A lot has been said and debated on the mystique of Rickson Gracie throughout the years. As the Gracie Family Champion, Rickson has been the standard bearer for Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu for a many, many years. Below is a an unbiased writeup of Brazilian Black Belt’s World Champion Felipe Costa on training with Rickson Gracie:

I was at Rickson Gracie seminar in Rio de Janeiro.

I´ve been asked a lot how was Rickson seminar, I guess a lot of people hear so much of Rickson that they want to know how he is, how he teaches and if he is really good like everyone says.

Here I describe how it was in a sober way, not putting him as a God and also not saying lies just to try to put his reputation down, so here is goes…

Rickson seminar was very interesting, first of all It was expensive for Brazilian standards, I would never imagine it to get so full like it did. It was 2 days with 6 hours each (3 morning and 3 afternoon), around 150 people.

Every technique he showed was basic and he went over basic details and concepts, he took almost 1 hour on each technique, not only because there was 150 people, but also because of the way he teaches, that is very unique, for example, he pick people from the “audience” and tell them “Mount on me, I will try to get out, I will not use technique, I will get out like a person on the street would do, so just pushing you out of my belly”

So out of 10 he choose from all sizes, 10 cannot keep the mount, than he gets those same people and tell them that now he will mount and they should take him out…  nobody can take him out, after that he show what is the details he is doing that makes such a good difference.

EVERY technique he teaches he uses this system, so that give a lot of people the chance to be “one-o-one” with him, at least for a few seconds, which is not the same as rolling, but is already cool to have this chance. Besides how could he roll with 150 people? A lot of people would feel left out.

He also says that the reason he teaches like this is because if he just tell the details right away, many people will not appreciate, so doing this helps him to proof a point.

Most of his stuff I liked, some I already knew, some I disagree a bit (meaning that I would do or teach like him, but Im sure it works good for him and many people), but everything was very interesting to see and hear coming from him.

On the second day for example the first full hour he was just talking, he showed the famous respiration he does and I think was cool to see it life (the belly thing he does), he talked about his father, Gracie diet and for the first time I heard he saying that his so waited “last fight” is almost certain not to happen.

You can see that he is pure confidence and he really believe BJJ is the best, believe me that he did not sound cocky or crazy when he said that he believed he could win from Fedor.

In the end he must have show around 15 techniques, the big questions I hear all the time is:

WAS IT WORTH?

YES, I would do it again and I will go to his next seminar if I´m in Brazil at the time.

Competition Video – Rickson Gracie Copa Lightning 86