[kuri]

I came across this review of a rare seminar by Rickson Gracie held in Nashville last month.

Despite the hype & related backlash out there Rickson is the man. I trained for a bit with two of his brown belts (10 yr students under R) and those guys were very good. I've also had the pleasure of meeting Rickson and watch him train, and he's one of those guys that when you see him move you can tell he's on another level entirely.

All notes are from Steve "Fat Buddha" Abood

FRIDAY EVENING
Just got internet access at the hotel I switched to (long story)...Rickson seminar is tomorrow morning at 10 AM and friends are arriving from all over. Apparently Marcelo Garcia, Pedro Sauer, Frank Cucci, and over 60 black belts are coming. I am exhausted but am trying to go through my file of everything Rickson on my computer to come up with some interview questions that haven't been asked a million times. I emailed what's called a "querry letter" to Black Belt magazine which is a summary of a proposed article (I sent something like: "The Master Returns: Rickson Gracie Teaches First Public Seminar in over Eleven Years") but haven't heard back from them. I figured that I'd be more likely to get an interview with Rickson if I said that I was writing for Black Belt magazine as opposed to for Fatbudha. As another strategy I'm going to have Pedro Sauer (Rickson black belt) ask Rickson about an interview for me.
... ......
I will keep this short.

I have been training for about 10.5 years...have had the opportunity to train with & learn from some very gifted people. But the techniques & theory put on display by Rickson today is the kind of stuff you expect to learn from “THE” Rickson Gracie! It was a Master Class on the understanding off applied physics in BJJ...yet, the 13 year-old kids were able to perform the skills.

I am very much looking forward to 6 more hours on Sunday.

SATURDAY NIGHT
Hey everyone, sorry for the late post. Rickson came out in his usual white gi with hair short (like in the Choke video) and walked through the crowd - definitely looking like a charismatic, iconic figure - and the entire crowd of 200 people clapped. He began the seminar by saying that he wanted to acknowledge the life of his father...and wanted to acknowledge it without sadness for it wa a wonderful life. He looked very full of emotion and choked up when he was saying this.

Then he started talking about that while training jiu-jitsu to improve in MMA is OK, and training jiu-jitsu to improve in sport jiu-jitsu competition is OK, jiu-jitsu is more complex than that. For through it, the shy man, the business man, can undergo a positive and invisible transformation. And doing jiu-jitsu for sportive reasons only takes this profound transformation, takes this profound element, and turns it into a personal one. So in a way, doing jiu-jitsu just for sport somewhat degrades the life work of his father, who at 135 pounds would challenge anyone.

The seminar then began with Rickson explaining key principles of base and then what he called "connectivity" or connection with his opponent. He then showed these 2 concepts in application and showed how to stop someone from pulling or pushing you in the clinch and how to use their energy against them here.

He then went to the ground and had many participants in the seminar try to upa him. He went over key details of the upa, the sizzor sweep, escaping modified kesagatame, etc. before the 2 hour lunch break. He didn't give like 10 details for 1 position, only 1 or 2 key body mechanic things.

After lunch, he had people try to escape his black belt assistants' back mount. I then volunteered and was lucky enough to escape a few times so Rickson then dismissed the assistant and took my back and choked me out! Pretty cool that I got to do stuff like that with him, which happened through the seminar as he used me for a few moves.

He worked very hard the whole seminar, giving virtually everyone a chance to try almost every position on him.

Sorry guys this is not more detailed, I am very exhausted and Rickson has changed the seminar to start an hour earlier tomorrow. Some key take home messages though:

1. It's better to have 10 good positions than a 1000 that you sort of know how to do.

2. Even an egg cannot be broken if it is a the right angle, a position of structural strength. The goal of jiu-jitsu is to try to make this angle of strength in every single position.

SUNDAY MORNING
The seminar began with Rickson discussing some of his breathing methods that he learned from training with yoga master Orlando Cani in Brazil. He took of his gi top and he is in ridiculous shape for anyone of any age. There is literally not an ounce of fat on him. I can't believe he is 50 or 51 years old. He showed an exercise when you lie down on your back to connect better with your breathing. You put one hand on your stomach and one hand on your chest. Then you try to breathe in and out through your abdominals which means you are breathing from your diaphram and not your upper chest. Most people breathe through their upper chest but once he started using this diaphramic breathing he noticed like a 40% improvement in his lung capacity and his recovery.

