Practicing the Spiderweb with Eddie Bravo

Yesterday's seminar was great fun. Tasia, one of my MMA training partners, and I drove out to Victoria to train for 4 hours under Jiu-jitsu legend, Eddie Bravo. I had always considered him the "rock star" of the Jiu-jitsu world. My experience with Eddie yesterday confirmed that much more than I would have anticipated.

Eddie Bravo, the man who beat Royler Gracie at his own game, using an innovative style of Brazilian Jiu-jitsu of his own creation, does not actually consider Brazilian Jiu-jitsu to be his main passion. Rock music takes that position. He has trained in BJJ for over 20 years as a "hobby", the fame from which he uses to help promote his music label.

Eddie also lives the lifestyle of a rock star with no real ties to anything other than to a lifestyle of sex, drugs (pot specifically) and rock 'n roll, with a generous dash of Jiu-jitsu, of course. After the seminar, he invited Tasia and I to party with him and his entourage. I can say from experience, that though he's going on 38 but parties like he's 18.

At the seminar itself, he covered the use of a position called the spiderweb. He showed some pretty cool stuff that would be fairly useful in MMA, though it does change a bit when you're wearing MMA gloves, I found. Here is a video clip of him introducing a few entrances into the spiderweb:



I managed to re-injure my groin muscle, the same one I overstretched the other day. Regrettably, it happened right at the beginning of the seminar when Tasia was doing a turn-over on me. To my embarrassment, I yelped loud enough for the entire class to hear. Eddie asked Tasia if she had another training partner to which I replied, "No, no. I'm fine. I'll keep going." I was pretty much in pain for the rest of the 4 hour class, but it was worth it. I wasn't about to miss the opportunity to train with Eddie. Of course it meant I couldn't operate at the capacity I would have liked, but at least I got to train.

When I said good night to Eddie last night, he was kind enough to give me a copy of his new training DVD set. I was so pleased, since I had already bought the accompanying book, Mastering The Rubber Guard. A perfect end to a perfect day of training. I look forward to exploring his funky style further. :)