INTERVIEW with Robert Drydale Jiu Jitsu Brown Belt: Kristian Woodmansee

Like small guy Jiu Jitsu? I sure do. One of my favourite guys to watch compete is Kristian Woodmansee.

I met and trained with Kristian in Miami a few years ago. Get to know him a little better in this interview he did for SHEBEASTBJJ:

Hi Kristian, introduce yourself; BJJ Rank and Team:

Kristian Woodmansee. Brown Belt from Team Zenith

How long have you been training Jiu Jitsu for?

I just hit my 6 year mark in march

What would you say is your biggest success to date?

Winning the World Championship last year. Working on a No Gi Grand Slam currently (Pan Am, World, European, Brazilian National no gi titles in 1 year)

I met you in Miami a few years back, when you were training under Mestre Roberto Cyborg Abreu. Now you train and teach at Robert Drysdale's Academy in Las Vegas. You've had the privilege of training under different world champions. Do academies share similarities in teaching practice, or do all schools do things differently?

Each academy has a different style to it, like a personality. Each instructor brings different characteristics to the mat and it's awesome to experience and a privilege to partake in that under so many great practitioners. Each school trains hard though, it’s a kill or be killed world on the mat when you are with a bunch of world-class guys.

Both Cyborg and Drysdale have produced world champions too. What influence does a coach have on helping a student become a world champion?

The impact a coach has on his students is extraordinary to me, that relationship that exists between student and teacher is very important when it comes to progression. In my opinion to be a great jiu jitsu practitioner one must be open minded, I must have the will to possibly fail over and over again to succeed, both Cyborg and Drysdale have taught me that.

I'm a massive fan of "little person Jiu Jitsu". As you compete at rooster weight, what are your favourite positions/techniques that work best for you, against larger opponents?

I am naturally a rooster, that’s where I have all my titles at, Problem is not a lot of roosters exist out there, at least at the lower ranks. I rarely train with anyone my size. On a good day my lightest training partner will be about 20lbs heavier than me. I try to develop my game to work at any level, gi or no gi, and against any gender or size. I stick to focusing on the weak parts of the body when it comes to the guards I play and the submissions I attack, this equalizes the size difference for me.

What advice would you give to a smaller guy who gets disheartened rolling with monsters all the time?

It definitely can be difficult on the mind and ego if not looked at properly. No one is awarded medals for how they train on the mat, as discouraging as it may be winning and losing there doesn’t really matter to me. There is a reason why we compete in weight classes, so fighting someone out of my weight class during training isn’t as impacting to me since it really isn’t realistic to my personal goals when it comes to competition.

www.ibjjf.org

You've recently had a brief stint in the UK. How did you get on? And how does the BJJ scene in the UK differ to that of the US.

It was nice to travel to compete and see the competition that exists outside of my normal range, and the people are awesome. I was lucky enough to compete and then travel to teach 2 seminars afterwards, by far the best experience of my life thus far. It feels like the jiu jitsu in Europe is a tad bit behind when it comes to what techniques are being executed and the intensity of the competitors. I would imagine the internet has helped spread jiu jitsu all over the world more easily but there aren’t as many top level guys teaching in Europe like there is here in the states, I think that may a reason why it’s a bit different.

You've tried your hand at MMA a couple of times. Does your Jiu Jitsu change in comparison to competing in BJJ competitions? If so, how?

My jiu jitsu is more of a no gi style, I personally hate the gi but I love jiu jitsu so I do both. My no gi game translates very well to mma so I feel comfortable relying on my ground game for mma. I would like to keep it that way since mma will be my main focus soon.

Credit- Kristians Facebook fan page

Your nickname is 'Dream Killer'- How did that come about?

When competing everyone is there to win, the reality of that is that only 1 person can be crowned a champion and everyone else has to deal with the consequences of that. It’s a bit intense but at the end of the day most people dream about winning a world championship, all I want to do is to people those people. One day someone just called me it and it stuck.

You're easily recognizable from tattoos, how many have you got? And are any of them BJJ related?

