My name is Craig Ewers. I started my journey in martial arts with judo. I did judo from
the Asia 5. I fought to a high level in that. I was a two times Commonwealth champion, fifth
place in the world student games. I wasn't an Olympic champion or world champion but I competed
against that sort of level, a black belt in prison in Jujitsu. So I've been doing that for just over
10 years. More recently we started doing submission grappling, which is the kind of no-gi element of
Jujitsu. Probably the best result from that is bronze medal at the European Championships for
submission grappling.
In most academies specialising in one area, judo, business in Jujitsu and we want to do all those
elements and do them well. We always warm up with technique, I think it's the best use of time,
and then also we put a heavy emphasis on sparring, either situational sparring or free sparring.
The guys are working their escapes from this armbar position, that's what we're working at the moment.
I think all of them are ready for the level that they're competing at. Recently I organised a
submission grappling tournament, it was called Grip Grappling. We had close to 108 entries,
so for a first event we're really pleased with that. My name is Rich, I've been training just
over here under Craig. I've done two competitions so far. I came in with not much training whatsoever
and Craig's teaching's been really good for me. Craig's a really experienced competitor and coach
and he blends all different styles into one which is really effective. His attention to detail is
really good actually, so it's that little detail that makes things work in competition. It was my
first competition victory. There isn't much better feeling to be honest, it's just the best
feeling in the world, knowing that all that hard work and training is paid off.
Some great jiu-jitsu all day. Highlight for me was probably the 7-7 in advance, some really good
matches, some really high level guys, guys like Tom Hagen, some MMA guys like Shroom Croxton and then
the final between Oeno or Flanagan and Ross Nickles is probably arguably the best jiu-jitsu guy in
the UK at the moment, so it's great to watch and great to referee. I think people really enjoyed
it, we had good feedback from the competition so we're looking to add more dates for 2018.
I think it's really important to compete, I think it shows the true level of the club. The aim is to
try and add more lessons, grow the academy, grow the numbers, but keep the same level.
