Someone asked the question of BJJ Privates in the Los Angeles. Here was my response.

Lots of good guys to learn from. One name you haven’t heard, but comes with my absoute highest recommendation is Henry Akins, black belt under and teaching at Rickson Gracie’s academy. Maybe the best kept secret on the West Coast.

Henry has probably trained as many hours with Rickson as any American practicioner and then some, and certainly has logged more hours with Rickson than ANYONE over the last few years. He definitely personifies Rickson’s philosophies about jiujitsu and teaching methods, moreover Henry is extremely patient and generous in his own style.

If you’re looking to improve your overall game, want some to give you pointers, or someone you can dramatically alter your perception of jiujitsu, Henry is the man. He’s aided and shared his philosophies with many of the top guys out there, and if I had to name one person outside of my own academy that has dramatically affected my game the most it would definitely be Henry.

Henry Akins Rickson Gracie Jiu-Jitsu Center 11755 Wilshire Boulevard West Los Angeles, CA 90025 310-914-4122

Shawn Williams- May be the nicest guy in jiujitu. Really makes you feel like someone special when you’re around him. While he has many things he’s good at explaining, if you’re going to seek him out for a private the things I would recommend discussing are 1) his guard techniques, or what I like to call “the Shawn Guard” which is sort of a modified Rubber Guard that requires less flexibility to be effective and 2) Shawn’s 1/2 Guard sequences, particularly his 1/2 Guard to the back which I’ve seen him catch many people with.

Shawn Williams 1106 N La Cienga Blvd W. Hollywood CA 90069

Shawn Williams HollyWood BJJ

Eddie Bravo- While many practicioners of BJJ yearn for one or two tricks outside the norm to add to their arsenal, Eddie has for all practical purposes invented an entire system to use that will open up so many doors in your game. The obvious things to ask Eddie about are 1) The Twister and the myriad of opportunities to use it and 2) the Rubber Guard. He has a system of teaching that will allow anyone to be able to practice his techniques. You might have guessed from his online persona, but Eddie is genuinely that funny in person also.

10th Planet

7327 Santa Monica Blvd. in West Hollywood

Javi Vazquez- Combines wrestling and jiujitsu philosophhies as well as anyone I’ve seen. His teaching style emphsizes the importance of basics. If you take a private with him ask to either work some wrestling for jiujitsu fundamentals, or his back attack series.

819 E. La Habra Blvd. La Habra, Ca 90631

I’ll add more names later on to talk about more people I’ve trained with.

If you notice the little flag to the right on the sidebar, it allows us to translate the blog into any of the 8 language we wish, Spanish, French, German, Portuguese, Italian, Japanese, Korean and Chinese. The American flag will translate back into the original language (English). Pretty cool, huh? Now we just need to figure out how to incoporate this into the main site.

Dave Camarillo’s Position Impossible

Last day to get Dave Camarillo’s Position Impossible for 99.95 (Pre-sale price). This 3 DVD set is shipping right now and after today it will go up to its regular price of 119.95 (Still a bargain at that price).

I really believe this set is going to revolutionize the stand up game for JiuJitsu Players, and the NeWaza game for Judo players. No one has really put the two together in quite the same way that Dave has. Lately (since I’ve been working on these DVDs for awhile) I’ve been working a lot of stand up and gi throws which have improved immensely with the aid of this DVD. It also helps that I’ve lost my fear of getting thrown, despite landing badly a few weeks ago and popping ribs out of my sternum. Hopefully I’ll see a lot of people attempting throws and not merely pulling guard on the tournament circuit after people view these videos.

What will probably attract the most attention on the set however are the flying attacks. I think Dave’s flying armbar is the best in the world; this set explains EXACTLY how he sets it up and does it. Thanks to Dave I’ve had a good flying armbar for years (although I RARELY use it). My one great fear is that people are going to simply skip to this section and ignore all of the meat and potatos of the set in the other sections of the DVD; the reason Dave can perform his attacks so well is because he is well grounded in the basics and this sets up his attacks. Suffice to say we put all kinds of warnings and disclaimers in the front of the videos, a bit tongue in cheek mind you, but seriously, work on the basics first.

OTM Holiday Bundle Deals

The Holiday bundle deals will remain in effect the rest of this week through New Years. If you’ve been thinking of picking up some of our videos, this is the best deal we will have all year. What’s slightly amazing to me is that even after we put up these bundle deals, some people are still ordering each of the videos seperately, where as the could have saved anywhere from $5 to $40 bucks on the package deal. No sweat off of my nose however.

Thanks for support, it keeps the lights on around here. Hope everyone had a Merry Christmas and a Happy Holidays.

