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daprec · 4 years ago

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BJJ Floating Mat System DIY Walkthrough

I’m going to share the process of building a floating mat system, from design to sourcing materials and build. I figured I try to take out as much guess work since I had no guidance and had to learn on my own. There were several pieces of the puzzle that came as some small surprises, but hopefully this helps the next person who decided to make the leap to a better mat system. I’m unsure of the process for other countries, but in my case I will detail the process for importing goods into New Zealand – it may differ in other places. I’ll include links to the factory for all the specific mats I ordered in the post.

Towards the end of Sept 2020, just after the Covid-19 lockdown ended in New Zealand, I had an opportunity to expand my BJJ club and sub-lease space in our existing gym we ran out of. I had an elaborate vision of a floating mat system underneath some juicy dollamur mats for use to train in.

I was introduced to the floating mat system years ago when I lived in Los Angeles on a visit to Kron Gracie’s academy in Culver City. I had worked down the street and wanted to congratulate him and have a look around. My friend Ollie Barre worked there and he showed me around, even Kron said hello and mentioned the spring loaded floating mat system to me.

It was about 1/2 a meter high with actual springs under the floor with plywood on top and tatame on top of the ply. It was amazing!

Image courtesy of Kron Gracie Academy Linkedin page

I knew that’s what I wanted but I didn’t have the budget for springs, so I explored other options. After a few searches I came across a couple videos:

How to build the ultimate spring subfloor for your Judo, Jujitsu and Wrestling mats

How to build a Bjj subfloor

Foam and ply – sweet I can do that! Let’s measure the space:

9.7m x 4m – pretty decent space!

After the measurement I needed to visualize the build. I knew I had to see it and make something for others to see the vision I had, so I modeled everything out in Maya and made a 3D render:

Concept render

I used real world units to keep everything to spec, that means the units I use in the 3D application are accurate to and equal to the units I would use on the actual build. The sub-floor would be the most difficult thing to explain to a builder, so I did a couple renders of what the underbelly would look like:

14 sheets of plywood with sub-floor foam block layout

Single sheet plywood foam block layout

I began compiling a list of materials I would need:

15 sheets of 2440mm x 1200mm x 12mm non-structural plywood

6 sheets of closed cell polyethylene foam

tons of liquid nail

timber for boxing in – unsure of spec at that time

5cm thick floor mats, tatame finish

21 wall mats @ 183cm x 122cm x 5cm

Living in New Zealand is awesome BUT sourcing some of these materials was going to be difficult and super expensive. I started calling around and emailing different foam companies and dollamur reps. I was getting quotes just for the dollamur mats of $5-6k NZD alone! I found a company that imports foam and was quoted $500/sheet of PE foam! I didn’t even bother looking at the wall mats – it would have cost me closer to 10K to get everything from NZ companies, so I decided to cut out the middle man and source materials myself.

Of course this lead me to Alibaba.com – the Chinese based website that gives people like myself access to factories where these things are typically made. After a few days of searching and multiple emails, I found a factory – Quindao Sanhong Plastic Co, LTD – that appeared to manufacture everything I needed – floor mats, wall mats and PE foam sheets.

It was my 1st time using Alibaba and to be honest I was SUPER dubious. I would be dealing with people outside of the country I lived in which carries a larger sense of the unknown.

I ended up chatting with a service person named Emily. She was incredibly helpful and thorough and made sure she understood what I required. I sent her an absurd amount of photos, videos, all of my renderings of what I had in mind, the measurements and other specs. She talked me into getting a more dense mat (40kg/cbm – a new unit of measurement I was completely unfamiliar with) for both the floor mats and sub-floor mats.

Originally I intended to have that pool noodle type foam, but Emily urged me not to go that route and go for something thicker – the cost was negligible so I went for it. Trusting someone you’ve never met overseas was hard, but I figured I needed to roll the dice.

