Rodrigo Antunes Seminar 3/23/12

This past weekend was one of the biggest days at Swampfox BJJ. We were fortunate enough to have a world renowned Royler Gracie 4th degree black belt, Rodrigo Antunes. Rodrigo helps train some of the best in the world from Anderson Silva to the Nogueira brothers. Rodrigo befriended my friend Mark in Brazil this past January, when he was attending the Royler Gracie Jiu Jitsu Camp. Rodrigo helped organize the camp and be a guide to the campers around the Rio de Janeiro area. The friendship lasted after the camp and resulted in Rodrigo visiting our school to share his knowledge and love for Jiu Jitsu.

This was the very first seminar at our academy and we were all very excited to have Rodrigo visit and teach. He was kind enough to get off the plane from Brazil and come in and teach Thursday night class. His energy and passion about Jiu Jitsu was immediately felt and transferred over to the class.

During his instruction on Thursday night, he went over a series of techniques that linked together. The series he showed began from a grip break, to a takedown, to a side mount variation, and then ended in a submission. It was great series and to see all the techniques come together in the end, reminded me of seeing a completed puzzle after I put all the pieces together.

Friday was a day of private lessons and seminar at night. One of my 2012 Goals was to take some private lessons. Rodrigo was definitely full of energy as I stepped into the academy for my private lesson Friday Afternoon. He had just finished up a lesson and was eating some Acai
berries.

I will not discuss in detail the techniques shown in the private lesson, as it will be a lot to cover. Based off of my questions, he showed to side control escapes, knee-on-belly escapes, and some areas to improve gaps in my submission attempts. It was very beneficial to have this one on one time, and break down each technique. The hour lesson flew by rather quickly,and then it was time for the seminar.

During the seminar, he explained that Jiu Jitsu consists of self defense and sport techniques and he wanted to give of small pieces of each world.

We started off with some simple self defense techniques that focused on using the aggressors energy towards you to initiate and finish the technique.
We did some wrist locks, wrist locks to takedown, and a series of different style guillotines. Overall,very interesting techniques and very effective.

The message of using your opponent's energy carried over to the sport techniques. We went over a series of submissions attacking a defending opponent while in turtle, to some very energy efficient guard breaks and passing techniques.

This seminar was interesting because it pointed out the use of energy efficient techniques using your opponent's momentum and movements against them. Rodrigo's experience and energy
allowed him to show us techniques that countered our own classmates
strong submissions. It was a true honor to see the techniques he developed as he was placed in dangerous situations.

This was a big event for our academy and I was honored to be a part of it. Thanks to Mark and Rodrigo for such a great experience.

Rodrigo Antunes and the Swampfox BJJ Crew

Escaping side control and taking back during private lesson

Rodrigo rolling with some classmates

Rolling with the "Beast" Edwards

Never laugh during self defense

2012 Off to a Good Start!

Last night was the first class of 2012 and it fell in line with number five on 2012 BJJ goals. With the school closed for 10 days due to remodeling, no one able to train, and a majority of us went on an eating binges, this class was an excellent wake up call. I know I tried to remove as many of the coconut cupcakes; my wife made to prevent them from falling into enemy hands.

We started class with some shrimp drills and then some arm bar drills from guard, but the class got even better after the drilling. We welcomed 4 visitors from Jiu Jitsu Nation,a Relson Gracie school, in Myrtle Beach, which is an hour or so away from Florence. These are some top-notch guys.

I missed the picture opportunity :(

The introductions allowed everyone to be able to catch their breath from the drills. Then we moved into the gauntlet of pass and defend, the next 30 minutes would be rough. The instruction given for the session was not submit or sweep the person in the guard, but to let them work technique to pass into side control. One thing I discovered doing this, that I need to work on my guard passing a lot this year. I might need to reassess this in the oncoming weeks; it could be the extra cupcakes making my techniques sloppy.

After pass and defend, it was open mat, and I wanted to roll with the visitors. I started my first roll with Josh, who is a seasoned blue belt and we went for two rounds at least. In those two rounds, I found myself on the receiving end of three collar chokes, but as I learned what not to do, I did manage to get him in side control for all of thirty seconds.

I shook his hand and thanked him for showing some errors I was making. The next training partner, Phil, was pretty intimidating to me as he sat there is brown A5 gi and his purple belt. I found out, that there was no need to be intimidated. Phil was an awesome training partner. We started rolling and I started getting submitted, once he would submit me, he would show me what happened and the submission technique. I certainly need to incorporate the two techniques he showed me. One was a submission called the “Stick Shift” and the other was arm pin called, “Hog Tie”. Both techniques were highly effective in leading me to tap.

A couple of rounds went by, and Phil ended the small submission clinic he had happening. I then went to Jeremiah, who is a veteran blue belt, and once again, the workshop was open. This was a spider guard and open guard sweep seminar. We only had the chance to roll one round, but it was a great experience to see how effective spider guard can be.

At the beginning of class, I did not want to train with these guys. Why did I not want to spar with them? I saw their belts with their years of experience and was gun shy on how I would have faired training with them. I knew if I rolled I would tap and I knew these guys were more skilled than myself, but I wanted to see what would happen or what the outcome would be. I wanted to see if I could pick up a few tricks or may be even survive a couple of minutes. I am glad these guys stopped by, training with them has set the tone for 2012. 

The training showed me something about Jiu Jitsu community and myself at the end of the day. We are all training partners and should learn from each other. I had an awesome time training with Jeremiah, Josh, Phil and JR(Who I did not get to roll with), thanks for the training and you guys are a class act.