This is a video I made when I was still living in Bali. My friend Hieu who is a seriously fast rider came for a visit, so I decided to take him on a long ride to look for the Eastern coastal roads.
We started off in Kerobokan area where I lived in South Bali, and headed North East. We never found it but we found the start of it and a couple of gems. In particular Kebun Impian resto and hotel, in Seraya Barat (West Seraya). Located just before Amed on the Eastern tip of Bali.
When my brother and Pasha visited, Priscilla and I took them on the actual Eastern coastal roads.
Here is the contraption I used to shoot the video. An Ultrapod strapped to the left handlebar, by its own velcro straps. Canon Ixus 100. It made gripping the bar a little difficult so I wouldn't recommend it if you aren't a good rider or going into dangerous areas.
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Update: the things we had to do before GoPro was invented
At this point, I’ve been training on and off for 2.5 years. For what it’s worth this is what I do for bjj defence. I’ve been focussed on this stuff and it’s been working pretty well for me. Everything I describe below has worked for me for gi, nogi, and mma.
1. Keep your hands up close to your chest with your elbows tucked in. It doesn’t matter if you are on your feet or on your back. Protect your head and face from strikes. If someone knocks you out they can have their way with you and none of the advice below will do you any good.
2. Grip fight like a mofo. You have to intercept their hands and not let them establish their grips. If someone grabs your lapel, strip it right away. If someone grabs your wrist or sleeve, hand fight. If you let someone control one of your arms and latch onto your torso, you’ve already begun to lose the exchange. I learned this from taking 2 or 3 judo classes.
3. Don’t settle for bottom. If someone is halfway to taking you down, use your energy to defend the takedown and stay on top. Use whatever takedown defence you know. If you end up on the bottom it’s going to take even more energy to defend and get back on top. I got this from Niko Han. It really changed my grappling mentality and performance.
4. Never ever lie flat on your back. As soon as someone takes you down or passes your guard, get on your side and face them. On your side as in 90 degrees to the ground. Block the incoming cross-face using your closest hand while keeping your elbow tight to your body. Fight to block it. It’ll make your life much easier. I’ve read many articles to find the best posture for this, still experimenting.
5. If you are wearing a gi, your opponent mounts you and grabs a cross collar grip for a choke, turn your body towards the elbow of the attacking arm. I got this from Saulo Ribeiro’s book and it works amazingly well! When you turn your body towards that arm it takes away the angle of the choke. You have to do this as soon as you see them go for the grip. If you are late they will get their second hand in and you are done.
6. Whenever you feel a hand or forearm touch your neck, abort everything you’re doing and grab their attacking hand with a two-on-one grip. You have to respect the choke. It doesn’t matter what position you are in or if you are in the middle of your own set-up, abort everything and defend your neck. Even if you end up in an inferior position, you are still conscious and in the fight. Anytime I grab a two-on-one grip, I can use it to set up an escape. Another gift from Niko Han.
[Update] My instructor Ritchie Yip showed me that if I grab the two-on-one in any position, i.e. bottom cross side, bottom mount, I can disrupt the offence of my opponent. They will eventually get frustrated and give me space in order to grip break. I mostly grab the two-on-one when I'm in four-point or someone has my back. Now I'll experiment with it from everywhere. Great tip.
7. Keep your elbows and forearms tight to your body. If your elbows are flared out your opponent will arm drag you for takedowns, use it for upper body control, or arm lock you. Some people call it T-Rex arms or prayer position. For the last few months, I’ve been doing the prayer position but clasping my hands together with a gable grip. This gabled prayer forearm posture has been money for me.
If someone manages to grab one of my elbows or forearms, I can use the strength of both my arms to reel it back in. If someone manages to set up an armbar, the gable grip gives me an extra moment to react with the appropriate escape. I also pre-emptively hide my elbows by pinning the closest one to them, down to the ground. From this forearm posture, I can keep my hands clasped together while I dig for elbow knee escapes, bridge and push off my opponent, roll to four-point, escape from knee-on-belly, etc.
Basically I’ve been moving my body like I don’t have any arms, it’s been working well for me and hasn’t hindered my game at all. I automatically return to this forearm posture even when someone attempts an armbar or triangle from their closed guard.
8. When some takes my back, I assume my forearm posture and defend any incoming chokes, then I get into what Saulo Ribeiro calls the Scoop. I slide my body down towards my feet and spread my legs out for base. If I’m too far down my opponent cannot choke me and my arm posture prevents any armbar attempts. From there I can work on my escape.
Here’s a video of the Scoop:
9. If I end up in four point, I don’t wait around for them to attack, I quickly get back on my feet at which point I can back away or drive in for a take down. In pure grappling matches, a lot of people stall and rest by turtling. If you turtle in a real fight your opponent can end the fight by throwing knees to the back of your head. Interestingly enough, most grapplers I’ve encountered don’t know how to react to this. Yet another gift from Niko Han.
That’s all I know about defence for now. This doesn’t cover escapes, which is something I’m been working on as well.