The floor mat specs I went with were 3 rolls of 9.7m x 1.33m x 5cm with a tatame finish

Link to mats here

Floor mats

Next were the wall mats. I needed 21 wall mats @ 183cm x 122cm x 5cm Link to mats here

Wall mats

Next was the closed cell sub-floor PE foam. Quindao made 2m x 1m sheets of this stuff, and I needed 6 sheets total to accommodate my space. These were roughly $40USD / sheet so if I got it wrong I figured it wouldn’t be TOO much of a loss. Link to foam sheets here

This is the pool noodle foam I was expecting, but not what I ended up receiving

Emily was very patient and understand of my reservations in dealing with an overseas factory. After a few more emails and messages I pulled the trigger and made the order. At this stage Emily walked me through the process and gave me a general idea of several unknown import costs. Her estimate on the NZ import tax was very close, but she did inform me there would be other costs she had no way of providing an estimate for.

I forgot to mention that a couple months prior to ordering I had already setup a legit business in anticipation of building my dream in the future. Emily had requested an NZ Import ID so fortunately I was already qualified to apply for a NZ business import ID through NZ Customs. This cost me about $200 to register my business and get an import ID.

After providing all of my information, she came back with a total cost and import tax estimate I would pay on arrival. Freight costs from China to NZ were SUPER cheap – about $80NZD to ship 700kg worth of stuff, so that was fine.

I paid the deposit so the manufacturing could get under way. Once they were finished making all of the mats/materials I would then pay in full prior to loading onto the ship. It took them about 4 weeks to finish everything. At that time there was one final check through that they had all of my correct information and import ID and that was that. The order started on 11/02/2020 and was shipped on 12/08/2020

Because of Covid, there were huge delays with international shipping and unloading, so the wait time was longer than usual. It was supposed to take 40 days but ended up being much longer than that. The mats arrived in NZ the 1st week of February 2021 – phew at least they made it safe!

This is where a lot of the surprises and unknowns came into play. I received an email from some guy at a freight company saying my mats had arrived and I needed to send all of the arrival documents to my broker

Evidently I had to obtain an import broker to forward all of the documents to, which no one makes any mention of. But here’s where things get a little…rackety. I ended up going with EasyFreight brokers who charged me about $200 for their services. They emailed documents from NZ Customs where I then had to pay around $500NZD for the Import Tax.

Once the Import Tax was paid, my mats could then be released BUT…the mysterious freight company who initially emailed me now says I need to pay them $1900NZD before they ship my mats to Wellington. This fee was for unloading the mats from the ship and onto the dock and storing them in a warehouse until all of the documents cleared. This almost doubled the cost of the mats I ordered and by now the total cost was getting close to what I was getting quotes from NZ based companies.

I paid the invoice and they put my mats onto a truck to be shipped down to Wellington to ANOTHER freight company – not directly to me for whatever dumb reason. I contacted the new freight company, had a bit of confusion and back and forth but eventually I ended up having to pay them another $250NZD to ship my mats to the gym. What a racketeering outfit huh?

They delivered the mats and I immediately started ripping up the packaging to have a look at my new goods. I have to say that what I purchased exceeded my expectations. The floor mats where BETTER than what I expected, the wall mats were BETTER than what I anticipated and the sub-floor foam ended up being more closer to memory foam than pool noodle foam. Holy hell we’re gonna have some sweet mats to roll on!

To the build!

After a trip to Bunnings to pickup timber, liquid nail and a few other things, that tallied up to over $1000NZD we were on our way.

The 1st order of business was to cut the foam sheets into blocks. I had originally calculated 7cm x 10cm x 10 cm but when we laid everything out, we’d only be using 2 sheets of foam and would have had to cut relatively tiny blocks. So instead we went with 20cm x 20cm x 10cm blocks – much easier to cut and deal with and even then we had a ton left over (which we made use of by the end of it.

Foam blocks

I worked out the numbers and we did 3 x 5 rows of blocks per plywood sheet

1st row of 8 pieces of 2440mm x 1200mm x 12mm plywood with 15 foam blocks liquid nailed to ply

We had all of the blocks glued to the ply and realized we had HEAPS left over, so we decided to re-jig some things around and use the extra blocks in the spaces inbetween sheets of ply on the seams and corners. This ended up adding an extra level of stability between the ply and would be less likely to damage the mats on top.

Using extra blocks underneath ply seams

Once all the plywood was laid out and the liquid nail given a bit of time to cure, we had to then box everything in to prevent sliding. This required a concrete drill/concrete bit, about 10 dynabolts (basically concrete bolts with anchors), some timber 2 x 4s, more liquid nail and a bit of good old fashioned elbow grease.

