Royce Gracie Seminar!

The awesomeness continues for Dartford BJJ Students! We have 30 spaces available for the Royce Gracie Seminar in April.
Confirm immediately with me so as not to miss out.

THERE ARE NOW ONLY 5 SPACES LEFT!

Dave 07775927352

Royce Gracie Seminar:
When: Tuesday 3rd April 7pm - 9:30pm
Where: St Aidens Catholic School, Benton Road, Ilford, Essex, IG1 4AS
Cost: £35
Parking in the School Playground

Marc Walder Seminar Review

Wow 50 on the mats! What an amazing success last nights Seminar was. Marc's Seminars sell out fast at our Academy and the first of 2012 was no exception.
After teaching a short Group Private to our West Coast Brothers & Sisters and a roll with my Niece to determine her progress, I started the Seminar with 30mins Self Defence as a warm-up:

• Defence vs two handed wrist grab into
• Sucker punch defence into the Safe Clinch & Hip throw.
• As above but this time after defending the sucker punch we struck with knee and followed with a standing guillotine.

All basic material but the bedrock of Gracie Jiu Jitsu and we build our game on solid foundations!

Professor Marc took over and we spent the next 2 1/2 hours passing the guard focusing on small details and "check points" as we progressed to the top positions.

• Grips & Posture
• Opening the legs
• Standing Knee slide variation
• Combat Base variation to Mount
• Combat Base variation to Side Control

Marc then shared his Philosophy about our Art again echoing all the Gracie Family i have trained with and recently the wonderful Professor Sauer.

Finally it was an honour to promote the following Students:

• Katja Birkett - Yellow Belt
• Zack Brown - Blue Belt
• Steve Clark - Purple Belt
• Simon Taylor - 1st Degree Brown Belt

Many thanks to Professor Marc, Black Belt Shane and all our Family whom made another life affirming day at our Academy!

Train hard and play Jiu Jitsu!

Dave

Professor Pedro Sauer Seminar!

Last Sunday I had the honour to train with one of Gracie Jiu Jitsu's finest Teachers, Professor Pedro Sauer. Along with 5 of the Guys we travelled to Chemlsford and spent 3 hrs with Professor and his two Black Belts.

I managed to talk with Professor before hand and it was joyus to find we shared the same philosophical approach and mind set to The Art. Self defence always first, the sport always second.

I started grappling in 93 in various forms, but 12 years ago i trained with Mauricio and Renzo soon realising that Gracie Jiu Jitsu was a path i had to follow. I met Marc Walder (the first Gracie Jiu Jitsu Instructor in Europe) at The Gracie Academy in Dagenham and Royce shortly after.
All of the above are incredible Teachers and like Professor, extremely technical in their approach.

The Seminar took the form of a Q&A session. Students asked specific questions and Professor answered in detail and we drilled the resulting material. Gracie Jiu Jitsu never ceases to amaze me in its attention to details. Whilst the material was fairly basic (Guard pass, Triangle Counter, Arm bar etc) the little gems we picked up were game changing. E.G

• Feet placements.
• The concept of "hitch hiking". 
• Further ways to keep your game "punch proof"

As we had the last session, Professor re-capped all the material taught throughout the weekend:

• Back Escapes
• Arm Bar Escapes.
• Turtle to Guard detail
• Sucker Punch Defence to Hip Throw, Leg Hook takedown & Rear takedown

After another chat and photos, a couple of us headed back to East London to the gym and drilled all the material for another 2 hours and had a sparring session.

Whilst many people world wide are empire building and teaching their own version of this amazing Art, I believe in many cases it is true that "the further from the source the muddier the water".
After spending time with Professor Sauer im happy to report the water is clear at Dartford BJJ and our passion for Gracie Jiu Jitsu is undiminished. :)

Many thanks to Laurence Sandum for hosting the Seminar.
For further details on Professor Pedro Sauer:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pedro_Sauer

http://pedrosauer.com/