I'm really enjoying Saulo Ribeiro's book, Jiu-Jitsu University. I've been testing his defensive postures in training and they are working well for my game. I also like his approach and priorities to building a solid grappling game: defence > escape > positions/passing > submissions.
In November 2010 I joined my first BJJ competition. It was the 2010 Indonesian Submission Championships in Jakarta. It was a good looking event with roughly 100 fighters; some of which originated from other countries (Greece, Singapore, Brazil, USA, Poland, France). Competitors were separated by weight classes; there were no belt or age divisions. It was an interesting experience for me as I don’t usually take part in sports competitions. Something about it turns me into a nervous overcompensating-trash-talking idiot :) Surprisingly I was able to calm my nerves and relax. When I got nervous I ran around the venue or did some light rolling to get the energy out; which were great ways of staying warmed up. Another thing that helped my nerves was that I didn’t put any pressure on myself to win. I was mainly there for the experience. It pains me to watch it but here is the footage of my match (warning: boring :P). I think the match was 8.5 minutes long. I lost in overtime when my opponent mounted me and I couldn’t escape within three seconds. It pains me not because I lost but because of the obvious mistakes I can see in hindsight. Things I’m actively working on to correct:
Finishing the arm-in guillotine. My technique was horrible, I was flat on my back and I was sending all my energy into his armpit instead of his trachea –WRONG!
Staying on top no matter what. I shouldn’t have jumped guard on that retarded guillotine attempt. I should have just sprawled him to the ground and tried another submission that I was more familiar with. In all positions I should be more aggressive about staying on top. Fighting from the bottom sucks, eff dat yo.
Defending from bottom side control. Work in progress for months now and still improving. I want to be nearly impossible to submit in this position.
Escaping side control. I have a weeeak bridge and shrimp. I’m focussing on correcting this every roll. I’m doing isolation drills with full resistance to get the escape strategies and techniques down. I’d prefer to get back on top instead of getting full guard. I’m going to focus on this for the next three to six months!
Competing was a fun experience that I’d like to repeat. For now, it’s back to the mat to drill drill drill. Thanks to my teammates & coach, gf & my dad for their support :)
Cool excerpt I saw in a documentary movie about Renzo Gracie. The speech was made by Theodore Roosevelt and sounded really cool when Renzo was reading it.
It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.
I've been doing a lot of research on this topic for the last week, thought I would share my findings.
1. When you pay with a credit card overseas there is a hidden fee called the foreign transaction fee or currency exchange fee. This is charged on top of what ever exchange rate your card issuing bank gives you. The fee used to be completely hidden but now credit card providers have to be more transparent with it.
The fees vary depending on what card and bank you deal with. Visa/MC takes 1 %, and your bank may tack on another 2%. Amex is roughly the same from what I've read. So.... each time you charge something, you are paying an extra 2-3 % on average. When you travel for a long time these costs can add up, so don't forget to add it to your calculations/bookkeeping.
In the US Capital One is the only credit card I know of that has 0% currency exchange fee. In Canada they charge 2.5%. All other card providers charge something similar. My RBC Visa charges 2.5% btw.
2. Sometimes when I travel the merchant will take the total I owe them, convert it into USD, and then charge my card. What happens is the merchant will tack on an extra 1% to the total, then you get hit with the USD exchange rate, then you get hit with the currency exchange fee. I've read that the merchants aren't actually allowed to this as per their agreement with Visa/MC. I didn't look into it deeper though, I got tired of doing the research to be honest and tried to cut right to a potential solution.
So then I tried looking for a Canadian bank who was willing to issue a USD credit card with no annual fees. The annual fees for that type of card range between $40-60 a year. -No luck and RBC Visa is not willing to waive the annual fee even though I've had my Platinum Avion card with them for a while.
3. Debit card transactions. I hate travellers cheques. To me there's something about cheques that's just not very sexy :) And I'd imagine it's too much hassle these days to go around cashing travellers cheques, most merchants prefer cash. So for me I usually withdraw money from ATM's, however, that too carries a significant cost depending on your habits. For my bank, TD Canada Trust, there is a $5 fee each time I withdraw money internationally. Depending on how much money I need each trip to the ATM can cost a lot. For example in Indonesia the inflation is soooo bad that cash withdrawals go up to the millions of Rupiahs. The volume of paper is so thick that the bank machines don't have big enough spouts to pour out your money. Some machines only spit in denominations of 50,000 and others in 100,000. So that's a maximum withdrawal of 1,250,000 Rp or 2,500,000 Rp at a time. I end up having to make multiple withdrawals if I need a large sum of money, at $5 per withdrawal. Over a few months of travel that will add up.
BTW if you live sensibly or like a local, 2.5million in Rupiah should last you a few weeks to possibly a month in variable expenses. But if you like to party like you would in Miami, 2.5mill will evaporate in a few short hours.
If anything changes I'll update this post. If anyone has any tips please leave a comment. For now, if you're Canadian, you're SOL.
Cheers! From frosty Vancouver.