We made a mess!

The guys marked where the holes needed to be drilled roughly 1 1/2 meters apart. After the holes were drilled and swept, we laid down a very long 2×4 that was already predrilled with the initial concrete hole drilling. A dynabolt was hammered into the hole as far as it could, then racheted down with a socket wrench to tighten. The 1st piece of timber would be the foundation the other boxing in pieces would be anchored to.

The farside wall was crooked so that meant our sheets were slightly offset on the outside edge. As long as the surrounding box was square, the top layer mats would hide the crooked ply and we’d be fine.

Timber posts are rather expensive in NZ and usually crooked, so we ended up gluing and screwing 2 2×4 together so that 1. they cost less and 2. we could straighten them much easier.

Boxing in almost complete

To secure the 2x4s to the base we used nails and several Stud to Bottom galvanized fixings. We needed to make sure there would be absolutely no flex with the box.

To have a nicer finish, we added a thin layer of finger jointed pine on top of the 2x4s secured with finishing nails. The grain and look of it is much more eye pleasing than the sides of 2x4s and I can stain or paint it later.

Finishing touches on the sub-floor box

We left about a 3cm lip around the box so when the mats sit on top of the ply, the outer frame would contain and lock in the mats from sliding. The mats came very well packaged in three 1.3m x 9.7m x 5cm rolls

1 of 3 mat rolls

We placed extra ply against the walls to create a wedge/spacing for the wall mats. Upon rolling out the 1st roll we realized the wall was not straight…at all, but we made it work. 1st mat down!

The middle roll was relatively easy to to setup and the velcro attachment worked out perfectly.

That tatame finish texture is looking nice!

The final row did prove to be a bit more challenging but we eventually squeezed it into the remaining space. We can do math!!

After a full day of work we got the mats installed. We started at 11am, did a Bunnings run to collect tubes of liquid nail, screws, etc, got to the gym at around 12:30pm and finished just after 1am.

The following weekend we mounted the wall mats which were relatively straight forward. We ran 2 rows of 5m x 18mm pine planks along the wall, one at the top of the wall mats and one mid mat for support. I forgot to take pics but we basically created a support system and something to drill into instead of thick firewall jib.

We finished in the evening, cleaned up and of course we had a roll!

Some after thoughts

I can’t tell you how happy I am with this setup. Having an extra 10cm of foam under the sub floor has made a HUGE difference. It only took about 3 weeks to break in the harshness of new mats, and the tatame finish has been amazing. They aren’t slippery at all and are like heaven to roll on. One thing I would have done, which I most likely will do soon is to place 1 screw into each foam block under the sub floor.

What happens is the vibrations of people moving on the mats will cause the foam blocks to shift if they liquid nail didn’t stick. Not a big deal as we can simply lift the mats/play and move the foam, but that’s the only thing I would have done. Everything else worked out perfectly and I could not be more happy.

I hope this helps anyone who is interested in building something like this. There are a LOT of unknowns that go into importing goods from overseas, but I covered all of the “gotcha” moments along the way. Also I can with full confidence say that Quindao Plastics manufacture high spec and high quality mats/foam. They exceeded my expectations, so you can purchase with confidence. I knew nothing about them, only went by their Trade Assurance certification rating on Alibaba, but who the hell knows what that means? I’m thrilled I rolled the dice – they nailed it!

Reach out if you have any questions

Oss!

BJJ Floating Mat System DIY Walkthrough was originally published on davepreciado

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daprec · 4 years ago

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Unspoken and Spoken Mat Rules At Combat Room Miramar #jiujitsufirst

Some of these were borrowed from BJJEE and Gentlemen Grappler, some were modified by me, and others are my own rules or rules that have been passed down and seen as tradition 1. Shake the hands of the black belts when you enter and when you leave the mat. Additionally, after greeting the blackbelt please greet your teammates with the JJ handshake and smile 🙂 2. If a higher belt invites you to…

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daprec · 4 years ago

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Unspoken and Spoken Mat Rules At Combat Room Miramar #jiujitsufirst

Some of these were borrowed from BJJEE and Gentlemen Grappler, some were modified by me, and others are my own rules or rules that have been passed down and seen as tradition

1. Shake the hands of the black belts when you enter and when you leave the mat. Additionally, after greeting the blackbelt please greet your teammates with the JJ handshake and smile 🙂

2. If a higher belt invites you to roll, you roll. They will invite you politely, if you say no they might not ask you again (except on special situations such as injuries, necessary rest for competition and others).

