Wednesday, November 21, 2012

11172012 Roy Harris Seminar

As promised, and quite frankly, well ahead of schedule, here is the video notes that Steve-o and I did the day after the Roy Harris seminar.  Any mistakes are all on us and nothing else.  The seminar and the techniques and training process that Roy gave us were amazing. 

First up, and for me the most important part of the seminar, is the section of moving through the controlling positions for maintaining the ability to work leg locks.  This has always been an issue for me:


Next up, the actual submissions that Roy went over.  Again, a great look at a tool that gets under utilized by just about everyone, myself included.  Probably more than most.


Roy's point at the end was certainly not lost on me.  That leg attacks get labeled as dangerous a lot.  Everything we do is dangerous.  It's about how its trained.  He suggests that the injuries associated with training leg locks are usually the result of the defender's actions.  And to minimize that if you're caught, no rolling in an effort to escape.  It's the rolling, when an ankle is trapped, that rips our knees.

I also like how we drilled the tactics.  After reviewing the techniques, we began stringing them together free form to build a conditioned response with them, moving across all the control positions as needed and applying the submissions as they presented.  We've been working thru the positions since the seminar and it's really helpful in learning a new set of skills. 

For those there, I hope this is helpful in review.   For those that weren't I hope it give you a heads up on some of Roy's thoughts on leg attacks.

Brown Belt Promotion

For those that don't know, Saturday was a big day for the academy I train at, Triton MMA in Woodstock.  Not only were we luckily enough to host Roy Harris, one of the "Dirty Dozen", the first Americans to earn their BJJ black belts, for a leg lock seminar but Coach Mike Budnik promoted me to the rank of Brown Belt. 






It was an amazing day and I'm still processing the moment and what it means.  I don't think the reality of it has sunk in just yet.  Not only did I receive this huge honor, but one of my oldest and best friends was around for the seminar as well and got to be present.  Thanks for being there, Steve-o.




Not only that, but several of my old teammates were present from Ohana as well along with all the coppers of different stripes I get the privilege to train and work with all the time.






And later, one of our fighters, Dan Hart won his XFO bout at the Sears Center.  Great day for the team!  Now it's on to trying to live up to the rank.  Thanks everyone for helping me get here.  I have video notes from the seminar itself.  If you've never been to one of Mr. Harris' seminars you should MAKE time to train with him.  His take on leg locks was absolutely brilliant.  I'll get those up at some point later this week.  Till then.