Shizuka Sugiyama: Notes On Her Time Abroad

Shizuka Sugiyama is now over four months in to her year-long stay in Sydney, Australia. When we first heard she would be studying abroad, our biggest fear here at Pancake was that she would not be training and would be super rusty when she got back. Thankfully, along with continuing her studies in English, Sugiyama has also been continuing her studies in BJJ. She has hooked up with Gracie Oceania, and specifically a blue belt Laura Ng who operates a blog, skillfully named iheartbjj.com.

This news is very welcome, and we’re happy to see her both enjoying and prospering in her training. Sugiyama has taken to competing at local grappling tournaments, winning gold July at a competition in New South Wales.

Here’s a video of one of her matches, which she won via kimura:

Sugiyama was able to execute an early leg sweep to take down her opponent and gain side mount. She was able to keep dominant positions, attempting multiple hip tosses and even a couple shots. Her first shot was made from too far away, but her second was somewhat better, leading to a double leg attempt and finally a single leg take down. Ultimately, she was able to secure a kimura and win the match.

It has been the opinion of us here at Pancake that Sugiyama needs to work on her boxing and wrestling the most compared to her grappling. However, we are excited to hear that she intends to train up her kickboxing and MMA when she moves to the Gold Coast region of Queensland, Australia sometime in the near future.

We look forward to following Sugi more as she continues her training! She’s been keeping blogs on Kakutoh about her time in Australia. Linked below are the first 4 parts, which include photos and the video above:

Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4

Do also check out this recent article at MMA Rising, which catalogs Sugiyama’s current experiences in more detail.