How does this relate to jiu-jitsu? To a fight? Most people struggle when they fight, tense up, hold their breath, and then there is a moment when they try to breathe and recover. Rickson is breathing and recovering the entire time. He spoke about how contraction is life and if you contract your bicep muscle ("life") and then relax it ("death") and made an analogy that when the heart contracts that represents a living process. But when you breathe and need breath in a fight, you can't think inhale, take air in - instead you must think to contract your stomach and expel air out, to get the bad air out.

So the idea of him showing us all this was to connect the feeling of proper lower belly breathing with movement, with a fight, to aid in the recovery throughout the entire fight, instead of holding your breath and struggling, and trying to breathe and recover in a separate period of time.

The seminar continued after the yogic breathing instruction, with specific exercises that demonstrated fundamental body mechanics that can be used in application for a multitude of techniques. Rickson's central concept that he conveyed here and throughout this day of the seminar was "finding your middle" meaning finding a point of central balance so that if your opponent tries to off balance you, you have leeway to go in any direction before your balance is completely upset. Rickson gave very specific examples to demonstrate this concept including maintaining mount, being on your hands and feet face down, face up, clinching your opponent from standing, etc, etc. What was more important was the concept rather than the specific technique, but of course it was very helpful to see the specific techniques to see the concept in application.

SEMINAR ONLINE JOURNAL CONTINUED
On a side note, while trying to be like Rickson is trying to be like Michael Jordan, seeing his breathing demonstration, flexibility, body control, etc. really made me want to take up yoga again. When I moved down at Miami to train full time with Professor Pedro Valente for most of the last 2 years, we worked on the breathing thing a little bit since Pedro as a boy used to hang out after class with Rickson along a few other students and they would all sit in a circle and work on their breathing. I actually was taking weekly private lessons in yoga from a thai yoga instructor who had trained in India at the Iyengar institute but the progression was to master the asanas (stationary positions) first before the pranayama (breathing training) would go more in depth (although we did some fundamental preparatory breathing exercises).

But I left Miami before we got deep into the pranayama...There was also a student who did free diving (diving without equiptment which requires the practice of yogic breathing exercises to increase breathing efficiency and mental calmness during stressful situations) but I didn't have a chance to train with him as at some point I had a rib injury which would have made it hard to practice the breathing exercises...

Different person at the seminar

I was at the seminar...

I was very hard to explain what he showed. THe seminar was about invisible jiu jitsu.

So it was more conceptual than it was anything else.

My friend hit it right on the head, he said "it was basically a master class in applied physics of jiu jitsu"

Rickson talked about line of energy, connection to the ground and to the opponent, finding the middle, balance, and my personal favorite: efficiency of motion

Like shawshank said, we went over scissor sweep, upa, escaping from kesa gatame - very basic moves but he used them to demonstrate the above concepts.

As an example - he asked people to UPA him while he had the mount. Mostly brown belts and black belts... - he was able to stop the upa on everyone by posting his opposite (non-trapped) hand - the upa should be simple right especially for black belts, right?

so he showed us that 99% of people including black belts are breaking the upa down into two steps - 1. is bridging up 2. rolling sideways over the shoulder. When you do this you break your line of energy and get 80% of your power on the bridge up and 20% of your power on the roll over - the 20% energy is the problem here. Thats why the upa can be stopped by simply posting your opposite hand.

So the solution is to go in one motion. You move your head out of the way by looking in the direction you're upaing and lift the person in the direction where your head meets your neck in ONE motion - not two. with this method the man on top cannot simply post his arm out to stop the upa

^ very hard to describe - it really is invisible jiu jitsu. this is just one example of about 30 scenarios he went through all weekend

from shawshankfights:

more important than the details he showed were the concepts and ideas that he presented. they apply across the board. he calls them "invisible jiu jitsu". the details are literally imperceptible and it would be absolutely impossible for me to explain. for instance:

if you are performing a shrimp (most people call it elbow escape, i think) from the mount, you must "connect" to your opponent; feel him prevent him from gaining the inch you take away from him.

one little detail that is very easy to take away from this particular maneuver is to keep one leg completely flat as you perform the escape.

i watched him mount pedro sauer (and many other black belts and colored belts as well) and ask him to escape. pedro could not do it. rickson corrected him and pedro slung him across the mats. it was amazing. the technique LOOKED exactly the same, but it was infinitely more effective.

i know that's not much description, but it's literally the best i can do with words.