3. If a black belt is rolling near you, stop and move. If you are a black belt and you have a stable position and the lower belts around you are scrambling or with a submission locked in, don’t be a tyrant, be humble, you move.

4. Be stoic. If you get a submission, don’t celebrate, don’t show any joy. If you are submitted, don’t show frustration, shake hands and restart.

5. If the pain is tolerable don’t stop. Don’t talk to your partner about it, don’t expect them to say they are sorry, most of the times they didn’t even realized what happened. Keep it to yourself.

6. No excuses, a tap is a tap, crank or no crank. Don’t waste time massaging your ego explaining why you tapped, focus on what you should had done instead.

7. During the explanation of a position be attentive, listen carefully. Don’t expect the full attention of your professor if you didn’t give him any.

8. Payback rule, whatever you do, it will be done to you. If you are rough we will be rough on you. If you dedicate yourself to Jiu-Jitsu we will dedicate ourselves to you.

9. Do not cheer for teammates while you watch them roll. If you are on the side watching a roll, please keep your outbursts of joy that your teammate got a sub on your other teammate. It’s not fair and doesn’t help the person who got sub’d at all.

10. No coaching from the sidelines unless you’re a purple belt or above. If you ARE purple and above, please do not coach if the head coach, instructor or Professor is coaching. Too many people shouting instructions at 1 practitioner doesn’t help anyone and it’s the Professors job to coach his/her students. If Professor isn’t there (in a tournament scenario), then the high belt coaches

11. Whitebelts are not allowed to make rules or teach. You’re a whitebelt and with all due respect, you don’t know much at this stage. Unless you’re a D1 All American Wrestler or Judo World Champion who are joining up in BJJ, you are not allowed to teach newcomers or other whitebelts, and you most certainly are not allowed to make rules on the mats.

12. Always make a bow before stepping onto the mats. This is a quick and nice way to check your mind and body onto the tatame, and focus on training, leaving your job and real world problems behind.

13. No barefeet off of the mats ESPECIALLY WHEN GOING TO THE TOILETS. If I need to explain why then you owe me 3000 pushups.

14. In general lower belts are not allowed to ask higher belts to roll. There are always exceptions but this rule must always be adhered to unless an arrangement or conversation has been had by the individual high belt. This also goes for male whitebelts asking other women whitebelts to roll. At this stage the technique isn’t there yet and we want to mitigate unintentional injury as much as possible.

15. NEVER ask when you’re going to be promoted, or when another student is going to be promoted. Instructors have their reasons why/when/if to promote a student and their judgement must be respected at all times, regardless if you understand or disagree with the decision. This is simply how it’s always been.

16. Training at other gyms. One-off training is fine if you want to visit another gym to get a different experience or have friends there. But regular training at other gyms isn’t cool for a variety of reasons. The 1st being your grading process, and the 2nd being the fact that coaches invest a lot of time and effort into your training. Training at HQ or other Combat Rooms is strongly encouraged, but you do not earn credit at CR Miramar from training at other CRs.

17. If late to class – please wait to be waved onto the mats by your Professor. This is so that he/she knows you’re on the mats to help keep track of attendance and safety. Additionally without question 20 pushups is owed as penalty for being late.

18. Forgetting your belt. Whitebelts owe 20 pushups, Bluebelts owe 40 pushups, Purplebelts owe 40 pushups + 40 burpees. Brown and Blackbelts never forget their belts because punishment works.

19. Start and finish class with a bow. As previously mentioned this is more of a handshake rather than any sort of reverence. Its more to pay respect to each other: the instructor to you, and you to the instructor.

