Nino Schembri’s New Vid

Courtesy of Budo Videos blog…

Nice production!

TUF Shit, series 7 episode 8.19b banana

TUF productions are pulling out all the stops with this season and have completely revamped the intro again.

Fade up from black to pink as a guitar wails hard. Some tinkly piano music can be heard as well as the sound of a tin of beans being slopped on an old bed. Suddenly “Livin’ on a Prayer” starts chunking out of your speakers HARD and there is a closeup of a foot with a cowboy boot tapping to the rythm. Zoom out to reveal Dana White in a cowboy outfit and a stars and stripes ten gallon hat. He has a large red white and blue saxaphone in his arms. Cut to a close up of his face. He winks twice then begins rocking out HARD on the sax. Suddenly the screen explodes and you see Rampage Jackson driving a hummer over the ocean. Water sprays up behind him. Zoom in on his face and he smiles and you see his teeth are gold. The words “Coach Quinton Rampage Jackson” slam and fizzle onto the screen in big purple letters.

Wipe to Forrest Griffin swinging from tree to tree like Tarzan. He is wearing a bear skin. Zoom in on his face and he smiles and you can see his teeth are just made from normal teeth. “Coach Forrest Griffin” dribbles onto  the screen with a fizzling noise. Bon Jovi appears on the screen and high-fives Griffin.

Random montage of whales splashing through the ocean, submarines crashing into each other and exploding, a monkey stuffing onions in a blender, a tank rolling over a supermarket, two helicopters firing missiles at a donkey which explodes, and a man in suspenders eating a cigar.

THE ULTIMATE FIGHTER writes itself onto the screen as if being sprayed on with aerosol. Fade down to black.

A recap of last week’s fights are shown. Cale Yarborough defeated Patrick Schultz by snapping off the Bostonians frosted hair and stabbing him in the eyes with it. Referee Steve Mazaggatti’s moustache had become aroused during the bout and swelled to five times its normal size, obscuring the pint-sized official’s vision, thus allowing the young fighter to get away with the flagrant bending of the rules.

Griffin and Rampage, no doubt spurred on by panicking producers, get really pumped and start yelling and breaking stuff. Like a bunch of college students whose drinks have been spiked with Viagra, everybody walks around being really pumped and not really knowing why or who to punch. The coaches decide to settle their differences with a game of hide and seek but unfortunately Rampage has to pull out halfway through when he steps on a banana skin, slips up, somersaults in the air and lands on a home barbecue set covered in delicious marinade.

Back at the house, a sunglass wearing competition is in full effect. The game remains tied for a few hours with participants frantically wearing the sunglasses as hard as they can. Eventually the game is abandoned as no winner can be decided but everyone agrees Jesse is the loser because he dipped his glasses in ketchup and ate them with a confused look on his face.

Dana White arrives in a private jet which lands on the roof of the TUF house, crushing the east wing and slaughtering a cast member known only as Bill, but he was quiet and had not received any air time yet so it’s all cool. Dana White backflips from the cockpit and fires a machine gun into the air. He produces a megaphone and simply yells “Fuck” really loud a few times. In the ensuing silence, somebody from the cast yells “WARRIOR” and everybody cheers.

A helicopter appears out of nowhere. David Letterman wearing nothing but a tattered pair of overalls and a baseball hat abseils down and grabs Dana White around the waist then the two of them fly off into the sunset.

Fade to sparkling green as “Take my Breath Away” begins playing.

BJJ Class, May 24, 2008

So I hobbled along to BJJ last night to cover for my instructor who is in Tokyo getting his ass whupped in preparation for the Mundials.

I did get a few strange looks when I came into the dojo on crutches with my gi pants on and a cast sticking out of the bottom of them, but that was to be expected.

Friday nights for BJJ have been pretty quiet lately, so I just sat there and watched the Shooto guys go through a really intense exercise session. Then a couple of people rolled up for BJJ including my buddy Sam, which was cool. I really didn’t do anything other than keep an eye on the timing and lead the warmup. I did some pressups, situps and later chinups, but I realised I have to be careful not to work up much of a sweat otherwise my cast will get majorly funkalicious.

It was great to be back in the dojo, that’s for sure, and I quite enjoyed just sitting on the sidelines and watching, analaysing, yelling out the odd bit of advice in Japanese. I think I was yelling “Grab his lapel with your right hand” but I might have been saying “Your mother sucks donkey balls in hell, stupid-head”… we’ll never know.

That class was over and then a couple of drifters came in for the 10pm class, including one blue belt who is very tough. (But has no stamina… I remember him completely killerising me a few weeks ago, then five spars later, he had nothing left…) He was kind of teaching a few moves to a white belt so I just let him get on with it. The class was very relaxed, we messed around with some rubber guard stuff, I got some pointers on the triangle from the blue belt, and then I watched them spar.

I am really, really looking forward to when my foot heals and I can train again. It was quite frustrating to be there, in my uniform, watching people spar, and not be able to join in.

I had a good opportunity to watch how people roll though and I think this break will ultimately help my game. I could see so many times when people were just doing completely the wrong movements. Wrestling and fighting for some grip or some position when all they had to do was change direction or switch some minor thing and they could have got a sweep or a submission with half the effort.

I am going to try to make my game much more efficient. I don’t mean that in a crappy kung fu way, I mean in a smart way. See the openings and do the techniques that require the least grunting and shoving and gurning. Be like water flowing down a river… when it reaches a boulder too big to go over, it simply flows around it… okay maybe in a vaguely crappy kung fu way.

I did manage to bone up on my BJJ reading, and got through the whole of Mitsuyoshi Hayakawa’s Basic BJJ and Alberto Crane’s Advanced BJJ books. I have rolled with Hayakawa-san when he came to visit our dojo, the man is wickedy-awesome-bo-diggety-wizard. The only thing I know about Alberto Crane is that his legs are bendy and he gets his face punched pretty hard in the UFC.

My verdict? I loved the simpleness and the large clear pictures of the Hayakawa book. Alberto Crane’s book was full of moves with ridiculous names (“Reverse flying omoplata to spinning heelhook armbar counter with extra fries”) and tiny, badly exposed pictures. Still, there was a DVD which might have been more clear.

Osu!