9/1/25: OPPORTUNITY WILL NOT KNOCK FOREVER
This past weekend, 6 of us attended the Kayron Gracie seminar at GB Lake Orion. Like I've said many times, if you are really serious about wanting to learn and be the best that you can be, you should attend as many seminars as possible. This is especially true when they are so accessible and especially when the host is as high level as Kayron Gracie, being one of the grandsons of Carlos Gracie Jr. Martial arts is still one of the few activities where the worlds highest level athletes are still incredibly accessible for seminars and even one on one training. I have lost track of the number of seminars I have attended, but going through my rolodex that I can remember just from BJJ: Luis Heredia, Xande Ribero, Saulo Ribero, Romulo Barral, Lucas Leite, Lucas Lepri, Bernardo Faria, Gordon Ryan, Otavio Sousa, Gabriel Arges, Caio Terra, Renato Tavares, Carlos Lemos, Flavio Almeida, Samuel Braga, Jacob Couch, Heath Pedigo, Kayron Gracie, Carlos Gracie Jr, Draculino, Nakapan Phungephorn and Jefferson Moura, most of which have been multiple time IBJJF adult World Champions. Add in a trip to Thailand and the recent training in Mauy Thai with Danchai, Lerdsila, Neungsiam, Panyapol, Matee and Malaipet I have had some amazing experiences training with legends of the sport.
It may seem like these opportunities will always come around, and no doubt there will always be people offering themselves for seminars. However, at some point every individual will have their last seminar, or become so big that the cost will be too much for many to justify. I have had the opportunity to attend 2 seminars with Gordon Ryan, the undisputed GOAT of no gi jiu-jitsu. We had the seminars right before he became the face of no gi jiu-jitsu. For those that didn't attend, they missed probably their only good opportunity to train with him. His seminar costs and private sessions are so expensive, and the number of people that attend his seminars are so high, you just aren't going to have the same opportunity that we had 7 years ago.
I used to grumble a little bit about the cost, and always assumed that someone else attending the seminar could bring the information back to me. However, I quickly realized 2 things: A) If everyone had that thought, it would be impossible to justify running seminars because we couldn't afford the cost, and B) You will learn so much more for yourself by attending in person, that the cost is trivial compared to what you will learn. I have yet to have anyone say a seminar they attended was not worth the cost.
In this weekends seminar we learned some outstanding fundamental concepts that I have never seen before, and something that I have no problem saying is quite revolutionary. I'm not sure that the white belt students in attendance fully understood yet the value of what was taught, but they now have information months into their journey that I am only finding out two and a half decades into mine.