I don’t know of the exact number but I have a few in my eyes, I am actually typing this while getting tattooed so its ironic timing. I have no bjj related tattoos and the only one I plan on having will be after I receive my black belt, as for what it is a secret for now.

What are your plans/goals for the future?

I would like to continue training hard and constantly progress on and off the mat. My goal for the season is to win No Gi Brazilian Nationals and complete my no gi grand slam as a brown belt. After that I will only be focusing on my no gi game in preparation for the 2015 ADCC’s, where I will be busting my ass to be invited to. I have a lot of work to do to be ready for it but I am lucky forward to it tremendously.

Thanks Kristian. Do you have any shout outs/thank-yous you'd like to make?

Just thank you for reaching out, always a pleasure to be connected to people who are equally as passionate. 3Fu3l for sponsoring me, my team for the support and help, Patchez and Andi and all my supporters and family.

www.ibjjf.org

Check out this unusual submission demonstrated by Kristian:

You could also SUBSCRIBE to his YouTube channel

Photo credit: All Kristian's personal photos unless otherwise stated.

 Shout out to Mike Calimbas who has very kindly given me the go ahead to use some of his photos of Jiu Jitsu athletes in future interviews. He's one of the best in the business so check out his work at www.mikecalimbas.com 

Post op- Day 5

Day 5

So my tubey-grip tried to attack me last night. I woke up at 3am with my knee area hurting like hell, only to feel that my tubey grip had all rolled up and was digging in super right right above my knee. You know when you wear a pair of socks that are too tight around your ankle, and it digs in, and you get a good itch from it where it's gone all red? Well, it was like. Only, replace the satisfying itch with excruciating pain. I might start sleeping with it doubled over rather than tripled over. I fell back asleep again, s'all good.

I've taken some swelling pictures. I'm pretty impressed. There's not a lot of difference, from my biased perspective.

Swelling

I know, I know. You want a close up of these bad boys. Well here you go.

Still a bit squidgy

I am, however, legitimately concerned that I may have been beaten up by the surgeon and his team. My leg looks like a prop from The Walking Dead..

Corpse leg vs normal leg

EURGH. From this angle, my bad leg is definitely more swollen. Mainly in the calf and ankle though. It doesn't seem to bad looking down on it. On second thoughts, I have done such an unreliable photo. The picture of my bag leg was taken considerably closer to my leg than my right one. And I'm a freakin' scientist. How embarrassing. Anyway, I digress.. 

I've officially hit boredom today. The weather is too inconsistent to lie out in (I'm lying out in the sun for like, 7min intervals. It's hardly worth lowering myself into the sun lounger), my brother has just gone back to uni so I have nobody to bully, and I suck at PS3.

I'm about to write a diet plan so I a) avoid turning into a super fatty and b) can return to Jiu Jitsu just sucky, not fat and sucky. I eat pretty good on the whole (too many treats recently) but I know what works well for my body and how to lose the weight properly (I've lost about 40lbs since starting Jiu Jitsu). I'll have to keep doing bits and pieces like that to keep myself busy. I'm really hoping I'll be able too do a small upper body workout maybe tomorrow or the next day. I've bee feeling good today, so we'll see.

Exercises

3 x 10 Knee Flexion

3 x 5 mins knee hangs

3 x 10 straight leg raises

3 x 10 quad tensening thingies

My exercise regime has yet to change, as I'm following my rehab notes given to me when I was discharged from hospital. It says to do this stuff from day 1 to day 14. I'm booking a Physio appointment tomorrow sometime, so I guess I'll be doing the same thing until then. 

It's good because I can tell I'm getting better at them. I don't have to shout "Up! UP!" at my leg when doing straight leg raises anymore, and I only swear a little bit when I do the knee flexion drills (again, they felt really good today, maybe even reached a 110 bend)

I've been slacking on strengthening my quads. Which is stupid because one of the things I was worried about was having one hench leg and one chicken leg, yet I'm doing nothing about it. The exercise is to literally tense your quad. When I do that, I feel it over my entire knee cap. I just did it then, as I typed this. I'd rather stick pins in my eyes. It's foul. No thanks.

