During the Extreme Grappling Open, Mario Roberto promoted James Clingerman to Black Belt.  (James Clingerman is the promoter of the event).  We also have footage of James in brown belt competition online.

Congrats James!

When I started adding this feature to the blog, I had no idea it would be so popular or be updated so frequently…

First up:
Richard Giberson was promoted to Black Belt in Hawaii under Master Relson Gracie Oct. 8th in Hawaii!

Congrats!  Get yourself into the OTM Belt Database! 

Just talked to Frank Mullis and he informed me that Chad Mason passed away this morning from a heart attack.  I didn’t get any other details, just wanted to offer my condolences to his family and friends.

How scary is this?  From CNN.com:

CHICAGO, Illinois (AP) — More than 90,000 Americans get potentially deadly infections each year from a drug-resistant staph “superbug,” the government reported Tuesday in its first overall estimate of invasive disease caused by the germ.

Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus can be carried by healthy people, living on the skin or in their noses.

Deaths tied to these infections may exceed those caused by AIDS, said one public health expert commenting on the new study. The report shows just how far one form of the staph germ has spread beyond its traditional hospital setting.

The overall incidence rate was about 32 invasive infections per 100,000 people. That’s an “astounding” figure, said an editorial in Wednesday’s Journal of the American Medical Association, which published the study.

Most drug-resistant staph cases are mild skin infections. But this study focused on invasive infections — those that enter the bloodstream or destroy flesh and can turn deadly.

Researchers found that only about one-quarter involved hospitalized patients. However, more than half were in the health care system — people who had recently had surgery or were on kidney dialysis, for example. Open wounds and exposure to medical equipment are major ways the bug spreads.

In recent years, the resistant germ has become more common in hospitals and it has been spreading through prisons, gyms and locker rooms, and in poor urban neighborhoods.

The new study offers the broadest look yet at the pervasiveness of the most severe infections caused by the bug, called methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus, or MRSA. These bacteria can be carried by healthy people, living on their skin or in their noses.

An invasive form of the disease is being blamed for the death Monday of a 17-year-old Virginia high school senior. Doctors said the germ had spread to his kidneys, liver, lungs and muscles around his heart.

The researchers’ estimates are extrapolated from 2005 surveillance data from nine mostly urban regions considered representative of the country. There were 5,287 invasive infections reported that year in people living in those regions, which would translate to an estimated 94,360 cases nationally, the researchers said.

Most cases were life-threatening bloodstream infections. However, about 10 percent involved so-called flesh-eating disease, according to the study led by researchers at the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

There were 988 reported deaths among infected people in the study, for a rate of 6.3 per 100,000. That would translate to 18,650 deaths annually, although the researchers don’t know if MRSA was the cause in all cases.

If these deaths all were related to staph infections, the total would exceed other better-known causes of death including AIDS _ which killed an estimated 17,011 Americans in 2005 — said Dr. Elizabeth Bancroft of the Los Angeles County Health Department, the editorial author.

The results underscore the need for better prevention measures. That includes curbing the overuse of antibiotics and improving hand-washing and other hygiene procedures among hospital workers, said the CDC’s Dr. Scott Fridkin, a study co-author.

Some hospitals have drastically cut infections by first isolating new patients until they are screened for MRSA.

The bacteria don’t respond to penicillin-related antibiotics once commonly used to treat them, partly because of overuse. They can be treated with other drugs but health officials worry that their overuse could cause the germ to become resistant to those, too.

A survey earlier this year suggested that MRSA infections, including noninvasive mild forms, affect 46 out of every 1,000 U.S. hospital and nursing home patients — or as many as 5 percent. These patients are vulnerable because of open wounds and invasive medical equipment that can help the germ spread.

Dr. Buddy Creech, an infectious disease specialist at Vanderbilt University, said the JAMA study emphasizes the broad scope of the drug-resistant staph “epidemic,” and highlights the need for a vaccine, which he called “the holy grail of staphylococcal research.”

The regions studied were: the Atlanta, Georgia, metropolitan area; Baltimore, Maryland; Connecticut; Davidson County, Tennessee; the Denver, Colorado, metropolitan area; Monroe County, New York; the Portland, Oregon metropolitan area; Ramsey County, Minnesota.; and the San Francisco, California, metropolitan area.

And a very special congratulations goes out to Mike Prudencio, BJJ instructor over at One World Martial Arts in Union City, who was awarded his much deserved black belt from Dave Camarillo this weekend.

Mike happens to be one of my best friends in the world.  Mike’s one of my top training partners and very responsible to a large degree of elevating my own game.  To say I’m incredibly happy for him is an understatement.

JudoGoat (aka Andrew Smith) makes this post on JJGear.com’s forum informing us of the promotion of his good friend Eric Burdo being awarded his black belt from Julian Fernandez (one half of the BJJ Revolution team along with Rodrigo Meideiros):

Oops! Forums down so I can’t get the post! At any rate, congrats Eric!

Now get yourself in the OTM Belt Database!

Lots of updates to make today.