[update: Jan 26th] Turns out my bank has a chequing account which waives the $5 ATM fees for international withdrawals. The monthly cost of this account is $25, which is worth it considering I'll need to make at least 6 trips to an ATM a month. A few weeks from my next trip I will transfer my account over and also ask them to increase my daily withdrawal limits. I plan on renting a house/villa for a few months in Asia. Some places will ask for a damage deposit and/or a lump sum for the 3-6 month rental agreement. I'll need quick, easy, safe access to my money in order to make this happen. Unlike some people I'm not a big fan of carrying thousands of dollars on me... it's way too easy to spend it on partying.
Yesterday I got myself some Aloksak zip lock bags for travelling. The idea is to compact my clothes airtight to save some room in my bag while at the same time keeping them dry. They worked great, everything was a little bit more compact than usual. These things are miraculous -supposedly waterproof for down to 60m below water. I’m going to use the small one as my wallet (they come in a variety pack of 4 sizes, $10). I’ve been looking for a waterproof wallet to store my cash and car remotes for when I go play on the beach or diving.
I wanted to test whether or not my clothes would wrinkle in these saks, as if I was on an extended leg of transit. I’ve seen a few old articles about packing on the merit of rolling your clothes when you pack. So I rolled my clothes put them in the saks and left them for 24 hours.
Did they wrinkle? Yeah. What a horrible piece of advice... Shouldn't blame the advice actually, cotton wrinkles easily no matter what. If you don't want wrinkles you'll have to move to synthetic or wool blends.
Clothes used for the test are in my usual wardrobe list for long trips:
Ahh memories. Every time I need a quick pick me up I check out photos and vids from my last trip. This one always does the trick. I'll work on producing better vids next time. This one was mashed up with random clips, I wasn't even thinking of documenting with video.
Music: Phoenix - Lisztomania
Shot with my D90 slr and Allen's G10 pocket cam. No film direction, rogue cameramen, all b roll :)
Cut from 90 clips.
3rd time editing with iMovie. 2 hrs? Fun.
The tacos were delicious.
This photo was my set up in January 2009: 3 countries, 23 days: 4 undies, 2 socks, 5 shirts, 1 backpack.
I'm getting lighter and lighter each time I travel. The next time I take off will be around April 2010. I plan to travel for a few months while carrying a laptop for work and a bunch of photo gear for my personal pursuits. I've been doing some research and consideration of the clothes I'm going to take. I'll be mostly in hot climates.
I find my cotton t-shirts ruin after about 1 month of travel. Washing in the sink and wringing dry inside a towel destroys them in no time. Next time I'm only going to carry 3. I'll buy new ones as they ruin. Cotton is by far the nicest feeling fabric. Hangs nicely. But slow to dry and prone to wrinkles. Synthetic shirts dry faster but hang terribly on the body. Most travel or sport dry-fit shirts are horribly designed. Some synthetic blends will harbour sweat odours too, which is what they are not supposed to do. Why can't someone design travel gear that's actually stylish? Gstar? Diesel? Energie? Dsquared? Call me.
As far as undies go I'm going to go with 3; all merino wool. 1 one me, 1 on standby, and 1 drying from the last wash. That should cover it. I can't believe I used to bring 10+ pairs.
Next time 2 socks. All synthetic technical socks. They will dry/wash faster while doing a better job of managing moisture.
Pants: still can't find a versatile pair of pants that are light. Much like t-shirts, travel designed pants are horrible for style/fashion. I'm sticking with a pair of Diesel jeans. I'll keep them dry and clean. If needed I'll launder them at a hotel. Denim will take forever to dry if I hand wash them and I wouldn't want them to get smelly or start growing bacteria while drying.
Shorts: 1 pair of cargos and 1 swim trunk. Style wise, same problem as noted above. I'm sticking with a stylish pair made of heavy grade cotton. Travelling light doesn't mean you should look like a bum or a "backpacker". For the record, I'm a flashpacker :)
1 lightweight breathable jacket made by North Face. I've been caught in monsoons before. This will come in handy and will look much nicer than the bicycle sport-specific jacket I usually take. This new jacket looks nice zipped up too, can wear it to dinners and will also replace my heavy cotton hoodie.
Footwear: most crucial pieces. My feet do most of the work during travels so I've learned to never skimp on $$$ taking care of them. I'm going to invest in some ergo anatomically perfect sandals from Sole. Time to trash my Crocs (they served me well, wore them straight for 10 months!). I usually bring a pair of runners and loafers for nights out. I'm undecided about the runners for the next trip because I usually don't end up wearing them much. Next time I'll bring my custom orthotics as well.
That's pretty much it. I'll be using my 50L Asolo pack with a detachable day bag. The rest of the gear will be electronics and support equipment (cables, adapters, etc.). Electronics usually take up the most space and weight. They are a necessary evil though depending on what you intend to do for work while you are on the road.
March 10, 2011 update: Soles aren't the best or simple looking sandals. They were hard to find too. I decided to skip on them and ended up buying a simple looking pair of Crocs again. I bought them in May 2010 in Jakarta and they're working great.
