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....

Back to business!

It was back to business tonight after two week lay off due to injuries and the a serious war with the flu.

Although I felt sluggish, fatigued, and lost, I enjoyed every single minute of tonight's session.

We covered a load of techniques from takedowns, to positional control while the opponent is in turtle positions, how to better your positions if you are caught in turtle position, full mount escapes and control, sweeps, and guard breaks.

It sounds like a lot, and it was, but all of this was focused on preparing us for competition on January 8th.

This will be my first BJJ tournament in almost a year which is nerve wrecking yet exciting.

I am looking forward to applying some of the techniques I have been working on at the competition level. My goal is not to win any medal, but to gauge my process. Winning is cool and I know a lot people pride their themselves on winning, but I have realized that at this stage of my training, it is more of a gauge for me. If I come out on top then al-hamdulillah, its all good, but its not my main focus at this point.

One might say, its a poor attitude and you should focus on winning. I agreed, but I also disagree. I think the winning will eventually come. At this point, its all about developing my game and working it in a live setting.

One thing I have learned over the past 18 months is that BJJ is such a methodical, detailed, and lengthy process. There will be time, insha'Allah, for medals and podium pictures, but at this point in my training I see myself is just like the picture above - A baby who is learning how to crawl.

So right now, my goal for 2011 is to drill the basics and make specific techniques part of my every day game. Once I perfect them, then I will move on. Right now my brain is full of techniques I have learned, some basics other advanced and I can't focus on one technique at a time. I feel overwhelmed in the amount of techniques I have learned and feel that I can't focus on moved that work for me.

So right now, the first order of business is to identify which techniques I feel comfortable with, write them down, set a sequence of moves by visualizing the game, and drilling them over and over again.

I believe once I accomplish this stage, my game will be much more solid and I'll begin to take those baby steps to earning my Black Belt.

Rodrigo Gracie Seminar

I know a few days have passed since the seminar with Rodrigo Gracie and I have been meaning to write down my experience, but I just have not had the time.

Finally, as I wait for my laundry to finish, I figure why not take few minutes and share my thoughts.

First and foremost, I have to say it was an overwhelming experience to meet Rodrigo Gracie and get to learn directly from him. I have had the pleasure of learning from some top notch guys since I have started BJJ last July 2009, but this was a different type of experience.

For starters, the fact that he is a direct descent of Carlos Gracie is simply amazing. Second, he is a 4th degree Black Belt in BJJ (he is the highest ranking belt I have met so far). Third, he has fought some of the greatest fighters in the world and has won at the highest level of BJJ and Grappling in general. He was the 1998 ADCC champion and he has fought on some of the biggest stages in MMA. So I was definitely excited about this seminar.

I had been telling my wife about it for some time and she was as excited to go as I was. Al-hamdulillah, my parents came to visit that weekend to spend time with the boys and they told us they would babysit while we both went to the seminar. I was so grateful for that cause it gave me and my wife some time to hang out even if it was going to a Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu seminar (lol).

We got to the studio at the same time as Rodgrigo did. There was a good crowd in attendance, I'd say like 15 to 20 people roughly. Jeremy (Owner of Capital Jiu-Jitsu and Brown Belt under Royce Gracie) gave everyone a little pep talk before Rodrigo came out. It was cool to finally meet Jeremy.

Finally, Rodrigo came on the mat and jumped into technique. He was all about the business, no time for fun and games.

We got straight into some grip fighting and double-leg take down techniques. The way he detailed everything, picking apart each step was cool. It made learning the move very simple.

We kept on drilling the same move over and over and over. The first 20 to 30 minutes was just focusing on the double-leg. There were a few other brown belts walking around, helping with any questions.

Rodrigo took some time to take a look at my take down and said I was doing a pretty good job. It felt nice to get that type of feedback and got me motivated to keep going.

Next, we moved onto a submissions. He shared with us the "Clock Choke". This was the first time I had seen this move and I must admit, I am a BIG FAN of this move. This choke is really simple, but effective. You feel the choke set up instantly. I couldn't wait to write the steps down in my notebook in order to keep it fresh in my mind and bring it back to the guys at Aqabah.

We moved on to bull-fighting, both from an offensive and defensive stand point. I partnered up with Roberto (Owner of Roda Movements). It was cool to roll with Roberto, his eagerness to learn and attention to detail rubs off. Being an experienced practitioner of Capoeira, he picks things up quickly so it was nice to have a partner that made you work.

We rotated partners and moved onto a butterfly sweep. Throughout the seminar, Rodrigo and his assistants would walk around explaining the techniques and making sure you were drilling it correctly.

Finally, it was time to spar. I had the chance to roll with a few guys, but I really wanted to get a chance to roll with Rodrigo himself. I felt too shy to ask him to roll being a white belt. I saw him sparring the higher belts and figured that white belts had to roll with white belts.

During my last roll, I saw Rodrigo rolling with a white belt and was a bit disappointed with myself for holding back. Time expired and the seminar was over.

Jeremy thanked Rodrigo and everyone gave him a round of applause. After, everyone went around shaking each others hands, so I did my rounds as well. I came up to Jay (Head Instructor of CJJ - Takoma Park) and he was talking to Rodrigo.

I shook Jay's hand and then went up to Rodrigo to shake his hand, but before I got the chance, he looked at me put his hand on my shoulder and said "BLUE BELT!". I was taken a bit by surprise. It felt like I just got knighted.

I shook his hand and he said to me "Congratulations". I looked at Jay and Jeremy and both congratulated me as well. I was a bit shocked, it was a very pleasant surprise to be honest.

I felt they were evaluating me during the seminar. Jeremy had asked me how long I had been practicing, but I didn't think I would get promoted that night.

After that, I went up to my wife who had been filming and taking pictures and said, "Did you hear that?". Obviously with all the noise she didn't so when I told her what just happened and she was just as happy for me as I was. It was as if she just got promoted (lol).

Definitely the seminar was an awesome experience. I have been doing BJJ for over 16 months now and I must say that the process has not been easy. Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu was a new animal for me and took a long time to get where I am now and I know it will take even longer to reach my goal of becoming a BJJ Black Belt.

I am looking forward to the challenges that lie ahead, my next step in my first stripe on my Blue Belt. Let the good times begin!

Note: Congratulations to Mo and Patrick for getting promoted to Blue Belt as well!!! OUUUUSSSSSS!!!!