I'm waiting until I can weight bare better, then I've read that they start getting you to do baby squats. Maybe I should just man up and do the tensening drills though..

Knee hangs are fine again. Feeling like I can relax more, and really sink into them. Weeeee.

Here's a video of my knee flexion drills. I reckon I'm close to 110 degrees on them:

Icing (20-30mins)

10am

1pm

3pm

6pm

9pm

My best friend (the cryocuff) is serving me well still. Oh, that reminds me. I lied yesterday. I said I took no pain killers. It got to about 7pm and I felt really achey so I was persuaded to take them. Today I took some ibuprofen late morning, it's 4:30 as I type, so I may take some more at dinner. I guess they're antiinflammatory too. Bonus.

Technically today has been another success, I'm just feeling a little deflated. It's one thing being off work, but if I can't train/go to the gym/paddleboard/DOANYTHINGILIKE then what's the point? Man, I can't even carry anything anywhere. I roll my bottle of juice down the hallway as I make my way to the lounge. Winner.

SWOT Test in BJJ

I've just nabbed this off the UK BJJ Underground Forum. Richard, the guy who runs the BJJ website/blog Attack The Back uses this, with the guidance of his coach, Gary Davies at Somerset Jiu Jitsu Alliance, to help self evaluate his Jiu Jitsu.

I'm a massive believer in setting goals to achieve things. Specific goals, not general goals. The best way to progress in anything in life is to assess your current situation, and work out what you need to do to improve. Which is why I get a little annoyed when I read posts from experienced people in the Jiu Jitsu community telling newer people to "just train" in order to get better.                        

 "You need matt time". "Just train". "Shut up and train". 

 Well, no. Not really. If you're doing something shit, you're going to continue doing it shit if you use that approach. Yes, you figure a hell of a lot of Jiu Jitsu out for yourself. It's a massive game of trial and error. You work out what techniques work best for your body type, height, strength, flexibility etc. But for people to achieve their potential in anything (not only Jiu Jitsu), they need targeted, specific, individual guidance. S'what we do in the education system, innit.

SWOT stands for Strength, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats. Here's how the guys at Somerset Jiu Jitsu Alliance use it;

"We were all given print outs that our instructor had made specifically for members of the club and asked to fill it out in our spare time, he would then spend some time with our answers, roll with us and write out a personalised analysis about our game and how we can improve."- Taken from Richards blog which can be found --> here

So Imma have a go. But I'm going to make 2. Because I'm going to be off the mats for a few months, I'm going to do a physical SWOT test (for when I can train again) and a mental SWOT test, for now. To keep me sane.

So, let's do this;

Physical SWOT 

Strengths 

• Knee slide pass

• Regaining half guard

• Movement when on top (always moving to maintain a strong position in side control)

Weaknesses

• Speed. I'm slllllllllow.

• Attacking mentality- I lack it. Too often I find myself on the defensive rather than pushing forward and being offensive.

• Passing/sweeping on my "bad side". 

Opportunities

• Bestest coaches and training partners. Ranging from monsters to tiny little people, white belts to black belts.

• An ego less atmosphere to train in.

• A coach who encourages you to try new things, not be afraid of getting smashed, and to develop your own style of Jiu Jitsu.

Threats

• I'M CRIIPPPLLLLEEEEEEEDDDDDDD. Stupid freakin' knees.

• I might forget, EVERYTHING. By the time I get back on the mat I'll have forgotten how to shrimp, and will think a peruvian necktie is an item of clothing.

• I'll be super paranoid about my knee when I train. Might make me hesitate and slow down any progression until I build back my confidence.

Mental SWOT

Strengths 

• PMA. (It's fizzling out by the hour..)

• I have plenty of cool stuff to do; edit videos, take photos, write for Jiu Jitsu Style magazine, bore people I don't know to death with my blog.

• Goal setting. I've set myself some things I'm going to achieve next year. And imma do it.

Weaknesses

• I miss training alreaaadddyyyy. 'Obsession' might be an understatement. I'm waiting for the shakes to kick in and I can't imagine not rolling hard for 9 months. If I don't think about it, then it's not real. Right?

