Yup ... ourselves. I seen Oldman's picture he drew of you and thought ... is that me? I like to shave it completely clean except on grappling days I will leave shaving till after. Facial growth can be another advantage.

Cool pic, Dereck. Remind me not to start any fights with you! Dang, you are thick! Dave Meyer is awesome, and it looks like you guys had a huge turn-out for him. Great stuff.

Cool pic Dereck, thanks for posting it. It does look like a great turnout.

So, your instructor is a student of David Meyer's? Does this mean he's working towards a belt under the Masterclass Grappling Curriculum? If so, I'd be interested in hearing how he's progressing. The biggest challenge I'm finding is not being able to roll with good BJJ guys near where I live. The closest places to find schools that train BJJ with a gi are an hour and a half away from me--i.e., too far for me to get to on a consistent basis. I guess I should just stop being a wuss and drive to one of these places at least a couple times a month, and preferably once a week (but my wife would HATE that!!)

Cheers.
ToddR

Hi Todd. I don't know all of the details but I'll wing it. My Instructor and his partner Steve are not taking the curriculm as you are. Their orignal training in grappling is due to Hapkido they learned with Taekwondo. To further themselves they became JJJ black belts and then decided to train further with BJJ. They would visit the Las Vegas and area to train at various gyms including some Gracies and Machados. This is when they met David Meyer. From there they would meet up with him whenever or where ever possible understanding that he doesn't have his own gym. They keep in touch as to where he will be but I believe they mostly see him in the San Francisco/Las Vegas area which they frequent throughout the year as time will permit or when David will be there.

When David was up here in Edmonton I believe they had the whole day with him on the Saturday and then after our class the three of them stayed later into the night to train and such. How things are progressing exactly with their training is unknown to me at this time.

I do know when originally training in Las Vegas that they were looked at sceptically because they had no former BJJ training ... not to mention no cauliflower ears. After rolling on the matts with their students and beating students up to blue belt that things changed and were accepted and welcomed back for further training.

I know they have very high regard for David Meyer and say he is unbelievable. Even when meeting with him and he was suffering from back injuries and said would roll with them but couldn't use he full strength he still could out beat them. He suffered afterwards but his skill is that good. He will be back at least next year which I can't wait to see and train with him again.

Thanks Dereck.
That sounds like what Fletch did - travel occasionally to learn from experienced BJJ'ers and then go back home and work the techniques he learned.

We have the DVDs and manual to work from but there's no substitute for live training with a good instructor.

One of my problems is I want to train EVERYTHING all at once and, unfortunately, I haven't won PowerBall yet so I can devote myself full time to martial arts!

Cheers.
ToddR

That's the way most people train and unfortunately, the reason why so many people take so long to get really good. I bought tons of tapes and magazines looking for new techniques when I thought I had "mastered" the stuff I had already seen.

It took several years for me to come full circle and realize there are many details in the basics and the answer was rarely in some advanced techniqe.

For example: I could play guard and submit with Triangles, Omoplatas and Armlocks and I could Sweep, but.....I couldn't hold anyone down. My pins were not effective. I was getting reversed before I could set up anything from the top. After four years, I had to go back to learning pins.

Hey Fletch just a question. I believe I read you weighed around 150 lbs or so. When pinning do you find less weight a hinderance with larger opponents? It sounds like we are a little oppposite where the top pin and working is much easier then working the bottom.

I posted a thread in the Judo/JJ forum under Stength or something like that. I took a page from you and John and with the encouragement of my Instructor to just go to my back and work it. Hopefully one day I will be more effective as I am on top. And don't get me wrong ... I need work there too but being 200 lbs helps me keep them down even if they weigh more.

Well...I am in no way an instructor, but I would be willing to drive out once in a while if you need a resisting training dummy.....wait...that didn't come out right..

Dereck,

To keep this thread on track, I'll start a new one for discussion.

Fletch

Ranger, you know you're always welcome at our dojo! I think we're going to start a "BJJ Basics" class on Tues and Thurs nights from 8:00 - 9:30, though my instructor is hesitant to offer a BJJ class at his school before he's at least reached the rank of blue belt. And, we're having to rethink the scheduling of the no-gi jiu-jitsu/MMA class that we're trying to get Brad Souders to teach--he's joining a sambo/judo/jiu jitsu team that trains on Saturdays so I don't think the Sat morning time slot will work.

We still have our Friday night open mat as well, though lately we've been working on hapkido since a number of people are testing in a couple of weeks.

I'm actually heading down to www.baltimorebjj.com tonight and Wednesday night to get some rolling in. I've only trained once in the past two weeks because of work obligations and the holidays.

There's also a judo kai in Harrisburg that I want to check out so, Ranger, if you ever want to join me (MattJ too!) just let me know and we'll put a carpool together (we can strap your Harley to the back of my Honda Civic!)

Cheers.
ToddR