9 days until Brasil – Caio Terra Seminar.

I had a very busy BJJ filled weekend. On the Saturday I reffed at the Bournemouth Open, another well organised competition by the De Souza Family and saw some great fights on the day.

 

Although tired from the previous day, Sunday saw me making a 3 ½ hour trip each way to Eclipse Martial Arts in Walsall for the Caio Terra seminar organised by Peter Adams. The seminar was very well attended with a mixture of white to black belts and a couple of kids.

The way Caio teaches a seminar is quite different from other seminars I have attended. He began by giving us 6 topics or seminars that we had to vote on, the winner was Berimbolo which is Portuguese for Scramble. My Berimbolo knowledge being pretty much Zero it was a steep learning curve for myself.

 

The format for the seminar consisted of him teaching a technique letting us drill it for a few reps while he watched and then showing the technique again pointing out the common mistakes or answering any questions for the whole group rather than going around answering individuals (although he did do a little bit of that as well). This was good as we could all learn from the other’s problems. After stopping each time he would also get us to swap partners so each technique you would drill with maybe 3 or 4 partners, great for practising the moves on different body types. Caio gave a lot of detail for each position including variations of the position you could do when suffering from bad knees so common to BJJ players! He also really encouraged as many questions as possible not only about the positions that he was teaching but also in a general question session at the end.

 

Once the seminar had officially finished and the obligatory photos taken, Caio opened the mat up for sparring. Some people left at this point but a large number stayed on. Despite being jetlagged he tried to spend a few mins rolling with as many people as possible. He made a point of rolling with everyone who was under 70kg as there are not many chances to roll with someone of his size who is on a world class level. He also rolled with approximately half of the guys over 70kg as well. So many seminars do not include sparring or if they do the person teaching doesn’t spar it was great to see Caio giving everyone that experience and was the icing on the cake to a fantastic day. Overall I would say that higher grades probably get the most benefit out of Caio’s seminar’s but I think everyone there came away with plenty of useful tips and positions to work on.

 

Big thank you to Peter Adams for organising a great event and the hospitality of Eclipse Martial Arts and of Course Thank you to Caio for a brilliant seminar and roll! :)