Happy birthday to Ted ‘Tedzilla’ Davison! SBG VP’s son turned 18 in December, and celebrated will a killer tattoo!

Ryan Asay Earns His Black Belt!

Many congratulations to SBG Montana’s Ryan Asay for earning his much deserved BJJ black belt. The honor comes after Ryan has spent the last 11 years training alongside SBG VP and coach, Travis Davison. Ryan is the second student to receive the distinction from Travis, who himself is SBG founder Matt Thornton’s first white-to-black belt student!

Travis had this to share about the event:

Huge Ironman at SBG Portland!

Congratulations to all the students who took part in what must be the biggest ironman promotion in SBG Portland history! On December 13th SBG Portland promoted no fewer than 14 students in one massive event! That tally included 12 new blue belts, and two blue belts being promoted to purple. The ironman is not a belt test or exam but instead a celebration for those students who have already consistently shown the skill to be at the next level. In it, each student rolls with every other student in attendance, from white belts up to black belts, not only so that we may all celebrate together as a tribe, but to represent the impact every tribe member has on the success of the promoted students. Congratulations to Lucas, David, Kat, Joe, Andrew, Molly, Marc, Emily, Mike, Jedediah, Justin, and Abigail on their new blue belts, and Zandy and Matt on their purple belts!

Also at the same event, SBG Portland Coach and IBJJF World Masters champion Amanda Diggins was awarded the first stripe on her black belt. Congratulations Amanda!

“This woman is a champion competitor, a world class coach, and a leader. She represents the best of SBG. It was an honor and a privilege to award Amanda Diggins her stripe on her black belt tonight.” – Matt Thornton

An SBG Season of Giving

Christmas is, of course, a time of giving, and no where is that more true than at SBG. This holiday season, SBG gyms across the country collected toys for kids, and food for the hungry, in a huge effort to give a little back to the communties in which they operate.

SBG Athens collected 500 toys for Toys for Tots. The Detachment Coordinator had this to say, “Thank you again for so much community support for you and your group. You guys always knock it out of the park!”

Meanwhile, SBG Atlanta had a toy drive of their own; stuffing toys and gifts into car trunks until they could barely close to give to community families!

During the 2017 Hunger Bowl in support of the Foodbank of Northeast Georgia SBG Athens created 28,000 meals after collecting an equivalent of 41,000 pounds of food in just two weeks. They once again won the coveted Empty Bowl prize for most pounds collected per employee.

IBJJF No Gi World Champions At SBG!

December was also the month for the annual IBJJF No Gi World Championships down in California. SBG athletes from around the world came to compete, and many picked up medals on one of the highest no-gi grappling stages around!

After all was said and done, SBG celebrates four brand new IBJJF World Champions! Congratulations to Shay Montague, John Allsup and Jimmy Center, who all won gold in their blue belt brackets, and to Chris Myers on winning gold at brown belt!

Well done, as well, to Ella Prevost, Ansleigh Wilk, Liisi Vaht, John Diggins and Amanda Diggins. All four securing impressive spots on the podium in their respective brackets at the toughest levels of competition.

Cane Prevost On Triangle Escapes

It has been far too long since we were graced with a fresh blog post from SBG Portland’s Cane Prevost. The BJJ black belt’s blog is an absolute treasure trove of information and instruction, breaking key BJJ concepts down into easily digestible content. If you have never checked it out, stop everything and do so now!

Cane’s lastest piece stems from a recent instructional video that was floating around Facebook, showing a unique triangle choke escape that, straying from SBG’s focus on fundamentals, instead saw the instructor commit numerous errors in making his escape. It was enough for Cane to create a whole post about the dangers of internet instructional videos, and the negative impact the wrong ones can have on a BJJ students game, especially at an early level.

Cane works through the video in question, pointing out its critical flaws in terms of structure and posture, and compares it with a more reliable, though less flashy, video on a correct triangle choke escape. Be sure to read Cane’s post, it is just one small example of the difference between SBG’s approach to BJJ and other gyms out there.

SBG featured in FCFF’s Best of 2017

FCFF, the MMA and grappling promotion behind Rumble @ The Roseland, had a bumper year in 2017, and they celebrated in December by highlighting some of the best moments from the year. Unsurprisingly, SBG’s name was mentioned more than once in the awards. Specifically, SBG was awarded Best Crowd Following, for its efforts at the Wimp2Warrior card. Also, SBG’s Max Garrison, who scored back-to-back amateur wins in 2017, was awarded FCFF’s 2018 Fighter to Watch.