Saulo Ribeiro Seminar Tonight

Hey Everyone,

Saulo Ribeiro- the head of our association, and winner of a bajillion medals is having a seminar at our academy tonight. Should be fun, informative (and a little smashy). I’ll be sure to write all about it tomorrow.

Have a great day everyone!

 

A Tale of Two BJJ Seminars

Hey Everyone,

Last week our academy had two great seminars take place- one was with David Avellan to go over his “Kimura Trap” system, and the other was with de La Riva black belt Vicente Junior and Samir Chantre.

It was definitely interesting to have both seminars in the same week: both were great seminars and all the instructors were friendly and knowledgeable, but also it gave us great opportunities to learn a lot of material and compare the two seminar instruction styles.

First, Avellan seems to have the seminar routine down pat: he started the seminar right on time, informing us there was a lot to get through so let’s get the party started. And there was a lot of information- he even had an org chart printed out of all the items he intended to go through. For a three hour seminar he managed to cram a lot in, answer questions and still keep the momentum going, going over all the different positions from where you can attack with a kimura: from full guard, half guard, stand up, tying your shoes, doing your taxes- all of it.

The second seminar was a little slower paced: as you know people will inevitably show up late to a seminar, so we started a little late. It was more broken up into two smallerish seminars, Vicente or “VJ” going over some of the finer details of the de la Riva guard, and Chantre showing some sweeps from the leg lasso open guard. There was a good deal about certain fundamentals, and a focus on some finer details that people tend to forget about the de la Riva guard. The leg lasso portion had some interesting sweeps and details I hadn’t seen before, so that was pretty interesting.

Again, both seminars were fun and full of instruction, instructors were all friendly helpful, and it was a pleasure to experience both (very different) teaching styles.

 

(Almost) Wordless Wednesday, 9.14.2011

Here is one of the photos taken at Maxercise during the de la Riva Seminar on Monday, Sept 12th!

Ricardo de la Riva Seminar, 9.12.2011

So, while I am not a master at jiu jitsu by any stretch of the imagination, I do like to think that I have some sort of grasp on the sport/art that we all practice the bejeezus out of. I have to admit, the first technique of de la Riva’s seminar made me feel like a white belt all over again. The confusion, the uncertainty: everything began to smooth out once I started to slow it down and take the technique step by step.

Overall it was a lot of fun and he showed from pretty simple but awesome moves. There was definitely a time or two when I thought why didn’t I think of that?!?! Well, because I’m not a black belt and he is, so there. It was a different way of approaching some common techniques and all, and I feel like if I can walk away with just one of those techniques, my game will be just a little more awesome than before.

Thank you professor, thanks to his black belts who were friendly and helpful and welcomed any question anyone  had, and thanks to John for putting this together.

 

Ricardo De La Riva Seminar Tonight!

Tonight we’ll be having a seminar in our gym with the one and only Ricardo De La Riva!

Can’t wait!

…So, how are you guys doing?