20. Line up according to rank. (yes even in the picture) The people who have put in more mat time have not only earned this right, but also have more knowledge than the lower belts. This is attributed to the “Martial” part of “Martial (Military) Arts (Subjective Craft)”

21. Blackbelts are called “Professor or Sensei”. If your gym has purple/brown belts who are official gym instructors named by the head instructor, they are called “Coach”

22. Always have a clean gi or no-gi uniforms. “No one wants to essmell you esstink” – Rey Diogo

23. Please trim your finger and toe nails. We don’t know how to fight wolverines yet

24. Be a good training partner and/or Uke. When practicing technique with a partner, or if Professor calls upon you to demonstrate a technique, please don’t act like this is a live sparring event. Practice is practice, rolling is rolling, demonstration is DEMONSTRATION. If you resist or start defending, Professor will not call on you again to help.

25. Train in a controlled and methodical manner. We are not here to injure our teammates or “break our toys” as I like to say. Beginners don’t have the technique yet to implement this philosophy at first, so upper belts please don’t get frustrated. Help them along the way, as upper belts did for you when you were a beginner. Beginners, no one is going to kill you, so try to remain calm during a roll and learn something.

26. Please stick to the IBJJF ruleset of submissions unless you have verbally agreed with your training partner otherwise.

This means:

No neck cranks, cervical locks or heel hooks

No slamming

No footlocks or kneebars for white belts (straight ankle locks are IBJJF approved for all belts)

No fish hooking, eye gouging or grabbing fingers individually

Avoid chokes along the jaw, chin, teeth or face

ALWAYS respect the tap, and allow partners time to tap

27. Go slow when applying a submission. Most joint locks can cause severe damage, especially the arm and shoulder locks. I know it’s exciting, but please go slow enough to give your partners a second to tap or don’t apply the submission 150%

28. Tap early and a lot. Everyone taps – this is part of the game. Think of it as a game of “gotcha” rather than a game of wining or losing. Most of my taps usually end with a giggle and a “that was awesome well done”. This is how we learn. This is the realtime feedback that illustrates a mistake on our part that needs addressing. Work on your weaknesses.

29. Please invest in a mouthguard. Accidents do happen, and as adult humans our teeth do not grow back. Pay the money on a good one, it’s worth it. This is not mandatory, but strongly advised.

30. MINIMUM attendance for promotion consideration is 3 days a week. I need to see you on the mats at least 3 days a week consistently for 6 months for you to be considered for a stripe or promotion. This does NOT include going to HQ or other gyms or open mat (free rolling days). You need to be on the mats in Miramar to qualify for a promotion. If you can tap and sweep everyone in the gym but are only showing up 1 day a week then you most likely won’t get promoted.

31. Always come to class with a positive and open mindset

32. During technique practice please do NOT talk the entire time. Not only is this disrespectful to your Professor, you are wasting your training partners time as well as your own time. Technique practice time is the single most important part of class and is the only time I expect full focus from all of my students. We only get 3 hours a week to train, and only 1/2 that time to practice technique to please avoid socializing and practice the technique.

33. Do not attend class if you are sick. Please stay home until you are completely well and ready to train. Do not come to class to watch if you still have symptoms

34. Do not train injured. If you are injured please come to class to watch, but as difficult as it may be, please don’t train. Injuries can linger for YEARS if you do not take the time to heal properly. You’ve already dedicated yourself to JJ, it’s not going anywhere. Rest up, heal up and come back stronger!

35. Please remove all jewelery, earrings, bracelets before class

36. If you are on the side watching people roll, it is your job to help prevent collisions happening on the mats. Step inbetween 2 groups of people rolling and do your best to either protect their heads or if they get too close let them know they should move. The higher belts have the mat priority, so lower belts move for them.

37. High belts are responsible for the mats after class and locking up. If I’m not around to mop the mats, high belts are responsible. It’s really EVERYONES job. Make sure the mats are mopped and stacked before leaving the gym. Don’t wait for someone else to do it, please help. Also if there is no one else in the gym, the high belt (bluebelt and up) is responsible to lock up.

38. NO SHOES ON THE MAT EVER. I shouldn’t even have to type this, but sadly I do.

39. *AMENDED* Leave drama off of the mat AND out of the group chat please. If it’s mat drama please deal with it off of the mats in a kind and respectful way. If it’s chat drama please deal with it off the chat in person in a kind and respectful way.

