Team HK: Honolulu, HI

In Waikiki.  Took a cab from the hotel. Bad move. $15 when I could have taken the bus for $2.50. Bus would have only taken 10-15 minutes longer, which would have been fine since I arrived 30mins early.

Team HK is a Relson Gracie affiliate and Andy's (brown) home school. Andy recently moved to New Orleans for med school and has been training at NOLA BJJ. The academy shares space with a Karate school on the third floor of a commercial building. Plenty of space. Clean. Good training environment.

11-11:30a: Warm-up. Yup. A full half hour. These guys really warm-up. All sorts of drills that I've never seen before. Worked up quite a sweat. I was the biggest guy there by at least 35lbs. Poor Damon (white) who had to fireman carry me a dozen or so times.

11:30a-12p: Take down / throws. Worked with Damon most of the time who has a bit of judo background. Also worked with a Purple. All new techniques (to me). Talk about a confidence building experience. I think I can get good at take downs. Also defended the purple's takedowns well during the full speed portion.

12-1:10p: Technique. Yup. Over 1hr of technique. All sorts of great stuff from running escape / turtle. Too much to recap now ( and... Frankly too much to learn in one day for this white belt) but some solid principles to take away. First, bailing to turtle isn't necessarily defensive. Instructor Brian (brown) showed how to turn a very defensive position into an attacking position with arm lock and kimura options in response to typical attacks. Second, hip movement is crucial (duh). But he really showed how a bit of hip shifting can really turn the tables on an attacking opponent. Brian also showed some an escape from typical arm bar attacks after turning over to give up side/back and set up the running escape. Slight variation of Saulo's armbar escape from bottom.

1:10-1:40p: Rolls. No set time. We just went for it. Worked with Damon for 20 minutes and Brian for 10 minutes. Never rolled with someone for 20mins before. Good time. Damon and I exchanged sweeps. Got to mount a few times and set up numerous chokes and arm bars, but his defenses were solid. We both worked up quite a sweat. Great roll. Time with Brian was great too. He clearly took it easy on me. At one point he let his guard down a bit too much and I shot a triangle. Felt like I had it deep too. I started thinking he was either going to tap or pass out. Ha. Yeah right. He was just toying with me. But then I got stubborn and kept straining for it. Little voice in my head said to give it up. Another voice in my head said to squeeze harder. Finally gassed myself and let it go. Rest of the roll was pretty sloppy. We ended when I realized I left my arm exposed for an armbar and he didn't take it. He had me. Guess he thought there wasn't any point in tapping a visiting white belt. No matter. I knew I was screwed.

With Brian after the grueling 2.5hr+ training.

Had a great experience at Team HK. Wish I could train here a couple more times before leaving. Don't think it's in the cards though.  Have 3.5 more days packed with fun. Maybe next year. If you have a chance to train in Honolulu, be sure to check out Team HK!