First of all, Russ Miura (who at one point was very active on the competition circuit and has been featured on video both online and on 101 Submissions) was awarded his black belt by Rick Estrada).  As the post from MMA.tv goes:
Just wanted to let everyone know that Russ was awarded his black belt today by Rick Estrada. Both Rick and Russ were slated to be awarded before Jeremy Williams passed. Juliano Prado stepped up and acknowledged Rick’s skills and dedication, and Rick in turn did the same for Russ. Russ will be back in the cage soon, as well, so look out 145ers. Congrats coach!

Congrats!  Did you get yourselves in the OTM Belt Database yet?

Saw this post floating around from Chris Owens.  Apparently he neglected to add his own name to the list:

Congratulations to Tadashi Takashima, Jay Mansfield, Steve Medina, Tony Dimino, John Brooks, Mike Pellegrino, and Chris Page on their promotion to black belt by Roberto Maia with Carlos Gracie Jr this weekend.

Congratulations one and all!

You all get yourselves into the OTM Belt Database yet?

My close friends now that I’m a bit of a Foodie*.  One of the perks of being on the road and traveling to many different places on behalf of OTM, is the chance to investigate and sample local cuisine and eateries.  I’m not necessarily picky, I’m just as happy discovering a favored local burger joint as I am making a visit to a celebrity chef’s kitchen.

In addition to enjoying eating and going to restaurants, I also like watching cooking shows.  Although I’m not much in the way of cooking other than a little experimentation, I’ve liked watching cooking shows for about as long as I’ve watched TV.  Something about watching food prep soothes me.  Of course, in an age of celebrity chefs and food networks, I would hardly call all cooking programs soothing these days.  My favorite show on television happens to be Iron Chef, which has been described in a number of reviews as Julia Childs meets Ultimate Fighting.

I should make the caveat that I’m a huge fan of the original Japanese Iron Chef series, which is one of the campiest programs ever on television, put displays real cooking skills.  The New Iron Chef America has it’s moments, I’m a big Alton Brown fan and wouldn’t mind getting a beer with either Mario Batali or Morimoto, but Bobby Flay agitates me to the point of making me want throw things at my television screen.  When the dojo game of “Which celebrity would you like to cage fight?” comes up, Flay is always pretty high on my list.

Lately I’ve gotten into Top Chef a reality show that pits up and coming young chefs against each other for prize money and recognition.  While I know it’s not much more than good television, I’ve been obsessed with it the point of regularly visiting the website, as recently have been searching for other articles on the latest season (which just aired their finale last week) and found a good article on the NY Times website:

TV Chef’s, Far from Reality

I can summarize the article for you in that it spends very little time actually discussing the Top Chef finale, and goes on to to criticize the current situation of the celebrity chef, which in the process of opening up multiple restaurants and signing endorsement deals, may have somewhat lost touch with the food they prepare and real reason they got into the business in the first place.

It’s a situation more firmly grounded in kitchen reality than a typical “Iron Chef” stunt, and what’s fascinating is the way Ms. Des Jardins responds to it. Looking nervous, she says with admirable candor that she can only hope the requisite skills are still in her command, because she doesn’t handle such chores often anymore.

How many of the country’s most successful chefs do? As they pump out their books, sign their latest endorsement deals and add 3rd or 6th or 10th restaurants to their burgeoning empires, they move farther away from the meals that the diners in those restaurants eat. They’re less creators than conferrers, lending an aura of glamour to products manufactured and projects maintained by others.

Now why am I spending so much time on this subject on a presumably martial arts blog?  Well minus the staggering amounts of money involved (in BJJ anyway), some may be able to draw some similarities between the celebrity chef who heads dozens of restaurants and the emergence of multiple location MA schools and remote associations.

Or can you draw up a similarity? Am I just trying to stir up controversy here, or is there (or is there going to be) a legitimate problem brewing here?  You tell me.

I will say, that the chefs and instructors I admire the most (and subsequently honored with “Instructor of the Year” honors through OntheMat) are the ones who have managed to remain as hands on as possible in the personal development of their craft and business.

The best meal I’ve ever had at a restaurant was at Masa’s in San Francisco while Ron Siegel was head chef there.  Iron Chef fans might remember him as the first (and only) American to come in and win during the regular season run on Fuji TV.  He certainly has the culinary skill set to be as famous and successful as any and all of the current celebrity chefs you seen on TV, and yet from what I gather he seems to be genuinely embaressed by the attention his win has caused him.  Instead he seems happiest pouring his work into his chosen craft, and I can happily report that a chef of his stature Ron was poking around the dining room checking on the guests the night I dined there.

I guess it all depends on what your goals are.

*Foodie is an informal term for a particular class of aficionado of food and drink. The word was coined in 1984 by Paul Levy, Ann Barr, and Mat Sloan for their book The Official Foodie Handbook.

This is a shot with Darren “BC” Uyenoyama as he is entering the cage this weekend for Cage Combat Fighting Championships.  (Full report coming up soon, he lost the fight to Rolando Velasco).

In the background you see a picture of Josh “the Punk” Thompson and Gilbert Melendez embracing.  (Josh is regonizable by his distinct hairdo, and for the record he is NOT GAY re: Frank Shamrock comment)They have trained together in the past but have have purposely avoided each other,as a showdown within StrikeForce for Gilbert’s 155 title seems on the very near horizon.  Seems it’s just business when they get into the cage however, as they too seem fond of each other outside of it.