Please keep in mind I work 50-60hr weeks PLUS teach BJJ – 2 jobs. I would appreciate it if people could figure it out among themselves. Keep in mind I’m only qualified to give you Jiu Jitsu and Motion Capture Animation advice 😊

If you find yourself consistently at the center of issues at the gym or the chat, perhaps step away for a bit and think about what the common denominator is and how you can improve/fix things and come back with a different mind set. If things can’t be settled then speak to me about a different solution, but please try the above avenues prior to reaching out to me.

All of that said I’m always here for my students and can/will help however possible, but if it’s things I don’t need to be involved in, please help me and be #mindful in that regard.🙏

40. Guys – don’t hit on the ladies. Our gym has a unique and large female presence and I want to keep it that way. We haven’t had a problem yet that I know of and it’s going to stay that way.

41. Saying “Oss” is an affirmation. This is a very traditional method of either saying “you understand”, or “I give you permission to practice on me and I on you” or just a sign of gratitude and respect. Oss is cool

42. What happens on the mats stays on the mats. I know we all get excited and our ego’s pumped when we sweep or tap out someone. But lets keep that to ourselves – we don’t need to gloat off the mats about sweeping a 1 stripe whitebelt, or how we heelhooked a 12 year old, or how we passed a blackbelts guard (who 99.99% let you anyway). We especially find it tacky and uncool posting these kinds of things on social media so keep it in the gym.

43. Beginners, yes the higher belt let you have it, unless they said you legitimately “got them”, so please hold off on launching the blimp and having a parade until you have confirmation. Its the higher belts job to help guide you along this path, and at some point you will stop being given chances.

***UPDATE 01***

44. Whatever special arrangements I’ve made with an individual apply to that individual ONLY. Sometimes there are things in life that are out of our control, and we cannot manage to abide by some of these rules. If a student has spoken directly to me about some life event or change and we need to come up with a plan specific to them, that does NOT mean it applies to everyone. Every student is responsible to speak to me about their situations.

***UPDATE 02***

45. Visiting guests from another gyms. Of course always be courteous and welcoming, but the general unspoken rule is to smoke them when rolling – usually when matched to your belt level 😃. This is a worldwide unspoken standard within BJJ gyms. The thinking is when they leave our gym and go back to their home gym, they’ll know that we practice good Jiu Jitsu and train hard. This helps keep quality and standards up within the BJJ community and increases the drive at other clubs to improve. It’s kind of a weird quality control, but hey we’re learning how to fight so it isn’t always pretty. There are ALWAYS exceptions to the rules, but this is the general “Old School” way of doing things, that as far as I know is still an unspoken standard.

46. Visiting other schools. Be respectful and courteous – mind your manners at all times. Give them a call or an email before showing up to ask if it’s OK to jump into a class. Greet the Black Belt or head coach 1st. Treat the tatami how you would treat your own school regardless if they do not practice the same etiquette as your home gym. Train hard, be technical, – don’t be a meat head.

“It’s better to know your manners and not need them instead of needing your manners and not knowing them.” – Miyamoto Musashi I think 😛

***UPDATE 03***

47. Gi and no-gi uniform. Being that we’re still in a Covid pandemic, we still must continue practicing safe hygene. This means wearing leggings and rash guards under your gi. This means wearing leggings, shorts and long sleeve rash guards for no-gi. We’ll continue this practice when we eventually are a post-Covid world.

***UPDATE 04***

48. ZERO TOLERANCE of sexual harassment. Ladies if anything of the such happens at our club, however unlikely, please bring it to my attention IMMEDIATELY. I have a 1 strike and you’re out policy and will not condone this kind of behavior from any of my students.

Other thoughts

You’re going to want to quit. Don’t worry we have all felt that throughout this journey. BJJ is hard. Some say the hardest thing they’ve ever done. The learning never ends – the same goes with life and anything else you want to master. And just as in life, running from your problems never solves anything so call timeout, recharge, and come back!

Ask yourself what kind of student do you want to be? One that’s made of rubber? Bouncing back and forth to class, disappearing for months, reappearing for months again and again? One that’s made of wood? After a couple breaks or if things get too hard they quit, never to return? Or one that’s made of steel? A student who regardless of the injuries, hits to the ego, damage to the body, never bends or breaks and always shows up ready to train.

