3/23: CHICAGO WRAP UP
It was another great weekend in Chicago training with Prof Carlos Lemos and some of his competition focused students. Every time I go there, I get more comfortable training with him and his team. I hope that my next visit includes some of the people reading this message joining me. As I get older, I think I get a little wiser in my training as I did not even think of training with the 20 something 220 lb purple belt who was also a former collegiate wrestler. I also got a little bit wiser on some techniques that I have been doing since I myself started wrestling in Junior High School.
If you couldn’t teach an old dog new tricks, we would all be pretty bad at Jiu-Jitsu. Every time I train with such high-level practitioners, I am amazed at the things I learn. Sometimes it is brand new techniques, other times it’s concepts that can be used across many techniques, and other times it’s details on things I already do. This trip, Prof Carlos improved on things I have been doing for 40+ years since I started wrestling. Something I thought I had down pat he significantly improved upon and I look forward to trying it in live rolls. Beyond the specific questions I had for him, we covered some other defensive concepts which led to yet another a-ha moment when defending from mount attacks.
As the owner of a martial arts gym, it is clearly one of my responsibilities to bring the best education possible to our members, which requires me to seek out people with more knowledge than me to bring that back to the membership. But beyond that, I want to be the best practitioner possible as a personal goal, which requires the same investment. While everyone I teach benefits from those lessons as well, there is a significant difference in what you learn from me vs what you can learn first-hand from these instructors.
When I pass along information from these training sessions, it comes directly from the perspective of the things I want to learn. While those things should benefit everyone, they may not be things you struggle with, or quite honestly, are even interested in. When you take the opportunity to learn directly from high level practitioners and get to ask direct questions about things you either struggle with or are passionate about, you will learn what directly applies to you. Sometimes, even just hearing a different perspective may change something you do significantly. I have had that happen countless times.
As we approach the April 11th seminar with Prof Carlos Lemos and Marcos Barros, if you haven’t signed up yet, there is still time, and I encourage you to take the opportunity. Beyond the Jiu-Jitsu I have learned from Prof Carlos, it has been great getting to know him more and more on a personal level. It is very important to me to make sure coaches I bring into the gym share the same values as me, and the same values that the coaching staff shares with the students. I’m happy to say the Prof Carlos is a genuinely good human being and I look forward to everyone meeting him.
