Cobrinha seminar - Manchester!

Most Bank Holidays are a dreary affair; motorways jammed to the max with families hell bent on getting to the beach, or enduring soul destroying visits to the local airports, only to find their flights disrupted by the strike action of the baggage crew and trolley dollies. Oh yes, the Great British Bank Holiday!

For a large number of dedicated mat rats, male and female, this final Bank Holiday of 2010 was bereft of motorway madness and airport anarchy; eschewing the usual tortures that most normal people endure year after year, this hardy bunch of BJJ'ers in Manchester, Mansfield and London have been involved in a weekend of jiu jitsu of the highest order.

I was proud to be part of UK BJJ history, as I participated in the first ever UK seminar held by Rubens Charles Maciel, aka Cobrinha. Rubens was brought over by Ed Brown and the guys at Champ Camp for his first ever seminar tour, calling in at Manchester, Mansfield and London.

I had the honour and privilige of meeting Rubens at the airport and looking after him until Ed and Eammon arrived in Manchester and what a day it was; the sun was shining (a UK first) and I had the pleasure of taking Cobrinha to the sunny streets of Bolton and taking him out to dinner.

A four times World champion, four times Pan Ams champ and countless other accolades and here he is, Ruberns Charles Maciel, hanging out with a lowly purple belt, chilling out at my friend's house, meeting one of my student's mums and seeing him grilled off the mum and the two of them getting really friendly. You don't get that in any other sport do you?

Cobrinha is a top flight world class elite level and he doesn't bat an eyelid as he's picked up from the airport with no pomp and circumstance; sits on the back seat of my car as we take him from the aiport and look after him.

Could you imagine David Beckham of Shaquille O Neil for example, being met at the arrivals gate by two fans of the game and being taken to someone's house?? HELL NO!! You get my drift yeah ;)

The seminar was well attended with guys flying in from Ireland to join in the fun; a large Combat Base contingent was in attendance with guys from Factory BJJ and Darren and Helen Currie adding to the black belts, as well as my own students. Graeme Kidd and the guys and gals from The Labs from Manchester represented as well as Simon Mc Govern and students from GB Stoke Lagarto and some guys from the North East, apologies if I missed anyone out!

Cobrinha covered the De La Riva guard with a series of slick sweeps and 'what if' scenarios and covered taking the back and finishing the guy off from the back, all packed with tips and pointers on finishing the fight that little bit quicker, all top notch quality tuition.

The great thing about this seminar was that the techniques demonstrated by Cobrinha, actually transferred themselves from an elite level four times world champion to club levels students of all grades. Not everybody can pull off the rubber guard as gracefully and with as much success as Eddie Bravo for example; Cobrinha was showing us HIS competition moves that HE uses to great success against other high level black belts and everyone on the mats managed to execute them from start to finish, the only thing remained was to drill them enough times to bring them up to Cobrinha's level and therein lies the fun and beauty of jiu jitsu.

Everyone got something of real benefit to help improve their own game and I will be drilling out the techniques in class tonight and putting the tips into practice; I managed to grab an interview with Rubens so keep your eyes peeled on here, will let you know when the interview is good to go!

At the end of the seminar Adam Adshead was promoted to brown belt from Helen Currie, a nice little present before he leaves for a training holiday in the US, well done Adam!

Massive shout out to Ed Brown, Eammon Madden and Leoni Munslow from Champ Camp in organising the event; this was no easy task to bring over Rubens to the UK, lessons were learned from the planned Galvao seminar that failed to materialise and there was a huge amount of behind the scenes work that went on to ensure a 100% attendance from Cobrinha. Plans are in the making for more bigger and better seminars in the future, so watch this space and maybe you too can be part of UK BJJ history.

http://www.rubenscharles.com/
http://www.champcamp.co.uk/