Rubber, Wood or Steel – which are you?

For most all practicioners, the mats are a sacred space. We train because not only do we love the art, but our time on the mats is a cathertic experience. We can forget our daily lives, our jobs, families, friends, pets etc and focus 100% on ourselves, our minds and our bodies while learning something usefull and cool.

Lets not forget what this means to everyone and always give and pay the tatame and class the reverence it deserves. Oss!

*Over time this rule set can and will be amended*

Unspoken and Spoken Mat Rules At Combat Room Miramar #jiujitsufirst was originally published on davepreciado

#mindful

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daprec · 5 years ago

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What Do Motion Capture Actors Actually Do?

This is an old article from 2018, but still relevant and does an acceptable job at explain the role of the actor vs the role of the animator/motion editor.

In general, the actor has little control over the character’s final appearance. “One of the benefits of using performance capture over traditional animation is giving the CG character the nuances of life, so an important thing we can do as…

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daprec · 5 years ago

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What Do Motion Capture Actors Actually Do?

This is an old article from 2018, but still relevant and does an acceptable job at explain the role of the actor vs the role of the animator/motion editor.

“However, it is important to acknowledge just how much work the technical and animation team put into creating the end result – quite often, the majority of the work,” she stresses. “What we do have control over is giving them good quality data as a starting point. I think it’s important for an actor to understand the post-production pipeline, so that they can recognise how their actions affect the clean-up and animation work further down the track. In this way it can become a very strong collaboration. This is again something that is useful to embed into training.”

The reality is, good performance-capture acting likes full-body commitment, great imagination and great energy for performance, often while keeping in mind quite specific technical direction.

“This kind of craft will enhance an actor’s skill in any performance medium – so training in performance capture will never go to waste,” Grant says.

https://www.backstage.com/uk/magazine/article/trends-and-intelligence-motion-capture-performance-66001/

What Do Motion Capture Actors Actually Do? was originally published on davepreciado

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daprec · 6 years ago

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ROTSB# 8 Featuring Me! :P

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daprec · 6 years ago

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ROTSB# 8 Featuring Me! :P

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Hey guys! My friend and Professor Vanderson Pires invited me to talk on his podcast today. We talked about Jiu Jitsu, working in Film and surviving cancer. This is something I’ve wanted to do for a while now, especially for my daughter so she can have a slight glimpse into my life before she was born. Check it out! 🙏

ROTSB# 8 Featuring Me! :P was originally published on davepreciado

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daprec · 6 years ago

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K-Guard Flow Chart #bjj

I put together a flow chart for the K-Guard system (a.k.a. Squirrel Guard or Cross Guard) to coincide with the BJJ seminar myself and brown belt Sam Anderson are covering on Saturday. I strongly suggest you view the chart on a desktop to take advantage of the notes sections. For whatever reason they do not display on a phone and there is a lot of information within the notes for you.

Details revealed!

Click and drag the flowchart around, and use the +/- to zoom in and out. Full screen works to see it in its full glory!

Please feel free to comment below if you have any questions.

You should be able to view the flowchart full screen for better clarity. If not here is a link directly to the chart

The seminar was inspired by Lachlan Giles’ recent ADCC victory over Godio, Duarte, and Aly. The deeper study was strongly based on Aaron Milam and Robson Moura’s take on the position.

Oss

K-Guard Flow Chart #bjj was originally published on davepreciado

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daprec · 6 years ago

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Why I bow.

My BJJ lineage – Judo Founder Dr. Kano Jigoro, Jiu Jitsu Sensei Mitsuyo Maeda, BJJ/Gracie Founders Carlos Gracie and Helio Gracie, Grand Master Carlson Gracie, Professor Rey Diogo and our coach, Professor Vanderson Pires

I started Brazilian Jiu Jitsu in 2007 in Los Angeles with my good friend Professor Ricardo “Rey” Diogo. We went to the same gym and lifted weights during the lunch hour. One day we started chatting and he invited me to his BJJ academy for a “workout”. After my 1st class I was hooked, signed up immediately, and quit my other gym. That said, if anyone knows Rey, he teaches you the mat rules on day one.