Now I won’t be falsely modest and say this came as a big shock, Ralph Gracie has shifted to a once a year promotion ceremony and I have an honest gauge of where my grappling abilities are, but I have to say that it even with a bit of expectation it was a huge milestone in my life and I was a bit overwhelmed by the moment. As everyone commented to me and what I now definitely know to be true, brown is a heavy belt to wear. Especially being on a team like Ralph Gracie’s; it’s well known that his belts are notoriously tough, and the list of brown belts he’s given are pretty much all superstars.

My purple belt was so faded, that apparently some white belts at the ceremony who didn’t know me were heard to be asking “why is that white belt getting promoted to brown belt?” The ORIGINAL purple belt that I was given at my purple belt promotion was “The” Purple Belt. With “Mico Leao” embroderied on it, the belt originally belonged to Joao Roque, who passed it on to Steve Silva. Steve gave it to Dave Camarillo, who passed it to Cameron Earle. Misho Ceko then got it, but afterwards Cameron got it back and made sure that I got it for my purple. By this time it was frayed and white with two threads of purple left in it; when Ralph pulled it out of his gi to promote me, it honestly took me a few moments to recognize what was going on because it was not reconizable as a belt at that point. I wore it all the way up until the Pan Ams of 2003, despite the fact that it was disintegrating each class I wore it too with bits of belt all over the mat, and one end became seriously frayed. Bad match for me, Cesar Moreno tossed me from one side of the mat to the other and I lost like 6-0 or 8-0 I think with takedown after takedown, but worse yet i got hear the belt ripping and tearing during the match. That day I got a brand new Koral purple belt for Gilberto (JiujitsuProgear) and that became my new belt which I wore everyday as I had to retire Mico Leao from active duty. That same belt faded to the kind of off white color and began to fray in that cool way itself, but has never been in danger of disintegrating (yet) and has been a very good belt and has literally traveled the world with me. I’m keeping that belt. After some thought, I’m going to have to pass along the Mico Leao belt. It doesn’t belong to me, I was simply borrowing it. The guy I think it belongs to however has been a purple for a little while now however…..Funny thing is, my blue belt (the last one I had anyways) got faded and looked like a white belt towards the end as well (I was blue for about four years). I was going to save it for posterity reasons, but like the week before Cameron (who knew I was getting promoted anyways) used it to tie down his dog (actually I think it was Mike’s dog) who promptly chewed it in half.

As it was a promotion ceremony day there were a lot of promotions given out that day. All of Ralph’s Bay Area academies were gathered, and although I’ve spent time in each of them, I consider Mountain View my home -even more so than my actual home in a lot of ways. I’ve been training there for nine years, I have left a lot of myself on the mat there and have grown considerably within the walls there. I didn’t really keep a running tally, but there were probably the most promotions that day involving the Mountain View Academy, and I couldn’t be more proud of everyone in there.

Also promoted to brown belt were two close friends and training partners William Diaz (far left) and Keith Riles (in the toque). Keith and I were actually promoted to blue on the same day (he got his purple a little before I did however). It was nice to share the moment with lots of people, but to get promoted with these guys is an honor.

Finally Dave Clahan got his black belt as well. Dave has been training literally as long as ANYONE in the Bay Area, and was a good judoka well before that, so it was nice to see him promoted as well. A good friend and a behind the scenes type guy, Dave Clahan is as much behind the success of Ralph’s academies as anyone. We used to call him “Big Dave”, but in light of the amount of weight he’s dropped over the years “Medium Dave” may be more appropriate. Still feels like he’s 500 pounds when he’s on top of you.

Listen to ANY OTHER stand up comic today. That is any other comic worth a damn. Then go listen to Richard Pryor. You tell me his impact on culture today. This was inevitable and still a tragedy of epic proportions. Thank you Richard for the honesty and more. God bless and god speed.

I posted this on jiujitsugear.com, but never hurts to pass it along If you have a better laundry tip, feel free to pass it along. Scotty flat out never washes his “lucky gi”!

The vinegar helps on the first wash (before you wear it) to help set the dye into the fabric and get the color to stick. I usually throw a half a cup into my new colored gis and clothes for that purpose, they don’t bleed or fade later on.

Everytime I wash my gis (which is not everytime I wear it) I throw in a scoop of baking soda in addition to the recommended amount of laundry detergent (if it’s in your area buy Biz, they’ve supported grappling and jiujitsu for years now). If there’s a problem area, use a spray and apply liberally to the area. I do throw my gis in the dryer -but on the lowest heat setting and set to damp to get rid of excess water, then let hang dry in a warm, dry area (I like outside weather permitting. NEVER use fabric softner, it shortens the life of your gi.