Recently I attended a great mega-seminar with Mark Munoz,Jake Ellenberger, Ryron and Rener Gracie and the gems I left with were invaluable! Not only did the fantastic 4 show great wrestling and jiujitsu moves, they also shared some great pearls of wisdom.
“Life is 10% what happens to you and 90% what you make of it”
Mark Munoz
I was very interested in learning some more solid
fundamentals of wrestling: stance, movement, pummelling, entries and a takedown
or two. In jiujitsu terminology: I wanted to have a few fundamentals of the
posture, pressure and possibilities of wrestling (Martin Aedma explains it very
well here and below)
And that’s exactly what Mark and Jake provided. The nice
thing was that Ryron and Rener where there to keep it all in context with
jiujitsu. They applied the slice methodology they so famously and successfully
use in Gracie University to Mark and Jake’s curriculum for the day and while I
can’t say I know it all, I definitely left with enough to drill with my training
partners, instructors and students.
When it was Ryron’s turn to share some techniques from the
side control (his focus position), he asked me to be his demo partner for a
quick drill in the beginning. This was an amazing opportunity as I was asked to
start from top and attack him. I got to feel the relaxed yet very alert energy
of the young Gracie and was very impressed with his demeanour.
“Why escape when you are in no danger?” Rener Gracie
This really reminded me of a beautiful talk on compassion by Zen teacher Mr Gil Fronsdal, the primary teacher for the Insight Meditation Center in Redwood City, California. In that talk, he refers to living a life without attachment to a basis. In it, Gil talks about how you can use the principles of Buddhism to improve the quality of your life, or you can use it to completely change your life by taking away the old paradigms.
Put differently, you can use buddhism to solve the problems of your life, or use it to realise that life, as it is, has no problems of its own.
"Occasionally there are people searching for the meaning of life. If you took a step back, you wouldn't be asking "what's the meaning of life?" but rather "why am I asking this question?. My theory is, the stronger the drive behind the question "what's the meaning of my life?" the more likely that it is fear" Gil Fronsdal
Problem solving in Brazilian Jiu Jitsu? I am far more
interested in using Jiu Jitsu as a vehicle to cement the understanding of life
as it is. To me it’s a stage where I question whether, indeed, there is a
problem in the first place.
--------------------------------------------------ZHOO ZHITSU IS FOR EVERYONE!
Liam "The Part Time Grappler" Wandi
Proudly sponsored by Predator Fightwear: Built for the kill and Brutal TShirt: Made By Grapplers For Fighters
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