06 March 2013

Rodrigo Antunes Seminar Review

I had the pleasure of attending Gracie Humaita 5th degree black belt Rodrigo Antunes seminar at the start of the year.  For those that don’t know much about Rodrigo he got a silver medal in the Senior 1 Ultra Heavy World Gi last year.  Weighing only 85kg, he decided to complete in the Ultra Heavy division because the other divisions had friends of his in it competing.

I found Rodrigo to be a very polite and funny guy.  Rodrigo is about the perfection of the basics and his teaching style really emphasises that.  His goal for the seminar was that each person should find something that can be used on Monday.

He started by going over his Guard and Attack sequence he used very successfully against all the big guys in the World’s last year.  All the techniques were inter-related.   I picked up at-least a dozen little mistakes I was doing that were making basic techniques not work quite as effective as they should.

The main sweep and attack sequence he showed us was the one he used in the World’s to giving up a 50kg plus advantage in size.  All very simple but very detailed.

We then moved onto Questions and Answers, and after letting the lower belts ask questions the 4 blackbelts started asking questions and we got to witness a “laboratory of Jiu-Jitsu” sharing.  That alone was worth it.

I think Rodrigo must have been enjoying himself because the seminar was already well over time and then he decided as a bonus to start showing us attack sequences from mount.  The 2 hour seminar quickly turned into a 3 hour seminar to which I unfortunately had to leave before the end as I had another commitment.

I have been to quite a few seminars with top level guys in the world.  I can clearly say that this was the best seminar I have been to hands down.   Upon reflection I think it’s because Rodrigo is a couple of years older than me, has a similar frame and most importantly had a similar mindset on how to solve problems.  It was just that an incredible amount of his Jiu-jitsu was transferable to me immediately.

Thank you professor.

Dan