{"id":872,"date":"2006-12-16T19:28:57","date_gmt":"2006-12-17T02:28:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/psychosolodiver.com\/?p=872"},"modified":"2008-03-29T20:48:20","modified_gmt":"2008-03-30T03:48:20","slug":"royce-gracie-jiu-jitsu-seminar","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/psychosolodiver.com\/?p=872","title":{"rendered":"Royce Gracie Jiu Jitsu Seminar"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>My girlfriend Jane trains in Brazillian Jiu Jitsu at The Neutral Grounds Academy in Long Beach.<\/p>\n<p>I was lucky enough to be able to train with Royce Gracie at a Saturday seminar &#8211; something usually reserved for students of the academy.<\/p>\n<p>Royce Gracie has always been one man that I respect since I saw the first Ultimate Fighting Championships more than 10 years ago.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/psychosolodiver.com\/wp-content\/royce_gracie.jpg\" alt=\"Royce Gracie wins the fourth UFC.\" \/><\/p>\n<p>Back then, there were no weight limits and not many rules.<\/p>\n<p>Unlike today, the contestants could literally beat the shit from each other, and often did.<\/p>\n<p>It would be common to have a competitor&#8217;s teeth knocked out or be kicked in the head while down.<\/p>\n<p>They had a clean up crew to mop up the blood between fights.<\/p>\n<p>Royce won the first three out of four UFCs &#8211; most of the time by a submission hold, but punching the hell from a grounded boxer was not out of the question.<\/p>\n<p>There&#8217;s a lot of controversy about the Gracies and the first few UFCs, but the family is responsible for bringing Mixed martial Arts to the American spotlight.<\/p>\n<p>We arrived early.<\/p>\n<p>Jane introduced me to her instructor Evaldo and we took pictures with Royce.<\/p>\n<p>The whole seminar lasted two hours with the last half hour reserved for sparring.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/psychosolodiver.com\/wp-content\/girl_on_girl1.jpg\" alt=\"Girl on Girl Jiu Jitsu\" \/><\/p>\n<p>Nothing like an arm across your throat to tell someone who&#8217;s boss.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/psychosolodiver.com\/wp-content\/royce_evaldo.jpg\" alt=\"Royce and Evaldo demonstrate a move.\" \/><\/p>\n<p>Royce and Evaldo demonstrate a move.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/psychosolodiver.com\/wp-content\/royce_teaches.jpg\" alt=\"Royce teaches.\" \/><\/p>\n<p>I did OK, I guess.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/psychosolodiver.com\/wp-content\/arm_bar.jpg\" alt=\"I try and go for an arm bar.\" \/><\/p>\n<p>The only problem was that my fat beer gut prevented me from doing triangle chokes sweeps.<\/p>\n<p>However, my beer gut did help anchor my base.<\/p>\n<p>I got my ass kicked with an arm lock by one of the students, but for the most part I did pretty well&#8230;<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/psychosolodiver.com\/wp-content\/choked_by_royce1.jpg\" alt=\"Royce reminds me who is the best.\" \/><\/p>\n<p>But Royce reminded me who was truly the master!<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/psychosolodiver.com\/wp-content\/psycho_and_royce1.jpg\" alt=\"Royce and Me\" \/><\/p>\n<p>Royce is a really nice and humorous guy &#8211; so is his whole side of the family from what I have experienced.<\/p>\n<p>Royce probably doesn&#8217;t remember me from before, but I was touring the Gracie Jiu Jitsu Academy in Torrance a few years ago and walked behind him in the hallway.<\/p>\n<p>Jiu Jitsu is not an easy martial art to learn.<\/p>\n<p>A  lot of the stuff they teach you for competition fighting will not work in a street fight, so I&#8217;m still going to consider running as part of my contingency plans.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>My girlfriend Jane trains in Brazillian Jiu Jitsu at The Neutral Grounds Academy in Long Beach. I was lucky enough to be able to train with Royce Gracie at a Saturday seminar &#8211; something usually reserved for students of the academy. Royce Gracie has always been one man that I respect since I saw the [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13,9],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/psychosolodiver.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/872"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/psychosolodiver.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/psychosolodiver.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/psychosolodiver.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/psychosolodiver.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=872"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/psychosolodiver.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/872\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/psychosolodiver.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=872"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/psychosolodiver.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=872"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/psychosolodiver.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=872"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}