• I like food. I manage to maintain weight quite nicely when training. But that's 3 x Jiu Jitsu classes, and 4 strength and conditioning classes a week. I will might get fat/ter.

• Uuuuhhhhh... I'm cranky when I can't train. Which means I might make those around me cranky. Crankiness for everyone!

Opportunities

• I'm moving into a new house. A house with 2 spare rooms. I have permission to make one a Jiu Jitsu room. I have the mats and everything already. A FREAKIN' MATTED ROOM. Myself and Flavio are going to live in there. 

• Spend more time with significant other/family/friends. Time to remind them all that Jiu Jitsu isn't my only love.

• My coach wants to help keep me sane by coaching the junior class, helping out in classes, as well as doing the odd bit of reffing. More stuff to help keep me in the loop.

Threats

• Falling behind at Jiu Jitsu. Stupid ego. 

• Becoming frustrated at myself for not being able to train, or not progressing in rehab as fast as I want to.

• Did I mention I like food? Food is a threat. A sweet, sweet, tasty threat.

The physical SWOT is something I will give to my coach Darren when I'm back training again. I guess the mental SWOT is for my own reference. 

Fightworx guys and visiting Somerset Jiu Jitsu Alliance guys

So, in order to progress, self assess yourself. You know what you're good at and what you suck at. Tell your instructor those things, and along with them monitoring you at training, they will be able to see where/how you're going wrong and will be able to recommend how you can improve. THIS is how you get better at Jiu Jitsu. As well as lots of trial and error..


Massive thanks to Richard for introducing me to the idea of using this strategy.Give it a go! And check out his website here.


End.

 

Post op- Day 1

 DAY 1-

I slept good. No waking in night crying out in pain or anything. I needed to pee at 5:30, but that was it. Getting on and off the loo is a challenge though. I'm very grateful I had been practicing single leg squats before the surgery!

Check out my morning ROM;

Pretty good, huh? 

The yellow stuff is iodine. I'm not a filthy animal.

Rehab movements today:

4 x 15 knee flexion 

4 x 5min holds of passive knee stretch (knee hang)

3 x 10 Static quad tensing
3 x 5 Straight leg raises

Knee flexion. Skanky legs still covered in iodine.. 

My icing regime is as follows;

Icing for 20mins at 

• 8am
• 11am
• 3pm
• 6pm
• 9pm

As I mentioned in my previous post, the bandages around my leg are thick as hell right now. There's cotton wool and all sorts under there. So I'm not sure how much the ice is really helping with the swelling (or indeed, how much swelling there is, as I can't decipher swelling for bandage!).

I reckon I'm almost achieving a 90 degrees bend in my knee now (8pm).

Still trying to weight bear, but really struggling. I can stand up fine, but its 90:10 ratio of weight distribution right now. Very painful if I try to put any more weight down.

That's the only thing that causes discomfort. I'm on 400mg tablets of ibuprofen, and 500mg of Co-codamol and taking them throughout the day when it starts to ache a little. But that's all experienced so far, a dull ache. When doing my exercises later on, it got a little worse. But nothing like I'd imagined. On my (just this second made-up) pain-o-meter, I'd probably say I'm cruising along at a 3/4 today.

Swelling

At about 5pm I took off the bandages. I was icing my knee, and whilst the top of the bandages felt cold, when I put my fingers underneath it (passed all the layers and cotton wool), my knee felt really hot. I know how imperative icing is to the rehab process, so figured I'd take off the bandages, but keep it compressed with a super tight tuby grip. I could feel the coolness of the ice afterwards. I reckon I've made a good decision.

Played around with bearing a little more weight later on and managed to walk much better. I'll take photos and a little video of that tomorrow though.

That's all for day 1. Day 2 to follow tomorrow..

End.

ACL reconstruction- Day of Surgery

Surgery day- yaaay! Time for a new ACL.

After deciding I didn't like my birth one, I detached it in August last year after failing to sprawl properly on a double leg takedown (sidenote; wrestling hates me).

