Grappling...

I'm a little bit obsessed with grappling and groundfighting and, if the opportunity arises, I can spend ridiculous amounts of time rewatching the technique videos on the excellent Submissions101 website with Ari Bolden or the equally excellent stuff on Youtube posted by Stefan Kesting (www.grapplearts.com).

But I came across something new the other day and it's an online course run by Ryron and Rener Gracie of the Gracie family at their website www.gracieuniversity.com, which offers full testing and belt certification via camcorders.

I'm a little sceptical about online courses in anything, particularly in something like a martial art where your best learning tool is often the feedback of your opponent, but I've joined and looked at the first video and it's well put together, very informative and very slick – and, hell, it might even work with a decent training partner.

But with a black belt grading at hapkido in the offing I should probably be focusing on that instead. Grappling remains a fun distraction, though, particularly when the path to black belt at hapkido feels like a real struggle a lot of the time...