Bow before stepping onto the mats – it’s a show of respect to the tatme and you are checking your mind into practice, think of it as a handshake

If Professor is on the mats teaching, wait for Professor to wave you onto the tatame – its respectful but also lets Professor know who is in class

If you are late to class, after bowing to Professor you pay 20 push ups – life has consequences

Begin class lined up according to rank and bow to Professor – this provides a clear and unambiguous ranking system and you are face to face with your instructor, ready to begin class. Professor can make announcements during this time, can address issues, make sure everyone’s uniform is up to par, make sure belts are tied correctly, etc..

Say hello to everyone – do I need to explain this?

Wear a clean gi – no one wants to smell your stinky gi

Trim your nails – weapons of mass destruction are not allowed

Oss as an affirmation – tells Professor (or teammates) that you are listening. Tells teammates “I give you permission to practice on me.”

Respect everyone, fear no one – everyone puts their pants on one leg at a time

*This is my personal view and does not reflect the views of anyone else other than myself*

There are various ideologies in regards to embracing the traditional ways, and it is solely your Coach/Professor’s prerogative to decide how they want to conduct their Academy. Some people don’t care about the tradition as long as you show up to train, some people care but don’t enforce the rules either way, some people loathe the old ways and overtly shun the tradition, and some people respect and enforce the old “rules”.

I personally follow and respect these old rules that have been in place because that’s how Rey learned from Carlson Gracie, who learned from his father Carlos Gracie Sr, who learned from Maeda etc etc..

Regardless of what you “believe” in, as Brazilian Jiu Jitsu students, we practice martial arts which were originally developed by monks in India/China thousands of years ago. Dr. Kano was the person in Japan who structured Judo/Jiu Jitsu into a teachable format 100 years ago. The martial art we practice is Asian in origins, has been practiced for millenia and will continue to be practiced for millenia to come. The structure and rules the founders put in place was accepted as part of the discipline of the art, and in my opinion hold great value in my training as not only a Jiu Jitsu student but as a person.

I feel that if I cannot be disciplined with these basic rules, how can I be disciplined in my Jiu Jitsu practice?

*side note* {Another small thing I always try to do is fold my gi and pants neatly and keep them tidy in my bag. It’s these small things, the details, that will reflect upon a person’s Jiu Jitsu game. Once you learn the fundamentals, Jiu Jitsu becomes a game of nuances. I don’t force anyone to do this, it’s just something I believe personally.}

I teach my kids class this way because it’s important they differentiate the playground from martial arts school. It’s important that younger students understand there are rules in life. It’s important kids learn respect and discipline. Additionally, these “rules” seem to be calming to students, especially kids, to know where their boundaries are and what lines they cannot cross.

Why is discipline and structure important? An individual may not feel motivated everyday – its discipline that will push a person forward regardless of motivation. Structure removes ambiguity and an individual has a clear path ahead of them and a defined boundary of expectations.

I’m also going to teach my adult students these rules because I respect tradition and I will teach my own child manners, so my students will have mat manners. If they travel around and visit other BJJ academies in the world who do not enforce these rules then fine. BUT. If they visit a school that DOES practice these rules, they will be prepared, they will be respectful, and neither they nor our school will look like disrespectful, knuckle dragging mongrels who probably track mud into the house. It’s the equivalent of teaching your children to say “please” and “thank you” and to clean up after themselves before you send them out into the world.

Lastly, when people choose to dedicate themselves to learning BJJ, they want to feel like they are in a martial arts school. I’ve found that Jiu Jitsu typically attracts the deeper thinkers and the people who ask bigger questions. (there is the occasional meathead but they don’t last very long) Students want to learn the art but also want to become better people THROUGH the art. I think it’s important to embrace the martial arts spirit in order to cultivate a person who can not only dismantle a human being, but who can also become a role model to the next wave of new students.

As an instructor, my students look to me for learn the art from and I feel responsible to conduct myself as someone I would like to learn from. As a father I feel no different when I talk to my daughter. I try to be someone they can look up to and learn from, someone they respect and can model themselves after, just as my teachers and mentors have done for me.

Keep it simple, keep it respectful.

Oss.

Why I bow. was originally published on davepreciado

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