Royce Gracie Seminar

I got to experience my first seminar with the legendary Royce Gracie this past Friday and Saturday.

For those who don't know who Royce Gracie is then allow me to share some amazing points about the man.

1. He is the son of one of the founders of Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, Helio Gracie.

2. He is a 7th Degree Red and Black Belt.

3. He is one of the main reasons why so many people do Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu in the world due to his dominance in the early MMA years.

4. He won the Ultimate Fighting Championships 1, 2, 4.

5. He is the 1st inductee into the UFC Hall of Fame.

6. He has the most submission wins in UFC history.

and the list goes on...

Now that you know a little more about Royce, imagine getting the chance to acquire some of his extensive knowledge of the art. Amazing is the the word that comes to mind and that is exactly how my experience was.

Friday: My wife and I attended the seminar at Capital's Takoma Park branch. The room was packed with familiar and unfamiliar faces. People traveled from Virginia, Massachusetts, New York, DC and other places to attend this seminar. It was awesome seeing so many blue, purple, and brown belts in one place. It was a haven for benefit of the art.

I also got to share this experience with two dear friends and fellow martial artists, Sensei Jamal Pender, fellow Aqabah Karate instructor, and Abdul-Malik Ahmad of al-Azhar Silat. Masha'Allah, there presence there made it that much better.

While we waited for the seminar to start, many of us did a little mingling, stretching, and warm ups. We were all eager to get start.

Royce got there a bit late due to his flight being delayed, but once he got changed, he immediately jumped into a technique. His attitude and teaching style reminded me of Rodrigo's seminar, exactly the same M.O.

We started with Side Mount to North/South and setting up a Bread-Cutter submission.

From this single position, he broke down positional control, transitions, and about 4 to 5 submissions.

We kept drilling and drilling, switching partners, practicing the moves on people of different weight-classes, skill levels and ranks. This was great cause it gives you an indication of who it will work on, how to transition properly, weight distribution due to weight variance, etc.

Towards the end, Royce put us in teams of four and we did "King of the Hill". Then he paired us up and had us spar with one had tied. This was probably the best part of the night. It just made us realize how much we are capable of and how much we're not. The handicap highlighted areas of weakness and strength.

By the end of the night the once cold studio felt like a sauna.

Coolest part of the night: I was rolling with my fellow training partner, Peter, and Royce comes up to me and asks me, "How long have you been training?". I said about 20 months now. He said to me, "How many stripes do you have?" I showed him my belt and he saw that I didn't have any. He says to me, "Put a stripe on your belt, congratulations." He shakes my hand and my jaw drops in disbelief.

WOOOOOOW! That was totally unexpected, but AWESOME!

Man I had the biggest Kool-Aid smile after that.

Soon after we took some group and individual pictures and then headed home.

Round 2: As if last night wasn't enough, I drove out to Alexandria for another session with Royce. This was my first time driving out to Capital in Alexandria so I was pretty stoked.

I got there and was super interested with the set up. The facility was state-of-the-art. I loved the reception area, the paraphernalia that hung on the walls, the locker rooms were off the hook, the mat space was HUGE, and the best part of it all was THE BIG *SS FAN (This is literally the brand of the ceiling fan).

The academy was packed from wall to wall with students and spectators. I thought Friday night was impressive, but Saturday, there was 3x the amount of people. White belts, Blue belts, Purple belts, Brown belts and of course ROYCE GRACIE!!!!!

Again the techniques were incredible. The simplicity behind what he taught fascinated me the most. I learned some fancy moves, but in the end its the basics that I love to learn the most. We drilled some hip throw set up, some grip fighting defense, sweeps, and submission from side control.

Again basics stuff, but effective.

I got the chance to roll, but it was the purple and brown belts that took up all the mat time today. It was great seeing them roll. You can see the years of experience in the way they moved, their control, their techniques. One can learn a lot from simply observing. Royce was walking around, watching and evaluating each one of them.

After all was said and done, many earned stripes and a few got their new ranks.

Another successful seminar with the legendary, Royce Gracie in the books. We ended with a group picture and headed home...can't wait 'til the next one.

Until then, I got my notes to review, type up, and drill....