So I'm up and at the hospital for stupid o'clock. I was first on the list for surgery (wahoo!) which meant they chucked a gown at me, took a pee sample, and also gave me some of their own underwear to wear. Imagine, if you will, a shower cap with 2 holes in. And I'd worn my cookie monster pants especially. Dammit.

Some chick comes in and asks what leg I'm having done and draws "ACL and an arrow" on my left shin.

Pretty sure my ACL is a little higher up than that..

They ask all the usual questions, confirmed I was who they thought I was (about 8 times) and then I was off down to be cut open.

This was my first time receiving anaesaestehthia. I don't remember going to sleep. The nurses were all super friendly and were chatting away when I was told they were going to put me under.


I vaguely remember coming round and having the foggiest conversation with the surgeon. I asking him if I had any microfractures (something he said was unlikely, but the rehab to it involved being hooked up to some knee bending machine for 2 hours, 3 times a day for 6 WEEKS). I don't remember him answering me, but when I finally came round properly, the nurse who was there during this foggy conversation that no I didn't have any micro-fractures which was apparently followed by me fist punching the air and saying "yeaaaaahhhh" (awkward).

Kinda, not really come round yet

I then got wheeled to a recovery room where I was fed bourbons and custard cremes, how very British. Within half an hour or so I was wheeled off for an X- ray and then brought back again.

The Physio came round a while later and gave me some crutches and a knee brace that I have to wear for 6 weeks when moving around. She gave me an extensive list of exercises to do as well as information on how often I should be doing them.

*Note* the sexy compression sock and my loafers. Total trend setter.

I got a couple of packs of pills thrown at me and Mummy Shebeast was called to come and collect me. Putting my clothes back on was, interesting.

Once home I elevated and iced my knee. The dressing and wraps are pretty thick (they can come off after 48hours) so I'm not entirely sure much of the coldness is getting through. Regardless, I've set alarms on my phone to remind myself to ice it for 20mins every 2/3 hours, religiously.

Think that pretty much sums up my surgery day. Played a bit of Mortal Kombat when I got home. Dozed a bit. Ate some dinner as my appetite increased later in the day.

Day 1 to follow..

End.

I'm doing this from my phone..

Alriiiight.. I'm intrigued as to how this turns out.

I'm also going to keep this as the briefest blog ever, as my auto correct is already driving me mad..

Updates:

I am getting back into photography. Well, attempting to. More specifically, fighting photography. The last set of serious pictures I took were at ADCC in Nottingham a couple of years ago (see blog entitled ADCC). But now, I'm trying to do it on a more regular basis. Here are some shots I've taken recently at training at Fightworx Academy: ok, I've attached pictures but have no idea where they will appear. Whatever. There are also some pictures of some Forca Luta t shirts. It's a new and upcoming MMA brand owned by one of guys I train with. So check them ooouuut.

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Second update. After some (polite) nagging about the lack of women's bjj stuff in UK mag Jiu Jitsu Style, I currently find myself in the process if writing an article about women's jiu jitsu in the UK and world scene. It will be in the next issue of Jiu Jitsu Style, so keep your eyes peeled! />


And finally, both my sponsors have some amaaazing stuff due out really soon. Scramble are in the final stages of releasing their much anticipated Vale Tudo shorts which look siiiiiiiick. They have also found a good quality bjj belt manufacturer and so they aim to start producing scramble belts very soon (they've been talking about this for a while,and have received a few samples from other companies, but the quality wasn't up to scramble standards- so you know these will be the sheeeeet- see sample pic I've attached, somewhere).

And, Pony Club Grappling Gear are looking to release 3 different t shirt designs along with their funky yellow and black spats, all at the same time (see pic). The t shirt designs include statements like "No bullshido, hespect", as well as glittery gold "I heart jiu jitsu". Ny favourite, which I'm VERY excited about is the Genki Sudo T shirt. Face it. Who wouldn't want one of those?

Oh, and superfinally- I'm on instagram. Find me. I'm "shebeastbjj".

Right, that's it. I have mobile-phone-texting-hand-cramp.

End.

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