costumes.

I love Liu Kang’s machine gun side kicks at 0:42 seconds in!

Check it out!

Now some of the techniques would be dangerous to do in mixed martial arts but many of them would work very well in MMA.

Notice the head movement he used after he punches. He doesn’t wait for an opponent’s counter attack he anticipates it ahead of time and makes sure his head is not there to be hit. It’s that type of defense that frustrates, tires and saps the confidence of an opponent.

Here’s the vid:

I’m still not trying skydiving. I’ll keep doing my armlocks on the ground!

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I think it’s pretty amazing what the Gracies did with the art after learning it from one man. BJJ definitely changed the way the world looks at real combat. Also we wouldn’t have the UFC if the Gracie family didn’t bring it to North America back in the early 90′s.

BJJ is an awesome martial art. I’ve been training Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu for close to 20 years and still have a ton of fun every time I hit the mats.

Unfortunately I’ve never had the opportunity to learn or train in the art. I think every martial art has aspects, techniques and strategies that can be very effectively applied in no-holds barred setting so I’m sure I could have found a few slick capoeira techniques that I could of let fly inside the octagon.

A while back, on video, I saw a really cool knockout kick scored by a capoeira fighter in an MMA fight. I didn’t remember his name at the time but when another video of him scoring a KO head kick appeared this week I did a little more research. His name is Marcus Aurelio and it looks like he lives in Vancouver, BC.

I think it`s very exciting and refreshing to see him pull of some of his art`s attacks in MMA competition and I must say that it can be very awkward fighting someone like him who fights so different than the training partners most people spar with. I think he`ll need to make sure he`s got solid wrestling and ground skills –and maybe some boxing as well– as backup if he wants to climb higher in the MMA game but I definitely hope to see him jump and spin kicking more people in the future.

Here`s a video of his team, Axe Capoeira in action (he may even been in there but I`m not sure) 

and here`s the first video I saw a while back of some slick spinning heel kicks…

and the newest video of him doing his thing inside the cage…

What are your thoughts on Capoeira in MMA?

Thanks to everyone from Kitchener/Waterloo and my good friend Dragan Konjevic for their hospitality.

The turnout was fantastic with 70 people on the mats rolling, sharing techniques and supporting their friends as they tested for their next belts in the art of Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu. Those testing were required to demonstrate a large set of techniques and then went on to roll (spar) for a very,very long time with fresh training partners rotating in continuously.

The tough 3 hour session concluded with many well deserved belt promotions.

Congrats to all who graded:

New Blue Belts –> Matt, Mike, Dylan, Jimmy, John, David,  Toni, Andrej and Steve Y

New Purple Belts –> Mike Kocmarek, Mike Samson, and Jeff Duarte

and to Drew Ruttle who earned his well deserved brown belt after many years of training.

You guys all did a great job!

Here’s a video with some highlights from the day

Pat Barry Training…

and Struve…