Posts Tagged ‘seminar’

John Will returned to GSW in Lower Hutt for another round of BJJ Seminars. Once again due to numbers the seminars were split into two sessions.
White Belts and Coloured Belts.

The White Belt session was attended by 40 BJJ Students from GSW and Submission Martial Arts in Whitby. John covered a bunch of Immediate Action techniques in a seminar that he called a Vaccination Seminar.

Basically John covered answers to several of the problem areas that he sees beginners getting caught in during their first months of BJJ training. Things that John covered were, Crossover Guard defence, Side Control Escape (Hip in Pocket), Switchbase escape, Elbow Escape from Mount, Side Mount Escape, 1/2 Guard pass, Head to Head (Sit-out) and Front Choke Escape.

At the end of the White Belts session 4 New Blues were Presented 1 from Glen’s Submission Martial Arts and 3 from GSW. Conrats to Melvin, Kym and Kelvin

The Coloured Belts session covered getting the back and was attended by 30 of GSW’s Blue and Purple Belts. John had given us some great chokes at the last seminar and this time he went into several ways of gaining and controlling the back using several vital principals involving leverage and weight placement.

As always Johns seminar left everyone with something to take away and think about, as well as many things that instantly fitted into peoples grappling. Johns next session will be November 24th..

Our next seminar at GSW is with Richard Norton one of John Will’s training partners and multiple Black Belt, including his BJJ Black Belt from Jean Jacques Machado. Richard has starred in dozens of movies, with many top Martial Arts Movie Stars. Richard has also travelled the world as personal protection to performance artists. Richard bio can be found at his site www.richardnorton.net/blog

Richard will be running BJJ Seminars at GSW Lower Hutt on the 3rd of July 2010. Each seminar will be $50 and last 2 hours. Jump onto the GSW facebook page to register your interest as places are strictly limited and filling fast.
Wellington Saturday 3rd July 2010
BJJ Seminar White Belts 1pm – 3pm $50
BJJ Seminar coloured Belts 3.30pm-5.30pm $50

Wellington Sunday 4th July 2010
MMA / Street Defence Seminar (for Zen Do Kai Students)
Sunday 4th July
9am – 11am
$50

John Will returned to Wellington this month and there were a couple of new things this time around.

Firstly we held the seminars in our own facility in Lower Hutt. With the Wellington Dojo fire earlier this month and the smaller mat area I decided that running the sessions in the Hutt would be a better option. This also gave us the chance to start at a much earlier time slot. But with the mat size I also split the session into White Belts followed by Coloured Belts.

So at 6.30pm with a few stragglers still coming through the door John kicked off his first session of 2010 and his first ever session at GSW Lower Hutt. there were 30 White Belts on the mat including 7 from Submission Porirua. Glens club is going through the same sort of expansive growth as we are at GSW and The Submission guys are starting to fight for mat space. An awesome achievement for Glen and a positive boost for BJJ students in Wellington.

John covered some basic concepts for recovering the guard, then a few ways to pass the guard followed by a few was to escape when you guard has been passed. He then put the whole thing together as a drill for everyone to cement the concepts of guard recovery into their heads.

After a quick break there was a change of tack with John covering a couple of concepts for attacking and maintaining and attacking the back. He then made everyone go through the guard recovery drill at a slower more flowing pace and swapping partners..

The White Belt session ended with 3 Blue Belt promotions. Glen awarded Submission Martial Arts first Porirua Blue Belt to Andrew Douglas and I promoted two GSW students to Blue as well. Congrats to Jeffery Alcaraz and Haydn Parker. After a quick Photo shoot the White Belts cleared the mat and the Coloured Belts took over. There were 30 Blue and Purple Belts in the advanced session and John and I took the opportunity to promote a couple of Blues to Purple.

Congrats to Phil Stenhouse and Brad Kora! BJJ Purple Belt is a significant step up and one that is not easily earned or awarded, so well done. I know the East Coast BJJ crew will be particularly stoked with Brads promotion. We hear nothing but good things about Brad and his boys in Whakatane.

John the got straight into the session covering advanced concepts around the Kata Gatame position, including, maintaining and fine-tuning the position, finishes and entires to the position. A great session and 4 hours of hard work for John. After a few quick photos everyone split and John and I got home a good hour earlier than normal. This morning I’ve seen John off on a flight to Christchurch to meet up with his ol’ buddy Ron for a fishing trip in the Wanaka area. Ron accompanied John and Melissa on Johns very first seminar trip to Wellington in 1999!

So all up there were over 60 people attending this seminar round and I’m sure that when John returns in June we’ll have to take advanced bookings as the GSW classes grow and as Glens school requires more and more spaces on the mat for Johns seminars. Look for big things in 2010 as this is GSW’s 10th year as a BJJ school!