Master Rickson Gracie Gracie Jiu Jitsu Seminar – July 2018

Robin French with Master Rickson Gracie - July 2018

Having missed other recent opportunities to train with Master Rickson Gracie, in both Scotland and Holland, when I heard that he was returning to Glasgow for the second year running, I knew that I had to pull out all the stops that I could to get there.

This time around, it was going to be a double header; both a ‘Rickson Grace Experience’ on the Saturday afternoon, and then the latest in the World tour of the ‘Rickson Gracie Cup‘ on the Sunday.

Travelling with Team Pedro Sauer UK Blue Belt, Sam Keyes, I arrived in good time for the Saturday session, hosted at the Emirates Arena. Early enough in fact to participate in the warm up mobility session, taken by Professor Steve Maxwell. The hour long session (which I wrote about here), got me super limbered up, and ready for the main event with Master Rickson himself.

The seminar itself started out, and had a continuing theme throughout, of the principle of base. Master Rickson had us work some drills to understand our own and our partners positioning, and how it affected how easy you could or could not be moved.

This then brought up an interesting idea; capitalising when your partner does the ‘right thing’, and not just trying to muscle them into a move etc. Using their correctly programmed response against them, we worked on taking that initiative and getting the guy to the ground.

Focus shifted a little in the second half of the session, where Master Rickson discussed principles of the guard; using offsetting not to get hit, and how to progress on to a better position.

After the seminar was done, I was lucky enough to not only get my photo taken with Master Rickson, but also to get him to sign my now well travelled copy of the Master Text.

The following day, I spent the main part of the day at the competition. A well organised event, it was great to see some guys I know competing, and doing well. Well done guys!

I would like to thank Master Rickson for taking the time to give such a great seminar. To Alex Pannain of the JJGF, and local affiliate Scott McVeigh for organising the events. And also to Sam Keyes for being my training/travelling partner.